The following is the way in which we were to be divided:
1. A caravan (the Elsa), containing the Baron and Baroness von Ottringel, of Storchwerder in Prussia.
2. Another caravan (the Ailsa), containing Mr. and Mrs. Menzies-Legh, of various addresses, they being ridiculously and superfluously rich.
3. Another caravan (the Ilsa), containing Frau von Eckthum, the Menzies-Legh niece, and her (as I gathered, school) friend. In this caravan the yellow box was to be used.
4. One tent, containing two young men, name and status unknown.
The ill-dressed person, old James, was coming too, but would sleep each night with the horses. they being under his special care; and all of the party (except ourselves and Frau von Eckthum and her sister who had already, as I need not say, done so) were yet to assemble. They were expected every moment, and had been expected all day. If they did not come soon our first day’s march, opined my host, would not see us camping further away than the end of the road, for it was already past four o’clock. This reminded me that my luggage ought to be unpacked and stowed away, and I accordingly begged to be excused that I might go and superintend the operation, for I have long ago observed that when the controlling eye of the chief is somewhere else things are very apt to go irremediably wrong. “Against stupidity,” says some great German — it must have been Goethe, and if it was not, then no doubt it was Schiller, they having, I imagine, between them said everything there is to be said— “against stupidity the very gods struggle in vain. “ And I beg that this may not be taken as a reflection on my dear wife, but rather as an inference of general applicability. In any case the recollection of it sent me off with a swinging stride to the caravans.
CHAPTER IV
DARKNESS had, if not actually gathered, certainly approached within measurable distance, substantially aided by lowering storm clouds, by the time we were ready to start. Not that we were, as a fact, ever ready to start, because the two young girls of the party, with truly British inconsideration for others, had chosen to do that which Menzies-Legh in fantastic idiom described as not turning up. I heard him say it several times before I was able, by carefully comparing it with the context, to discover his meaning. The moment I discovered it I of course saw its truth: turned up they certainly had not, and though too well-bred to say it aloud I privately applauded him every time he remarked, with an accumulating emphasis, “ Bother those girls.”
For the first two hours nobody had time to bother them, and to get some notion of the busy scene the yard presented my hearers must imagine a bivouac during our manoeuvres in which the soldiers shall all be recruits just joined and where there shall be no superior to direct them. I know to imagine this requires imagination, hut only he who does it will be able to form an approximately correct notion of what the yard looked like and sounded like while the whole party (except the two girls who were not there) did their unpacking.
It will be obvious on a moment’s reflection that portmanteaus, etc., had to be opened on the bare earth in the midst, so to speak, of untamed nature, with threatening clouds driving over them, and rude winds seizing what they could of their contents and wantoning with them about the yard. It will be equally obvious that these contents had to be handed up one by one by the person below to the person in the caravan who was putting them away and the person below having less to do would be quicker in his movements, while the person above having more to do would be — I suppose naturally but I think with a little self-control it ought not to be so — quicker in her temper; and so she was, and quite unjustifiably, because though she might have the double work of sorting and putting away I, on the other hand, had to stoop so continuously that I was very shortly in a condition of actual physical distress. The young men, who might have helped and at first did help Frau von Eckthum (though I consider they were on more than delicate ground while they did it) were prevented being of use because one had brought a bull terrier, a most dangerous looking beast, and the other — probably out of compliment to us — a white Pomeranian; and the bull terrier, without the least warning or preliminary growl such as our decent German dogs emit before proceeding to action, suddenly fixed his teeth into the Pomeranian and left them there. The howls of the Pomeranian may be imagined. The bull terrier, on the other hand, said nothing at all. At once the hubbub in the yard was increased tenfold. No efforts of its master could make the bull terrier let go. Menzies-Legh called for pepper, and the women-folk ransacked the larders in the rear of the vans, but though there were cruets there was no pepper. At length the little lady of the garden, whose special gift it seemed to appear at the right moment, judging no doubt that the sounds in the yard could not altogether be explained by caravaners unpacking, came out with a pot full, and throwing it into the bull terrier’s face he was obliged to let go in order to sneeze.
