Sitting with dim eyes looking out to sea she felt an extraordinary yearning to hold something of her very own tight to her bosom. Rose was slender, and as reserved in figure as in character, yet she felt a queer sensation of—how could she describe it?—bosom. There was something about San Salvatore that made her feel all bosom. She wanted to gather to her bosom, to comfort and protect, soothing the dear head that should lie on it with softest strokings and murmurs of love. Frederick, Frederick’s child—come to her, pillowed on her, because they were unhappy, because they had been hurt … They would need her then, if they had been hurt; they would let themselves be loved then, if they were unhappy.
Well, the child was gone, would never come now; but perhaps Frederick—some day—when he was old and tired …
Such were Mrs. Arbuthnot’s reflections and emotions that first day at San Salvatore by herself. She went back to tea dejected as she had not been for years. San Salvatore had taken her carefully built-up semblance of happiness away from her, and given her nothing in exchange. Yes—it had given her yearnings in exchange, this ache and longing, this queer feeling of bosom; but that was worse than nothing. And she who had learned balance, who never at home was irritated but always able to be kind, could not, even in her dejection, that afternoon endure Mrs. Fisher’s assumption of the position as hostess at tea.
One would have supposed that such a little thing would not have touched her, but it did. Was her nature changing? Was she to be not only thrown back on long-stifled yearnings after Frederick, but also turned into somebody who wanted to fight over little things? After tea, when both Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline had disappeared again—it was quite evident that nobody wanted her—she was more dejected than ever, overwhelmed by the discrepancy between the splendour outside her, the warm, teeming beauty and self-sufficiency of nature, and the blank emptiness of her heart.
Then came Lotty, back to dinner, incredibly more freckled, exuding the sunshine she had been collecting all day, talking, laughing, being tactless, being unwise, being without reticence; and Lady Caroline, so quiet at tea, woke up to animation, and Mrs. Fisher was not so noticeable, and Rose was beginning to revive a little, for Lotty’s spirits were contagious as she described the delights of her day, a day which might easily to anyone else have had nothing in it but a very long and very hot walk and sandwiches, when she suddenly said, catching Rose’s eye, “Letter gone?”
Rose flushed. This tactlessness …
“What letter?” asked Scrap, interested. Both her elbows were on the table and her chin was supported in her hands, for the nut-stage had been reached, and there was nothing for it but to wait in as comfortable a position as possible till Mrs. Fisher had finished cracking.
“Asking her husband here,” said Lotty.
Mrs. Fisher looked up. Another husband? Was there to be no end to them? Nor was this one, then, a widow either; but her husband was no doubt a decent, respectable man, following a decent, respectable calling. She had little hope of Mr. Wilkins; so little, that she had refrained from inquiring what he did.
“Has it?” persisted Lotty, as Rose said nothing.
“No,” said Rose.
“Oh, well—tomorrow then,” said Lotty.
Rose wanted to say No again to this. Lotty would have in her place, and would, besides, have expounded all her reasons. But she could not turn herself inside out like that and invite any and everybody to come and look. How was it that Lotty, who saw so many things, didn’t see stuck on her heart, and seeing keep quiet about it, the sore place that was Frederick?
“Who is your husband?” asked Mrs. Fisher, carefully adjusting another nut between the crackers.
“Who should he be,” said Rose quickly, roused at once by Mrs. Fisher to irritation, “except Mr. Arbuthnot?”
“I mean, of course, what is Mr. Arbuthnot?”
And Rose, gone painfully red at this, said after a tiny pause, “My husband.”
Naturally, Mrs. Fisher was incensed. She couldn’t have believed it of this one, with her decent hair and gentle voice, that she too should be impertinent.
XIV
That first week the wistaria began to fade, and the flowers of the Judas-tree and peach-trees fell off and carpeted the ground with rose-colour. Then all the freesias disappeared, and the irises grew scarce. And then, while these were clearing themselves away, the double banksia roses came out, and the big summer roses suddenly flaunted gorgeously on the walls and trellises. Fortune’s Yellow was one of them; a very beautiful rose. Presently the tamarisk and the daphnes were at their best, and the lilies at their tallest. By the end of the week the fig-trees were giving shade, the plum-blossom was out among the olives, the modest weigelias appeared in their fresh pink clothes, and on the rocks sprawled masses of thick-leaved, star-shaped flowers, some vivid purple and some a clear, pale lemon.
By the end of the week, too, Mr. Wilkins arrived; even as his wife had foreseen he would, so he did. And there were signs almost of eagerness about his acceptance of her suggestion, for he had not waited to write a letter in answer to hers, but had telegraphed.
That, surely, was eager. It showed, Scrap thought, a definite wish for reunion; and watching his wife’s happy face, and aware of her desire that Mellersh should enjoy his holiday, she told herself that he would be a very unusual fool should
