Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated)

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

  “Noymann, then,” said Mr. Dawson, equally loudly; indeed it was almost a shout. And he became possessed at the same instant of what was known to Fritzing as a red head, which is the graphic German way of describing the glow that accompanies wrath. “Look here,” he said, “if you don’t say what you’ve got to say and have done with it you’d better go. I’m not the chap for the fine-worded game, and I’m hanged if I’ll be preached to in my own house. I’ll be hanged if I will, do you hear?” And he brought his fist down on the table in a fashion very familiar to Mrs. Dawson and the Symford cottagers.

  “Sir, your manners—” said Fritzing, rising and taking up his hat.

  “Never mind my manners, Mr. Newman.”

  “Neumann, sir!” roared Fritzing.

  “Confound you, sir,” was Mr. Dawson’s irrelevant reply.

  “Sir, confound you,” said Fritzing, clapping on his hat. “And let me tell you that I am going at once to Lady Shuttleworth and shall recommend to her most serious consideration the extreme desirability of removing you, sir.”

  “Removing me! Where the deuce to?”

  “Sir, I care not whither so long as it is hence,” cried Fritzing, passionately striding to the door.

  Mr. Dawson lay back in his chair and gasped. The man was plainly mad; but still Lady Shuttleworth might — you never know with women— “Look here — hie, you! Mr. Newman!” he called, for Fritzing had torn open the door and was through it.

  “Neumann, sir,” Fritzing hurled back at him over his shoulder.

  “Lady Shuttleworth won’t see you, Mr. Noyman. She won’t on principle.”

  Fritzing wavered.

  “Everything goes through my hands. You’ll only have your walk for nothing. Come back and tell me what it is you want.”

  “Sir, I will only negotiate with you,” said Fritzing down the passage — and Mrs. Dawson hearing him from the drawing-room folded her hands in fear and wonder— “if you will undertake at least to imitate the manners of a gentleman.”

  “Come, come, you musn’t misunderstand me,” said Mr. Dawson getting up and going to the door. “I’m a plain man, you know—”

  “Then, sir, all I can say is that I object to plain men.”

  “I say, who are you? One would think you were a duke or somebody, you’re so peppery. Dressed up” — Mr. Dawson glanced at the suit of pedagogic black into which Fritzing had once more relapsed— “dressed up as a street preacher.”

  “I am not dressed up as anything, sir,” said Fritzing coming in rather hurriedly. “I am a retired teacher of the German tongue, and have come down from London in search of a cottage in which to spend my remaining years. That cottage I have now found here in your village, and I have come to inquire its price. I wish to buy it as quickly as possible.”

  “That’s all very well, Mr. — oh all right, all right, I won’t say it. But why on earth don’t you write it properly, then? It’s this paper’s set me wrong. I was going to say we’ve got no cottages here for sale. And look here, if that’s all you are, a retired teacher, I’ll trouble you not to get schoolmastering me again.”

  “I really think, sir,” said Fritzing stretching his hand towards his hat, “that it is better I should try to obtain an interview with Lady Shuttleworth, for I fear you are constitutionally incapable of carrying on a business conversation with the requisite decent self-command.”

  “Pooh — you’ll get nothing out of her. She’ll send you back to me. Why, you’d drive her mad in five minutes with that tongue of yours. If you want anything I’m your man. Only let’s get at what you do want, without all these confounded dictionary words. Which cottage is it?”

  “It is the small cottage,” said Fritzing mastering his anger, “adjoining the churchyard. It stands by itself, and is separated from the road by an extremely miniature garden. It is entirely covered by creeping plants which I believe to be roses.”

  “That’s a couple.”

  “So much the better.”

  “And they’re let. One to the shoemaker, and the other to old mother Shaw.”

  “Accommodation could no doubt be found for the present tenants in some other house, and I am prepared to indemnify them handsomely. Might I inquire the number of rooms the cottages contain?”

  “Two apiece, and a kitchen and attic. Coal-hole and pig-stye in the back yard. Also a pump. But they’re not for sale, so what’s the use—”

  “Sir, do they also contain bathrooms?”