During the rest of the afternoon the young men could help no one because they were engaged in the care of their dogs, the owner of the Pomeranian attending to its wounds and the owner of the bull terrier preventing a repetition of its conduct. And Menzies-Legh came up to me and said in his singularly trailing melancholy voice, did I not think they were jolly dogs and going to be a great comfort to us.
“Oh, quite,” said I, unable exactly to understand what he meant.
Still less was I able to understand the attitude of the dogs’ masters toward each other. Not thus would our fiery German youth have behaved. Undoubtedly in a similar situation they would have come to blows, or in any case to the class of words that can only be honourably wiped out in the blood of a duel. But these lymphatic Englishmen, both of them straggly, pale persons in clothes so shabby and so much too big that I was at a loss to conceive how they could appear in them before ladies, hung on each to his dog in perfect silence, and when it was over and the aggressor’s owner said he was sorry, the Pomeranian’s owner, instead of confronting him with the fury of a man who has been wronged and owes it to his virility not to endure it, actually tried to pretend that somehow, by some means, it was all his dog’s fault or his own in allowing him to be near the other, and therefore it was he who, in their jargon, was “frightfully sorry.” Such is the softness of this much too rich and far too comfortable nation. Merely to see it made me blush to be a man; but I became calm again on recollecting that the variety of man I happened to be was, under God, a German. And I discovered later that neither of them ever touch an honest mug of beer, but drink instead — will it be believed? — water.
Now it must not be supposed that at this point of my holiday I had already ceased to enjoy it. On the contrary, I was enjoying myself in my quiet way very much. Not only does the study of character greatly interest me, but I am blest with a sense of humour united to that toughness of disposition which stops a man from saying, however much he may want to, die. Therefore I bore the unpacking and the arranging and the advice I got from everybody and the questions I was asked by everybody and the calls here and the calls there and the wind that did not cease a moment and the rain that pelted down at intervals, without a murmur. I had paid for my holiday, and I meant to enjoy it. But it did seem to me a strange way of taking pleasure for wealthy people like the Menzies-Leghs, who could have gone to the best hotel in the gayest resort, and who instead were bent into their portmanteaus as double as I was, doing work that their footmen would have scorned; and when during an extra sharp squall we had hastily shut our portmanteaus and all scrambled into our respective — I was going to say kennels, but I will be just and say caravans, I expressed this surprise to Edelgard, she said Mrs. Menzies-Legh had told her while I was at luncheon that both she and her sister desired for a time to remove themselves as far as possible from what she called the ministrations of menials. They wished, said Edelgard, quoting Mrs. Menzies-Legh’s words, to endeavour to fulfil the Scriptures and work with their hands the things which are good; and Edelgard, who was much amused by the reference to the Scriptures, agreed with me, who was also greatly diverted, that it is a game, this working with one’s
hands, that only seems desirable to those so much surfeited with all that is worth having that they cease to be able to distinguish its value, and that it would be interesting to watch how long the two pampered ladies enjoyed playing it. Edelgard of course had no fears for herself, for she is a most admirably trained hausfrauy and the keeping of our tiny wheeled house in order would be easy enough after the keeping in order of our flat at home and the constant supervision, amounting on washing days to goading, of Clothilde. But the two sisters had not had the advantage of a husband who kept them to their work from the beginning, and Mrs. Menzies-Legh was a ne’er-dowell, spoiled, and encouraged to do nothing whatever except, so far as I could see, practise how best to pretend she was clever.
By six we were ready to start. From six to seven we bothered the girls. At seven serious consultations commenced as to what had better be done. Start we must, for kind though our host and hostess were I do not think they wanted us to camp in their front yard; if they did they did not say so, and it became every moment more apparent that a stormy night was drawing nearer across the hills. Menzies-Legh, with growing uneasiness, asked his wife I suppose a dozen times what on earth, as he put it, had become of the girls; whether she thought he had better go and look for them; whether she thought they had had an accident; whether she thought they had lost the address or themselves; to all of which she answered that she thought nothing except that they were naughty girls who would be suitably scolded when they did come.
