Christopher and Columbus (30 page)

The social column of the Acapulco daily paper, from which
information as to new arrivals was usually got, had, as we know, in
its embarrassment at being ignorant to take refuge in French,
because French may so easily be supposed to mean something. The
paper had little knowledge of, but much confidence in, French.
Entourage
had seemed to it as good a word as any other, as
indeed did
clientèle
. It had hesitated between the two, but finally
chose
entourage
because there happened to be no accent in its
stock of type. The Cosmopolitan guests were amused at the word, and
though inquisitive were altogether amiable; and, until the last
afternoon, only the manager didn't like the Twinklers. He
didn't like them because of the canary. His sympathies had been
alienated from the Miss Twinklers the moment he heard through the
chambermaid that they had tied the heavy canary cage on to the
hanging electric light in their bedroom. He said nothing, of
course. One doesn't say anything if one is an hotel manager,
until the unique and final moment when one says everything.

On the last afternoon before Mrs. Bilton's advent the twins,
tired of standing about for days at the cottage and in shops,
appeared in the hall of the hotel and sat down to rest. They
didn't go to their room to rest because they didn't feel
inclined for the canary, and they sat down very happily in the
comfortable rocking-chairs with which the big hall abounded, and,
propping their dusty feet on the lower bar of a small table, with
friendly and interested eyes they observed the other guests.

The other guests also observed them.

It was the first time the
entourage
had appeared without its companion, and the
other guests were dying to know details about it. It hadn't
been sitting in the hall five minutes before a genial old gentleman
caught Anna-Felicitas's friendly eye and instantly drew up his
chair.

"Uncle gone off by himself to-day?" he asked; for he
was of the party in the hotel which inclined, in spite of the
marked difference in profiles, to the relationship theory, and he
made a shot at the relationship being that of uncle.

"We haven't got an uncle nearer than England,"
said Anna-Felicitas affably.

"And we only got him by accident," said Anna-Rose,
equally affably.

"It was an unfortunate accident," said Anna-Felicitas,
considering her memories.

"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "Indeed. How
was that?"

"By the usual method, if an uncle isn't a blood
uncle," said Anna-Rose. "We happened to have a
marriageable aunt, and he married her. So we have to have
him."

"It was sheer bad luck," said Anna-Felicitas, again
brooding on that distant image.

"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "Just bad luck. He might
so easily have married some one else's aunt. But no. His roving
glance must needs go and fall on ours."

"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "Indeed."
And he ruminated on this, with an affectionate eye--he was
affectionate--resting in turn on each Anna.

"Then Mr. Twist," he went on presently--"we all
know him of course--a public benefactor--"

"Yes,
isn't
he," said Anna-Rose radiantly.

"A boon to the breakfast-table--"

"Yes,
isn't
he," said Anna-Rose again, all asparkle.
"He
is
so pleasant at breakfast."

"Then he--Mr. Twist--Teapot Twist we call him where I
live--"

"Teapot Twist?" said Anna-Rose. "I think
that's irreverent."

"Not at all. It's a pet name. A sign of our affection
and gratitude. Then he isn't your uncle?"

"We haven't got a real uncle nearer than heaven,"
said Anna-Felicitas, her cheek on her hand, dreamily reconstructing
the image of Onkel Col.

"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "Indeed."
And he ruminated, on this too, his thirsty heart--he had a thirsty
heart, and found difficulty in slaking it because of his wife--very
indulgent toward the twins.

Then he said: "That's a long way off."

"What is?" asked Anna-Rose.

"The place your uncle's in."

"Not too far really," said Anna-Felicitas softly.
"He's safe there. He was very old, and was difficult to
look after. Why, he got there at last through his own
carelessness."

"Indeed," said the old gentleman.

"Sheer carelessness," said Anna-Rose.

"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "How was
that?"

