“It is late,” said I with tender courtliness, “and I observe an official approaching us with keys. If we do not return to the camp we shall have your sister setting out, probably on angelic wings” — she started— “in search of you. Let me, dear lady, conduct you back to her. Nay, nay, you need have no fears — I really can keep a secret.”
With her eyes fixed on mine, and that strange look of perfect fright in them, she got up slowly and put her hand on my proffered arm.
I led her away with careful tenderness.
Jellaby, I believe, followed in the distance.
CHAPTER XX
LIFE is a strange thing, and full of surprises. The day before, you think you know what will happen on the morrow, and on the morrow you find you did not. Light as you may the candle of your common sense, and peer as you may by its shining into the future, if you see anything at all it turns out to have been, after all, something else. We are surrounded by tricks, by illusions, by fluidities. Even when the natural world behaves pretty much as experience has led us to expect, the unnatural world, by which I mean (and I say it is a fair description) human beings, does nothing of the sort. My ripe conclusion, carefully weighed and unattackably mellow, is that all one’s study, all one’s thought, all one’s experience, all one’s philosophy, lead to this: that you cannot account for anything. Do you, my friends, interrupt me here with a query? My answer to it is: Wait.
The morning after the occurrences just described I overslept myself, and on emerging about ten o’clock in search of what I hoped would still be breakfast I found the table tidily set out, the stove alight, and keeping coffee warm, ham in slices on a dish, three eggs waiting to be transferred to an expectant saucepan, and not a single caravaner in sight except Menzies-Legh.
Him, of course, I now pitied. For to have a treacherous friend, and a sister-in law of whom you are fond but who in her heart cannot endure you, to be under the delusion that the one is sincere and the other loving, is to become a fit object for pity; and since no one can at the same time both pity and hate, I was not nearly so much annoyed as I otherwise would have been at finding my glum-faced friend was to keep me company. Annoyed, did I say? Why, I was not annoyed at all. For though I might pity I was also secretly amused, and further, the feeling that I now had a little private understanding with Frau von Eckthum exhilarated me into more than my usual share of good humour.
He was sitting smoking; and when I appeared, fresh, and rested, and cheery, round the corner of the Elsa, he not only immediately said good morning, but added an inquiry as to whether I did not think it a beautiful day; then he got up, went across to the stove, put the eggs in the saucepan, and fetched the coffee-pot.
This was very surprising. I tell you, my friends, the moods of persons who caravan are as many and as incalculable as the grains of sand on the seashore. If you doubt it, go and do it. But you cannot reasonably doubt it after listening to the narrative. Have I not told you in the course of it how the party’s spirits were up in the skies one hour, and down on the ground the next; how their gaiety some days at breakfast was childish in its folly, and their silence on others depressing; how they quoted poetry and played at Blind Man’s Buff in the morning, and in the afternoon dragged their feet without speaking through the mud; how they talked far too much sometimes, and then, when I wished to, would not talk at all; how they were suddenly polite and attentive, and then as suddenly forgot I could possibly want anything; how the wet did not damp their hilarity one day, and no amount of sunshine coax it forth the next. But of all their moods this of Mcnzies-Legh’s in the field above Canterbury was the one that surprised me most.
You see, he was naturally so very glum. True at the beginning there had been gleams of light but they soon became extinguished. True, also, at Frogs’ Hole Farm, when demonstrating truths by means of tea in glasses, he had been for a short while pleasant — only, however, to plunge immediately and all the deeper into gloom and ill temper. Gloom and ill-temper was his normal state; and to see him attending to my wants, doing it with unmistakable assiduity, actively courteous was astonishing. I was astonished. But my breeding enabled me to behave as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world, and I accepted sugar from him and allowed him to cut my bread with the blank expression on my face of him who sees nothing unusual or interesting anywhere, which is, I take it, the expression of the perfect gentleman. When at length my plate was surrounded by specimens of all the comforts available, and I had begun to eat, he sat down again, and leaning his elbow on the table and fixing his eyes on the city already sweltering in heat and vapour below, resumed his pipe.