The little lady of the garden came on the scene at this juncture with her usual happy tact, and suggested that it being late and we being new at it and therefore no doubt going to take longer arranging our camp this first night than we afterward would, we should start along the road to a bit of common about half a mile further on and there, with no attempt at anything like a march, settle for the night. We would then, she pointed out, either meet the girls or, if they came another way, she would send them round to us.
Such sensible suggestions could only, as the English say, be jumped at. In a moment all was bustle. We had been sitting disconsolately each on his ladder arguing (not without touches of what threatened to become recrimination), and we now briskly put them away and prepared to be off. With some difficulty the horses, who did not wish to go, were put in, the dogs were chained behind separate vans, the ladders slung underneath (this was no easy job, but one of the straggly young men came to our assistance just as Edelgard was about to get under our caravan and find out how to do it, and showed such unexpected skill that I put him down as being probably in the bolt and screw trade), adieux and appropriate speeches were made to our kind entertainer, and off we went.
First marched old James, leading the Ilsa’s horse, with Menzies-Legh beside him, and Mrs. Menzies-Legh, her head wrapped up very curiously in yards and yards of some transparent fluttering stuff of a most unpractically feminine nature and her hand grasping a walking stick of a most aggressively masculine one, marched behind, giving me who followed (to my surprise I found it was expected of me that far from sitting as I had intended to do inside our caravan I should trudge along leading our horse) much unneeded and unasked-for advice. Her absurd head arrangement, which I afterward learned was called a motor veil, prevented my seeing anything except egregiously long eyelashes and the tip of an inquiring and strange to say not over aristocratic nose — Edelgard’s, true to its many ancestors, is purest hook. Taller and gaunter than ever in her straight up and down sort of costume, she stalked beside me her head on a level with mine (and I am by no means a short man), telling me what I ought to do and what I ought not to do in the matter of leading a horse; and when she had done that ad nauseam, ad libitum, and ad infinitum (I believe I have forgotten nothing at all of my classics) she turned to my peaceful wife sitting on the Elsa’s platform and announced that if she stayed up there she would probably soon be sorry.
In another moment Edelgard was sorry, for unfortunately my horse had had either too many oats or not enough exercise, and the instant the first van had lumbered through the gate and out of sight round the corner to the left he made a sudden and terrifying attempt to follow it at a gallop.
Those who know caravans know that they must never gallop: not, that is, if the contents are to remain unbroken and the occupants unbruised. They also know that no gate is more than exactly wide enough to admit of their passing through it, and that unless the passing through is calculated and carried out to a nicety the caravan that emerges will not be the caravan that went in. Providence that first evening was on my side, for I never got through any subsequent gate with an equal neatness. My heart had barely time to leap into my mouth before we were through and out in the road, and Mrs. Menzies-Legh, catching hold of the bridle, was able to prevent the beast’s doing what was clearly in his eye, turn round to the left after his mate with a sharpness that would have snapped the Elsa in two.
Edelgard, rather pale, scrambled down. The sight of our caravan heaving over inequalities or lurching as it was turned round was a sight I never learned to look at without a tightened feeling about the throat. Anxiously I asked Mrs. Menzies-Legh, when the horse, having reached the rear of the Ilsa, had settled down again, what would happen if I did not get through the next gate with an equal skill.
“Everything may happen,” said she, “from the scraping off of the varnish to the scraping off of a wheel.
“But this is terrible,” I cried. “What would we do with one wheel too few?”
“We couldn’t do anything till there was a new one.”
“And who would pay—”
I stopped. Aspects of the tour were revealed to me which had not till then been illuminated. “It depends,” said she, answering my unfinished question, “whose wheel it was.”
“And suppose my dear wife,” I inquired after a pause during which many thoughts surged within me, “should have the misfortune to break, say, a cup?”
