With a flatness of which I would not have thought her capable Frau von Eckthum refused to spend a night in the donkey field; and Mrs. Menzies-Legh, who was absorbed in snap-shotting the ever-swelling crowd of children and loafers who were surrounding us, suddenly stamped her foot and said she would not either.
“The horses can’t go another yard,” remonstrated Menzies-Legh.
“I won’t sleep with the donkeys,” said his wife, taking another snap.
Her sister said nothing, but held her handkerchief as before.
Then Jellaby, descrying a hedge with willows beyond it at the far-away end of the field, and no doubt conscious of a parliamentary practice in persuasion, said he would get permission to go in there for the night, and disappeared. Lord Sigismund expressed doubts as to his success, for the man, he said, was apparently own brother to the female at the farm, or at any rate of the closest spiritual affinity; but Jellaby did come back after a while, during which the piano-organ’s waltzes had gone on accentuating the blank dreariness of the spot, and said it was all right.
Later on I discovered that what he called all right was paying exactly twice as much per caravan for the superior exclusiveness of the willow field as what was demanded for the donkey field. Well, he did not have to pay, being Menzies-Legh’s guest, so no doubt he did think it all right; but I call it monstrous that I should be asked to pay that which would have secured me a perfectly dry bedroom with no grass in it in a first-rate Berlin hotel for the use for a few hours of a gnat-haunted, nettle-infested, low-lying, swampy meadow.
The monstrosity struck me more afterward when I looked back. That evening I was too tired to be struck, and would, I truly believe, have paid five shillings just for being allowed to sink down into a sitting position, it mattered not where, and remain in it; but there was still much, I feared to do and to suffer before I could so sink down — for instance, there was the gate leading into the donkey field to be got through, the whole population watching, and the pleasant prospect before me of having to reimburse any damage done to a caravan that could only, under the luckiest circumstances, just fit in. Then there was Edelgard to be brought to reason, and suppose she refused to be brought? That is, quickly; for I had no fears as to her ultimate bringing.
Well, the gate came first, and as it would require my concentrated attention I put the other away from me till I should be more at leisure. Old James, assisted by Menzies-Legh, got the Ailsa safely through, and away she heaved, while the onlookers cheered, over the mole heaps toward the willows on the horizon. Then Menzies-Legh, calling Jellaby, came to help me pull the Elsa through, Lord Sigismund waiting with the third horse, who had been his special charge throughout the day. It seemed all very well to help me, but any scratches to the varnish caused by the two gentlemen in their zeal would be put in my bill, not in theirs, and under my breath I called down a well-known Pomeranian curse of immense body and scope on all those fools who had helped in the making of the narrow British gates.
As I feared, there was too much of that zele that somebody (I think he was French) advised somebody else (I expect he must have been English) not to have, and amid a hubbub of whoas — which is the island equivalent for our so much more lucid brrr — shouts from the onlookers, and a scream or two from Edelgard who could not listen unmoved to the crashings of our crockery, Menzies-Legh and Jellaby between them drew the brute so much to one side that it was only owing to my violent efforts that a terrible accident was averted. If they had had their way the whole thing would have charged into the right-hand gate post — with what a crashing and a parting from its wheels may be imagined — but thanks to me it was saved, although the left-hand gate post did scrape a considerable portion of varnish off the Elsa’s left (so to speak) flank.
“I say,’’ said the Socialist when it was all over. brushing his bit of hair aside, “you shouldn’t have pulled that rein like that,”
The barefaced audacity of putting the blame on to me left me speechless.
“No,” said Menzies-Legh, “you shouldn’t have pulled anything.”
He too! Again I was left speechless — left, indeed, altogether, for they immediately dropped behind to help (save the mark) Lord Sigismund bring the Ilsa through.
So the Elsa in her turn heaved away, guided anxiously by me over the mole heaps, every mole heap being greeted by our pantry as we passed over it with a thunderous clapping together of its contents, as though the very cups, being English, were clapping their hands, or rather handles, in an ecstasy of spiteful pleasure at getting broken and on to my bill.
Little do you who only know cups in their public capacity, filled with liquids and standing quietly in rows, realize what they can do once they are let loose in a caravan. Sometimes I have thought — but no doubt fancifully — that so-called inanimate objects are not as inanimate as one might think, but are possessed of a character like other people, only one of an unadulterated pettiness and perversity rarely found in the human. I believe most people who had been in my place that evening last August guiding the Elsa across all the irregularities that lay between us and the willow-field in the distance, and had listened to what the cups were doing, would have been sure of it. As for me, I can only say that every time I touch a cup or other piece of crockery it seems to upset it, and frequently has such an effect on it that it breaks; and it is useless for Edelgard to tell me to be careful, and to hint (as she does when she is out of spirits) that I am clumsy, because I am careful; and as for being clumsy, everybody knows that I have the straightest eye and am the best shot in our regiment. But it is not only cups. If, while I am dressing (or undressing) I throw any portion of my clothes or other article I may be using on to a table or a chair, however carefully I aim it invariably either falls at once, or after a brief hesitation slips off on to the floor from which place, in its very helplessness, it seems to jeer at me. And the more important it is I should not be delayed the more certainly is this conduct indulged in. Fanciful? Perhaps. But let me remind you of what the English poet Shakespeare says through the mouth of Hamlet into the ears of Horatio, and express the wish that you too could have listened to the really exultant clapping of the cups in our pantry as I crossed the mole heaps.
