Christopher and Columbus (31 page)

"You're the Twinkler girls," said the old lady
abruptly.

They made polite gestures of agreement.

The knitting lady knitted vigorously, sitting up very straight
and saying nothing, with a look on her face of disclaiming every
responsibility.

"Where does your family come from?" was the next
question.

This was unexpected. The twins had no desire to talk of
Pomerania. They hadn't wanted to talk about Pomerania once
since the war began; and they felt very distinctly in their bones
that America, though she was a neutral, didn't like Germany any
more than the belligerents did. It had been their intention to
arrange together the line they would take if asked questions of
this sort, but life had been so full and so exciting since their
arrival that they had forgotten to.

Anna-Rose found herself unable to say anything at all.
Anna-Felicitas, therefore, observing that Christopher was unnerved,
plunged in.

"Our family," she said gently, "can hardly be
said to come so much as to have been."

The old lady thought this over, her lustreless eyes on
Anna-Felicitas's face.

The knitting lady clicked away very fast, content to leave the
management of the Twinklers in more competent hands.

"How's that?" asked the old lady, finally deciding
that she hadn't understood.

"It's extinct," said Anna-Felicitas. "Except
us. That is, in the direct line."

The old lady was a little impressed by this, direct lines not
being so numerous or so clear in America as in some other
countries.

"You mean you two are the only Twinklers left?" she
asked.

"The only ones left that matter," said Anna-Felicitas.
"There are branches of Twinklers still existing, I believe,
but they're so unimportant that we don't know
them."

"Mere twigs," said Anna-Rose, recovering her nerves on
seeing Anna-Felicitas handle the situation so skilfully; and her
nose unconsciously gave a slight Junker lift.

"Haven't you got any parents?" asked the old
lady.

"We used to have," said Anna-Felicitas flushing,
afraid that her darling mother was going to be asked about.

The old gentleman gave a sudden chuckle. "Why yes," he
said, forgetting his wife's presence for an instant, "I
guess you had them once, or I don't see how--"

"Albert," said his wife.

"We are the sole surviving examples of the direct line of
Twinklers," said Anna-Rose, now quite herself and ready to
give Columbus a hand. "There's just us. And we--" she
paused a moment, and then plunged--"we come from
England."

"Do you?" said the old lady. "Now I shouldn't
have said that. I can't say just why, but I shouldn't.
Should you, Miss Heap?"

"I shouldn't say a good many things, Mrs.
Ridding," said Miss Heap enigmatically, her needles
flying.

"It's because we've been abroad a great deal with
our parents, I expect," said Anna-Rose rather quickly. "I
daresay it has left its mark on us."

"Everything leaves its mark on one," observed
Anna-Felicitas pleasantly.

"Ah," said the old lady. "I know what it is now.
It's the foreign r. You've picked it up. Haven't they,
Miss Heap."

"I shouldn't like to say what they haven't picked
up, Mrs. Ridding," said Miss Heap, again enigmatically.

"I'm afraid we have," said Anna-Rose, turning red.
"We've been told that before. It seems to stick, once one
has picked it up."

And the old gentleman muttered that everything stuck once one
had picked it up, and looked resentfully at his wife.

She moved her slow eyes round, and let them rest on him a
moment.

"Albert, if you talk so much you won't be able to sleep
to-night," she said. "I can't get Mr. Ridding to
remember we've got to be careful at our age," she added to
the knitting lady.

"You seem to be bothered by your memory," said
Anna-Rose politely, addressing the old gentleman "Have you
ever tried making notes on little bits of paper of the things you
have to remember? I think you would probably be all right then.
Uncle Arthur used to do that. Or rather he made Aunt Alice do it
for him, and put them where he would see them."

"Uncle Arthur," explained Anna-Felicitas to the old
lady, "is an uncle of ours. The one," she said turning to
the old gentleman, "we were just telling you about, who so
unfortunately insisted on marrying our aunt. Uncle, that is, by
courtesy," she added, turning to the old lady, "not by
blood."

The old lady's eyes moved from one twin to the other as each
one spoke, but she said nothing.

