Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated)

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

  He looked at her in wonder. “You owe me?” he said. “But it’s I who — I who—” he stammered. To see her there in his garden . . . nothing in it, no white flower, was whiter, more exquisite.

  “Please,” said Scrap, still more earnestly, “won’t you clear your mind of everything except just truth? You don’t owe me anything. How should you?”

  “I don’t owe you anything?” echoed Briggs. “Why, I owe you my first sight of — of—”

  “Oh, for goodness sake — for goodness sake,” said Scrap entreatingly, “do, please, be ordinary. Don’t be humble. Why should you be humble? It’s ridiculous of you to be humble. You’re worth fifty of me.”

  “Unwise,” thought Mr. Wilkins, who was standing there too, while Lotty sat on the wall. He was surprised, he was concerned, he was shocked that Lady Caroline should thus encourage Briggs. “Unwise — very,” thought Mr. Wilkins, shaking his head.

  Briggs’s condition was so bad already that the only course to take with him was to repel him utterly, Mr. Wilkins considered. No half measures were the least use with Briggs, and kindliness and familiar talk would only be misunderstood by the unhappy youth. The daughter of the Droitwiches could not really, it was impossible to suppose it, desire to encourage him. Briggs was all very well, but Briggs was Briggs; his name alone proved that. Probably Lady Caroline did not quite appreciate the effect of her voice and face, and how between them they made otherwise ordinary words seem — well, encouraging. But these words were not quite ordinary; she had not, he feared, sufficiently pondered them. Indeed and indeed she needed an adviser — some sagacious, objective counselor like himself. There she was, standing before Briggs almost holding out her hand to him. Briggs of course ought to be thanked, for they were having a most delightful holiday in his house, but not thanked to excess and not by Lady Caroline alone. That very evening he had been considering the presentation to him next day of a round robin of collective gratitude on his departure; but he should not be thanked like this, in the moonlight, in the garden, by the lady he was so manifestly infatuated with.

  Mr. Wilkins therefore, desiring to assist Lady Caroline out of this situation by swiftly applied tact, said with much heartiness: “It is most proper, Briggs, that you should be thanked. You will please allow me to add my expressions of indebtedness, and those of my wife, to Lady Caroline’s. We ought to have proposed a vote of thanks to you at dinner. You should have been toasted. There certainly ought to have been some—”

  But Briggs took no notice of him whatever; he simply continued to look at Lady Caroline as though she were the first woman he had ever seen. Neither, Mr. Wilkins observed, did Lady Caroline take any notice of him; she too continued to look at Briggs, and with that odd air of almost appeal. Most unwise. Most.

  Lotty, on the other hand, took too much notice of him, choosing this moment when Lady Caroline needed special support and protection to get up off the wall and put her arm through his and draw him away.

  “I want to tell you something, Mellersh,” said Lotty at this juncture, getting up.

  “Presently,” said Mr. Wilkins, waving her aside.

  “No — now,” said Lotty; and she drew him away.

  He went with extreme reluctance. Briggs should be given no rope at all — not an inch.

  “Well — what is it?” he asked impatiently, as she led him towards the house. Lady Caroline ought not to be left like that, exposed to annoyance.

  “Oh, but she isn’t,” Lotty assured him, just as if he had said this aloud, which he certainly had not. “Caroline is perfectly all right.”

  “Not at all all right. That young Briggs is—”

  “Of course he is. What did you expect? Let’s go indoors to the fire and Mrs. Fisher. She’s all by herself.”

  “I cannot,” said Mr. Wilkins, trying to draw back, “leave Lady Caroline alone in the garden.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mellersh — she isn’t alone. Besides, I want to tell you something.”

  “Well tell me, then.”

  “Indoors.”

  With reluctance that increased at every step Mr. Wilkins was taken farther and farther away from Lady Caroline. He believed in his wife now and trusted her, but on this occasion he thought she was making a terrible mistake. In the drawing-room sat Mrs. Fisher by the fire, and it certainly was to Mr. Wilkins, who preferred rooms and fires after dark to gardens and moonlight, more agreeable to be in there than out-of-doors if he could have brought Lady Caroline safely in with him. As it was, he went in with extreme reluctance.

