“No, I don’t think it really does.” And they smiled at each other, sharing their first confidence.
As they left the chapel he was surprised to see her genuflect; so she was a Catholic, then. That set him thinking of the profound reasonableness of Catholics in holding their faith in reverence while at the same time being free to call one of their churches ugly if it were ugly; and that, in turn, set him thinking of the reasonableness of Father Farington, and of that long conversation in London before he left…
She was saying: “What is your name, by the way?”
“Fothergill.”
“Ours is Consett. I don’t know whether you knew.”
“I did, as a matter of fact. I overheard you asking for letters last night.”
“Oh, did you? That must have been before you passed us on the verandah, then? I noticed you particularly because—I daresay you’ll smile at this—you looked what in America we should call ‘typically English.’”
“‘Typically English,’ eh?” And for the first time for some years he was thoroughly astonished. To be called that, of all things!
She said: “The quiet way, I suppose, that Englishmen have—a sort of look of being rather bored by everything, though really they’re not bored at all. Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said it, though—you don’t look very complimented.”
He smiled. “’Would you be complimented if I were to describe you as ’typically American?”
She paused a moment and then gave him a look of amused candour. “That’s rather clever of you, because I wouldn’t. And, anyhow, in my own case—” She stopped hurriedly, and he said, holding open the wicket-gate for her to pass from the island on to the causeway: “Yes, what were you about to say?”
“I was really going to say that I’m not an American at all.”
“Oh?”
There was rather a long interval .until she went on: “It’s queer to be telling you all this after knowing you for about five minutes—I don’t know what mother would think. But, as it happens, you once lived in Russia, so perhaps that’s an excuse. I’m Russian.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. I came over with the refugees in 1919. That sounds a bit like coming over with the Pilgrim Fathers, doesn’t it, but it’s really not quite so illustrious. There were just a few hundred refugee orphans who were allowed into America before the government woke up and decided it didn’t want any more of them. They were all adopted into families in various parts of the country. I was six when I came over.”
“That makes you how old now?”
“Just eighteen.”
“I don’t suppose you remember much of your life in Russia.”
“Hardly anything. Sometimes I dream of things which I think might have something to do with it. I wonder if that’s possible?”
“It might be.”
“Here comes mother to meet us. I think I’d better tell her how much I’ve told you.”
The confession was made, and Mrs. Consett, after hearing all the circumstances, bestowed her magnanimous approval. It enabled her to continue the conversation with Fothergill on rather more intimate lines, and this she did all the way during the drive back to Roone’s. “So curious that we should all be learning about one another so quickly, isn’t it? But there, I always think that one should take all the chances one can of making friends wherever one goes—I’m sure Mary and I have already met some charming people during our trip—there was a most delightful man in the hotel at Naples—a Swiss—only a commercial traveller, I surmised—but still, who are we to be snobbish? I’m sure I never try to conceal the fact that my husband made his money out of other people’s washing. But this Swiss man, as I was saying, was such a pleasant companion—he went to Pompeii with us to see those wonderful Roman ruins—and lie was most helpful, too, when we wanted to buy anything in the shops. I should think he saved us quite a lot of money, for, as you know, the Italians think every American must be a millionaire, though, as a matter of fact, we’re not really very well- off—we’ve been saving up for this trip for quite a time, haven’t we, Mary?” And so on.
When they all reached Roone’s again it was quite settled that they should arrange with the waiter to have a larger table, so that they could take meals together. They dined that night, the three of them, by the side of the large window, through which the harbour burned with little dark specks on it that were the row-boats bringing the fishermen ashore by dusk. After the out- door air and the long drive over the mountains he felt tired, yet in a way that gave him a certain rich serenity, breaking only into fitful astonishment that she should be there, that he should have found and spoken with her after so many years. But it was she herself who astonished him most of all. The lamplight touched the ivory white of her face with a glow of amber, and there were five lamps, hung on chains from the ceiling, making islands of light in the huge dark room. Her eyes were like pools that might have been in a forest, and the creamy sweep of her neck against that background reminded him of some old brown Vandyke painting. Contentment closed over him as he looked at her; Mrs. Consett’s continual talking echoed in his ears, yet somehow was not heard; all about the room was chatter, rising to the roof and hovering there, yet to him it was no more than a murmur—as if, he thought fantastically, some monster choir at an immense distance were intoning Latin genitive plurals.
So began a week of purest holiday. The Consetts, it appeared, had no definite plans; they just stayed in one place as long as they liked, and Roone’s was apparently suiting them, despite the lack of private bathrooms. The weather, too, held out in a blaze of splendour just beginning to be autumnal; every morning when Fothergill rose and saw through his window the grey-green mountains across the harbour he felt a surge of happiness that reminded him, not of his own childhood, but of some remoter and more marvellously recollected childhood of the world. Then after breakfast came plans for the day—delightful arguments in the verandah-lounge, while Mrs. Roone was packing sandwiches for them, and Roone was tapping the barometer and prophesying fine weather. It was always Mrs. Consett who seemed to make the plans, yet always Fothergill who did the real work of organising—finding the route on road-maps, seeing that food was sufficient, arranging terms with motor-drivers. Then they would set out under the long avenue of just fading leaves, swing down the winding hill through the village, and up the further hill to the mountains. He felt the years falling away from him as he rose into that zestful air, and when they halted for picnic- lunch at some lonely vantage-point, with the valleys like clouds beneath them, he was a child again in his enjoyment. He loved the fire-making routine—the collecting of sticks on the hillsides, with the girl but calling distance away from him, and her mother dozing in the car a hundred feet below; the finding of large stones to build a hearth; the careful watching till the kettle boiled at last. Once, tempted by a glorious sunset, they stayed late round a fire they had made at tea-time and talked till the flames seemed to bring all the darkness suddenly over their heads. As she stirred the fire to a last blaze before they left it, the girl remarked on the heat of the big stones, and he said: “If I were going to camp here for the night I should wrap one of those stones in a piece of blanket and use it instead of a hot- water bottle. That’s always a good dodge if you’re sleeping out.”
“Have you ever slept out?”
“Oh, often.”
“You seem to have done all kinds of things.”
“Many kinds of things, perhaps.”