Curiosity was roused at last. People meeting each other in Main Street stopped to talk about these Arms wondered where and what they were, and decided to follow the signposts that afternoon in their cars and track them down. They made up parties to go and track together. It would be a relief to have something a little different to do. What on earth could The Open Arms be? Hopes were expressed that they weren’t something religious. Awful to follow signposts out into the country only to find they landed you in a meeting-house.
At lunch in the hotels, and everywhere where people were together, the signposts were discussed. Miss Heap heard them being discussed from her solitary table, but was so much taken up with her own exciting thoughts that she hardly noticed. After lunch, however, as she was passing out of the restaurant, still full of her unshared news and still uncertain as to whom she should tell it first, Mr. Ridding called out from his table and said he supposed she was going too.
They had been a little chilly to each other since the afternoon of the conversation with the Twinklers, but he would have called out to any one at that moment He was sitting waiting while Mrs. Ridding finished her lunch, his own lunch finished long ago, and was in the condition of muffled but extreme exasperation which the unoccupied watching of Mrs. Ridding at meals produced. Every day three times this happened, that Mr. Ridding got through his meal first by at least twenty minutes and then sat trying not to mind Mrs. Ridding. She wasn’t aware of these efforts. They would greatly have shocked her; for to try not to mind one’s wife surely isn’t what decent, loving husbands ever have to do.
“Going where?” asked Miss Heap, stopping by the table; whereupon Mr. Ridding had the slight relief of getting up.
Mrs. Ridding continued to eat impassively.
“Following these new signposts that are all over the place,” said Mr. Ridding. “Sort of paper-chase business.”
“Yes. I’d like to. Were you thinking of going, Mrs. Ridding?”
“After our nap,” said Mrs. Ridding, steadily eating. “I’ll take you. Car at four o’clock, Albert.”
She didn’t raise her eyes from her plate, and as Miss Heap well knew that Mrs. Ridding was not open to conversation during meals and as she had nothing to say to Mr. Ridding, she expressed her thanks and pleasure, and temporarily left them.
This was a day of shocks and thrills. When the big limousine — symbol of Mrs. Ridding’s power, for Mr. Ridding couldn’t for the life of him see why he should have to provide a strange old lady with cars, and yet did so on an increasing scale of splendour — arrived at the turn on the main road to San Blas which leads into Pepper Lane and was confronted by the final signpost pointing up it, for the first time The Open Arms and the Twist and Twinkler party entered Miss Heap’s mind in company. So too did they enter Mr. Ridding’s mind; and they only remained outside Mrs. Ridding’s because of her profound uninterest. Her thoughts were merged in aspic. That was the worst of aspic when it was as good as it was at the Cosmopolitan; one wasn’t able to leave off eating it quite in time, and then, unfortunately, had to go on thinking of it afterwards.
The Twist house, remembered her companions simultaneously, was in Pepper Lane. Odd that this other thing, whatever it was, should happen to be there too. Miss Heap said nothing, but sat very straight and alert, her eyes everywhere. Mr. Ridding of course said nothing either. Not for worlds would he have mentioned the word Twist, which so instantly and inevitably suggested that other and highly controversial word Twinkler. But he too sat all eyes; for anyhow he might in passing get a glimpse of the place containing those cunning little bits of youngness, the Twinkler sisters, and even with any luck a glimpse of their very selves.
Up the lane went the limousine, slowly because of the cars in front of it. It was one of a string of cars, for the day was lovely, there was no polo, and nobody happened to be giving a party. All the way out from Acapulco they had only had to follow other cars. Cars were going, and cars were coming back. The cars going were full of solemn people, pathetically anxious to be interested. The cars coming back were full of animated people who evidently had achieved interest.
Miss Heap became more and more alert as they approached the bend in the lane round which the Twist house was situated. She had been there before, making a point of getting a friend to motor her past it in order to see what she could for herself, but Mr. Ridding, in spite of his desire to go and have a look too, had always, each time he tried to, found Mrs. Ridding barring the way. So that he didn’t exactly know where it was; and when on turning the corner the car suddenly stopped, and putting his head out — he was sitting backwards — he saw a great, old-fashioned signboard, such as he was accustomed to in pictures of ancient English village greens, with
The Open Arms
in medieval letters painted on it, all he said was, “Guess we’ve run it to earth.”
