Christopher and Columbus (47 page)

"Christopher is being unreasonable," said
Anna-Felicitas, her voice softer and gentler than he had yet heard
it.

Then she stopped, and considered him a moment with much of the
look of one who on a rather cold day considers the sea before
diving in--with, that is, a slight but temporary reluctance to
proceed.

"Won't you sit down?" said Mr. Twist.

"Perhaps I'd better," she said, disposing herself
in the big chair. "It's very strange, but my legs feel
funny. You wouldn't think being in love would make one want to
sit down."

"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Twist.

"I have fallen in love," said Anna-Felicitas, looking
up at him with a kind of pensive radiance. "I did it this
morning."

Mr. Twist stared at her. "I beg your--what did you
say?" he asked.

She said, still with that air as she regarded him of pensive
radiance, of not seeing him but something beyond him that was very
beautiful to her and satisfactory, "I've fallen in love,
and I can't tell you how pleased I am because I've always
been afraid I was going to find it a difficult thing to do. But it
wasn't. Quite the contrary."

Then, as he only staged at her, she said, "He's coming
round this afternoon on the new footing, and I wanted to prepare
your and Christopher's minds in good time so that you
shouldn't be surprised."

And having said this she lapsed into what was apparently,
judging from her expression, a silent contemplation of her
bliss.

"But you're too young," burst out Mr. Twist.

"Too young?" repeated Anna-Felicitas, coming out of
her contemplation for a moment to smile at him. "We don't
think so."

Well. This beat everything.

Mr. Twist could only stare down at her.

Conflicting emotions raged in him. He couldn't tell for a
moment what they were, they were so violent and so varied. How
dared Elliott. How dared a person they had none of them heard of
that time yesterday come making love to a girl he had never seen
before. And in such a hurry. So suddenly. So instantly. Here had he
himself been with the twins constantly for weeks, and wouldn't
have dreamed of making love to them. They had been sacred to him.
And it wasn't as if he hadn't wanted to hug them often and
often, but he had restrained himself as a gentleman should from the
highest motives of delicacy, and consideration, and respect, and
propriety, besides a great doubt as to whether they wouldn't
very energetically mind. And then comes along this blundering
Britisher, and straight away tumbles right in where Mr. Twist had
feared to tread, and within twenty-four hours had persuaded
Anna-Felicitas to think she was in love. New footing indeed. There
hadn't been an old footing yet. And who was this Elliott? And
how was Mr. Twist going to be able to find out if he were a proper
person to be allowed to pay his addresses to one so precious as a
Twinkler twin?

Anger, jealousy, anxiety, sense of responsibility and
mortification, all tumbled about furiously together inside Mr.
Twist as he leaned against the bookcase and gazed down at
Anna-Felicitas, who for her part was gazing beatifically into
space; but through the anger, and the jealousy, and the anxiety,
and the sense of responsibility and mortification one great thought
was struggling, and it finally pushed every other aside and got out
to the top of the welter: here, in the chair before him, he beheld
his sister-in-law. So much at least was cleared up.

He crossed to the bureau and dragged his office-stool over next
to her and sat down. "So that's it, is it?" he said,
trying to speak very calmly, but his face pulled all sorts of ways,
as it had so often been since the arrival in his life of the
twins.

"Yes," she said, coming out of her contemplation.
"It's love at last."

"I don't know about at last. Whichever way you look at
it, Anna II., that don't seem to hit it off as a word. What I
meant was, it's Elliott."

"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "Which is the same
thing. I believe," she added, "I now have to allude to
him as John."

Mr. Twist made another effort to speak calmly. "You
don't," he said, "think it at all unusual or
undesirable that you should be calling a man John to-day of whom
you'd never heard yesterday."

"I think it's wonderful," said Anna-Felicitas
beaming.

"It doesn't strike you in any way as imprudent to be so
hasty. It doesn't strike you as foolish."

"On the contrary," said Anna-Felicitas. "I
can't help thinking I've been very clever. I shouldn't
have thought it of myself. You see, I'm not
naturally
quick." And she beamed with what she
evidently regarded as a pardonable pride.

"It doesn't strike you as even a little--well, a little
improper."