A train puffed out of the station along the line at the bottom of our field, jerking up slow masses of white steam into the hot, motionless air.
“There goes Jellaby’s train,”“ said Menzies-Legh.
“Jellaby’s what?” said I, cracking an egg.
“Train,”“ said he.
“Why, what has he got to do with trains?”“ I asked, supposing with the vagueness of want of interest, that Jellaby, as well as being a Socialist, was a railway director and kept a particular train as another person would keep a pet.
“He’s in it,”“ said Menzies-Legh.
I looked up from my egg at Menzies-Legh’s profile.
“What?”“ said I.
“In it,”“ said he. “Obliged to go.”
“What — Jellaby gone? First Lord Sidge, and now Jellaby?”
Naturally I was surprised, for I had heard and noticed nothing of this. Also the way one after the other left without saying good-bye seemed to me inconsiderate — at least that: probably more.
“Yes,” said Menzies-Legh. “We are — we are very sorry. ““
I could not, however, honestly join in any sorrow over Jellaby, so merely remarked that the party was shrinking.
“Yes,’’ said Menzies-Legh, “that’s rather our feeling too.”’
“But why has Jellaby?”
“Oh, well, you know, public man. Parliament. And all that.”
“Does your Parliament reassemble so shortly?”
“Oh, well, soon enough. You have to prepare, you know. Collect your wits, and that sort of thing.”
“Ah, yes. Jellaby should not leave that to the last minute. But he might,” I added with a slight frown, “have taken leave of me according to the customs of good society. Manners are manners, after all is said and done.”
“He was in a great hurry,” said Menzies-Legh.
There was a silence, during which Menzies-Legh smoked and I breakfasted. Once or twice he cleared his throat as though about to say something, but when I looked up prepared to listen he continued his pipe and his staring at the city in the sun below.
“Where are the ladies?” I inquired, when the first edge of my appetite had been blunted and I had leisure to look about me.
Menzies-Legh shifted his legs, which had been crossed.
“They went to the station with Jellaby to see the last of him,” said he.
“Indeed. All of them?”
“I believe so.”
Jellaby then, though he could not have the courtesy to say good-bye to me, could take a prolonged farewell of my wife and of the other members of our party.
“He is not what we in our country would call a gentleman,” I said, after a silence during which I finished the third egg and regretted there were no more.
“Who is not?” asked Menzies-Legh.
“Jellaby. No doubt the term bounder would apply to him quite as well as to other people.”
Menzies-Legh turned his sallow visage to me. “He’s a great friend of mine,” he said, the familiar scowl weighing down his eyebrows.
I could not help smiling and shaking my head at that, all I had heard the night before so very fresh in my memory.
“Ah, my dear sir,” I said, “be careful how you trust your great friends. Do not give way too lavishly to confidence. Belief in them is all very well, but it should not go beyond the limits of re
ason.”
“He’s a great friend of mine,” repeated Menzies-Legh, raising his voice.
“I wish then,” said I, “you would tell me what a bounder is.”
He glowered at me a moment from beneath black brows. Then he said more quietly:
“Tm not a slang dictionary. Suppose we talk seriously.”
“Certainly,” said I, reaching out for the jam.
He cleared his throat. “I got a lot of letters and telegrams last night,” he said.
“How did you manage that?” I asked.
“They were waiting for me at the post-office here. I had telegraphed for them to be forwarded. And Fm afraid — Tm sorry, but it’s inevitable — we shall have to be off.”
“Off what?” said I, for a few of the more intimate English idioms still remained for me to master.
“Off,” said he. “Go. Leave this.”
“Oh,” said I. “Well, we are used to that. This tour, my dear sir, is surely the very essence of what you call being off. Where do we go next? I trust to a place with trees in it.”