Miss Heap sat with her hands in her lap, staring. Mrs. Ridding, her mind blocked by aspic, wasn’t receiving impressions. She gazed with heavy eyes straight in front of her. There she saw cars. Many cars. All stopped at this particular spot. With a dull sensation of fathomless fatigue she dimly wondered at them.
“Looks as though it’s a hostelry,” said Mr. Ridding, who remembered his Dickens; and he blinked up, craning his head out, at the signboard, on which through a gap in the branches of the pepper trees a shaft of brilliant late afternoon sun was striking. “Don’t see one, though.”
He jerked his thumb. “Up back of the trees there, I reckon,” he said.
Then he prepared to open the door and go and have a look.
A hand shot out of Miss Heap’s lap at him. “Don’t,” she said quickly. “Don’t, Mr. Ridding.”
There was a little green gate in the thick hedge that grew behind the pepper trees, and some people he knew, who had been in the car in front, were walking up to it. Some other people he knew had already got to it, and were standing talking together with what looked like leaflets in their hands. These leaflets came out of a green wooden box fastened on to one of the gate-posts, with the words Won’t you take one? painted on it.
Mr. Ridding naturally wanted to go and take one, and here was Miss Heap laying hold of him and saying “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he asked looking down at her, his hand on the door.
“Hello Ridding,” called out one of the people he knew. “No good getting out. Show doesn’t open till to-morrow at four. Can’t get in to-day. Gate’s bolted. Nothing doing.”
And then the man detached himself from the group at the gate and came over to the car with a leaflet in his hand.
“Say—” he said,— “how are you to-day, Miss Heap? Mrs. Ridding, your humble servant — say, look at this. Teapot Twist wasn’t born yesterday when it comes to keeping things dark. No mention of his name on this book of words, but it’s the house he was doing up all right, and it is to be used as an inn. Afternoon-tea inn. Profits to go to the American Red Cross. Price per head five dollars. Bit stiff, five dollars for tea. Wonder where those Twinkler girls come in. Here — you have this, Ridding, and study it. I’ll get another.” And taking off his hat a second time to the ladies he went back to his friends.
In great agitation Miss Heap turned to Mrs. Ridding, whose mind, galvanized by the magic words Twist and Twinkler, was slowly heaving itself free of aspic. “Perhaps we had best go back to the hotel, Mrs Ridding,” said Miss Heap, her voice shaking. “There’s something I wish particularly to tell you. I ought to have done so this morning, directly I knew, but I had no idea of course that this....” She waved a hand at the signboard, and collapsed into speechlessness.
“Albert — hotel,” directed Mrs. Ridding.
And Mr. Ridding, clutching the leaflet, his face congested with suppressed emotions, obediently handed on the order through the speaking-tube to the chauffeur.
CHAPTER XXXI
“It’s perfect,” said the twins, looking round the tea-room.
This was next day, at a quarter to four. They had been looking round s
aying it was perfect at intervals since the morning. Each time they finished getting another of the little tables ready, each time they brought in and set down another bowl of flowers they stood back and gazed a moment in silence, and then said with one voice, “It’s perfect.”
Mr. Twist, though the house was not, as we have seen, quite as sober, quite as restrained in its effect as he had intended, was obliged to admit that it did look very pretty. And so did the Annas. Especially the Annas. They looked so pretty in the sea-blue frocks and little Dutch caps and big muslin aprons that he took off his spectacles and cleaned them carefully so as to have a thoroughly uninterrupted view; and as they stood at a quarter to four gazing round the room, he stood gazing at them, and when they said “It’s perfect,” he said, indicating them with his thumb, “Same here,” and then they all laughed for they were all very happy, and Mrs. Bilton, arrayed exactly as Mr. Twist had pictured her when he engaged her in handsome black, her white hair beautifully brushed and neat, crossed over to the Annas and gave each of them a hearty kiss — for luck, she said — which Mr. Twist watched with an odd feeling of jealousy.