  Mrs. Fisher, her hands folded on her lap, was doing nothing, merely gazing fixedly into the fire. The lamp was arranged conveniently for reading, but she was not reading. Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now — over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than any one was now, but they had this immense disadvantage, that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them; while of the living, what might one not still expect? She craved for the living, the developing — the crystallized and finished wearied her. She was thinking that if only she had had a son — a son like Mr. Briggs, a dear boy like that, going on, unfolding, alive, affectionate, taking care of her and loving her. . .

  The look on her face gave Mrs. Wilkins’s heart a little twist when she saw it. “Poor old dear,” she thought, all the loneliness of age flashing upon her, the loneliness of having outstayed one’s welcome in the world, of being in it only on sufferance, the complete loneliness of the old childless woman who has failed to make friends. It did seem that people could only be really happy in pairs — any sorts of pairs, not in the least necessarily lovers, but pairs of friends, pairs of mothers and children, of brothers and sisters — and where was the other half of Mrs. Fisher’s pair going to be found?

  Mrs. Wilkins thought she had perhaps better kiss her again. The kissing this afternoon had been a great success; she knew it, she had instantly felt Mrs. Fisher’s reaction to it. So she crossed over and bent down and kissed her and said cheerfully, “We’ve come in—” which indeed was evident.

  This time Mrs. Fisher actually put up her hand and held Mrs. Wilkins’s cheek against her own — this living thing, full of affection, of warm, racing blood; and as she did this she felt safe with the strange creature, sure that she who herself did unusual things so naturally would take the action quite as a matter of course, and not embarrass her by being surprised.

  Mrs. Wilkins was not at all surprised; she was delighted. “I believe I’m the other half of her pair,” flashed into her mind. “I believe it’s me, positively me, going to be fast friends with Mrs. Fisher!”

  Her face when she lifted her head was full of laughter. Too extraordinary, the developments produced by San Salvatore. She and Mrs. Fisher . . . but she saw them being fast friends.

  “Where are the others?” asked Mrs. Fisher. “Thank you — dear,” she added, as Mrs. Wilkins put a footstool under her feet, a footstool obviously needed, Mrs. Fisher’s legs being short.

  “I see myself throughout the years,” thought Mrs. Wilkins, her eyes dancing, “bringing footstools to Mrs. Fisher. . .”

  “The Roses,” she said, straightening herself, “have gone into the lower garden — I think love-making.”

  “The Roses?”

  “The Fredericks, then, if you like. They’re completely merged and indistinguishable.”

  “Why not say the Arbuthnots, my dear?” said Mr. Wilkins.

  “Very well, Mellersh — the Arbuthnots. And the Carolines—”

  Both Mr. Wilkins and Mrs. Fisher started. Mr. Wilkins, usually in such complete control of himself, started even more than Mrs. Fisher, and for the first time since his arrival felt angry with his wife.

  “Really—” he began indignantly.

  “Very well, Mellersh — the Briggses, then.”

  “The Briggses!” cried Mr. Wilkins, now very angry indeed; for
the implication was to him a most outrageous insult to the entire race of Desters — dead Desters, living Desters, and Desters still harmless because they were yet unborn. “Really—”

  “I’m sorry, Mellersh,” said Mrs. Wilkins, pretending meekness, “if you don’t like it.”

  “Like it! You’ve taken leave of your senses. Why they’ve never set eyes on each other before to-day.”

  “That’s true. But that’s why they’re able now to go ahead.”

  “Go ahead!” Mr. Wilkins could only echo the outrageous words.

  “I’m sorry, Mellersh,” said Mrs. Wilkins again, “if you don’t like it, but—”

  Her grey eyes shone, and her face rippled with the light and conviction that had so much surprised Rose the first time they met.