"On the contrary," said Anna-Felicitas. "Aunt
Alice told us that the one man one could never be improper about,
even if one tried, was one's husband."

"Husband?" Mr. Twist winced. He loved, as we have
seen, the word wife, but then that was different.

"It's not time yet to talk of husbands," he said,
full of a flaming unreasonableness and jealousy and the sore
feeling that he who had been toiling so long and so devotedly in
the heat of the Twinkler sun had had a most unfair march stolen on
him by this eleventh-hour stranger.

He flamed with unreasonableness. Yet he knew this was the
solution of half his problem,--and of much the worst half, for it
was after all Anna-Felicitas who had produced the uncomfortable
feeling of slipperiness, of eels; Anna-Rose had been quite good,
sitting in a chair crying and just so sweetly needing comfort. But
now that the solution was presented to him he was full of fears.
For on what now could he base his proposal to Anna-Rose? Elliott
would be the legitimate protector of both the Twinklers. Mr. Twist,
who had been so much perturbed by the idea of having to propose to
one or other twin, was miserably upset by the realization that now
he needn't propose to either. Elliott had cut the ground from
under his feet. He had indeed--what was the expression he used the
evening before?--yes, nipped in. There was now no necessity for
Anna-Rose to marry him, and Mr. Twist had an icy and forlorn
feeling that on no other basis except necessity would she. He was
thirty-five. It was all very well for Elliott to get proposing to
people of seventeen; he couldn't be more than twenty-five. And
it wasn't only age. Mr. Twist hadn't shaved before
looking-glasses for nothing, and he was very distinctly aware that
Elliott was extremely attractive.

"It's not time yet to talk of husbands," he
therefore hotly and jealously said.

"On the contrary," said Anna-Felicitas gently,
"it's not only time but war-time. The war, I have
observed, is making people be quick and sudden about all sorts of
things."

"You haven't observed it. That's Elliott said
that."

"He may have," said Anna-Felicitas. "He said so
many things--"

And again she lapsed into contemplation; into, thought Mr. Twist
as he gazed jealously at her profile, an ineffable, ruminating,
reminiscent smugness.

"See here, Anna II.," he said, finding it impossibly
painful to wait while she contemplated, "suppose you don't
at this particular crisis fall into quite so many ecstatic
meditations. There isn't as much time as you seem to
think."

"No--and there's Christopher," said
Anna-Felicitas, giving herself a shake, and with that slightly
troubled look coming into her face again as of having, in spite of
being an angel in glory, somehow got her feet wet.

"Precisely," said Mr. Twist, getting up and walking
about the room. "There's Christopher. Now Christopher, I
should say, would be pretty well heart-broken over this."

"But that's so unreasonable," said Anna-Felicitas
with gentle deprecation.

"You're all she has got, and she'll be under the
impression--the remarkably vivid impression--that she's losing
you."

"But
that's
so unreasonable. She isn't losing me.
It's sheer gain. Without the least effort or bother on her part
she's acquiring a brother-in-law."

"Oh, I know what Christopher feels," said Mr. Twist,
going up and down the room quickly. "I know right enough,
because I feel it all myself."

"But
that's
so unreasonable," said Anna-Felicitas
earnestly. "Why should two of you be feeling things that
aren't?"

"She has always regarded herself as responsible for you,
and I shouldn't be surprised if she were terribly shocked at
your conduct."

"But there has to
be
conduct," said Anna-Felicitas, still very gentle,
but looking as though her feet were getting wetter. "I
don't see how anybody is ever to fall in love unless
there's been some conduct first."

"Oh, don't argue--don't argue. You can't expect
Anna-Rose not to mind your wanting to marry a perfect stranger, a
man she hasn't even seen."

"But everybody you marry started by being a perfect
stranger and somebody you hadn't ever seen," said
Anna-Felicitas.

"Oh Lord, if only you wouldn't
argue
!" exclaimed Mr. Twist. "And as for your
aunt in England, what's she going to say to this
twenty-four-hours, quick-lunch sort of engagement? She'll be
terribly upset. And Anna-Rose knows that, and is I expect nigh
worried crazy."

"But what," asked Anna-Felicitas, "have aunts to
do with love?"

