Christopher and Columbus by Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

C >> Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim >> Christopher and Columbus

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And she was about to relate that dreadful story of Onkle Col's end
which has already been described in these pages as unfit for anywhere
but an appendix for time had blunted her feelings, when Anna-Felicitas
put out a beseeching hand and stopped her. Even after all these years
Anna-Felicitas couldn't bear to remember Onkle Col's end. It had haunted
her childhood. It had licked about her dreams in leaping tongues of
flame. And it wasn't only tongues of flame. There were circumstances
connected with it.... Only quite recently, since the war had damped down
lesser horrors, had she got rid of it. She could at least now talk of
him calmly, and also speculate with pleasure on the probable aspect of
Onkle Col in glory, but she still couldn't bear to hear the details of
his end.

At this point an elderly lady of the spare and active type, very upright
and much wrinkled, that America seems so freely to produce, came down
the stairs; and seeing the twins talking to the old gentleman, crossed
straight over and sat down briskly next to them smiling benevolently.

"Well, if Mr. Ridding can talk to you I guess so can I," she said,
pulling her knitting out of a brocaded bag and nodding and smiling at
the group.

She was knitting socks for the Allied armies in France the next winter,
but it being warm just then in California they were cotton socks because
wool made her hands too hot.

The twins were all polite, reciprocal smiles.

"I'm just crazy to hear about you," said the brisk lady, knitting with
incredible energy, while her smiles flicked over everybody. "You're
fresh from Europe, aren't you? What say? Quite fresh? My, aren't you
cute little things. Thinking of making a long stay in the States? What
say? For the rest of your lives? Why now, I call that just splendid.
Parents coming out West soon too? What say? Prevented? Well, I guess
they won't let themselves be prevented long. Mr. Twist looking after you
meanwhile? What say? There isn't any meanwhile? Well, I don't quite--Mr.
Twist your uncle, or cousin? What say? No relation at all? H'm, h'm. No
relation at all, is he. Well, I guess he's an old friend of your
parents, then. What say? They didn't know him? H'm, h'm. They didn't
know him, didn't they. Well, I don't quite--What say? But you know him?
Yes, yes, so I see. H'm, h'm. I don't quite--" Her needles flew in and
out, and her ball of cotton rolled on to the floor in her surprise.

Anna-Rose got up and fetched it for her before the old gentleman, who
was gazing with thirsty appreciation at Anna-Felicitas, could struggle
out of his chair.

"You see," explained Anna-Felicitas, taking advantage of the silence
that had fallen on the lady, "Mr. Twist, regarded as a man, is old, but
regarded as a friend he is new."

"Brand new," said Anna-Rose.

"H'm, h'm," said the lady, knitting faster than ever, and looking first
at one twin and then at the other. "H'm, h'm, h'm. Brand new, is he.
Well, I don't quite--" Her smiles had now to struggle with the
uncertainty and doubt, and were weakening visibly.

"Say now, where did you meet Teapot Twist?" asked the old gentleman, who
was surprised too, but remained quite benevolent owing to his
affectionate heart and his not being a lady.

"We met Mr. Twist," said Anna-Rose, who objected to this way of alluding
to him, "on the steamer."

"Not before? You didn't meet Mr. Twist before the steamer?" exclaimed
the lady, the last of her smiles flickering out. "Not before the
steamer, didn't you. Just a steamship acquaintance. Parents never seen
him. H'm, h'm, h'm."

"We would have met him before if we could," said Anna-Felicitas
earnestly.

"I should think so," said Anna-Rose. "It has been the great
retrospective loss of our lives meeting him so late in them."

"Why now," said the old gentleman smiling, "I shouldn't call it so
particularly late in them."

But the knitting lady didn't smile at all, and sat up very straight and
said "H'm, h'm, h'm" to her flashing needles as they flew in and out;
for not only was she in doubt now about the cute little things, but she
also regretted, on behalf of the old gentleman's wife who was a friend
of hers, the alert interest of his manner. He sat there so very much
awake. With his wife he never seemed awake at all. Up to now she had not
seen him except with his wife.

"You mustn't run away with the idea that we're younger than we really
are," Anna-Rose said to the old gentleman.

"Why no, I won't," he answered with a liveliness that deepened the
knitting lady's regret on behalf of his wife. "When I run away you bet
it won't be with an idea."