  “It’s useless minding,” she said. “I shouldn’t struggle if I were you. Because—”

  She stopped, and looked first at one alarmed solemn face and then at the other, and laughter as well as light flickered and danced over her.

  “I see them being the Briggses,” finished Mrs. Wilkins.

  That last week the syringa came out at San Salvatore, and all the acacias flowered. No one had noticed how many acacias there were till one day the garden was full of a new scent, and there were the delicate trees, the lovely successors to the wistaria, hung all over among their trembling leaves with blossom. To lie under an acacia tree that last week and look up through the branches at its frail leaves and white flowers quivering against the blue of the sky, while the least movement of the air shook down their scent, was a great happiness. Indeed, the whole garden dressed itself gradually towards the end in white pinks and white banksai roses, and the syringe and the Jessamine, and at last the crowning fragrance of the acacias. When, on the first of May, everybody went away, even after they had got to the bottom of the hill and passed through the iron gates out into the village they still could smell the acacias.

  The Children’s Book

  The Royal College of Music, South Kensington, London — von Arnim was a distinguished organist and attended lessons at the college in her early years, where she won a prize. Her teacher was Sir William Parratt, the organist at Windsor Castle.

  THE APRIL BABY’S BOOK OF TUNES

  with

  The Story of how they came to be Written

  ONCE upon a time there were three little girls called April, May, and June. Their mother thought it simpler to call them after the months they were born in, instead of having to worry over a choice between Jane, or Susan, or Mary, or any of the ordinary girl-names. She had meant to call the eldest one Jane, because it was such a short, tidy little name; but an aunt who was staying with her nearly cried, the bare idea made her so unhappy. You see, the aunt was very fond of Shakespeare, and wanted the baby to be called Ophelia, and there is a great difference between the sound of Ophelia and the sound of Jane; but the mother didn’t want to have a baby called Ophelia, and didn’t want to argue either, so she settled it by having it christened after the month it was born in, and everybody said how queer.

  Once she had begun doing that, of course she had to go on; but luckily the stork didn’t bring any more babies after the June one, or I don’t know what would have happened. How could you call a baby February, for instance? These babies lived in Germany, and that is why the stork brought them. In England you are dug up out of a parsley-bed, but in Germany you are brought by a stork, who flies through the air holding you in his beak, and you wriggle all the time like a little pink worm, and then he taps at the window of the house you are bound for, and puts you solemnly into the nice warm cushion that is sure to be ready for you, and you are rolled round and round in flannel things, and tied comfortably on to the cushion, and left to get your breath and collect your wits after the quick journey across the sky. That is exactly what happened to April, and May, and June. They often told their mother about it, and said they could remember it quite well.

  They were about five, and six, and seven years old in the winter week I am going to tell you about. It was the week before Easter, when it oughtn’t to have been winter at all; but strange things happen in the way of weather in those far-away forests where they live, and after having been quite like spring for a long while, it turned suddenly very cold.

  At first when it began to snow they were delighted, and got out their sleigh and their snow-boots, and harnessed their mother’s big dog to the sleigh, and drove him up and down the paths, only laughing all the louder when he ran them against a tree and pitched them off into the snow. But the next day the snow was so deep that it covered the sleigh right up, and came over their knees, and got inside their stockings at the top, and made them very uncomfortable; so they stayed indoors, and finished the presents they were making for their mother’s Easter surprise.

  German Easters are very nice things, something like Christmas, only instead of tables covered with presents round the Christmas tree, the presents are hidden out in the garden, in the grass or among the bushes that are generally just turning a faint green.

  Everybody gives everybody else presents; and then there are eggs of all sorts and sizes, some in sugar with chocolate things inside, and some in chocolate with sugar things inside, and some in china with presents inside, and a great many real eggs, hard-boiled, and dyed in colours that would astonish the hens who laid them, and you eat more of them than is good for you and afterwards are sorry.

