Christopher and Columbus (43 page)

In the farthest corner of the otherwise empty and very chilly
verandah, sitting alone and staring out at the stars, was a man. He
was a young man. He was also an attractive young man, with a thin
brown face and very bright blue twinkling eyes. The light from the
window behind him shone on him as he turned his head when he heard
the swing doors open, and Mr. Twist saw these things distinctly and
at once. He also saw how the young man's face fell on his, Mr.
Twist's, appearance with the tray, and he also saw with some
surprise how before he had reached him it suddenly cleared again.
And the young man got up too, just as Mr. Twist arrived at the
table--got up with some little difficulty, for he had to lean hard
on a thick stick, but yet obviously with
empressement.

"You've forgotten the sugar," said
Anna-Felicitas's gentle voice behind Mr. Twist as he was
putting down the tray; and there she was, sure enough, looking
smugger than ever.

"This is Mr. Twist," said Anna-Felicitas with an
amiable gesture. "That I was telling you about," she
explained to the young man.

"When?" asked Mr. Twist, surprised.

"Before," said Anna-Felicitas. "We were talking
for some time before I went in to order the tea, weren't
we?" she said to the young man, angelically smiling at
him.

"Rather," he said; and since he didn't on this
introduction remark to Mr. Twist that he was pleased to meet him,
it was plain he couldn't be an American. Therefore he must be
English. Unless, suddenly suspected Mr. Twist who had Germans badly
on his nerves that day and was ready to suspect anything, he was
German cleverly got up for evil purposes to appear English. But the
young man dispersed these suspicions by saying that he was over
from England on six months' leave, and that his name was
Elliott.

"Like us," said Anna-Felicitas.

The young man looked at her with what would have been a greater
interest than ever if a greater interest had been possible, only it
wasn't.

"What, are you an Elliott too?" he asked eagerly.

Anna-Felicitas shook her head. "On the contrary," she
said, "I'm a Twinkler. And so is my sister. What I meant
was, you're like us about coming from England. We've done
that. Only our leave is for ever and ever. Or the duration of the
war."

Mr. Twist waved her aside. "Anna-Felicitas," he said,
"your sister is waiting for you in the office and wants you
badly. I'll see to Mr. Elliott."

"Why not bring your sister here?" said the young man,
who, being in the navy, was fertile in resourcefulness. And he
smiled at Anna-Felicitas, who smiled back; indeed, they did nothing
but smile at each other.

"I think that's a brilliant idea," she said; and
turned to Mr. Twist. "You go," she said gently, thereby
proving herself, the young man considered, at least his equal in
resourcefulness. "It's much more likely," she
continued, as Mr. Twist gazed at her without moving, "that
she'll come for you than for me. My sister," she explained
to the young man, "is older than I am."

"Then certainly I should say Mr. Twist is more
likely--"

"But only about twenty minutes older."

"What? A twin? I say, how extraordinarily jolly. Two of
you?"

"Anna-Felicitas," interrupted Mr. Twist, "you
will go to your sister immediately. She needs you. She's upset.
I don't wish to draw Mr. Elliott behind the scenes of family
life, but as nothing seems to get you into the office you force me
to tell you that she is very, much upset indeed, and is
crying."

"Crying?" echoed Anna-Felicitas.
"Christopher?" And she turned and departed in such haste
that the young man, who luckily was alert as well as resourceful,
had only just time to lean over and grab at a chair in her way and
pull it aside, and so avert a deplorable catastrophe.

"I hope it's nothing serious?" he inquired of Mr.
Twist.

"Oh no. Children will cry."

"Children?"

Mr. Twist sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. "Tell
me about England," he said. "You've been wounded, I
see."

"Leg," said the young man, still standing leaning on
his stick and looking after Anna-Felicitas.

"But that didn't get you six months'
leave."

"Lungs," said the young man, looking down impatiently
at Mr. Twist.

Then the swing doors swung to, and he sat down and poured out
his tea.