Edelgard, feeling guilty, remained behind, so was not there as she otherwise certainly would have been making anxious sums, according to her custom, in what these noises were going to cost us, A man who has been persuaded to take a holiday because it is cheap may be pardoned for being preoccupied when he finds it is likely to be dear. Among other things I thought some very sharp ones about the owner of the field, who permitted his ground, in defiance I am sure (though not being an agriculturist I cannot give chapter and verse for my belief) of all laws of health and wholesomeness, to be so much ravaged by moles. If he had done his duty my cups would not have been smashed. The heaps of soil thrown up by these animals were so frequent that during the entire crossing at least one of the Elsa’s wheels was constantly on the top of a heap, and sometimes two of her wheels simultaneously on the top of two.
It is a pity people do not know what other people think of them. Unfortunately it is rude to tell them, but if only means could be devised — perhaps by some Marconi of the mind — for letting them know without telling them, how nice and modest they would all become. That farmer was probably eating his supper in his snug parlour in bestial complacency and ignorance at the very moment that I was labouring across his field pouring on him, if he had only known it, a series of as scalding criticisms as ever made a man, if he were aware of them, shrivel and turn over a new leaf.
I found Mrs. Menzies-Legh at the farther gate, holding it open. Old James had already got his horse out, and when he saw me approaching came and laid hold of the bridle of mine and led him through. He then drew him up parallel with the Ailsa, the doors of both caravans being toward the river, and proceeded with the skill and expedition natural in an old person who had done nothing else all his life to unharness my horse and turn him loose.
Mrs.
Menzies-Legh lit a cigarette and handed me her case. She then dropped down on to the long and very damp-looking grass and motioned to me to sit beside her; so we sat together, I much too weary either to refuse or to converse, while the muddy river slid sullenly along within a yard of us between fringes of willows, and myriads of gnats gyrated in the slanting sunbeams.
“Tired?” said she, after a silence that no doubt surprised her by its length.
“Too tired,” said I, very shortly.
“Not really?” said she, turning her head to look at me, and affecting much surprise about the eyebrows.
This goaded me. The woman was inhuman. For beneath the affected surprise of the eyebrows I saw well enough the laughter in the eyes, and it has always been held since the introduction of Christianity that to laugh at physical incapacitation is a thing beyond all others barbarous.
I told her so. I tossed away the barely begun cigarette she had given me, not choosing to go on smoking a cigarette of hers, and told her so with as much Prussian thoroughness as is consistent with being at the same time a perfect gentleman. No woman (except of course my wife) shall ever be able to say I have not behaved to her as a gentleman should; and my hearers will be more than ever convinced of the inexplicable toughness of Mrs. Menzies-Legh’s nature, of the surprising impossibility of producing the least effect upon her, when I tell them that at the end of quite a long speech on my part, not, I believe ineloquent, and yet as plainspoken as the speech of a man can be within the framework which should always surround him, the carved and gilt and — it must be added — expensive framework of gentlemanliness, she merely looked at me again and said:
“Dear Baron, why is it that men, when they have walked a little farther than they want to, or have gone hungry a little longer than they like to, are always so dreadfully cross?”
The lumbering into the field of the Ilsa with the rest of the party made an immediate reply impossible.
“Hullo,” said Jellaby, on seeing us apparently at rest in the grass. “Enjoying yourselves?”
I fancy this must be a socialistic formula, for short as the period of my acquaintance with him had been he had already used it to me three times. Perhaps it is the way in which his sect reminds those outside it of the existence of its barren and joyless notions of other people’s obligations. A Socialist, as far as I can make out, is a person who may never sit down. If he does, the bleak object he calls the Community immediately becomes vocal, because it considers that by sitting down he is cheating it of what he would be producing by his labour if he did not. Once I (quite good naturedly) observed to Jellaby that in a socialistic world the chair-making industry would be the first to go to the wall (or the dogs — I cannot quite recollect which I said it would go to) for want of suitable sitters, and he angrily retorted — but this occurred later in the tour, and no doubt I shall refer to it in its proper place.
Mrs. Menzies-Legh got up at once on his asking if we were enjoying ourselves, as though her conscience reproached her, and went over to the larder of her caravan and busily began pulling out pots; and I too seeing that it was expected of me prepared to rise (for English society is conducted on such artificial lines that immediately a woman begins to do anything a man must at least pretend to do something too) but found that my short stay on the grass had stiffened my over-tired limbs to such an extent that I could not.
The two nondescripts, who were passing, lingered to look.
“Can I help you?” said the one they called Jumps, as I made a second ineffectual effort, advancing and holding out a knuckly hand.
“Will you take my arm?” said the other one, Jane, crooking a bony elbow.