“You don’t understand, Baron. We don’t go anywhere next as far as the caravans are concerned. My wife and I are obliged to go home.”
I was, of course, surprised. “We are, indeed,” said I, after a moment, “shrinking rapidly.”
Then the thought of being rid of Mrs. Menzies-Legh and her John and Jellaby at, so to speak, one swoop, and continuing the tour purged of these baser elements with the tender lady entirely in our charge, made me unable to repress a smile of satisfaction.
Menzies-Legh looked in his turn surprised. ‘‘I am glad,” he said, “that you don’t mind.”
“My dear sir,” I said courteously, “of course I mind, and we shall miss you and your — er — er—” it was difficult on the spur of the moment to find an adjective, but Frau von Eckthum’s praises of her sister the night before coming into my mind I popped in the word suggested— “angelic wife”
He stared — ungratefully I thought, considering the effort it had been.
“But,” I continued, “you may be very sure we shall take every care of your sister-in-law, and return her safe and well into your hands on September the first, which is the date my contract with the owner of the Elsa expires.”
“I’m afraid,” said he, “I wasn’t clear. We all go. Betti included, and Jumps and Jane too. Tm very sorry,” he interrupted, as I opened my mouth, “very sorry indeed that things should have turned out so unexpectedly, but it is absolutely impossible for us to go on. Out of the question.”
And he set his jaws, and shut his mouth into a mere line of opposition and finality.
Well, my friends, what do you say to that? What do you think of this example of the surprises life has in store for one? And, incidentally, what do you think of human nature? Especially of human nature when it caravans? And still more especially of human nature that is also English? Not without reason do our neighbours label the accursed island perfide Albion. It is true I am not clear about the Alhioriy but I am very clear about the perfide.
“Do you mean to tell me,” I said, leaning toward him across the table and forcing him to meet my gaze, “that your sister-in-law wishes to go with you? ‘‘
“She does,” said he.
“Then, sir “ I began, amazement and indignation struggling together within me.
“I tell you. Baron,” he interrupted, “we are very sorry things have turned out like this. My wife is most genuinely distressed. But she too sees the impossibility — unforeseen complications demand we should go home.”
“Sir—” I again began.
“My dear Baron,” he again interrupted, “it needn’t in the least interfere with you. Old James will stay with you if you and the Baroness would like to go on.”
“Sir, I have paid for a month, and have only had a week.”
“Well, go on and finish your month. Nobody is preventing you.”
“But I was persuaded to join the tour on the understanding that it was a party — that we were all to be together — four weeks together”
“My dear fellow,” said he (never had I been addressed as that before), “you talk as if it were a business arrangement, a buying and selling, as if we were bound by a contract, under agreement”
“Your sister-in-law inveigled me into it,” I exclaimed, emphasizing what I said by regular beats on the table with my forefinger, “on the definite understanding that it was to be a party and she — was — to be — a — member of it.”
“Pooh, my dear Baron — Betti’s definite understandings. She’s in love, and when a woman’s that it’s no earthly use”
“What?” said I, startled for a moment out of all self-possession.
“Well?” he said, looking at me in surprise. “Why not? She’s young. Or do you consider it improper for widows”
“Improper? Natural, sir — natural. How long?”
“Oh, before the tour even started. And propinquity, seeing each other every day — well,” he finished suddenly, “one mustn’t talk about it, you know.”“
But you, my friends, what do you say to that? What do you think of this second example of the surprises life has in store for us? I have been in two minds as to whether I would tell you this one at all, but to a law-abiding man, calm and objective as I know myself to be and as you by now must know me too, such an incident though pleasurable could not in any way affect or alter my conduct. Strictly Menzies-Legh was to be censured for mentioning it; however that, I suppose, was what Jellaby called the bounder coming out in him, and I perceived that whatever they exactly may be bounders have their uses. I repeat, I make no attempt to deny that it was a pleasurable incident, and although I am aware Storchwerder never liked her (chiefly, I firmly believe, because she would not ask it to her dinners) I am convinced that not one of you, my friends, and I say it straight in your faces, but would have been glad to stand at that moment in my shoes. I did not forget I was a husband, but you can be a husband and yet remain a man. I think I behaved very creditably. Only for an instant was there the least little lapse from complete self-possession. Immediately I became and remained perfectly calm. Edelgard; duty; my position in life; my beliefs; I remembered them all. It also occurred to me (but I could not well tell Menzies-Legh) that having regard to the behaviour throughout the tour of his wife it was evident these things ran in families. I could not tell him, but I felt myself inwardly in every way tickled. All I could do, indeed all I did do, was to say “Strange, strange world,” and get up from my chair because I found myself unable to continue sitting in it.