"But Aunt Alice," said Anna-Rose, "is our genuine
aunt. Well, I was going to tell you," she continued briskly,
addressing the old gentleman. "There used to be things Uncle
Arthur had to do every day and every week, but still he had to be
reminded of them each time, and Aunt Alice had a whole set of the
regular ones written out on bits of cardboard, and brought them out
in turn. The Monday morning one was: Wind the Clock, and the Sunday
morning one was: Take your Hot Bath, and the Saturday evening one
was: Remember your Pill. And there was one brought in regularly
every morning with his shaving water and stuck in his
looking-glass: Put on your Abdominable Belt."

The knitting needles paused an instant.

"Yes," Anna-Felicitas joined in, interested by these
recollections, her long limbs sunk in her chair in a position of
great ease and comfort, "and it seemed to us so funny for him
to have to be reminded to put on what was really a part of his
clothes every day, that once we wrote a slip of our own for him and
left it on his dressing-table: Don't forget your
Trousers."

The knitting needles paused again.

"But the results of that were dreadful," added
Anna-Felicitas, her face sobering at the thought of them.

"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "You see, he supposed Aunt
Alice had done it, in a fit of high spirits, though she never had
high spirits--"

"And wouldn't have been allowed to if she had,"
explained Anna-Felicitas.

"And he thought she was laughing at him," said
Anna-Rose, "though we have never seen her laugh--"

"And I don't believe he has either," said
Anna-Felicitas.

"So there was trouble, because he couldn't bear the
idea of her laughing at him, and we had to confess."

"But that didn't make it any better for Aunt
Alice."

"No, because then he said it was her fault anyhow for not
keeping us stricter."

"So," said Anna-Felicitas, "after the house had
been steeped in a sulphurous gloom for over a week, and we all felt
as though we were being slowly and steadily gassed, we tried to
make it up by writing a final one--a nice one--and leaving it on
his plate at breakfast: Kiss your Wife. But instead of kissing her
he--" She broke off, and then finished a little vaguely:
"Oh well, he didn't."

"Still," remarked Anna-Rose, "it must be pleasant
not to be kissed by a husband. Aunt Alice always wanted him to,
strange to say, which is why we reminded him of it. He used to
forget that more regularly than almost anything. And the people who
lived in the house nearest us were just the opposite--the husband
was for ever trying to kiss the person who was his wife, and she
was for ever dodging him."

"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "Like the people on
Keats's Grecian Urn."

"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "And that sort of husband,
must be even worse.

"Oh, much worse," agreed Anna-Felicitas.

She looked round amiably at the three quiet figures in the
chairs. "I shall refrain altogether from husbands," she
said placidly. "I shall take something that doesn't
kiss."

And she fell into an abstraction, wondering, with her cheek
resting on her hand, what he, or it, would look like.

There was a pause. Anna-Rose was wondering too what sort of a
creature Columbus had in her mind, and how many, if any, legs it
would have; and the other three were, as before, silent.

Then the old lady said, "Albert," and put out her hand
to be helped on to her feet.

The old gentleman struggled out of his chair, and helped her up.
His face had a congested look, as if he were with difficulty
keeping back things he wanted to say.

Miss Heap got up too, stuffing her knitting as she did so into
her brocaded bag.

"Go on ahead and ring the elevator bell, Albert," said
the old lady. "It's time we went and had our
nap."

"I ain't going to," said the old gentleman
suddenly.

"What say? What ain't you going to, Albert?" said
the old lady, turning her slow eyes round to him.

"Nap," said the old gentleman, his face very red.

It was intolerable to have to go and nap. He wished to stay
where he was and talk to the twins. Why should he have to nap
because somebody else wanted to? Why should he have to nap with an
old lady, anyway? Never in his life had he wanted to nap with old
ladies. It was all a dreadful mistake.

"Albert," said his wife looking at him.

He went on ahead and rang the lift-bell.

