Christopher and Columbus (41 page)

Mr. Wangelbecker turned his head in the direction she was
looking.

"Ah--" he said getting up, "but this is
magnificent Güstchen, here are Mrs. Kleinbart and her sister--why,
and there come the Diederichs--but splendid, splendid--"

"Say," said Mr. Ridding, turning to Mr. Twist with a
congested face, "ever been to Berlin?"

"No," said Mr. Twist, annoyed by a question of such
wanton irrelevance flung into the middle of his sentence.

"Well, it's just like this."

"Like this?" repeated Mr. Twist.

"Those there," said Mr. Ridding, jerking his head.
"That lot there--see 'em any day in Berlin, or Frankfurt,
or any other of their confounded towns."

"I don't follow," said Mr. Twist, very shortly
indeed.

"Germans," said Mr. Ridding.

"Germans?"

"All Germans," said Ridding.

"All Germans?"

"Wangelbeckers are Germans," said Mr. Ridding.
"Didn't you know?"

"No," said Mr. Twist.

"So are the ones who've just come in."

"Germans?"

"All Germans. So are those behind, just coming
in."

"Germans?"

"All Germans."

There was a pause, during which Mr. Twist stared round the room.
It was presenting quite a populous appearance. Then he said slowly,
"Well I'm damned."

And Mr. Ridding for the first time looked pleased with Mr.
Twist. He considered that at last he was talking sense.

"Mr. Twist," he said heartily, "I'm
exceedingly glad you're damned. It was what I was sure at the
bottom of my heart you would be. Shake hands, sir."

That evening depression reigned in The Open Arms.

Mr. Twist paced up and down the tea-room deep in thought that
was obviously unpleasant and perplexed; Mrs. Bilton went to bed
abruptly, after a short outpour of words to the effect that she had
never seen so many Germans at once before, that her psyche was
disharmonious to Germans, that they made her go goose-fleshy just
as cats in a room made Mr. Bilton go goose-fleshy in the days when
he had flesh to go it with, that she hadn't been aware the inn
was to be a popular resort and rendezvous for Germans, and that she
wished to speak alone with Mr. Twist in the morning; while the
twins, feeling the ominousness of this last sentence,--as did Mr.
Twist, who started when he heard it,--and overcome by the lassitude
that had succeeded the shocks of the afternoon, a lassitude much
increased by their having tried to finish up the pailsful of
left-over ices and the huge piles of cakes slowly soddening in
their own souring cream, went out together on to the moonlit
verandah and stood looking up in silence at the stars. There they
stood in silence, and thought things about the immense distance and
indifference of those bright, cold specks, and how infinitely
insignificant after all they, the Twinklers were, and how they
would both in any case be dead in a hundred years. And this last
reflection afforded them somehow a kind of bleak and draughty
comfort.

Thus the first evening, that was to have been so happy, was
spent by everybody in silence and apart. Li Koo felt the atmosphere
of oppression even in his kitchen, and refrained from song. He put
away, after dealing with it cunningly so that it should keep until
a more propitious hour, a wonderful drink he had prepared for
supper in celebration of the opening day--"Me make li'l
celebrity," he had said, squeezing together strange essences
and fruits--and he moved softly about so as not to disturb the
meditations of the master. Li Koo was perfectly aware of what had
gone wrong: it was the unexpected arrival to tea of Germans. Being
a member of the least blood-thirsty of the nations, he viewed
Germans with peculiar disfavour and understood his master's
prolonged walking up and down. Also he had noted through a crack in
the door the way these people of blood and death crowded round the
white-lily girls; and was not that sufficient in itself to cause
his master's numerous and rapid steps?