  “Bathrooms?” Mr. Dawson stared with so excessively stupid a stare that Fritzing, who heaver could stand stupidity, got angry again.

  “I said bathrooms, sir,” he said, raising his voice, “and I believe with perfect distinctness.”

  “Oh, I heard you right enough. I was only wondering if you were trying to be funny.”

  “Is this a business conversation or is it not?” cried Fritzing, in his turn bringing his fist down on the table.

  “Look here, what do you suppose people who live in such places want?”

  “I imagine cleanliness and decency as much as anybody else.”

  “Well, I’ve never been asked for one with a bathroom in my life.”

  “You are being asked now,” said Fritzing, glaring at him, “but you wilfully refuse to reply. From your manner, however, I conclude that they contain none. If so, no doubt I could quickly have some built.”

  “Some? Why, how many do you want?”

  “I have a niece, sir, and she must have her own.”

  Mr. Dawson again stared with what seemed to Fritzing so deplorably foolish a stare. “I never heard of such a thing,” he said.

  “What did you never hear of, sir?”

  “I never heard of one niece and one uncle in a labourer’s cottage wanting a bathroom apiece.”

  “Apparently you have never heard of very many things,” retorted Fritzing angrily. “My niece desires to have her own bathroom, and it is no one’s business but hers.”

  “She must be a queer sort of girl.”

  “Sir,” cried Fritzing, “leave my niece out of the conversation.”

  “Oh all right — all right. I’m sure I don’t want to talk about your niece. But as for the cottages, it’s no good wanting those or any others, for you won’t get ’em.”

  “And pray why not, if I offer a good price?”

  “Lady Shuttleworth won’t sell. Why should she? She’d only have to build more to replace them. Her people must live somewhere. And she’ll never turn out old Shaw and the shoemaker to make room for a couple of strangers.”

  Fritzing was silent, for his heart was sinking. “Suppose, sir,” he said after a pause, during which his eyes had been fixed thoughtfully on the carpet and Mr. Dawson had been staring at him and whistling softly but very offensively, “suppose I informed Lady Shuttleworth of my willingness to build two new cottages — excellent new cottages — for the tenants of these old ones, and pay her a good price as well for these, do you think she would listen to me?”

  “I say, the schoolmastering business must be a rattling good one. I’m blessed if I know what you want to live in ’em for if money’s so little object with you. They’re shabby and uncomfortable, and an old chap like you — I mean, a man of your age, who’s made his little pile, and wants luxuries like plenty of bathrooms — ought to buy something tight and snug. Good roof and electric light. Place for horse and trap. And settle down and be a gentleman.”

  “My niece,” said Fritzing, brushing aside these suggestions with an angrily contemptuous wave of his hand, “has taken a fancy — I may say an exceedingly violent fancy — to these two cottages. What is all this talk of traps and horses? My niece wishes for these cottages. I shall do my utmost to secure them for her.”

  “Well, all I can say is she must be a—”

  “Silence, sir!” cried Fritzing.

  Mr. Dawson got up and opened the door very wide.

  “Look here,” he said, “there’s no use going on talking. I’ve stood more from you than I’ve
stood from any one for years. Take my advice and get back home and keep quiet for a bit. I’ve got no cottages, and Lady Shuttleworth would shut the door in your face when you got to the bathroom part. Where are you staying? At the Cock and Hens? Oh — ah — yes — at Baker’s. Well, ask Mrs. Pearce to take great care of you. Tell her I said so. And good afternoon to you, Mr. Noyman. You see I’ve got the name right now — just as we’re going to part.”

  “Before I go,” said Fritzing, glaring down at Mr. Dawson, “let me tell you that I have seldom met an individual who unites in his manner so singularly offensive a combination of facetiousness and hectoring as yourself. I shall certainly describe your conduct to Lady Shuttleworth, and not, I hope, in unconvincing language. Sir, good afternoon.”