"You're quite right to see that he rests, Mrs.
Ridding," said Miss Heap, walking away with her and slowing
her steps to suit hers. "I should say it was essential that he
should be kept quiet in the afternoons. You should see that Mr.
Ridding rests more than he does.
Much
more," she added significantly.

"I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember that we're
neither of us--"

This was the last the twins heard.

They too had politely got out of their chairs when the old lady
began to heave into activity, and they stood watching the three
departing figures. They were a little surprised. Surely they had
all been in the middle of an interesting conversation?

"Perhaps it's American to go away in the middle,"
remarked Anna-Rose, following the group with her eyes as it moved
toward the lift.

"Perhaps it is," said Anna-Felicitas, also gazing
after it.

The old gentleman, in the brief moment during which the two
ladies had their backs to him while preceding him into the lift,
turned quickly round on his heels and waved his hand before he
himself went in.

The twins laughed, and waved back; and they waved with such
goodwill that the old gentleman couldn't resist giving one more
wave. He was seen doing it by the two ladies as they faced round,
and his wife, as she let herself down on to the edge of the seat,
remarked that he mustn't exert himself like that or he would
have to begin taking his drops again.

That was all she said in the lift; but in their room, when she
had got her breath again, she said, "Albert, there's just
one thing in the world I hate worse than a fool, and that's an
old fool."

That evening, while the twins were undressing, a message came up
from the office that the manager would be obliged if the Miss
Twinklers' canary wouldn't sing.

"But it can't help it," said Anna-Felicitas
through the crack of door she held open; she was already in her
nightgown. "You wouldn't either if you were a
canary," she added, reasoning with the messenger.

"It's just got to help it," said he.

"But why shouldn't it sing?"

"Complaints."

"But it always has sung."

"That is so. And it has sung once too often. It's
unpopular in this hotel, that canary of yours. It's just got to
rest a while. Take it easy. Sit quiet on its perch and
think."

"But it won't sit quiet and think."

"Well, I've told you," he said, going away.

This was the bird that had been seen arriving at the
Cosmopolitan about a week before by the lawyer, and it had
piercingly sung ever since. It sang, that is, as long as there was
any light, real or artificial, to sing by. The boy who carried it
from the shop for the twins said its cage was to be hung in a
window in the sun, or it couldn't do itself justice. But
electric light also enabled it to do itself justice, the twins
discovered, and if they sat up late the canary sat up late too,
singing as loudly and as mechanically as if it hadn't been a
real canary at all, but something clever and American with a
machine inside it.

Secretly the twins didn't like it. Shocked at its loud
behaviour, they had very soon agreed that it was no lady, but
Anna-Rose was determined to have it at The Open Arms because of her
conviction that no house showing the trail of a woman's hand
was without a canary. That, and a workbag. She bought them both the
same day. The workbag didn't matter, because it kept quiet; but
the canary was a very big, very yellow bird, much bigger and
yellower than the frailer canaries of a more exhausted
civilization, and quite incapable, unless it was pitch dark, of
keeping quiet for a minute. Evidently, as Anna-Felicitas said, it
had a great many lungs. Her idea of lungs, in spite of her time
among them and similar objects at a hospital, was what it had
always been: that they were things like pink macaroni strung across
a frame of bones on the principle of a lyre or harp, and producing
noises. She thought the canary had unusual numbers of these pink
strings, and all of them of the biggest and dearest kind of
macaroni.

The other guests at the Cosmopolitan had been rather restive
from the first on account of this bird, but felt so indulgent
toward its owners, those cute little relations or charges or
whatever they were of Teapot Twist's, that they bore its
singing without complaint. But on the evening of the day the Annas
had the interesting conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Ridding and Miss
Heap, two definite complaints were lodged in the office, and one
was from Mrs. Ridding and the other was from Miss Heap.

The manager, as has been said, was already sensitive about the
canary. Its cage was straining his electric light cord, and its
food, assiduously administered in quantities exceeding its
capacity, littered the expensive pink pile carpet. He therefore
lent a ready ear and sent up a peremptory message; and while the
message was going up, Miss Heap, who had come herself with her
complaint, stayed on discussing the Twist and Twinkler party.