And he chuckled. He was quite rosy in the face, and chuckled; he whom
she knew only as a quiet man with no chuckle in him. And wasn't what he
had just said very like what the French call a _double entendre?_ She
hadn't a husband herself, but if she had she would wish him to be at
least as quiet when away from her as when with her, and at least as free
from _double entendres_. At least. Really more. "H'm, h'm, h'm," she
said, clicking her needles and looking first at the twins and then at
the old gentleman.

"Do you mean to say you crossed the Atlantic quite alone, you two?" she
asked, in order to prevent his continuing on these remarkable and
unusual lines of _badinage_.

"Quite," said Anna-Felicitas.

"That is to say, we had Mr. Twist of course," said Anna-Rose.

"Once we had got him," amended Anna-Felicitas.

"Yes, yes," said the knitting lady, "so you say. H'm, h'm, h'm. Once you
had got him. I don't quite--"

"Well, I call you a pair of fine high-spirited girls," said the old
gentleman heartily, interrupting in his turn, "and all I can say is I
wish I had been on that boat."

"Here's Mrs. Ridding," said the knitting lady quickly, relief in her
voice; whereupon he suddenly grew quiet. "My, Mrs. Ridding," she added
when the lady drew within speaking distance, "you do look as though you
needed a rest."

Mrs. Ridding, the wife of the old gentleman, Mr. Ridding, had been
approaching slowly for some time from behind. She had been out on the
verandah since lunch, trying to recover from it. That was the one
drawback to meals, she considered, that they required so much recovering
from; and the nicer they were the longer it took. The meals at the
Cosmopolitan were particularly nice, and really all one's time was taken
up getting over them.

She was a lady whose figure seemed to be all meals. The old gentleman
had married her in her youth, when she hadn't had time to have had so
many. He and she were then the same age, and unfortunately hadn't gone
on being the same age since. It had wrecked his life this inability of
his wife to stay as young and new as himself. He wanted a young wife,
and the older he got in years--his heart very awkwardly retained its
early freshness--the younger he wanted her; and, instead, the older he
got the older his wife got too. Also the less new. The old gentleman
felt the whole thing was a dreadful mistake. Why should he have to be
married to this old lady? Never in his life had he wanted to marry old
ladies; and he thought it very hard that at an age when he most
appreciated bright youth he should be forced to spend his precious
years, his crowning years when his mind had attained wisdom while his
heart retained freshness, stranded with an old lady of costly habits and
inordinate bulk just because years ago he had fallen in love with a
chance pretty girl.

He struggled politely out of his chair on seeing her. The twins,
impressed by such venerable abundance, got up too.

"Albert, if you try to move too quick you'll crick your back again,"
said Mrs. Ridding in a monotonous voice, letting herself down carefully
and a little breathlessly on to the edge of a chair that didn't rock,
and fanning herself with a small fan she carried on the end of a massive
gold chain. Her fatigued eyes explored the twins while she spoke.

"I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember that we're neither of us as young
as we were," she went on, addressing the knitting lady but with her eyes
continuing to explore the twins.

They naturally thought she was speaking to them, and Anna-Felicitas said
politely, "Really?" and Anna-Rose, feeling she too ought to make some
comment, said, "Isn't that very unusual?"

Aunt Alice always said, "Isn't that very unusual?" when she didn't know
what else to say, and it worked beautifully, because then the other
person launched into affirmations or denials with the reasons for them,
and was quite happy.

But Mrs. Ridding only stared at the twins heavily and in silence.

"Because," explained Anna-Rose, who thought the old lady didn't quite
follow, "nobody ever is. So that it must be difficult not to remember
it."

Mr. Ridding too was silent, but that was because of his wife. It was
quite untrue to say that he forgot, seeing that she was constantly
reminding him. "Old stranger," he thought resentfully, as he carefully
arranged a cushion behind her back. He didn't like her back. Why should
he have to pay bills for putting expensive clothes on it? He didn't want
to. It was all a dreadful mistake.

"You're the Twinkler girls," said the old lady abruptly.

They made polite gestures of agreement.

The knitting lady knitted vigorously, sitting up very straight and
saying nothing, with a look on her face of disclaiming every
responsibility.

"Where does your family come from?" was the next question.

This was unexpected. The twins had no desire to talk of Pomerania. They
hadn't wanted to talk about Pomerania once since the war began; and they
felt very distinctly in their bones that America, though she was a
neutral, didn't like Germany any more than the belligerents did. It had
been their intention to arrange together the line they would take if
asked questions of this sort, but life had been so full and so exciting
since their arrival that they had forgotten to.

Anna-Rose found herself unable to say anything at all. Anna-Felicitas,
therefore, observing that Christopher was unnerved, plunged in.