  April, May, and June knitted mittens for their mother. At Christmas they knitted mittens, and at Easter they knitted mittens, and for her birthday they knitted mittens; so that there was never any need for her to bother about buying mittens. They could all knit very nicely, and their mother used to say a little while before any of these festivals that she hoped Father Christmas, or the Easter hare, or the birthday sprite meant to bring her some mittens that time, for she loved them better than anything else. Then the babies were delighted, because knitting was easy, and it was so convenient that their mother should happen to like just what they liked best to make.

  But in two days they had finished the mittens, and still it went on snowing.

  Then they had to fall back upon their dolls, for it was snowing as though it never meant to stop. Never had been seen such an Easter. People went about saying, ‘Did you ever?’ to the people they met, and couldn’t get over it at all. The window panes were sheets of ice, for there were I don’t know how many degrees of frost, and each night it froze harder than it had done the night before. In the daytime the rooms were full of a wonderful white light from the snow outside, and the fires blazed extra cheerfully, and it was very cosy indoors in their mother’s pretty rooms, where flowers blossomed all the year round, no matter what was going on outside, and where it always smelt of violets.

  For two days, then, the babies played contentedly enough with their dolls. But dolls are but mortal, and how can you expect a doll you have had given you at Christmas to be anything but mangled by Easter? What they were playing with could hardly be called dolls at all, for although there was a great abundance of arms, and legs, and heads, and dresses, and wigs, and eyes, there was not one single complete doll in all the heap. June went about rattling half a dozen eyes in her pocket as grown-up people rattle their money; and when her mother asked her what made that noise, she pulled out a handful of them in different sizes, and they looked so like real eyes that it quite gave her mother what is known as a turn, — which is a sort of feeling as though you were being suddenly pulled inside out and back again very quickly.

  In two more days they had got to the stage in doll-playing in which you begin to chop up parts of the bodies and boil them, and warm bits of the wax and mould it into puddings, and make reckless porridge out of the bran stuffing and the water your face was washed in before dinner, — the stage, that is, which comes last of all, and just before you are put in the corner.

  And still it went on snowing.

  Their mother, who had been placidly reading all this time, began to be uneasy when she saw
with what ardour the cooking in the next room was being carried on. The playroom opened into the library, where she sat this cold weather like Polly Flinders, warming her toes; and she got up every now and then and peeped in, stealing away again softly, half inclined to laugh, and yet disturbed by visions of corners in the near future as she saw the three chopping, and pounding, and stirring, with scarlet cheeks and dishevelled hair and mouths shut tight, and an oddly vindictive look on their faces, as though there was more than mere cooking in what they were doing, — the look almost of those who are paying off old scores at last, and can’t do it too thoroughly. And if you want to know what vindictive means, you look at your nurse’s face next time she takes you behind a tree in the Park to shake you in comfort, without the least provocation, and when you know you have been an angel.

  In another hour all their stock of remains had been used up, and they had had a banquet, which they cut rather short, however, on realising the dulness of only pretending to eat; and then, instead of tidying everything up, and washing the saucepans and plates like good children, they leant disconsolately against the window-sills, staring out into the white world outside through little holes they had scratched in the frost on the panes, and flattened their noses, and felt cross.

  ‘Don’t push so, you awful June,’ said April, giving June an impatient shove. They often talked English together, though they were German babies, and if it was not quite like the English that little girls in England talk, neither was it, I am sure, any worse than the German would be that English children of the same age might try to talk.

  ‘I doesn’t push,’ said June blandly: and pushed with all her might.

  June was a short, thick baby, and couldn’t reach up to the windows as comfortably as the other two; and besides, April had scratched lovely big eye-holes with her nails in the ice on the pane, and June coveted them. Do you know what covet means? It is a dreadful feeling that seizes people when they see somebody else with the things they would like and haven’t got, and makes them feel as though they were going to burst. June was sure she would burst if she didn’t soon get April’s holes, so she pushed and wriggled with all her strength, and when April protested, merely repeated reassuringly ‘I doesn’t push.’