"Well, you see where we lived they didn't have electric
light," began Anna-Rose, "and one night--the the night he
went to heaven--he put the petroleum lamp--"

And she was about to relate that dreadful story of Onkle
Col's end which has already been described in these pages as
unfit for anywhere but an appendix for time had blunted her
feelings, when Anna-Felicitas put out a beseeching hand and stopped
her. Even after all these years Anna-Felicitas couldn't bear to
remember Onkle Col's end. It had haunted her childhood. It had
licked about her dreams in leaping tongues of flame. And it
wasn't only tongues of flame. There were circumstances
connected with it.... Only quite recently, since the war had damped
down lesser horrors, had she got rid of it. She could at least now
talk of him calmly, and also speculate with pleasure on the
probable aspect of Onkle Col in glory, but she still couldn't
bear to hear the details of his end.

At this point an elderly lady of the spare and active type, very
upright and much wrinkled, that America seems so freely to produce,
came down the stairs; and seeing the twins talking to the old
gentleman, crossed straight over and sat down briskly next to them
smiling benevolently.

"Well, if Mr. Ridding can talk to you I guess so can
I," she said, pulling her knitting out of a brocaded bag and
nodding and smiling at the group.

She was knitting socks for the Allied armies in France the next
winter, but it being warm just then in California they were cotton
socks because wool made her hands too hot.

The twins were all polite, reciprocal smiles.

"I'm just crazy to hear about you," said the brisk
lady, knitting with incredible energy, while her smiles flicked
over everybody. "You're fresh from Europe, aren't you?
What say? Quite fresh? My, aren't you cute little things.
Thinking of making a long stay in the States? What say? For the
rest of your lives? Why now, I call that just splendid. Parents
coming out West soon too? What say? Prevented? Well, I guess they
won't let themselves be prevented long. Mr. Twist looking after
you meanwhile? What say? There isn't any meanwhile? Well, I
don't quite--Mr. Twist your uncle, or cousin? What say? No
relation at all? H'm, h'm. No relation at all, is he. Well,
I guess he's an old friend of your parents, then. What say?
They didn't know him? H'm, h'm. They didn't know
him, didn't they. Well, I don't quite--What say? But you
know him? Yes, yes, so I see. H'm, h'm. I don't
quite--" Her needles flew in and out, and her ball of cotton
rolled on to the floor in her surprise.

Anna-Rose got up and fetched it for her before the old
gentleman, who was gazing with thirsty appreciation at
Anna-Felicitas, could struggle out of his chair.

"You see," explained Anna-Felicitas, taking advantage
of the silence that had fallen on the lady, "Mr. Twist,
regarded as a man, is old, but regarded as a friend he is
new."

"Brand new," said Anna-Rose.

"H'm, h'm," said the lady, knitting faster
than ever, and looking first at one twin and then at the other.
"H'm, h'm, h'm. Brand new, is he. Well, I
don't quite--" Her smiles had now to struggle with the
uncertainty and doubt, and were weakening visibly.

"Say now, where did you meet Teapot Twist?" asked the
old gentleman, who was surprised too, but remained quite benevolent
owing to his affectionate heart and his not being a lady.

"We met Mr. Twist," said Anna-Rose, who objected to
this way of alluding to him, "on the steamer."

"Not before? You didn't meet Mr. Twist before the
steamer?" exclaimed the lady, the last of her smiles
flickering out. "Not before the steamer, didn't you. Just
a steamship acquaintance. Parents never seen him. H'm, h'm,
h'm."

"We would have met him before if we could," said
Anna-Felicitas earnestly.

"I should think so," said Anna-Rose. "It has been
the great retrospective loss of our lives meeting him so late in
them."

"Why now," said the old gentleman smiling, "I
shouldn't call it so particularly late in them."

But the knitting lady didn't smile at all, and sat up very
straight and said "H'm, h'm, h'm" to her
flashing needles as they flew in and out; for not only was she in
doubt now about the cute little things, but she also regretted, on
behalf of the old gentleman's wife who was a friend of hers,
the alert interest of his manner. He sat there so very much awake.
With his wife he never seemed awake at all. Up to now she had not
seen him except with his wife.

"You mustn't run away with the idea that we're
younger than we really are," Anna-Rose said to the old
gentleman.

"Why no, I won't," he answered with a liveliness
that deepened the knitting lady's regret on behalf of his wife.
"When I run away you bet it won't be with an
idea."

