“I am in your hands,” said Mrs. Fisher, sitting firmly in her fly. “You must please regard me as merely an old woman with a stick.”
And presently, down the steps and cobbles to the piazza, and along the quay, and up the zigzag path, Lady Caroline found herself as much obliged to walk slowly with Mrs. Fisher as if she were her own grandmother.
“It’s my stick,” Mrs. Fisher complacently remarked at intervals.
And when they rested at those bends of the zigzag path where seats were, and Lady Caroline, who would have liked to run on and get to the top quickly, was forced in common humanity to remain with Mrs. Fisher because of her stick, Mrs. Fisher told her how she had been on a zigzag path once with Tennyson.
“Isn’t his cricket wonderful?” said Lady Caroline absently.
“The Tennyson,” said Mrs. Fisher, turning her head and observing her a moment over her spectacles.
“Isn’t he?” said Lady Caroline.
“I am speaking,” said Mrs. Fisher, “of Alfred.”
“Oh,” said Lady Caroline.
“And it was a path, too,” Mrs. Fisher went on severely, “curiously like this. No eucalyptus tree, of course, but otherwise curiously like this. And at one of the bends he turned and said to me—I see him now turning and saying to me—”
Yes, Mrs. Fisher would have to be checked. And so would these two up at the window. She had better begin at once. She was sorry she had got off the wall. All she need have done was to have waved her hand, and waited till they came down and out into the garden to her.
So she ignored Mrs. Arbuthnot’s remark and raised forefinger, and said with marked coldness—at least, she tried to make it sound marked—that she supposed they would be going to breakfast, and that she had had hers; but it was her fate that however coldly she sent forth her words they came out sounding quite warm and agreeable. That was because she had a sympathetic and delightful voice, due entirely to some special formation of her throat and the roof of her mouth, and having nothing whatever to do with what she was feeling. Nobody in consequence ever believed they were being snubbed. It was most tiresome. And if she stared icily it did not look icy at all, because her eyes, lovely to begin with, had the added loveliness of very long, soft, dark eyelashes. No icy stare could come out of eyes like that; it got caught and lost in the soft eyelashes, and the persons stared at merely thought they were being regarded with a flattering and exquisite attentiveness. And if ever she was out of humour or definitely cross—and who would not be sometimes in such a world?—she only looked so pathetic that people all rushed to comfort her, if possible by means of kissing. It was more than tiresome, it was maddening. Nature was determined that she should look and sound angelic. She could never be disagreeable or rude without being completely misunderstood.
“I had my breakfast in my room,” she said, trying her utmost to sound curt. “Perhaps I’ll see you later.”
And she nodded, and went back to where she had been sitting on the wall, with the lilies being nice and cool round her feet.
VII
Their eyes followed her admiringly. They had no idea they had been snubbed. It was a disappointment, of course, to find she had forestalled them and that they were not to have the happiness of preparing for her, of watching her face when she arrived and first saw everything, but there was still Mrs. Fisher. They would concentrate on Mrs. Fisher, and would watch her face instead; only, like everybody else, they would have preferred to watch Lady Caroline’s.
Perhaps, then, as Lady Caroline had talked of breakfast, they had better begin by going and having it, for there was too much to be done that day to spend any more time gazing at the scenery—servants to be interviewed, the house to be gone through and examined, and finally Mrs. Fisher’s room to be got ready and adorned.
They waved their hands gaily at Lady Caroline, who seemed absorbed in what she saw and took no notice, and turning away found the maidservant of the night before had come up silently behind them in cloth slippers with string soles.
She was Francesca, the elderly parlourmaid, who had been with the owner, he had said, for years, and whose presence made inventories unnecessary; and after wishing them good morning and hoping they had slept well, she told them breakfast was ready in the dining-room on the floor below, and if they would follow her she would lead.
They did not understand a single word of the very many in which Francesca succeeded in clothing this simple information, but they followed her, for it at least was clear that they were to follow, and going down the stairs, and along the broad hall like the one above except for glass doors at the end instead of a window opening into the garden, they were shown into the dining-room; where, sitting at the head of the table having her breakfast, was Mrs. Fisher.
This time they exclaimed. Even Mrs. Arbuthnot exclaimed, though her exclamation was only “Oh.”
Mrs. Wilkins exclaimed at greater length. “Why, but it’s like having the bread taken out of one’s mouth!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkins.
“How do you do,” said Mrs. Fisher. “I can’t get up because of my stick.” And she stretched out her hand across the table.
They advanced and shook it.
“We had no idea you were