“Thank you, thank you, dear children,” I said, with bland heartiness one assumes — for no known reason — toward the offspring of strangers; and obliged to avail myself of their assistance (for want of practice makes it at all times difficult for me to get up from a flat surface, and my stiffness on this occasion turned the difficult into the impossible), I somehow was pulled on to my feet.
“Thank you, thank you,” I said again, adding jestingly, “I expect I am too old to sit on the ground.”
“Yes,” said Jane.
This was so unexpected that I could not repress a slight sensation of annoyance, which found its expression in sarcasm.
“I am extremely obliged to you young ladies,” I said, sweeping off my Panama, “for extending your charitable support and assistance to such a poor old gentleman.”
“Oh,” said Jumps earnestly, too thick-skinned to feel sarcasm, “Fm used to it. I have to help Papa about. He’s very old too.”
“Yet surely,” said I, tingeing my sarcasm with playfulness (but they were too thick-skinned even for playfulness), “surely not so old as I?”
“About the same,” said Jumps, considering me gravely.
“And how old,” said I, inquiring of Jane, for Jumps annoyed me too much, “may your friend’s excellent parent be?”
“Oh, about sixty, or seventy, or eighty,” said she, indifferently.
CHAPTER VIII
THE children of England ‘‘ I remarked, when they had gone their way, their arms linked together, to Lord Sigismund who was hurrying past to the river with a bucket — but he interrupted me by shouting over his shoulder:
“Will you stay and light the fire, or come with us and forage for food? ‘‘
Light the fire? Why, what are women for? Even Hermann, my servant, would rebel if he instead of Clothilde had to light fires. But, on the other hand, forage? Go back across that immense field and walk from shop to shop on feet that had for some time past been unable to walk at all? And then return weighed down with the results?
“Do you understand fires. Baron?” said Mrs. Menzies-Legh, appearing suddenly behind me.
“As much, I suppose, as intelligence unaided by experience does,” said I unwillingly.
“Oh, but of course you do,” said she, putting a box of matches — one of those enormous English boxes that never failed to arouse my amused contempt, for they did not light a single fire or candle more than their handy little continental brethren — into my right hand, and the red handkerchiefful of sticks bought that morning into my left, “of course you do. You must have got quite used to them in the wars.”
“What wars?” I asked sharply. “You surely do not imagine that I ‘‘
“Oh, were you too young for Sedan and all that?” she asked, as she crossed over the very long and very green grass toward a distant ditch and I found that I was expected to cross with her.
“I was so young,” I said, more nettled than my hearers will perhaps understand, but then I was tired out and no longer able to bear much, “so young that I had not even reached the stage of being born.”
“Not really?” said she.
“Yes,” said I. “I was still spending my birthdays among the angels.”
This, of course, was not strictly true, but one likes to take off a few years in the presence of a woman who has left her Gotha Almanach at home, and it was, I felt, a picturesque notion — I mean about the birthdays and the angels.
“Not really?” said she again.
And what, I thought, as we walked on together, is all this talk about young and not young? If a man is not young in the forties when will he be? I have never concealed my age, which is about five or six and forty, with perhaps a year or two added on, but as I take little notice of birthdays it is just as likely the year or two ought to be added off, and the forties are universally acknowledged by all persons who are in them to be the very flower and prime of life, or rather the beginning of the very flower and prime, the beginning of the final unfolding of the last crumple in the last petal.
I should have thought this state of things was visible enough in me, plain enough to any ordinary onlooker. I have neither a gray hair nor a wrinkle. My moustache is as uninterruptedly blond as ever. My face is perfectly smooth. And when my hat is on there is no difference whatever between me and a person of thirty. Of course I a
m not a narrow man, weedy in the way in which Jellaby is weedy, and unable as he is unable to fill out my clothes; but it is laughable that just breadth should have made those two fledglings place me in the same category as an exceedingly venerable and obviously crippled old gentleman.
I expect the truth is that in England children are ill-trained and educated, and their perceptions are allowed to remain rudimentary. It must be so, for so few of them wear spectacles. Clearly education is not carried on with anything like our systematic rigor, for except on Lord Sigismund I had up to then nowhere seen these artificial aids to eyesight, and in Germany at least two-thirds of our young people, as a result of their application, wear either spectacles or pince-nez. They may well be proud of them. They are the visible proof of a youth spent entirely at its books, the hoisted standard of an ordered and studious life.
“The children of England ‘‘ I began
vigorously to Mrs. Menzies-Legh, desirous of expressing a few of my objections to them to a lady who could not be supposed to mind, she being one of my own countrywomen — but she too interrupted me.
“This is the most sheltered place,” she said, pointing to the dry ditch. “You’ll find more sticks in that little wood. You will want heaps more.”
And she left me.
Well, I had never made a fire in my life. I stood there for a moment in great hesitation as to how to begin. They should not say I was unwilling, those ant-like groups over by the caravans so feverishly hurrying hither and thither, but to do a thing one must begin it, and as there are no doubt several ways of lighting a fire, even as there are several ways of doing anything else in life, I stood uncertain while I asked myself which of these several ways (all of them, I must concede, unknown to me) I ought to choose.
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 118
