Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated)

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

  Four young men came in. Mr. Ridding didn’t know them. No class, he thought, looking them over; and was seized with a feeling of sulky vexation suitable to twenty when he saw with what enthusiasm the Twinklers flew to meet them. They behaved, thought Mr. Ridding crossly, as if they were the oldest and dearest friends.

  “Who are they?” he asked curtly of Mr. Twist, cutting into the long things he was saying.

  “Only the different experts who helped me rebuild the place,” said Mr. Twist a little impatiently; he too had pricked up his ears in expectation at the sound of all those feet, and was disappointed.

  He continued what Mr. Ridding, watching the group of young people, called sulkily to himself his rigmarole, but continued more abstractedly. He also was watching the Annas and the experts. The young men were evidently in the highest spirits, and were walking round the Annas admiring their get-up and expressing their admiration in laughter and exclamations. One would have thought they had known each other all their lives. The twins were wreathed in smiles. They looked as pleased, Mr. Twist thought, as cats that are being stroked. Almost he could hear them purring. He glanced helplessly across to where Mrs. Bilton sat, as he had told her, bent pen in hand over the ledger. She didn’t move. It was true he had told her to sit like that, but hadn’t the woman any imagination? What she ought to do now was to bustle forward and take that laughing group in charge.

  “As I was telling you—” resumed Mr. Twist, returning with an effort to Mr. Ridding, only to find his eyes fixed on the young people and catch an unmistakably thwarted look in his face.

  In a flash Mr. Twist realized what he had come for, — it was solely to see and talk to the twins. He must have noticed them at the Cosmopolitan, and come out just for them. Just for that. “Unprincipled old scoundrel,” said Mr. Twist under his breath, his ears flaming. Aloud he said, “As I was telling you—” and went on distractedly with his rigmarole.

  Then some more people came in. They had motored, but the noise the experts were making had drowned the sound of their arrival. Mr. Ridding and Mr. Twist, both occupied in glowering at the group in the middle of the room, were made aware of their presence by Anna-Felicitas suddenly dropping the pencil and tablets she had been provided with for writing down orders and taking an uncertain and obviously timid step forward.

  They both looked round in the direction of her reluctant step, and saw a man and two women standing on the threshold. Mr. Twist, of course, didn’t know them; he hardly knew anybody, even by sight. But Mr. Ridding did. That is, he knew them well by sight and had carefully avoided knowing them any other way, for they were Germans.

  Mr. Ridding was one of those who didn’t like Germans. He was a man who liked or disliked what his daily paper told him to, and his daily paper was anti-German. For reasons natural to one who disliked Germans and yet at the same time had a thirstily affectionate disposition, he declined to believe the prevailing theory about the Twinklers. Besides, he didn’t believe it anyhow. At that age people were truthful, and he had heard them explain they had come from England and had acquired their rolling r’s during a sojourn abroad. Why should he doubt? But he refrained from declaring his belief in their innocence of the unpopular nationality, owing to a desire to avoid trouble in that bedroom he couldn’t call his but was obliged so humiliatingly to speak of as ours. Except, however, for the Twinklers, for all other persons of whom it was said that they were Germans, naturalized or not, immediate or remote, he had, instructed by his newspaper, what his called a healthy instinctive abhorrence.

  “And she’s got it too,” he thought, much gratified at this bond between them, as he noted Anna-Felicitas’s hesitating and reluctant advance to meet the new guests. “There’s proof that people are wrong.”

  But what Anna-Felicitas had got was stage-fright; for here were the first strangers, the first real, proper visitors such as any shop or hotel might have. Mr. Ridding was a friend. So were the experts friends. This was trade coming in, — real business being done. Anna-Felicitas hadn’t supposed she would be shy when the long-expected and prepared-for moment arrived, but she was. And it was because the guests seemed so disconcertingly pleased to see her. Even on the threshold the whole three stood smiling broadly at her. She hadn’t been prepared for that, and it unnerved her.

  “Charming, charming,” said the newcomers, advancing towards her and embracing the room and the tables and the Annas in one immense inclusive smile of appreciation.