He had been in the battle of Jutland, and was rescued after
hours in the water. For months he was struggling to recover, but
finally tuberculosis had developed and he was sent to California,
to his sister who had married an American and lived in the
neighbourhood of Acapulco. This Mr. Twist extracted out of him by
diligent questioning. He had to question very diligently. What the
young man wanted to talk about was Anna-Felicitas; but every time
he tried to, Mr. Twist headed him off.

And she didn't come back. He waited and waited, and drank
and drank. When the teapot was empty he started on the hot water.
Also he ate all the cakes, more and more deliberately, eking them
out at last with slowly smoked cigarettes. He heard all about
France and Mr. Twist's activities there; he had time to listen
to the whole story of the ambulance from start to finish; and still
she didn't come back. In vain he tried at least to get Mr.
Twist off those distant fields, nearer home--to the point, in fact,
where the Twinklers were. Mr. Twist wouldn't budge. He stuck
firmly. And the swing doors remained shut. And the cakes were all
eaten. And there was nothing for it at last but to go.

So after half-an-hour of solid sitting he began slowly to get
up, still spreading out the moments, with one eye on the swing
doors. It was both late and cold. The Germans had departed, and Li
Koo had lit the usual evening wood fire in the big fireplace. It
blazed most beautifully, and the young man looked at it through the
window and hesitated.

"How jolly," he said.

"Firelight is very pleasant," agreed Mr. Twist, who
had got up too.

"I oughtn't to have stayed so long out here," said
the young man with a little shiver.

"I was thinking it was unwise," said Mr. Twist.

"Perhaps I'd better go in and warm myself a bit before
leaving."

"I should say your best plan is to get back quickly to your
sister and have a hot bath before dinner," said Mr. Twist.

"Yes. But I think I might just go in there and have a cup
of hot coffee first."

"There is no hot coffee at this hour," said Mr. Twist,
looking at his watch. "We close at half-past six, and it is
now ten minutes after."

"Then there seems nothing for it but to pay my bill and
go," said the young man, with an air of cheerful adaptation to
what couldn't be helped. "I'll just nip in there and
do that."

"Luckily there's no need for you to nip anywhere,"
said Mr. Twist, "for surely that's a type of movement
unsuited to your sick leg. You can pay me right here."

And he took the young man's five dollars, and went with him
as far as the green gate, and would have helped him into the
waiting car, seeing his leg wasn't as other legs and Mr. Twist
was, after all, humane, but the chauffeur was there to do that; so
he just watched from the gate till the car had actually started,
and then went back to the house.

He went back slowly, perturbed and anxious, his eyes on the
ground. This second day had been worse than the first. And besides
the continued and remarkable absence of Americans and the continued
and remarkable presence of Germans, there was a slipperiness
suddenly developed in the Annas. He felt insecure; as though he
didn't understand, and hadn't got hold. They seemed to him
very like eels. And this Elliott--what did he think
he
was after, anyway?

For the second time that afternoon Mr. Twist set his teeth. He
defied Elliott. He defied the Germans. He would see this thing
successful, this Open Arms business, or his name wasn't Twist.
And he stuck out his jaw--or would have stuck it out if he
hadn't been prevented by the amiable weakness of that feature.
But spiritually and morally, when he got back into the house he was
all jaw.

That night he determined he would go into Acapulco next morning
and drop in at his bank and at his lawyer's and other places,
and see if he could pick up anything that would explain why
Americans wouldn't come and have tea at The Open Arms. He even
thought he might look up old Ridding. He didn't sleep. He lay
all night thinking.

The evening had been spent
tête-à-tête
with Anna-Felicitas. Anna-Rose was in bed,
sleeping off her tears; Mrs. Bilton had another headache, and
disappeared early; so he was left with Anna-Felicitas, who slouched
about abstractedly eating up the remains of ice-cream. She
didn't talk, except once to remark a little pensively that her
inside was dreadfully full of cold stuff, and that she knew now
what it must feel like to be a mausoleum; but, eyeing her sideways
as he sat before the fire, Mr. Twist could see that she was still
smug. He didn't talk either. He felt he had nothing at present
to say to Anna-Felicitas that would serve a useful purpose, and
was, besides, reluctant to hear any counter-observations she might
make. Watchfulness was what was required. Silent watchfulness. And
wariness. And firmness. In fact all the things that were most
foreign to his nature, thought Mr. Twist, resentful and
fatigued.