“A new cup would have to be provided.”
“And would I — but suppose cups are broken by circumstances over which I have no control?”
She snatched quickly at the bridle. “Is that the horse?” she asked.
“Is what the horse?”
“The circumstances. If I hadn’t caught him then he’d have had your caravan in the ditch.”
“My dear lady,” I cried, nettled, “he would have done nothing of the sort. I was paying attention. As an officer you must admit that my ignorance of horses cannot be really as extensive as you are pleased to pretend you think.”
“Dear Baron, when does a woman ever admit?”
A shout from behind drowned the answer that would, I was sure, have silenced her, for I had not then discovered that no answer ever did. It was from one of the pale young men, who was making signs to us from the rear.
“Run back and see what he wants,” commanded Mrs. Menzies-Legh, marching on at my horse’s head with Edelgard, slightly out of breath, beside her.
I found that our larder had come undone and was shedding our ox-tongue, which we had hoped to keep private, on to the road in front of the eyes of Frau von Eckthum and the two young men. This was owing to Edelgard’s carelessness, and I was extremely displeased with her. At the back of each van were two lockers, one containing an oil stove and saucepans and the other, provided with air-holes, was the larder in which our provisions were to be kept. Both had doors consisting of flaps that opened outward and downward and were fastened by a padlock. With gross carelessness Edelgard, after putting in the tongue, had merely shut the larder door without padlocking it, and when a sufficient number of jolts had occurred the flap fell open and the tongue fell out. It was being followed by some private biscuits we had brought.
Naturally I was upset. Every time Edelgard is neglectful or forgetful she recedes about a year in my esteem. It takes her a year of attentiveness and diligence to regain that point in my affection on which she previously stood. She knew this, and used to be careful to try to keep proper pace, if I may so express it, with my love, and at the date
at which I have arrived in the narrative had not yet given up trying, so that when by shouting I had made Mrs. Menzies-Legh understand that the Elsa was to be stopped Edelgard hurried back to inquire what was wrong, and was properly distressed when she saw the result of her negligence. Well, repentance may be a good thing, but our ox-tongue was gone forever; before he could be stopped the Ailsa’s horse, following close behind, had placed his huge hoof on it and it became pulp.
“How sad,” said Frau von Eckthum gazing upon this ruin. “ But so nice of you, dear Baroness, to think of it. It might just have saved us all from starvation.”
“Well, it can’t now,” said one of the young men; and he took it on the point of his stick and cast it into the ditch.
Edelgard began silently to pick up the scattered biscuits. Immediately both the young men darted forward to do it for her with a sudden awakening to energy that seemed very odd in persons who slouched along with their hands in their pockets. It made me wonder whether perhaps they thought her younger than she was. As we resumed our march, I came to the conclusion that this must be so, for such activity of assistance would otherwise be unnatural, and I resolved to take the earliest opportunity of bringing the conversation round to birthdays and then carelessly mentioning that my wife’s next one would be her thirtieth. In this department of all others I am not the man to allow buds to go unnipped.
We had not been travelling ten minutes before we came to a stony turning up to the right which old James, who was a native of those parts, said was the entrance to the common. It seemed strange to camp almost within a stone’s throw of our starting-place, but the rain was at that moment pelting down on our defenceless heads, and people hurrying to their snug homes stopped in spite of it to look at us with a wondering pity, so that we all wished to get off the road as soon as possible and into the privacy of furze bushes. The lane was in no sense a hill: it was a gentle incline, almost immediately reaching flat ground; but it was soft and stony, and the Ilsa’s horse, after dragging his caravan for a few yards up it, could get no farther, and when Menzies-Legh put the roller behind the back wheel to prevent the Ilsa’s returning thither from whence it had just come the chain of the roller snapped, the roller, released, rolled away, and the Ilsa began to move backward on top of the Elsa, which in its turn began to move backward on top of the Ailsa, which in its turn began to move backward across the road in the direction of the ditch.
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 114