"Our family," she said gently, "can hardly be said to come so much as to
have been."

The old lady thought this over, her lustreless eyes on Anna-Felicitas's
face.

The knitting lady clicked away very fast, content to leave the
management of the Twinklers in more competent hands.

"How's that?" asked the old lady, finally deciding that she hadn't
understood.

"It's extinct," said Anna-Felicitas. "Except us. That is, in the direct
line."

The old lady was a little impressed by this, direct lines not being so
numerous or so clear in America as in some other countries.

"You mean you two are the only Twinklers left?" she asked.

"The only ones left that matter," said Anna-Felicitas. "There are
branches of Twinklers still existing, I believe, but they're so
unimportant that we don't know them."

"Mere twigs," said Anna-Rose, recovering her nerves on seeing
Anna-Felicitas handle the situation so skilfully; and her nose
unconsciously gave a slight Junker lift.

"Haven't you got any parents?" asked the old lady.

"We used to have," said Anna-Felicitas flushing, afraid that her darling
mother was going to be asked about.

The old gentleman gave a sudden chuckle. "Why yes," he said, forgetting
his wife's presence for an instant, "I guess you had them once, or I
don't see how--"

"Albert," said his wife.

"We are the sole surviving examples of the direct line of Twinklers,"
said Anna-Rose, now quite herself and ready to give Columbus a hand.
"There's just us. And we--" she paused a moment, and then plunged--"we
come from England."

"Do you?" said the old lady. "Now I shouldn't have said that. I can't
say just why, but I shouldn't. Should you, Miss Heap?"

"I shouldn't say a good many things, Mrs. Ridding," said Miss Heap
enigmatically, her needles flying.

"It's because we've been abroad a great deal with our parents, I
expect," said Anna-Rose rather quickly. "I daresay it has left its mark
on us."

"Everything leaves its mark on one," observed Anna-Felicitas pleasantly.

"Ah," said the old lady. "I know what it is now. It's the foreign r.
You've picked it up. Haven't they, Miss Heap."

"I shouldn't like to say what they haven't picked up, Mrs. Ridding,"
said Miss Heap, again enigmatically.

"I'm afraid we have," said Anna-Rose, turning red. "We've been told that
before. It seems to stick, once one has picked it up."

And the old gentleman muttered that everything stuck once one had picked
it up, and looked resentfully at his wife.

She moved her slow eyes round, and let them rest on him a moment.

"Albert, if you talk so much you won't be able to sleep to-night," she
said. "I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember we've got to be careful at
our age," she added to the knitting lady.

"You seem to be bothered by your memory," said Anna-Rose politely,
addressing the old gentleman "Have you ever tried making notes on little
bits of paper of the things you have to remember? I think you would
probably be all right then. Uncle Arthur used to do that. Or rather he
made Aunt Alice do it for him, and put them where he would see them."

"Uncle Arthur," explained Anna-Felicitas to the old lady, "is an uncle
of ours. The one," she said turning to the old gentleman, "we were just
telling you about, who so unfortunately insisted on marrying our aunt.
Uncle, that is, by courtesy," she added, turning to the old lady, "not
by blood."

The old lady's eyes moved from one twin to the other as each one spoke,
but she said nothing.

"But Aunt Alice," said Anna-Rose, "is our genuine aunt. Well, I was
going to tell you," she continued briskly, addressing the old gentleman.
"There used to be things Uncle Arthur had to do every day and every
week, but still he had to be reminded of them each time, and Aunt Alice
had a whole set of the regular ones written out on bits of cardboard,
and brought them out in turn. The Monday morning one was: Wind the
Clock, and the Sunday morning one was: Take your Hot Bath, and the
Saturday evening one was: Remember your Pill. And there was one brought
in regularly every morning with his shaving water and stuck in his
looking-glass: Put on your Abdominable Belt."

The knitting needles paused an instant.

"Yes," Anna-Felicitas joined in, interested by these recollections, her
long limbs sunk in her chair in a position of great ease and comfort,
"and it seemed to us so funny for him to have to be reminded to put on
what was really a part of his clothes every day, that once we wrote a
slip of our own for him and left it on his dressing-table: Don't forget
your Trousers."

The knitting needles paused again.

"But the results of that were dreadful," added Anna-Felicitas, her face
sobering at the thought of them.

"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "You see, he supposed Aunt Alice had done it, in
a fit of high spirits, though she never had high spirits--"

"And wouldn't have been allowed to if she had," explained
Anna-Felicitas.