Numerous indeed that evening were Mr. Twist's steps. He felt
he must think, and he could think better walking up and down. Why
had all those Germans come? Why, except old Ridding and the
experts, had none of the Americans come? It was very strange. And
what Germans! So cordial, so exuberant to the twins, so openly
gathering them to their bosoms, as though they belonged there. And
so cordial too to him, approaching him in spite of his withdrawals,
conveying to him somehow, his disagreeable impression had been,
that he and they perfectly understood each other. Then Mrs. Bilton;
was she going to give trouble? It looked like it. It looked
amazingly like it. Was she after all just another edition of his
mother, and unable to discriminate between Germans and Germans,
between the real thing and mere technicalities like the Twinklers?
It is true he hadn't told her the twins were German, but then
neither had he told her they weren't. He had been passive. In
Mrs. Bilton's presence passivity came instinctively. Anything
else involved such extreme and unusual exertion. He had never had
the least objection to her discovering their nationality for
herself, and indeed had been surprised she hadn't done so long
ago, for he felt sure she would quickly begin to love the Annas,
and once she loved them she wouldn't mind what their father had
happened to be. He had supposed she did love them. How
affectionately she had kissed them that very afternoon and wished
them luck. Was all that nothing? Was lovableness nothing, and
complete innocence, after all in the matter of being born, when
weighed against the one fact of the von? What he would do if Mrs.
Bilton left him he couldn't imagine. What would happen to The
Open Arms and the twins in such a case, his worried brain simply
couldn't conceive.

Out of the corner of his eye every time he passed the open door
on to the verandah he could see the two Annas standing motionless
on its edge, their up-turned faces, as they gazed at the stars,
white in the moonlight and very serious. Pathetic children.
Pathetic, solitary, alien children. What were they thinking of? He
wouldn't mind betting it was their mother.

Mr. Twist's heart gave a kind of tug at him. His
sentimental, maternal side heaved to the top. A great impulse to
hurry out and put his arms round them seized him, but he frowned
and overcame it. He didn't want to go soft now. Nor was this
the moment, his nicely brought up soul told him, his soul still
echoing with the voice of Clark, to put his arms round them--this,
the very first occasion on which Mrs. Bilton had left them alone
with him. Whether it would become proper on the very second
occasion was one of those questions that would instantly have
suggested itself to the Annas themselves, but didn't occur to
Mr. Twist. He merely went on to think of another reason against it,
which was the chance of Mrs. Bilton's looking out of her window
just as he did it. She might, he felt, easily misjudge the
situation, and the situation, he felt, was difficult enough
already. So he restrained himself; and the Annas continued to
consider infinite space and to perceive, again with that feeling of
dank and unsatisfactory consolation, that nothing really
mattered.

Next day immediately after breakfast Mrs. Bilton followed him
into his office and gave notice. She called it formally tendering
her resignation. She said that all her life she had been an
upholder of straight dealing, as much in herself towards others as
in others towards herself--

"Mrs. Bilton--" interrupted Mr. Twist, only it
didn't interrupt.

She had also all her life been intensely patriotic, and Mr.
Twist, she feared, didn't look at patriotism with quite her
single eye--

"Mrs. Bilton--"

As her eye saw it, patriotism was among other things a
determination to resist the encroachments of foreigners--

"Mrs. Bilton--"

She had no wish to judge him, but she had still less wish to be
mixed up with foreigners, and foreigners for her at that moment
meant Germans--

"Mrs. Bilton--"

She regretted, but psychically she would never be able to
flourish in a soil so largely composed, as the soil of The Open
Arms appeared to be, of that nationality--

"Mrs. Bilton--"

And though it was none of her business, still she must say it
did seem to her a pity that Mr. Twist with his well-known and
respected American name should be mixed up--

"Mrs. Bilton--"

And though she had no wish to be inquisitive, still she must say
it did seem to her peculiar that Mr. Twist should be the guardian
of two girls who, it was clear from what she had overheard that
afternoon, were German--

Here Mr. Twist raised his voice and shouted. "Mrs.
Bilton," he shouted, so loud that she couldn't but stop,
"if you'll guarantee to keep quiet for just five
minutes--sit down right here at this table and not say one single
thing, not one single thing for just five minutes," he said,
banging the table, "I'll tell you all about it. Oh yes,
I'll accept your resignation at the end of that time if
you're still set on leaving, but just for this once it's me
that's going to do the talking."

And this must be imagined as said so loud that only capital
letters would properly represent the noise Mr. Twist made.