“I’d like to do that,” he thought, filled with a sudden desire to hug. Then he said it out loud. “I’d like to do that,” he said boldly. And added, “As it’s the opening day.”
“I don’t think it would afford you any permanent satisfaction,” said Anna-Felicitas placidly. “There’s nothing really to be gained, we think, by kissing. Of course,” she added politely to Mrs. Bilton, “we like it very much as an expression of esteem.”
“Then why not in that spirit—” began Mr. Twist.
“We don’t hold with kissing,” said Anna-Rose quickly, turning very red. Intolerable to be kissed en famille. If it had to be done at all, kissing should be done quietly, she thought. But she and Anna-Felicitas didn’t hold with it anyhow. Never. Never. To her amazement she found tears in her eyes. Well, of all the liquid idiots.... It must be that she was so happy. She had never been so happy. Where on earth had her handkerchief got to....
“Hello,” said Mr. Twist, staring at her.
Anna-Felicitas looked at her quickly.
“It’s merely bliss,” she said, taking the corner of her beautiful new muslin apron to Christopher’s eyes. “Excess of it. We are, you know,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at Mr. Twist, so that the corner of her apron, being undirected, began dabbing at Christopher’s perfectly tearless ears, “quite extraordinarily happy, and all through you. Nevertheless Anna-R.” she continued, addressing her with firmness while she finished her eyes and began her nose, “You may like to be reminded that there’s only ten minutes left now before all those cars that were here yesterday come again, and you wouldn’t wish to embark on your career as a waitress hampered by an ugly face, would you?”
But half an hour later no cars had come. Pepper Lane was still empty. The long shadows lay across it in a beautiful quiet, and the crickets in the grass chirruped undisturbed. Twice sounds were heard as if something was coming up it, and everybody flew to their posts — Li Koo to the boiling water, Mrs. Bilton to her raised desk at the end of the room, and the twins to the door — but the sounds passed on along the road and died away round the next corner.
At half-past four the personnel of The Open Arms was sitting about silently in a state of increasing uneasiness, when Mr. Ridding walked in.
There had been no noise of a car to announce him; he just walked in mopping his forehead, for he had come in the jitney omnibus to the nearest point and had done the last mile on his own out-of-condition feet. Mrs. Ridding thought he was writing letters in the smoking-room. She herself was in a big chair on the verandah, and with Miss Heap and most of the other guests was discussing The Open Arms in all its probable significance. He hadn’t been able to get away sooner because of the nap. He had gone through with the nap from start to finish so as not to rouse suspicion. He arrived very hot, but with a feeling of dare-devil running of risks that gave him great satisfaction. He knew that he would cool down again presently and that then the consequences of his behaviour would be unpleasant to reflect upon, but meanwhile his blood was up.
He walked in feeling not a day older than thirty, — most gratifying sensation. The personnel, after a moment’s open-mouthed surprise, rushed to greet him. Never was a man more welcome. Never had Mr. Ridding been so warmly welcomed anywhere in his life.
“Now isn’t this real homey,” he said, beaming at Anna-Rose who took his stick. “Wish I’d known you were going to do it, for then I’d have had something to look forward to.”
“Will you have tea or coffee?” asked Anna-Felicitas, trying to look very solemn and like a family butler but her voice quivering with eagerness. “Or perhaps you would prefer frothed chocolate? Each of these beverages can be provided either hot or iced—”
“There’s ice-cream as well,” said Anna-Rose, tumultuously in spite of also trying to look like a family butler. “I’d have ice-cream if I were you. There’s more body in it. Cold, delicious body. And you look so hot. Hot things should always as soon as possible be united to cold things, so as to restore the proper balance—”
“And there’s some heavenly stuff called cinnamon-toast — hot, you know, but if you have ice-cream at the same time it won’t matter,” said Anna-Felicitas, hanging up his hat for him. “I don’t know whether you’ve studied the leaflets,” she continued, “but in case you haven’t I feel I oughtn’t to conceal from you that the price is five dollars whatever you have.”
