Christopher and Columbus (36 page)

"Would you mind reading this?" said Anna-Rose faintly
to Mrs. Bilton, who took the letter mechanically and held it in her
hand without apparently noticing it, so much engaged was she by
what she was saying.

"We're going out a moment to speak to Mr. Twist,"
Anna-Rose then said, making for the door and beckoning to
Anna-Felicitas, who still stood hesitating.

She slipped out; and Anna-Felicitas, suddenly panic-stricken
lest she should be buttonholed all by herself fled after her.

Mr. Twist, his mind at ease, was in the charming room that was
to be the tea-room. It was full of scattered fittings and the noise
of hammering, but even so anybody could see what a delightful place
it would presently turn into.

The Open Arms was to make a specialty of wet days. Those were
the days, those consecutive days of downpour that came in the
winter and lasted without interruption for a fortnight at a time,
when visitors in the hotels were bored beyond expression and ready
to welcome anything that could distract them for an hour from the
dripping of the rain on the windows. Bridge was their one solace,
and they played it from after breakfast till bedtime; but on the
fourth or fifth day of doing this, just the mere steady sitting
became grievous to them. They ached with weariness. They wilted
with boredom. All their natural kindness got damped out of them,
and they were cross. Even when they won they were cross, and when
they lost it was really distressing. They wouldn't, of course,
have been in California at all at such a time if it were possible
to know beforehand when the rains would begin, but one never did
know, and often it was glorious weather right up to and beyond
Christmas. And then how glorious! What a golden place of light and
warmth to be in, while in the East one's friends were being
battered by blizzards.

Mr. Twist intended to provide a break in the day each afternoon
for these victims of the rain. He would come to their rescue. He
made up his mind, clear and firm on such matters, that it should
become the habit of these unhappy people during the bad weather to
motor out to The Open Arms for tea; and, full of forethought, he
had had a covered way made, by which one could get out of a car and
into the house without being touched by a drop of rain, and he had
had a huge open fireplace made across the end of the tea-room,
which would crackle and blaze a welcome that would cheer the most
dispirited arrival. The cakes, at all times wonderful were on wet
days to be more than wonderful. Li Koo had a secret receipt, given
him, he said, by his mother for cakes of a quite peculiar and
original charm, and these were to be reserved for the rainy season
only, and be made its specialty. They were to become known and
endeared to the public under the brief designation of Wet Day
Cakes. Mr. Twist felt there was something thoroughly American about
this name--plain and business-like, and attractively in contrast to
the subtle, the almost immoral exquisiteness of the article itself.
This cake had been one of those produced by Li Koo from the folds
of his garments the day in Los Angeles, and Mr. Twist had happened
to be the one of his party who ate it. He therefore knew what he
was doing when he decided to call it and its like simply Wet Day
Cakes.

The twins found him experimenting with a fire in the fireplace
so as to be sure it didn't smoke, and the architect and he were
in their shirt sleeves, deftly manipulating wood shavings and logs.
There was such a hammering being made by the workmen fixing in the
latticed windows, and such a crackling being made by the logs Mr.
Twist and the architect kept on throwing on the fire, that only
from the sudden broad smile on the architect's face as he
turned to pick up another log did Mr. Twist realize that something
that hadn't to do with work was happening behind his back.

He looked round and saw the Annas picking their way toward him.
They seemed in a hurry.

"Hello," he called out.

They made no reply to this, but continued hurriedly to pick
their way among the obstacles in their path. They appeared to be
much perturbed. What, he wondered, had they done with Mrs. Bilton?
He soon knew.

"We've given Mrs. Bilton notice," panted Anna-Rose
as soon as she got near enough to his ear for him to hear her in
the prevailing noise.

Her face, as usual when she was moved and excited, was scarlet,
her eyes looking bluer and brighter than ever by contrast.

"We simply can't stand it any longer," she went on
as Mr. Twist only stared at her.

"And you wouldn't either if you were us," she
continued, the more passionately as he still didn't say
anything.

"Of course," said Anna-Felicitas, taking a high line,
though her heart was full of doubt, "it's your fault
really. We could have borne it if we hadn't had to have her at
night."

"Come outside," said Mr. Twist, walking toward the
door that led on to the verandah.

They followed him, Anna-Rose shaking with excitement,
Anna-Felicitas trying to persuade herself that they had acted in
the only way consistent with real wisdom.