  “By-bye,” said Mr. Dawson, grinning and waving a pleasant hand. Several bathrooms indeed! He need have no fears of Lady Shuttleworth. “Good luck to you with Lady S.!” he called after him cheerily. Then he went to his wife and bade her see to it that the servant never let Fritzing in again, explaining that he was not only a foreigner but a lunatic, and that the mixture was so bad that it hardly bore thinking of.

  VI

  While Fritzing was losing his temper in this manner at the agent’s, Priscilla sat up in the churchyard in the sun. The Symford churchyard, its church, and the pair of coveted cottages, are on a little eminence rising like an island out of the valley. Sitting under the trees of this island Priscilla amused herself taking in the quiet scene at her feet and letting her thoughts wander down happy paths. The valley was already in shadow, but the tops of the hills on the west side of it were golden in the late afternoon sunshine. From the cottage chimneys smoke went up straight and blue into the soft sky, rooks came and settled over her head in the branches of the elms, and every now and then a yellow leaf would fall slowly at her feet. Priscilla’s heart was filled with peace. She was going to be so good, she was going to lead such a clean and beautiful life, so quiet, so helpful to the poor, so hidden, so cleared of all confusions. Never again would she need to pose; never again be forced into conflict with her soul. She had chosen the better part; she had given up everything and followed after wisdom; and her life would be her justification. Who but knows the inward peace that descends upon him who makes good resolutions and abides with him till he suddenly discovers they have all been broken? And what does the breaking of them matter, since it is their making that is so wholesome, so bracing to the soul, bringing with it moments of such extreme blessedness that he misses much who gives it up for fear he will not keep them? Such blessed moments of lifting up of the heart were Priscilla’s as she sat in the churchyard waiting, invisibly surrounded by the most beautiful resolutions it is possible to imagine. The Rev. Edward Morrison, the vicar of whom I have spoken as venerable, coming slowly up the path leaning on his son’s arm with the intention of going into the church in search of a mislaid sermon-book, saw Priscilla’s thoughtful back under the elm-tree and perceived at once that it was a back unknown to him. He knew all the Symford backs, and tourists hardly ever coming there, and never at that time of the year, it could not, he thought, be the back of a tourist. Nor could it belong to any one staying with the Shuttleworths, for he had been there that very afternoon and had found Lady Shuttleworth rejoicing over the brief period of solitude she and her son were enjoying before the stream of guests for the coming of age festivities began.

  “Robin, what girl is that?” asked the vicar of his son.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Robin.

  “She’ll catch cold,” said the vicar.

  “I dare say,” said Robin.

  When they came out of the church ten minutes later Priscilla had not moved.

  “She’ll certainly catch cold,” said the vicar, concerned.

  “I should think it very likely,” said Robin, locking the door.

  “She’s sitting on a stone.”

  “Yes, on old Dawson’s slab.”

  “Unwise,” said the vicar.

  “Profane,” said Robin.

  The vicar took his boy’s arm again — the boy, head and shoulders taller than his father, was down from Cambridge for the vacation then drawing to its close — and moved, I fear, by the same impulse of pure curiosity they walked together down the path that would take them right in front of the young woman on the slab.

  Priscilla was lost in the bright dreams she was weaving, and looked up with the radiance of them still in her eyes at the two figures between her and the sunset.

  “My dear young lady,” said the vicar kindly, “are you not afraid of catching cold? The evenings are so damp now, and you have chosen a very cold seat.”

  “I don’t feel cold,” said Priscilla, smiling at this vision of benevolence.

  “But I do think you ought not to linger here,” said the vicar.

  “I am waiting for my uncle. He’s gone to buy a cottage, and ought to be back, really, by now.”

  “Buy a cottage?” repeated the vicar. “My dear young lady, you say that in the same voice you might use to tell me your uncle had gone to buy a bun.”

  “What is a bun?” asked Priscilla.

  “A bun?” repeated the vicar bewildered, for nobody had ever asked him that before.

  “Oh I know—” said Priscilla quickly, faintly flushing, “it’s a thing you eat. Is there a special voice for buns?”

  “There is for a thing so — well, so momentous as the buying of a cottage.”

  “Is it momentous? It seems to me so nice and natural.”

