Christopher and Columbus (48 page)

"There. You see?" said Elliott, again appealing to
Anna-Felicitas, who stood smiling beatifically at him without
moving. "I've got to explain that it isn't after all
as mad as it seems, and that I'm a fearfully decent chap and
can give you lots to eat, and that I've got a jolly little
sister here who's respectable and well-known besides, and
I'm going to produce references to back up these assertions,
and proofs that I'm perfectly sound in health except for my
silly foot, which isn't health but just foot and which you
don't seem to mind anyhow, and how--I ask you
how
, Anna-Felicitas my dear, am I to do any of this with
you standing there looking like--well, like that?"

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

"Anna-Felicitas, my dear," he said, "won't
you go?"

"No, John," said Anna-Felicitas gently.

His eyes twinkled and danced more than ever. He took a step
towards her, then checked himself and looked round beseechingly at
Mr. Twist.

"
Somebody's
got to go," he said.

"Yes," said Mr. Twist. "And I guess it's
me."

He went straight in search of Anna-Rose.

He was going to propose to her. He couldn't bear it. He
couldn't bear the idea of his previous twins, his blessed
little Twinklers, both going out of his life at the same time, and
he couldn't bear, after what he had just seen in the office,
the loneliness of being left outside love.

All his life he had stood on the door-mat outside the shut door
of love. He had had no love; neither at home, where they talked so
much about it and there wasn't any, nor, because of his home
and its inhibitions got so thoroughly into his blood, anywhere
else. He had never tried to marry,--again because of his home and
his mother and the whole only-son-of-a-widow business. He would try
now. He would risk it. It was awful to risk it, but it was more
awful not to. He adored Anna-Rose. How nearly the afternoon before,
when she sat crying in his chair, had he taken her in his arms!
Why, he would have taken her into them then and there, while she
was in that state, while she was in the need of comfort, and never
let her go out of them again, if it hadn't been that he had got
the idea so firmly fixed in his head that she was a child. Fool
that he was. Elliott had dispelled that idea for him. It wasn't
children who looked as Anna-Felicitas had looked just now in the
office. Anna-Rose, it is true, seemed younger than Anna-Felicitas,
but that was because she was little and easily cried. He loved her
for being little. He loved her because she easily cried. He yearned
and hungered to comfort, to pet to take care of. He was, as has
been pointed out, a born mother.

Avoiding the verandah and Mrs. Bilton, Mr. Twist filled with
recklessness, hurried upstairs and knocked at Anna-Rose's door.
No answer. He listened. Dead silence. He opened it a slit and
peeped in. Emptiness. Down he went again and made for the kitchen,
because Li Koo, who always knew everything, might know where she
was. Li Koo did. He jerked his head towards the window, and Mr.
Twist hurried to it and looked out. There in the middle of the yard
was the cat, exactly where he had left her an hour before, and
kneeling beside her stroking her stomach was Anna-Rose.

She had her back to the house and her face was hidden. The sun
streamed down on her bare head and on the pale gold rings of hair
that frisked round her neck. She didn't hear him till he was
close to her, so much absorbed was she apparently in the cat; and
when she did she didn't look up, but bent her head lower than
before and stroked more assiduously.

"Anna-Rose," said Mr. Twist.

"Yes."

"Come and talk to me."

"I'm thinking."

"Don't think. Come and talk to me, little--little dear
one."

She bent her head lower still. "I'm thinking," she
said again.

"Come and tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm thinking about cats."

"About cats?" said Mr. Twist, uncertainly.

"Yes," said Anna-Rose, stroking the cat's stomach
faster and carefully keeping her face hidden from him. "About
how wise and wonderful they are."

"Well then if that's all, you can go on with that
presently and come and talk to me now."

"You see," said Anna-Rose, not heeding this,
"they're invariably twins, and more than twins, for
they're often fours and sometimes sixes, but still they sit in
the sun quietly all their lives and don't mind a bit what
their--what their twins do--"

"Ah," said Mr. Twist. "Now I'm getting
there."