The architect stood with a log in each hand looking after them
and smiling all by himself. There was something about the Twinklers
that lightened his heart whenever he caught sight of them. He and
his fellow experts had deplored the absence of opportunities since
Mrs. Bilton came of developing the friendship begun the first day,
and talked of them on their way home in the afternoons with
affectionate and respectful familiarity as The Cutes.

"Now," said Mr. Twist, having passed through the
verandah and led the twins to the bottom of the garden where he
turned and faced them, "perhaps you'll tell me exactly
what you've done."

"You should rather inquire what Mrs. Bilton has done,"
said Anna-Felicitas, pulling herself up as straight and tall as she
would go. She couldn't but perceive that the excess of
Christopher's emotion was putting her at a disadvantage in the
matter of dignity.

"I can guess pretty much what she has done," said Mr.
Twist.

"You can't--you can't," burst out Anna-Rose.
"Nobody could--nobody ever could--who hadn't been with her
day and night."

"She's just been Mrs. Bilton," said Mr. Twist,
lighting a cigarette to give himself an appearance of calm.

"Exactly," said Anna-Felicitas. "So you won't
be surprised at our having just been Twinklers."

"Oh Lord," groaned Mr. Twist, in spite of his
cigarette, "oh, Lord."

"We've given Mrs. Bilton notice," continued
Anna-Felicitas, making a gesture of great dignity with her hand,
"because we find with regret that she and we are
incompatible."

"Was she aware that you were giving it her?" asked Mr.
Twist, endeavouring to keep calm.

"We wrote it."

"Has she read it?"

"We put it into her hand, and then came away so that she
should have an opportunity of quietly considering it."

"You shouldn't have left us alone with her like
this," burst out Anna-Rose again, "you shouldn't
really. It was cruel, it was wrong, leaving us high and dry--never
seeing you--leaving us to be talked to day and night--to be read
to--would
you
like to be read to while you're undressing by
somebody still in all their clothes? We've never been able to
open our mouths. We've been taken into the field for our airing
and brought in again as if we were newborns, or people in prams, or
flocks and herds, or prisoners suspected of wanting to escape. We
haven't had a minute to ourselves day or night. There
hasn't been a single exchange of ideas, not a shred of
recognition that we're grown up. We've been followed,
watched, talked to--oh, oh, how awful it has been! Oh, oh, how
awful! Forced to be dumb for days--losing our power of
speech--"

"Anna-Rose Twinkler," interrupted Mr. Twist sternly,
"you haven't lost it. And you not only haven't, but
that power of yours has increased tenfold during its days of
rest."

He spoke with the exasperation in his voice that they had
already heard several times since they landed in America. Each time
it took them aback, for Mr. Twist was firmly fixed in their minds
as the kindest and gentlest of creatures, and these sudden kickings
of his each time astonished them.

On this occasion, however, only Anna-Rose was astonished.
Anna-Felicitas all along had had an uncomfortable conviction in the
depth of her heart that Mr. Twist wouldn't like what they had
done. He would be upset, she felt, as her reluctant feet followed
Anna-Rose in search of him. He would be, she was afraid very much
upset. And so he was. He was appalled by what had happened. Lose
Mrs. Bilton? Lose the very foundation of the party's
respectability? And how could he find somebody else at the eleventh
hour and where and how could the twins and he live, unchaperoned as
they would be, till he had? What a peculiar talent these Annas had
for getting themselves and him into impossible situations! Of
course at their age they ought to be safe under the wing of a wise
and unusually determined mother. Well, poor little wretches, they
couldn't help not being under it; but that aunt of theirs ought
to have stuck to them--faced up to her husband, and stuck to
them.

"I suppose," he said angrily, "being you and not
being able to see farther than the ends of your noses, you
haven't got any sort of an idea of what you've
done."

"We--"

"She--"

"And I don't suppose it's much use my trying to
explain, either. Hasn't it ever occurred to you, though I'd
be real grateful if you'd give me information on this
point--that maybe you don't know everything?"

"She--"

"We--"

"And that till you do know everything, which I take it
won't be for some time yet, judging from the samples I've
had of your perspicacity, you'd do well not to act without
first asking some one's advice? Mine, for instance?"

"She--" began Anna-Rose again; but her voice was
trembling, for she couldn't bear Mr. Twist's anger. She was
too fond of him. When he looked at her like that her own anger was
blown out as if by an icy draught and she could only look back at
him piteously.

But Anna-Felicitas, being free from the weaknesses inherent in
adoration, besides continuing to perceive how Christopher's
feelings put her at a disadvantage, drew Mr. Twist's attention
from her by saying with gentleness, "But why add to the
general discomfort by being bitter?"