  “Know those?” asked Mr. Ridding, again cutting into Mr. Twist’s explanations.

  “No,” said he.

  “Wangelbeckers,” said Mr. Ridding briefly.

  “Indeed,” said Mr. Twist, off whose ignorance the name glanced harmlessly. “Well, as I was telling yous—”

  “But this is delicious — this is a conception of genius,” said Mr. Wangelbecker all-embracingly, after he had picked up Anna-Felicitas’s tablets and restored them to her with a low bow.

  “Charming, charming,” said Mrs. Wangelbecker, looking round.

  “Real cunning,” said Miss Wangelbecker, “as they say here.” And she laughed at Anna-Felicitas with an air of mutual understanding.

  “Will you have tea or coffee?” asked Anna-Felicitas nervously. “Or perhaps you would prefer frothed chocolate. Each of these beverages can be—”

  “Delicious, delicious,” said Mrs. Wangelbecker, enveloping Anna-Felicitas in her smile.

  “The frothed chocolate is very delicious,” said Anna-Felicitas with a kind of grave nervousness.

  “Ah — charming, charming,” said Mrs. Wangelbecker, obstinately appreciative.

  “And there’s ice-cream as well,” said Anna-Felicitas, her eyes on her tablets so as to avoid seeing the Wangelbecker smile. “And — and a great many kinds of cakes—”

  “Well, hadn’t we better sit down first,” said Mr. Wangelbecker genially, “or are all the tables engaged?”

  “Oh I beg your pardon,” said Anna-Felicitas, blushing and moving hastily towards a table laid for three.

  “Ah — that’s better,” said Mr. Wangelbecker, following closely on her heels. “Now we can go into the serious business of ordering what we shall eat comfortably. But before I sit down allow me to present myself. My name is Wangelbecker. An honest German name. And this is my wife. She too had an honest German name before she honoured mine by accepting it — she was a Niedermayer. And this is my daughter, with whom I trust you will soon be friends.”

  And they all put out their hands to be shaken, and Anna-Felicitas shook them.

  “Look at that now,” said Mr. Ridding watching.

  “As I was telling you—” said Mr. Twist irritably, for really why should Anna II. shake hands right off with strangers? Her business was to wait, not to get shaking hands. He must point out to her very plainly.

  “Pleased to meet you Miss von Twinkler,” said Mrs. Wangelbecker; and at this Anna-Felicitas was so much startled that she dropped her tablets a second time.

  “As they say here,” laughed Miss Wangelbecker, again with that air of mutual comprehension.

  “But they don’t,” said Anna Felicitas hurriedly, taking her tablets from the restoring hand of Mr. Wangelbecker and forgetting to thank him.

  “What?” said Mrs. Wangelbecker. “When you are both so charming that for once the phrase must be sincere?”

  “Miss von Twinkler means she finds it wiser not to use her title,” said Mr. Wangelbecker. “Well, perhaps — perhaps. Wiser perhaps from the point of view of convenience. Is that where you will sit, Güstchen? Still, we Germans when we are together can allow ourselves the refreshment of being ourselves, and I hope to be frequently the means of giving you the relief, you and your charming sister, of hearing yourselves addressed correctly. It is a great family, the von Twinklers. A great family. In these sad days we Germans must hang together—”

  Anna-Felicitas stood, tablets in hand, looking helplessly from one Wangelbecker to the other. The situation was beyond her.

  “But�
�” she began; then stopped. “Shall I bring you tea or coffee?” she ended by asking again.

  “Well now this is amusing,” said Mr. Wangelbecker, sitting down comfortably and leaning his elbows on the table. “Isn’t it, Güstchen. To see a von Twinkler playing at waiting on us.”

  “Charming, charming,” said his wife.

  “It’s real sporting,” said his daughter, laughing up at Anna-Felicitas, again with comprehension, — with, almost, a wink. “You must let me come and help. I’d look nice in that costume, wouldn’t I mother.”

  “There is also frothed choc—”

  “I suppose, now, Mr. Twist — he must be completely sympathy—” interrupted Mr. Wangelbecker confidentially, leaning forward and lowering his voice a little.