  She looked up at the vicar and his son, calmly scrutinizing first one and then the other, and they stood looking down at her; and each time her eyes rested on Robin they found his staring at her with the frankest expression of surprise and admiration.

  “Pardon me,” said the vicar, “if I seem inquisitive, but is it one of the Symford cottages your uncle wishes to buy? I did not know any were for sale.”

  “It’s that one by the gate,” said Priscilla, slightly turning her head in its direction.

  “Is it for sale? Dear me, I never knew Lady Shuttleworth sell a cottage yet.”

  “I don’t know yet if she wants to,” said Priscilla; “but Fr — , my uncle, will give any price. And I must have it. I shall — I shall be ill if I don’t.”

  The vicar gazed at her upturned face in perplexity. “Dear me,” he said, after a slight pause.

  “We must live somewhere,” remarked Priscilla.

  “Of course you must,” said Robin, suddenly and so heartily that she examined his eager face in more detail.

  “Quite so, quite so,” said the vicar. “Are you staying here at present?”

  “Never at the Cock and Hens?” broke in Robin.

  “We’re at Baker’s Farm.”

  “Ah yes — poor Mrs. Pearce will be glad of lodgers. Poor soul, poor soul.”

  “She’s a very dirty soul,” said Robin; and Priscilla’s eyes flashed over him with a sudden sparkle.

  “Is she the soul with the holes in its apron?” she asked.

  “I expect there are some there. There generally are,” said Robin.

  They both laughed; but the vicar gently shook his head. “Ah well, poor thing,” he said, “she has an uphill life of it. They don’t seem able — they don’t seem to understand the art of making both ends meet.”

  “It’s a great art,” said Robin.

  “Perhaps they could be helped,” said Priscilla, already arranging in her mind to go and do it.

  “They do not belong to the class one can help. And Lady Shuttleworth, I am afraid, disapproves of shiftless people too much to do anything in the way of reducing the rent.”

  “Lady Shuttleworth can’t stand people who don’t look happy and don’t mend their apron,” said Robin.

  “But it’s her own apron,” objected Priscilla.

  “Exactly,” said Robin.

  “Well, well, I hope they’ll make you comfortable,” said the vicar; and having nothing more that he could well say without ha
ving to confess to himself that he was inquisitive, he began to draw Robin away. “We shall see you and your uncle on Sunday in church, I hope,” he said benevolently, and took off his hat and showed his snow-white hair.

  Priscilla hesitated. She was, it is true, a Protestant, it having been arranged on her mother’s marriage with the Catholic Grand Duke that every alternate princess born to them was to belong to the Protestant faith, and Priscilla being the alternate princess it came about that of the Grand Duke’s three children she alone was not a Catholic. Therefore she could go to church in Symford as often as she chose; but it was Fritzing’s going that made her hesitate, for Fritzing was what the vicar would have called a godless man, and never went to church.

  “You are a member of the Church of England?” inquired the vicar, seeing her hesitate.

  “Why, pater, she’s not English,” burst out Robin.

  “Not English?” echoed the vicar.

  “Is my English so bad?” asked Priscilla, smiling.

  “It’s frightfully good,” said Robin; “but the ‘r’s,’ you know—”

  “Ah, yes. No, I’m not English. I’m German.”

  “Indeed?” said the vicar, with all the interest that attaches to any unusual phenomenon, and a German in Symford was of all phenomena the most unusual. “My dear young lady, how remarkable. I don’t remember ever having met a German before in these parts. Your English is really surprising. I should never have noticed — my boy’s ears are quicker than my old ones. Will you think me unpardonably curious if I ask what made you pitch on Symford as a place to live in?”

  “My uncle passed through it years ago and thought it so pretty that he determined to spend his old age here.”

  “And you, I suppose, are going to take care of him.”

  “Yes,” said Priscilla, “for we only” — she looked from one to the other and thought herself extremely clever— “we only have each other in the whole wide world.”

  “Ah, poor child — you are an orphan.”

  “I didn’t say so,” said Priscilla quickly, turning red; she who had always been too proud to lie, how was she going to lie now to this aged saint with the snow-white hair?