"Bitter!" cried Mr. Twist, still glaring at
Anna-Rose.

"Do you dispute that God made us?" inquired
Anna-Felicitas, placing herself as it were like a shield between
Mr. Twist's wrathful concentration on Christopher and that
unfortunate young person's emotion.

"See here," said Mr. Twist turning on her,
"I'm not going to argue with you--not about
anything
. Least of all about God."

"I only wanted to point out to you," said
Anna-Felicitas mildly, "that that being so, and we not able to
help it, there seems little use in being bitter with us because
we're not different. In regard to anything fundamental about us
that you deplore I'm afraid we must refer you to
Providence."

"Say," said Mr. Twist, not in the least appeased by
this reasoning but, as Anna-Felicitas couldn't but notice,
quite the contrary, "used you to talk like this to that Uncle
Arthur of yours? Because if you did, upon my word I don't
wonder--"

But what Mr. Twist didn't wonder was fortunately concealed
from the twins by the appearance at that moment of Mrs. Bilton,
who, emerging from the shades of the verandah and looking about
her, caught sight of them and came rapidly down the garden.

There was no escape.

They watched her bearing down on them without a word. It was a
most unpleasant moment. Mr. Twist re-lit his cigarette to give
himself a countenance, but the thought of all that Mrs. Bilton
would probably say was dreadful to him, and his hand couldn't
help shaking a little. Anna-Rose showed a guilty tendency to slink
behind him. Anna-Felicitas stood motionless, awaiting the deluge.
All Mr. Twist's sympathies were with Mrs. Bilton, and he was
ashamed that she should have been treated so. He felt that nothing
she could say would be severe enough, and he was extraordinarily
angry with the Annas. Yet when he saw the injured lady bearing down
on them, if he only could he would have picked up an Anna under
each arm, guilty as they were, and run and run; so much did he
prefer them to Mrs. Bilton and so terribly did he want, at this
moment, to be somewhere where that lady wasn't.

There they stood then, anxiously watching the approaching
figure, and the letter in Mrs. Bilton's hand bobbed up and down
as she walked, white and conspicuous in the sun against her black
dress. What was their amazement to see as she drew nearer that she
was looking just as pleasant as ever. They stared at her with
mouths falling open. Was it possible, thought the twins, that she
was longing to leave but hadn't liked to say so, and the letter
had come as a release? Was it possible, thought Mr. Twist with a
leap of hope in his heart, that she was taking the letter from a
non-serious point of view?

And Mr. Twist, to his infinite relief, was right. For Mrs.
Bilton, woman of grit and tenacity, was not in the habit of
allowing herself to be dislodged or even discouraged. This was the
opening sentence of her remarks when she had arrived, smiling, in
their midst. Had she not explained the first night that she was one
who, having put her hand to the plough, held on to it however
lively the movements of the plough might be? She would not conceal
from them, she said, that even Mr. Bilton had not, especially, at
first, been entirely without such movements. He had settled down,
however on finding he could trust her to know better than he did
what he wanted. Don't wise wives always? she inquired. And the
result had been that no man ever had a more devoted wife while he
was alive, or a more devoted widow after he wasn't. She had
told him one day, when he was drawing near the latter condition and
she was conversing with him, as was only right, on the subject of
wills, and he said that his affairs had gone wrong and as far as he
could see she would be left a widow and that was about all she
would be left--she had told him that if it was any comfort to him
to know it, he might rely on it that he would have the most devoted
widow any man had ever had, and he said--Mr. Bilton had odd
fancies, especially toward the end--that a widow was the one thing
a man never could have because he wasn't there by the time he
had got her. Yes, Mr. Bilton had odd fancies. And if she had
managed, as she did manage, to steer successfully among them, he
being a man of ripe parts and character, was it likely that
encountering odd fancies in two very young and unformed girls--oh,
it wasn't their fault that they were unformed, it was merely
because they hadn't had time enough yet--she would be unable,
experienced as she was, to steer among them too? Besides, she had a
heart for orphans; orphans and dumb animals always had had a
special appeal for her. "No, no, Mr. Twist," Mrs. Bilton
wound up, putting a hand affectionately on Anna-Rose's shoulder
as a more convenient one than Anna-Felicitas's, "my young
charges aren't going to be left in the lurch, you may rely on
that. I don't undertake a duty without carrying it out. Why, I
feel a lasting affection for them already. We've made real
progress these few days in intimacy. And I just love to sit and
listen to all their fresh young chatter."