"And he thought she was laughing at him," said Anna-Rose, "though we
have never seen her laugh--"

"And I don't believe he has either," said Anna-Felicitas.

"So there was trouble, because he couldn't bear the idea of her laughing
at him, and we had to confess."

"But that didn't make it any better for Aunt Alice."

"No, because then he said it was her fault anyhow for not keeping us
stricter."

"So," said Anna-Felicitas, "after the house had been steeped in a
sulphurous gloom for over a week, and we all felt as though we were
being slowly and steadily gassed, we tried to make it up by writing a
final one--a nice one--and leaving it on his plate at breakfast: Kiss
your Wife. But instead of kissing her he--" She broke off, and then
finished a little vaguely: "Oh well, he didn't."

"Still," remarked Anna-Rose, "it must be pleasant not to be kissed by a
husband. Aunt Alice always wanted him to, strange to say, which is why
we reminded him of it. He used to forget that more regularly than
almost anything. And the people who lived in the house nearest us were
just the opposite--the husband was for ever trying to kiss the person
who was his wife, and she was for ever dodging him."

"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "Like the people on Keats's Grecian Urn."

"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "And that sort of husband, must be even worse.

"Oh, much worse," agreed Anna-Felicitas.

She looked round amiably at the three quiet figures in the chairs. "I
shall refrain altogether from husbands," she said placidly. "I shall
take something that doesn't kiss."

And she fell into an abstraction, wondering, with her cheek resting on
her hand, what he, or it, would look like.

There was a pause. Anna-Rose was wondering too what sort of a creature
Columbus had in her mind, and how many, if any, legs it would have; and
the other three were, as before, silent.

Then the old lady said, "Albert," and put out her hand to be helped on
to her feet.

The old gentleman struggled out of his chair, and helped her up. His
face had a congested look, as if he were with difficulty keeping back
things he wanted to say.

Miss Heap got up too, stuffing her knitting as she did so into her
brocaded bag.

"Go on ahead and ring the elevator bell, Albert," said the old lady.
"It's time we went and had our nap."

"I ain't going to," said the old gentleman suddenly.

"What say? What ain't you going to, Albert?" said the old lady, turning
her slow eyes round to him.

"Nap," said the old gentleman, his face very red.

It was intolerable to have to go and nap. He wished to stay where he was
and talk to the twins. Why should he have to nap because somebody else
wanted to? Why should he have to nap with an old lady, anyway? Never in
his life had he wanted to nap with old ladies. It was all a dreadful
mistake.

"Albert," said his wife looking at him.

He went on ahead and rang the lift-bell.

"You're quite right to see that he rests, Mrs. Ridding," said Miss Heap,
walking away with her and slowing her steps to suit hers. "I should say
it was essential that he should be kept quiet in the afternoons. You
should see that Mr. Ridding rests more than he does. _Much_ more," she
added significantly.

"I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember that we're neither of us--"

This was the last the twins heard.

They too had politely got out of their chairs when the old lady began to
heave into activity, and they stood watching the three departing
figures. They were a little surprised. Surely they had all been in the
middle of an interesting conversation?

"Perhaps it's American to go away in the middle," remarked Anna-Rose,
following the group with her eyes as it moved toward the lift.

"Perhaps it is," said Anna-Felicitas, also gazing after it.

The old gentleman, in the brief moment during which the two ladies had
their backs to him while preceding him into the lift, turned quickly
round on his heels and waved his hand before he himself went in.

The twins laughed, and waved back; and they waved with such goodwill
that the old gentleman couldn't resist giving one more wave. He was
seen doing it by the two ladies as they faced round, and his wife, as
she let herself down on to the edge of the seat, remarked that he
mustn't exert himself like that or he would have to begin taking his
drops again.

That was all she said in the lift; but in their room, when she had got
her breath again, she said, "Albert, there's just one thing in the world
I hate worse than a fool, and that's an old fool."

CHAPTER XXV

That evening, while the twins were undressing, a message came up from
the office that the manager would be obliged if the Miss Twinklers'
canary wouldn't sing.

"But it can't help it," said Anna-Felicitas through the crack of door
she held open; she was already in her nightgown. "You wouldn't either if
you were a canary," she added, reasoning with the messenger.

"It's just got to help it," said he.

"But why shouldn't it sing?"

"Complaints."

"But it always has sung."

"That is so. And it has sung once too often. It's unpopular in this
hotel, that canary of yours. It's just got to rest a while. Take it
easy. Sit quiet on its perch and think."

"But it won't sit quiet and think."

"Well, I've told you," he said, going away.

