But when the road suddenly left
off at the church and the steps, further evasion was impossible; and
faced by this abrupt and difficult finish to their journey there was
nothing for it but to amalgamate.
Because of Mrs. Fisher's stick Lady Caroline had to see about
everything. Mrs. Fisher's intentions, she explained from her fly when
the situation had become plain to her, were active, but her stick
prevented their being carried out. The two drivers told Lady Caroline
boys would have to carry the luggage up to the castle, and she went in
search of some, while Mrs. Fisher waited in the fly because of her
stick. Mrs. Fisher could speak Italian, but only, she explained, the
Italian of Dante, which Matthew Arnold used to read with her when she
was a girl, and she thought this might be above the heads of boys.
Therefore Lady Caroline, who spoke ordinary Italian very well, was
obviously the one to go and do things.
"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.
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