  Anna-Felicitas gazed at him blankly. Some more people were coming in at the door, and behind them she could see on the path yet more, and Anna-Rose was in the pantry fetching the tea for the experts.

  “Would you mind telling me what I am to bring you?” she asked. “Because I’m afraid—”

  Mr. Wangelbecker turned his head in the direction she was looking.

  “Ah—” he said getting up, “but this is magnificent Güstchen, here are Mrs. Kleinbart and her sister — why, and there come the Diederichs — but splendid, splendid—”

  “Say,” said Mr. Ridding, turning to Mr. Twist with a congested face, “ever been to Berlin?”

  “No,” said Mr. Twist, annoyed by a question of such wanton irrelevance flung into the middle of his sentence.

  “Well, it’s just like this.”

  “Like this?” repeated Mr. Twist.

  “Those there,” said Mr. Ridding, jerking his head. “That lot there — see ’em any day in Berlin, or Frankfurt, or any other of their confounded towns.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Mr. Twist, very shortly indeed.

  “Germans,” said Mr. Ridding.

  “Germans?”

  “All Germans,” said Ridding.

  “All Germans?”

  “Wangelbeckers are Germans,” said Mr. Ridding. “Didn’t you know?”

  “No,” said Mr. Twist.

  “So are the ones who’ve just come in.”

  “Germans?”

  “All Germans. So are those behind, just coming in.”

  “Germans?”

  “All Germans.”

  There was a pause, during which Mr. Twist stared round the room. It was presenting quite a populous appearance. Then he said slowly, “Well I’m damned.”

  And Mr. Ridding for the first time looked pleased with Mr. Twist. He considered that at last he was talking sense.

  “Mr. Twist,” he said heartily, “I’m exceedingly glad you’re damned. It was what I was sure at the bottom of my heart you would be. Shake hands, sir.”

  CHAPTER XXXII

  That evening depression reigned in The Open Arms.

  Mr. Twist paced up and down the tea-room deep in thought that was obviously unpleasant and perplexed; Mrs. Bilton went to bed abruptly, after a short outpour of words to the effect that she had never seen so many Germans at once before, that her psyche was disharmonious to Germans, that they made her go goose-fleshy just as cats in a room made Mr. Bilton go goose-fleshy in the days when he had flesh to go it with, that she hadn’t been aware the inn was to be a popular resort and rendezvous for Germans, and that she wished to speak alone with Mr. Twist in the morning; while the twins, feeling the ominousness of this last sentence, — as did Mr. Twist, who started when he heard it, — and overcome by the lassitude that had succeeded the shocks of the afternoon, a lassitude much increased by their having tried to finish up the pailsful of left-over ices and the huge piles of cakes slowly soddening in their own souring cream, went out together on to the moonlit verandah and stood looking up in silence at the stars. There they stood in silence, and thought things about the immense distance and indifference of those bright, cold specks, and how infinitely insignificant after all they, the Twinklers were, and how they would both in any case be dead in a hundred years. And this last reflection afforded them somehow a kind of bleak and draughty comfort.

  Thus the first evening, that was to have been so happy, was spent by everybody in silence and apart. Li Koo felt the atmosphere of oppression even in his kitchen, and refrained from song. He put away, after dealing with it cunningly so that it should keep until a more propitious hour, a wonderful drink he had prepared for supper in celebration of the opening day— “Me make li’l celebrity,” he had said, squeezing together strange essences and fruits — and he moved softly about so as not to disturb the meditations of the master. Li Koo was perfectly aware of what had gone wrong: it was the unexpected arrival to tea of Germans. Being a member of the least blood-thirsty of the nations, he viewed Germans with peculiar disfavour and understood his master’s prolonged walking up and down. Also he had noted through a crack in the door the way these people of blood and death crowded round the white-lily girls; and was not that sufficient in itself to cause his master’s numerous and rapid steps?