Then she said very earnestly, her face a little flushed, her
eyes troubled, "Christopher said all that you're saying
now, and a lot more, down in the garden before I came to you, and I
said what I've been saying to you, and a lot more, but she
wouldn't listen. And when I found she wouldn't listen I
tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't be comforted. And then I
came to you; for besides wanting to tell you what I've done I
wanted to ask you to comfort Christopher."

Mr. Twist paused a moment in his walk. "Yes," he said,
staring at the carpet. "Yes. I can very well imagine she needs
it. But I don't suppose anything I would say--"

"Christopher is very fond of you," said Anna-Felicitas
gently.

"Oh yes. You're both very fond of me," said Mr.
Twist, pulling his mouth into a crooked and unhappy smile.

"We love you," said Anna-Felicitas simply.

Mr. Twist looked at her, and a mist came over his spectacles.
"You dear children," he said, "you dear, dear
children--"

"I don't know about children--" began
Anna-Felicitas; but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"It's only the brandy," said Mr. Twist, seeing her
face assume the expression he had learned to associate with the
approach of Mrs. Bilton. "Take it away, please Mrs.
Bilton," he called out, "and put it on the--"

Mrs. Bilton however, didn't take anything away, but opened
the door an inch instead. "There's someone wants to speak
to you, Mr. Twist," she said in a loud whisper, thrusting in a
card. "He says he just must. I found him on the verandah when
I took your brandy out, and as I'm not the woman to leave a
stranger alone with good brandy I brought him in with me, and
he's right here back of me in the tea-room."

"It's John," remarked Anna-Felicitas placidly.
"Come early."

"I say--" said a voice behind Mrs. Bilton.

"Yes," nodded Anna-Felicitas, getting up out of the
deep chair. "That's John."

"I say--may I come in? I've got something
important--"

Mr. Twist looked at Anna-Felicitas. "Wouldn't you
rather--?" he began.

"I don't mind John," she said softly, her face
flooded with a most beautiful light.

Mr. Twist opened the door and went out. "Come in," he
said. "Mrs. Bilton, may I present Mr. Elliott to
you--Commander Elliott of the British Navy."

"Pleased to meet you, Commander Elliott," said Mrs.
Bilton. "Mr. Twist, your brandy is on the verandah. Shall I
bring it to you in here?"

"No thank you, Mrs. Bilton. I'll go out there
presently. Perhaps you wouldn't mind waiting for me there--I
don't suppose Mr. Elliott will want to keep me long. Come in,
Mr. Elliott."

And having disposed of Mrs. Bilton, who was in a particularly
willing and obedient and female mood, he motioned Elliott into the
office.

There stood Anna-Felicitas.

Elliott stopped dead.

"This isn't fair," he said, his eyes twinkling and
dancing.

"What isn't?" inquired Anna-Felicitas gently,
beaming at him.

"Your being here. I've got to talk business. Look here,
sir," he said, turning to Mr. Twist, "could
you
talk business with her there?"

"Not if she argued," said Mr. Twist.

"Argued! I wouldn't mind her arguing. It's just her
being there. I've got to talk business," he said, turning
to Anna-Felicitas,--"business about marrying you. And how can
I with you standing there looking like--well, like that?"

"I don't know," said Anna-Felicitas placidly, not
moving.

"But you'll interrupt--just your being there will
interrupt. I shall see you out of the corner of my eye, and
it'll be impossible not to--I mean I know I'll want to--I
mean, Anna-Felicitas my dear, it isn't done. I've got to
explain all sorts of things to your guardian--"

"He isn't my guardian," corrected the accurate
Anna-Felicitas gently. "He only very nearly once
was."

"Well, anyhow I've got to explain a lot of things
that'll take some time, and it isn't so much explain as
persuade--for I expect," he said, turning to Mr. Twist,
"this strikes you as a bit sudden, sir?"

"It would strike anybody," said Mr. Twist trying to be
stern but finding it difficult, for Elliott was so disarmingly
engaging and so disarmingly in love. The radiance on
Anna-Felicitas's face might have been almost a reflection
caught from his. Mr. Twist had never seen two people look so happy.
He had never, of course, before been present at the first wonderful
dawning of love. The whole room seemed to glow with the surprise of
it.