And he chuckled. He was quite rosy in the face, and chuckled; he
whom she knew only as a quiet man with no chuckle in him. And
wasn't what he had just said very like what the French call a
double entendre?
She hadn't a husband herself, but if
she had she would wish him to be at least as quiet when away from
her as when with her, and at least as free from
double entendres
. At least. Really more. "H'm,
h'm, h'm," she said, clicking her needles and looking
first at the twins and then at the old gentleman.

"Do you mean to say you crossed the Atlantic quite alone,
you two?" she asked, in order to prevent his continuing on
these remarkable and unusual lines of
badinage
.

"Quite," said Anna-Felicitas.

"That is to say, we had Mr. Twist of course," said
Anna-Rose.

"Once we had got him," amended Anna-Felicitas.

"Yes, yes," said the knitting lady, "so you say.
H'm, h'm, h'm. Once you had got him. I don't
quite--"

"Well, I call you a pair of fine high-spirited girls,"
said the old gentleman heartily, interrupting in his turn,
"and all I can say is I wish I had been on that
boat."

"Here's Mrs. Ridding," said the knitting lady
quickly, relief in her voice; whereupon he suddenly grew quiet.
"My, Mrs. Ridding," she added when the lady drew within
speaking distance, "you do look as though you needed a
rest."

Mrs. Ridding, the wife of the old gentleman, Mr. Ridding, had
been approaching slowly for some time from behind. She had been out
on the verandah since lunch, trying to recover from it. That was
the one drawback to meals, she considered, that they required so
much recovering from; and the nicer they were the longer it took.
The meals at the Cosmopolitan were particularly nice, and really
all one's time was taken up getting over them.

She was a lady whose figure seemed to be all meals. The old
gentleman had married her in her youth, when she hadn't had
time to have had so many. He and she were then the same age, and
unfortunately hadn't gone on being the same age since. It had
wrecked his life this inability of his wife to stay as young and
new as himself. He wanted a young wife, and the older he got in
years--his heart very awkwardly retained its early freshness--the
younger he wanted her; and, instead, the older he got the older his
wife got too. Also the less new. The old gentleman felt the whole
thing was a dreadful mistake. Why should he have to be married to
this old lady? Never in his life had he wanted to marry old ladies;
and he thought it very hard that at an age when he most appreciated
bright youth he should be forced to spend his precious years, his
crowning years when his mind had attained wisdom while his heart
retained freshness, stranded with an old lady of costly habits and
inordinate bulk just because years ago he had fallen in love with a
chance pretty girl.

He struggled politely out of his chair on seeing her. The twins,
impressed by such venerable abundance, got up too.

"Albert, if you try to move too quick you'll crick your
back again," said Mrs. Ridding in a monotonous voice, letting
herself down carefully and a little breathlessly on to the edge of
a chair that didn't rock, and fanning herself with a small fan
she carried on the end of a massive gold chain. Her fatigued eyes
explored the twins while she spoke.

"I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember that we're
neither of us as young as we were," she went on, addressing
the knitting lady but with her eyes continuing to explore the
twins.

They naturally thought she was speaking to them, and
Anna-Felicitas said politely, "Really?" and Anna-Rose,
feeling she too ought to make some comment, said, "Isn't
that very unusual?"

Aunt Alice always said, "Isn't that very unusual?"
when she didn't know what else to say, and it worked
beautifully, because then the other person launched into
affirmations or denials with the reasons for them, and was quite
happy.

But Mrs. Ridding only stared at the twins heavily and in
silence.

"Because," explained Anna-Rose, who thought the old
lady didn't quite follow, "nobody ever is. So that it must
be difficult not to remember it."

Mr. Ridding too was silent, but that was because of his wife. It
was quite untrue to say that he forgot, seeing that she was
constantly reminding him. "Old stranger," he thought
resentfully, as he carefully arranged a cushion behind her back. He
didn't like her back. Why should he have to pay bills for
putting expensive clothes on it? He didn't want to. It was all
a dreadful mistake.