“But what do you propose to do?” Menzies-Legh asked, after he had watched me taking a hasty turn or two up and down in the sun.
“Behave,” said I, stopping in front of him, “as an officer and a gentleman.”
He stared. Then he got up and said with a touch of impatience — a most unreliable person as regards temper: “Yes, yes — no doubt. But what shall I tell old James about your caravan? Are you going on or not? If not, he’ll pilot it home for you. I’m afraid I must know soon. I haven’t much time. I must get away to-day.”
“What? To-day?”
“I must. I’m very sorry. Obliged to, you know”
“And the Ailsa?”
“Oh, that’s all arranged. I telegraphed last night for one of the grooms. He’ll be down in an hour or two and take charge of it back to Panthers.”
“And the Ilsa?’’
“He’ll take that too.”
“No, my dear sir,” said I firmly. “You leave the Ilsa in our charge — it and its contents.”
“Eh?” said he.
“It and its contents — human and otherwise.”
“Nonsense, Baron. What on earth would you do with Jane and Jumps? They’re going up to town with me by train. And my wife and Betti — oh, yes, by the way, my wife gave me instructions to tell you how very sorry she was not to be able to say good-bye to you. I assure you she was really greatly distressed, but she and Betti ar
e motoring up to London and felt they ought to start as early as possible”
“But — motoring? You said they had gone to the sta—”
“So they did. They saw Jellaby off, and then were picked up by a motor I ordered for them last night in the town, and went straight from there—”
I heard no more. He went on speaking, but I heard no more. The series of surprises had done their work, and I could attend to nothing further. I believe he continued to express regret and offer advice, but what he said fell on my ear with the indifferent trickling of water when one is not thirsty. At first anger, keen resentment, and disappointment surged within me, for why, I asked myself, did she not say good-bye? I walked up and down on the hot stubble, my hands deep in my pockets and myself deep in conflicting emotions, while Menzies-Legh supposing I was listening regretted and advised, asking myself why she did not say good-bye. Then, gradually, I could not but see that here was tact, here was delicacy, the right feeling of the truly feminine woman, and began to admire her all the more because she had not said it. By degrees composure stole upon me. Reason returned to my assistance. I could think, arrange, decide. And before Edelgard came back with the two children, mere heated debris of that which had lately been so complete, what I had decided with the clear-headed rapidity of the practical and sensible man was to give up the Elsa, lose my money, and go home. Home after all is the best place when life begins to wobble; and home in this case was very near the Eckthum property — I only had to borrow a vehicle, or even in extremity take a droschkey and there I was. There too the delightful lady must sooner or later be, and I would at least see her from time to time, whereas in England among her English relations she was entirely and hopelessly cut off.
Thus it was, my friends, that I did not see Frau von Eckthum again. Thus it was our caravaning came to an untimely end.
You can figure to yourselves what kind of reflections a man inclined to philosophize would reflect as the reduced party hastily packed, in the heat and glare of the summer morning, that which they had unpacked a week previously amid howling winds and hail showers in the yard at Panthers. Nature then had frowned, but vainly, on our merriment. Nature now was smiling, equally vainly on our fragments. One brief week; and what had happened? Rather, I should say, what had not happened?
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 134