Next morning he had a cup of coffee in his room, brought by Li
Koo, and then drove himself into Acapulco in his Ford without
seeing the others. It was another of the perfect days which he was
now beginning to take as a matter of course, so many had there been
since his arrival. People talked of the wet days and of their
desolate abundance once they started, but there had been as yet no
sign of them. The mornings succeeded each other, radiant and calm.
November was merging into December in placid loveliness. "Oh
yes," said Mr. Twist to himself sardonically, as he drove down
the sun-flecked lane in the gracious light, and crickets chirped at
him, and warm scents drifted across his face, and the flowers in
the grass, standing so bright and unruffled that they seemed almost
as profoundly pleased as Anna-Felicitas, nodded at him, and
everything was obviously perfectly contented and happy, "Oh
yes--I daresay." And he repeated this remark several times as
he looked round him,--he couldn't but look, it was all so
beautiful. These things hadn't to deal with Twinklers. No
wonder they could be calm and bright. So could he, if--

He turned a corner in the lane and saw some way down it two
figures, a man and a girl, sitting in the grass by the wayside.
Lovers, of course. "Oh yes--I daresay," said Mr. Twist
again, grimly. They hadn't to deal with Twinklers either. No
wonder they could sit happily in the grass. So could he, if--

At the noise of the approaching car, with the smile of the last
thing they had been saying still on their faces, the two turned
their heads, and it was that man Elliott and Anna-Felicitas.

"Hello," called out Mr. Twist, putting on the brakes
so hard that the Ford skidded sideways along the road towards
them.

"Hello," said the young man cheerfully, waving his
stick.

"Hello," said Anna-Felicitas mildly, watching his
sidelong approach with complacent interest.

She had no hat on, and had evidently escaped from Mrs. Bilton
just as she was. Escaped, however, was far too violent a word Mr.
Twist felt; sauntered from Mrs. Bilton better described her effect
of natural and comfortable arrival at the place where she was.

"I didn't know you were here," said Mr. Twist
addressing her when the car had stopped. He felt it was a lame
remark. He had torrents of things he wanted to say, and this was
all that came out.

Anna-Felicitas considered it placidly for a moment, and came to
the conclusion that it wasn't worth answering, so she
didn't.

"Going into the town?" inquired Elliott
pleasantly.

"Yes. I'll give you a lift."

"No thanks. I've just come from there."

"I see. Then
you'd
better come with me," said Mr. Twist to
Anna-Felicitas.

"I'm afraid I can't. I'm rather busy this
morning."

"Really," said Mr. Twist, in a voice of concentrated
sarcasm. But it had no effect on Anna-Felicitas. She continued to
contemplate him with perfect goodwill.

He hesitated a moment. What could he do? Nothing, that he could
see, before the young man; nothing that wouldn't make him
ridiculous. He felt a fool already. He oughtn't to have pulled
up. He ought to have just waved to them and gone on his way, and
afterwards in the seclusion of his office issued very plain
directions to Anna-Felicitas as to her future conduct. Sitting by
the roadside like that! Openly; before everybody; with a young man
she had never seen twenty-four hours ago.

He jammed in the gear and let the clutch out with such a jerk
that the car leaped forward. Elliott waved his stick again. Mr.
Twist responded by the briefest touch of his cap, and whirred down
the road out of sight.

"Does he mind your sitting here?" asked Elliott.

"It would be very unreasonable," said Anna-Felicitas
gently. "One has to sit somewhere."

And he laughed with delight at this answer as he laughed with
delight at everything she said, and he told her for the twentieth
time that she was the most wonderful person he had ever met, and
she settled down to listen again, after the interruption caused by
Mr. Twist, with a ready ear and the utmost complacency to these
agreeable statements, and began to wonder whether perhaps after all
she mightn't at last be about to fall in love.

In the new interest of this possibility she turned her head to
look at him, and he told her tumultuously--for being a sailor-man
he went straight ahead on great waves when it came to
love-making--that her eyes were as if pansies had married
stars.