  Numerous indeed that evening were Mr. Twist’s steps. He felt he must think, and he could think better walking up and down. Why had all those Germans come? Why, except old Ridding and the experts, had none of the Americans come? It was very strange. And what Germans! So cordial, so exuberant to the twins, so openly gathering them to their bosoms, as though they belonged there. And so cordial too to him, approaching him in spite of his withdrawals, conveying to him somehow, his disagreeable impression had been, that he and they perfectly understood each other. Then Mrs. Bilton; was she going to give trouble? It looked like it. It looked amazingly like it. Was she after all just another edition of his mother, and unable to discriminate between Germans and Germans, between the real thing and mere technicalities like the Twinklers? It is true he hadn’t told her the twins were German, but then neither had he told her they weren’t. He had been passive. In Mrs. Bilton’s presence passivity came instinctively. Anything else involved such extreme and unusual exertion. He had never had the least objection to her discovering their nationality for herself, and indeed had been surprised she hadn’t done so long ago, for he felt sure she would quickly begin to love the Annas, and once she loved them she wouldn’t mind what their father had happened to be. He had supposed she did love them. How affectionately she had kissed them that very afternoon and wished them luck. Was all that nothing? Was lovableness nothing, and complete innocence, after all in the matter of being born, when weighed against the one fact of the von? What he would do if Mrs. Bilton left him he couldn’t imagine. What would happen to The Open Arms and the twins in such a case, his worried brain simply couldn’t conceive.

  Out of the corner of his eye every time he passed the open door on to the verandah he could see the two Annas standing motionless on its edge, their up-turned faces, as they gazed at the stars, white in the moonlight and very serious. Pathetic children. Pathetic, solitary, alien children. What were they thinking of? He wouldn’t mind betting it was their mother.

  Mr. Twist’s heart gave a kind of tug at him. His sentimental, maternal side heaved to the top. A great impulse to hurry out and put his arms round them seized him, but he frowned and overcame it. He didn’t want to go soft now. Nor was this the moment, his nicely brought up soul told him, his soul still echoing with the voice of Clark, to put his arms round them — this, the very first occasion on which Mrs. Bilton had left them alone with him. Whether it would become proper on the very second occasion was one of those questions that would instantly have suggested itself to the Annas themselves, but didn’t occur to Mr. Twist. He merely went on to think of another reason against it, which was the chance of Mrs. Bilton’s looking out of her window just as he did it. She might, he felt, easily misjudge the situation, and the situation, he felt, was difficult enough already. So he restrained himself; and the Annas continued to consider infinite space and to perceive, again with that feeling of dank and unsatisfactory consolation, that nothing really mattered.

>   Next day immediately after breakfast Mrs. Bilton followed him into his office and gave notice. She called it formally tendering her resignation. She said that all her life she had been an upholder of straight dealing, as much in herself towards others as in others towards herself —

  “Mrs. Bilton—” interrupted Mr. Twist, only it didn’t interrupt.

  She had also all her life been intensely patriotic, and Mr. Twist, she feared, didn’t look at patriotism with quite her single eye —

  “Mrs. Bilton—”

  As her eye saw it, patriotism was among other things a determination to resist the encroachments of foreigners —

  “Mrs. Bilton—”

  She had no wish to judge him, but she had still less wish to be mixed up with foreigners, and foreigners for her at that moment meant Germans —

  “Mrs. Bilton—”

  She regretted, but psychically she would never be able to flourish in a soil so largely composed, as the soil of The Open Arms appeared to be, of that nationality —

  “Mrs. Bilton—”

  And though it was none of her business, still she must say it did seem to her a pity that Mr. Twist with his well-known and respected American name should be mixed up —

  “Mrs. Bilton—”

  And though she had no wish to be inquisitive, still she must say it did seem to her peculiar that Mr. Twist should be the guardian of two girls who, it was clear from what she had overheard that afternoon, were German —

  Here Mr. Twist raised his voice and shouted. “Mrs. Bilton,” he shouted, so loud that she couldn’t but stop, “if you’ll guarantee to keep quiet for just five minutes — sit down right here at this table and not say one single thing, not one single thing for just five minutes,” he said, banging the table, “I’ll tell you all about it. Oh yes, I’ll accept your resignation at the end of that time if you’re still set on leaving, but just for this once it’s me that’s going to do the talking.”