“So that,” said Anna-Rose, “you needn’t bother about trying to save, for you can’t.”
“Then I’ll have tea to start with and see how I get on,” said Mr. Ridding, sitting down in the chair Anna-Felicitas held for him and beaming up at her.
She flicked an imaginary grain of dust off the cloth with the corner of her apron to convey to him that she knew her business, and hurried away to give the order. Indeed, they both hurried away to give the order.
“Say—” called out Mr. Ridding, for he thought one Anna would have been enough for this and he was pining to talk to them; but the twins weren’t to be stopped from both giving the very first order, and they disappeared together into the pantry.
Mrs. Bilton sat in the farthest corner at her desk, apparently absorbed in an enormous ledger. In this ledger she was to keep accounts and to enter the number of teas, and from this high seat she was to preside over the activities of the personnel. She had retired hastily to it on the unexpected entrance of Mr. Ridding, and pen in hand was endeavouring to look as if she were totting up figures. As the pages were blank this was a little difficult. And it was difficult to sit there quiet. She wanted to get down and go and chat with the guest; she felt she had quite a good deal she could say to him; she had a great itch to go and talk, but Mr. Twist had been particular that to begin with, till the room was fairly full, he and she should leave the guests entirely to the Annas.
He himself was going to keep much in the background at all times, but through the half-open door of his office he could see and hear; and he couldn’t help thinking, as he sat there watching and observed the effulgence of the beams the old gentleman just arrived turned on the twins, that the first guest appeared to be extraordinarily and undesirably affectionate. He thought he had seen him at the Cosmopolitan, but wasn’t sure. He didn’t know that the Annas, after their conversation with him there, felt towards him as old friends, and he considered their manner was a little unduly familiar. Perhaps, after all, he thought uneasily, Mrs. Bilton had better do the waiting and the Annas sit with him in the office. The ledger could be written up at the end of the day. Or he could hire somebody....
Mr. Twist felt worried, and pulled at his ear. And why was there only one guest? It was twenty minutes to five; and this time yesterday the road had been choked with cars. He felt very much worried. With every minute this absence of guests grew more and more remarkable. Perhaps he had better, this beings the opening day, go in and welcome the solitary one there was.
Perhaps it would be wise to elaborate the idea of the inn for his edification, so that he could hand on what he had heard to those others who so unaccountably hadn’t come.
He got up and went into the other room; and just as Anna-Felicitas was reappearing with the teapot followed by Anna-Rose with a tray of cakes, Mr. Ridding, who was sitting up expectantly and giving his tie a little pat of adjustment, perceived bearing down upon him that fellow Teapot Twist.
This was a blow. He hadn’t run risks and walked in the afternoon heat to sit and talk to Twist. Mr. Ridding was a friendly and amiable old man, and at any other time would have talked to him with pleasure; but he had made up his mind for the Twinklers as one makes up one’s mind for a certain dish and is ravaged by strange fury if it isn’t produced. Besides, hang it all, he was going to pay five dollars for his tea, and for that sum he ought to least to have it under the conditions he preferred.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Twist,” he nevertheless said as Mr. Twist introduced himself, his eyes, however, roving over the ministering Annas, — a roving Mr. Twist noticed with fresh misgivings.
It made him sit down firmly at the table and say, “If you don’t mind, Mr.—”
“Ridding is my name.”
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Ridding, I’d like to explain our objects to you.”
But he couldn’t help wondering what he would do if there were several tables with roving-eyed guests at them, it being clear that there wouldn’t be enough of him in such a case to go round.
Mr. Ridding, for his part, couldn’t help wondering why the devil Teapot Twist sat down unasked at his table. Five dollars. Come now. For that a man had a right to a table to himself.
But anyhow the Annas wouldn’t have stayed talking for at that moment a car stopped in the lane and quite a lot of footsteps were heard coming up the neatly sanded path. Mr. Ridding pricked up his ears, for from the things he had heard being said all the evening before and all that morning in Acapulco, besides most of the night from the lips of that strange old lady with whom by some dreadful mistake he was obliged to sleep, he hadn’t supposed there would be exactly a rush.
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 218