This was the bird that had been seen arriving at the Cosmopolitan about
a week before by the lawyer, and it had piercingly sung ever since. It
sang, that is, as long as there was any light, real or artificial, to
sing by. The boy who carried it from the shop for the twins said its
cage was to be hung in a window in the sun, or it couldn't do itself
justice. But electric light also enabled it to do itself justice, the
twins discovered, and if they sat up late the canary sat up late too,
singing as loudly and as mechanically as if it hadn't been a real
canary at all, but something clever and American with a machine inside
it.

Secretly the twins didn't like it. Shocked at its loud behaviour, they
had very soon agreed that it was no lady, but Anna-Rose was determined
to have it at The Open Arms because of her conviction that no house
showing the trail of a woman's hand was without a canary. That, and a
workbag. She bought them both the same day. The workbag didn't matter,
because it kept quiet; but the canary was a very big, very yellow bird,
much bigger and yellower than the frailer canaries of a more exhausted
civilization, and quite incapable, unless it was pitch dark, of keeping
quiet for a minute. Evidently, as Anna-Felicitas said, it had a great
many lungs. Her idea of lungs, in spite of her time among them and
similar objects at a hospital, was what it had always been: that they
were things like pink macaroni strung across a frame of bones on the
principle of a lyre or harp, and producing noises. She thought the
canary had unusual numbers of these pink strings, and all of them of the
biggest and dearest kind of macaroni.

The other guests at the Cosmopolitan had been rather restive from the
first on account of this bird, but felt so indulgent toward its owners,
those cute little relations or charges or whatever they were of Teapot
Twist's, that they bore its singing without complaint. But on the
evening of the day the Annas had the interesting conversation with Mr.
and Mrs. Ridding and Miss Heap, two definite complaints were lodged in
the office, and one was from Mrs. Ridding and the other was from Miss
Heap.

The manager, as has been said, was already sensitive about the canary.
Its cage was straining his electric light cord, and its food,
assiduously administered in quantities exceeding its capacity, littered
the expensive pink pile carpet. He therefore lent a ready ear and sent
up a peremptory message; and while the message was going up, Miss Heap,
who had come herself with her complaint, stayed on discussing the Twist
and Twinkler party.

She said nothing really; she merely asked questions; and not one of the
questions, now they were put to him, did the manager find he could
answer. No doubt everything was all right. Everybody knew about Mr.
Twist, and it wasn't likely he would choose an hotel of so high a class
to stay in if his relations to the Miss Twinklers were anything but
regular. And a lady companion, he understood, was joining the party
shortly; and besides, there was the house being got ready, a permanent
place of residence he gathered, in which the party would settle down,
and experience had taught him that genuine illicitness was never
permanent. Still, the manager himself hadn't really cared about the
Twinklers since the canary came. He could fill the hotel very easily,
and there was no need to accommodate people who spoilt carpets. Also,
the moment the least doubt or question arose among his guests, all of
whom he knew and most of whom came back regularly every year, as to the
social or moral status of any new arrivals, then those arrivals must go.
Miss Heap evidently had doubts. Her standard, it is true, was the almost
impossibly high one of the unmarried lady of riper years, but Mrs.
Ridding, he understood, had doubts too; and once doubts started in an
hotel he knew from experience that they ran through it like measles. The
time had come for him to act.

Next morning, therefore, he briskly appeared in Mr. Twist's room as he
was pulling on his boots, and cheerfully hoped he was bearing in mind
what he had been told the day he took the rooms, that they were engaged
for the date of the month now arrived at.

Mr. Twist paused with a boot half on. "I'm not bearing it in mind," he
said, "because you didn't tell me."

"Oh yes I did, Mr. Twist," said the manager briskly. "It isn't likely
I'd make a mistake about that. The rooms are taken every year for this
date by the same people. Mrs. Hart of Boston has this one, and Mr. and
Mrs.--"

Mr. Twist heard no more. He finished lacing his boots in silence. What
he had been so much afraid of had happened: he and the twins had got
under a cloud.

The twins had been saying things. Last night they told him they had made
some friends. He had been uneasy at that, and questioned them. But it
appeared they had talked chiefly of their Uncle Arthur. Well, damnable
as Uncle Arthur was as a man he was safe enough as a topic of
conversation. He was English. He was known to people in America like the
Delloggs and the Sacks. But it was now clear they must have said things
besides that. Probably they had expatiated on Uncle Arthur from some
point of view undesirable to American ears. The American ear was very
susceptible. He hadn't been born in New England without becoming aware
of that.

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