"They don't mind a bit about anything. They just clean
their whiskers and they purr. Perhaps it's that that comforts
them. Perhaps if I--if I had whiskers and a--and a purr--"

The cat leaped suddenly to her feet and shook herself violently.
Something hot and wet had fallen on her beautiful stomach.

Anna-Rose made a little sound strangers might have taken for a
laugh as she put out her arms and caught her again, but it was a
sound so wretched, so piteous in the attempt to hide away from him,
that Mr. Twist's heart stood still. "Oh, don't
go," she said, catching at the cat and hugging her tight,
"I can't let
you
go--" And she buried her face in her fur, so that
Mr. Twist still couldn't see it.

"Now that's enough about the cat," he said,
speaking very firmly. "You're coming with me." And he
stooped and picked her up, cat and all, and set her on her
feet.

Then he saw her face.

"Good God, Anna-Rose!" he exclaimed.

"I did try not to show you," she said; and she added,
taking shelter behind her pride and looking at him as defiantly as
she could out of eyes almost closed up, "but you mustn't
suppose just because I happen to--to seem as if I'd been crying
that I--that I'm minding anything."

"Oh no," said Mr. Twist, who at sight of her face had
straightway forgotten about himself and his longings and his
proposals, and only knew that he must comfort Christopher. "Oh
no," he said, looking at her aghast, "I'm not
supposing we're minding anything, either of us."

He took her by the arm. Comfort Christopher; that's what he
had got to do. Get rid as quickly as possible of that look of
agony--yes, it was downright agony--on her face.

He thought he guessed what she was thinking and feeling; he
thought--he was pretty sure--she was thinking and feeling that her
beloved Columbus had gone from her, and gone to a stranger, in a
day, in a few hours, to a stranger she had never even seen, never
even heard of; that her Columbus had had secrets from her, had been
doing things behind her back; that she had had perfect faith and
trust in her twin, and now was tasting the dreadful desolation of
betrayal; and he also guessed that she must be sick with
fears,--for he knew how responsible she felt, how seriously she
took the charge of her beautiful twin--sick with fear about this
unknown man, sick with the feeling of helplessness, of looking on
while Columbus rushed into what might well be, for all any one
knew, a deadly mess-up of her happiness.

Well, he could reason her out of most of this, he felt.
Certainly he could reassure her about Elliott, who did inspire one
with confidence, who did seem, anyhow outwardly, a very fitting
mate for Anna-Felicitas. But he was aghast at the agony on her
face. All that he guessed she was thinking and feeling didn't
justify it. It was unreasonable to suffer so violently on account
of what was, after all, a natural happening. But however
unreasonable it was, she was suffering.

He took her by the arm. "You come right along with
me," he said; and led her out of the yard, away from Li Koo
and the kitchen window, towards the eucalyptus grove behind the
house. "You come right along with me," he repeated,
holding her firmly for she was very wobbly on her feet, "and
we'll tell each other all about the things we're not
minding. Do you remember when the
St. Luke
left Liverpool? You thought I thought you were
minding things then, and were very angry with me. We've made
friends since, haven't we, and we aren't going to mind
anything ever again except each other."

But he hardly knew what he was saying, so great was his concern
and distress.

Anna-Rose went blindly. She stumbled along, helped by him,
clutching the cat. She couldn't see out of her swollen eyes.
Her foot caught in a root, and the cat, who had for some minutes
past been thoroughly uneasy, became panic-stricken and struggled
out of her arms, and fled into the wood. She tried to stop it, but
it would go. For some reason this broke down her self-control. The
warm cat clutched to her breast had at least been something living
to hold on to. Now the very cat had gone. Her pride collapsed, and
she tumbled against Mr. Twist's arm and just sobbed.