Mrs. Bilton did sit down, her face flushed by the knowledge of
how good her intentions had been when she took the post, and how
deceitful--she was forced to think it--Mr. Twist's were when he
offered it. She was prepared, however, to give him a hearing. It
was only fair. But Mr. Twist had to burst into capitals several
times before he had done, so difficult was it for Mrs. Bilton, even
when she had agreed, even when she herself wished, not to say
anything.

It wasn't five minutes but twenty before Mrs. Bilton came
out of the office again. She went straight into the garden, where
the Annas, aware of the interview going on with Mr. Twist, had been
lingering anxiously, unable at so crucial a moment to settle to
anything, and with solemnity kissed them. Her eyes were very
bright. Her face, ordinarily colourless as parchment, was red.
Positively she kissed them without saying a single word; and they
kissed her back with such enthusiasm, with a relief that made them
hug her so tight and cling to her so close, that the brightness in
her eyes brimmed over and she had to get out her handkerchief and
wipe it away.

"Gurls," said Mrs. Bilton, "I had a shock
yesterday, but I'm through with it. You're motherless.
I'm daughterless. We'll weld."

And with this unusual brevity did Mrs. Bilton sum up the
situation.

She was much moved. Her heart was touched; and once that
happened nothing could exceed her capacity for sticking through
what she called thick and thin to her guns. For years Mr. Bilton
had occupied the position of the guns; now it would be these poor
orphans. No Germans could frighten her away, once she knew their
story; no harsh judgments and misconceptions of her patriotic
friends. Mr. Twist had told her everything, from the beginning on
the
St. Luke
, harking back to Uncle Arthur and the attitude of
England, describing what he knew of their mother and her death, not
even concealing the part his own mother had played or that he
wasn't their guardian at all. He made the most of Mrs.
Bilton's silence; and as she listened her heart melted within
her, and the immense store of grit which was her peculiar pride
came to the top and once and for all overwhelmed her prejudices.
But she couldn't think, and at last she burst out and told Mr.
Twist she couldn't think, why he hadn't imparted all this
to her long ago.

"Ah," murmured Mr. Twist, bowing his head as a reed in
the wind before the outburst of her released volubility.

Hope once more filled The Open Arms, and the Twist party looked
forward to the afternoon with renewed cheerfulness. It had just
happened so the first day, that only Germans came. It was just
accident. Mr. Twist, with the very large part of him that
wasn't his head, found himself feeling like this too and
declining to take any notice of his intelligence, which continued
to try to worry him.

Yet the hope they all felt was not realized, and the second
afternoon was almost exactly like the first. Germans came and
clustered round the Annas, and made friendly though cautious
advances to Mr. Twist. The ones who had been there the first day
came again and brought others with them worse than themselves, and
they seemed more at home than ever, and the air was full of rolling
r's--among them, Mr. Twist was unable to deny, being the
r's of his blessed Annas. But theirs were such little r's,
he told himself. They rolled, it is true, but with how sweet a
rolling. While as for these other people--confound it all, the
place might really have been, from the sounds that were filling it,
a
Conditorei
Unter den Linden.

All his doubts and anxieties flocked back on him as time passed
and no Americans appeared. Americans. How precious. How clean, and
straight, and admirable. Actually he had sometimes, he remembered,
thought they weren't. What an aberration. Actually he had been,
he remembered, impatient with them when first he came back from
France. What folly. Americans. The very word was refreshing, was
like clear water on a thirsty day. One American, even one, coming
in that afternoon would have seemed to Mr. Twist a godsend, a
purifier, an emollient--like some blessed unction dropped from
above.

But none appeared; not even Mr. Ridding.

At six o'clock it was quite dark, and obviously too late to
go on hoping. The days in California end abruptly. The sun goes
down, and close on its heels comes night. In the tea-room the
charmingly shaded lights had been turned on some time, and Mr.
Twist, watching from the partly open door of his office, waited
impatiently for the guests to begin to thin out. But they
didn't. They took no notice of the signals of lateness, the
lights turned on, the stars outside growing bright in the
surrounding blackness.