British -- Italy -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; Female friendship -- Fiction; Italy -- Fiction; Love stories
Once more, but this time in a tone of real hopefulness, Mrs. Wilkins
said, pointing upwards at the black outline against the only slightly
less black sky, “San Salvatore?” And once more, but this time
comfortingly, encouragingly, came back the assurance, “_Sì, sì_—San
Salvatore.”
They crossed a little bridge, over what was apparently a ravine, and
then came a flat bit with long grass at the sides and more flowers.
They felt the grass flicking wet against their stockings, and the
invisible flowers were everywhere. Then up again through trees, along a
zigzag path with the smell all the way of the flowers they could not
see. The warm rain was bringing out all the sweetness. Higher and
higher they went in this sweet darkness, and the red light on the jetty
dropped farther and farther below them.
The path wound round to the other side of what appeared to be a little
peninsula; the jetty and the red light disappeared; across the
emptiness on their left were distant lights.
“Mezzago,” said the man, waving his lantern at the lights.
“_Sì, sì_,” they answered, for they had by now learned “_sì, sì_”. Upon
which the man congratulated them in a great flow of polite words, not
one of which they understood, on their magnificent Italian; for this
was Domenico, the vigilant and accomplished gardener of San Salvatore,
the prop and stay of the establishment, the resourceful, the gifted,
the eloquent, the courteous, the intelligent Domenico. Only they did
not know that yet; and he did in the dark, and even sometimes in the
light, look, with his knife-sharp swarthy features and swift, panther
movements, very like somebody wicked.
They passed along another flat bit of path, with a black shape like a
high wall towering above them on their right, and then the path went up
again under trellises, and trailing sprays of scented things caught at
them and shook raindrops on them, and the light of the lantern
flickered over lilies, and then came a flight of ancient steps worn
with centuries, and then another iron gate, and then they were inside,
though still climbing a twisting flight of stone steps with old walls
on either side like the walls of dungeons, and with a vaulted roof.
At the top was a wrought-iron door, and through it shone a flood of
electric light.
“_Ecco_,” said Domenico, lithely running up the last few steps ahead
and pushing the door open.
And there they were, arrived; and it was San Salvatore; and their
suit-cases were waiting for them; and they had not been murdered.
They looked at each other’s white faces and blinking eyes very
solemnly.
It was a great, a wonderful moment. Here they were, in their mediaeval
castle at last. Their feet touched its stones.
Mrs. Wilkins put her arm round Mrs. Arbuthnot’s neck and kissed her.
“The first thing to happen in this house,” she said softly, solemnly,
“shall be a kiss.”
“Dear Lotty,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
“Dear Rose,” said Mrs. Wilkins, her eyes brimming with gladness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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