If ever a man felt like a mother it was Mr. Twist at that
moment. He promptly sat her down on the grass. "There
now--there, there now," he said, whipping out his handkerchief
and anxiously mopping up her face. "This is what I did on the
St. Luke
--do you remember?--there now--that time you told
me about your mother--it looks like being my permanent job--there,
there now--don't now--you'll have no little eyes left soon
if you go on like this--"

"Oh but--oh but--Co-Columbus--"

"Yes, yes I know all about Columbus. Don't you worry
about her. She's all right. She's all right in the office
at this moment, and we're all right out here if only you knew
it, if only you wouldn't cry such quantities. It beats me where
it all comes from, and you so little--there, there now--"

"Oh but--oh but Columbus--"

"Yes, yes, I know--you're worrying yourself sick
because you think you're responsible for her to your aunt and
uncle, but you won't be, you know, once she's
married--there, there now--"

"Oh but--oh but--"

"Now don't--now please--yes, yes, I know--he's a
stranger, and you haven't seen him yet, but everybody was a
stranger once," said Mr. Twist, quoting Anna-Felicitas's
own argument, the one that had especially irritated him
half-an-hour before, "and he's real good--I'm sure of
it. And you'll be sure too the minute you see him. That's
to say, if you're able to see anything or anybody for the next
week out of your unfortunate stuck-together little eyes."

"Oh but--oh but--you don't--you haven't--"

"Yes, yes, I have. Now turn your face so that I can wipe
the other side properly. There now, I caught an enormous tear. I
got him just in time before he trickled into your ear. Lord, how
sore your poor little eyes are. Don't it even cheer you to
think you're going to be a sister-in-law, Anna-Rose?"

"Oh but you don't--you haven't--" she sobbed,
her face not a whit less agonized for all his reassurances.

"Well, I know I wish I were going to be a
brother-in-law," said Mr. Twist, worried by his inability to
reassure, as he tenderly and carefully dabbed about the corners of
her eyes and her soaked eyelashes. "My, shouldn't I think
well of myself."

Then his hand shook.

"I wish I were going to be Anna-Felicitas's
brother-in-law," he said, suddenly impelled, perhaps by this
failure to get rid of the misery in her face, to hurl himself on
his fate. "Not
yours
--get your mind quite clear about that,--but
Anna-Felicitas's." And his hand shook so much that he had
to leave off drying. For this was a proposal. If only Anna-Rose
would see it, this was a proposal.

Anna-Rose, however, saw nothing. Even in normal times she
wasn't good at relationships, and had never yet understood the
that-man's-father-was-my-father's-son one; now she simply
didn't hear. She was sitting with her hands limply in her lap,
and sobbing in a curious sort of anguish.

He couldn't help being struck by it. There was more in this
than he had grasped. Again he forgot himself and his proposal.
Again he was overwhelmed by the sole desire to help and
comfort.

He put his hand on the two hands lying with such an air of being
forgotten on her lap. "What is it?" he asked gently.
"Little dear one, tell me. It's clear I'm not dead on
to it yet."

"Oh--Columbus--"

She seemed to writhe in her misery.

"Well yes, yes Columbus. We know all about that."

Anna-Rose turned her quivering face to him. "Oh, you
haven't seen--you don't see--it's only me that's
seen--"

"Seen what? What haven't I seen? Ah, don't
cry--don't cry like that--"

"Oh, I've lost her--lost her--"

"Lost her? Because she's marrying?"

"Lost her--lost her--" sobbed Anna-Rose.

"Come now," remonstrated Mr. Twist. "Come now.
That's just flat contrary to the facts. You've lost
nothing, and you've gained a brother."

"Oh,--lost her--lost her," sobbed Anna-Rose.

"Come, come now," said Mr. Twist helplessly.

"Oh," she sobbed, looking at him out of her piteous
eyes, "has nobody thought of it but me? Columbus hasn't.
I--I know she hasn't from what--from what--she said. She's
too--too happy to think. But--haven't you thought--haven't
you seen--that she'll be English now--really English--and go
away from me to England with him--and I--I can't go to
England--because I'm still--I'm still--an alien enemy--and
so I've lost her--lost her--lost my own twin--"

And Anna-Rose dropped her head on to her knees and sobbed in an
abandonment of agony.

Mr. Twist sat without saying or doing anything at all. He
hadn't thought of this; nor, he was sure, had Anna-Felicitas.
And it was true. Now he understood Anna-Rose's face and the
despair of it. He sat looking at her, overwhelmed by the
realization of her misfortune. For a moment he was blinded by it,
and didn't see what it would mean for him. Then he did see. He
almost leaped, so sudden was the vision, and so luminous.