The twins, who had gone to bed at half-past nine, shepherded by Edith,
in the happy conviction that they had settled down comfortably for some
time, were surprised to find at breakfast that they hadn't.
They had taken a great fancy to Edith, in spite of a want of restfulness
on her part that struck them while they were finishing their supper, and
to which at last they drew her attention. She was so kind, and so like
Mr. Twist; but though she looked at them with hospitable eyes and wore
an expression of real benevolence, it didn't escape their notice that
she seemed to be listening to something that wasn't, anyhow, them, and
to be expecting something that didn't, anyhow, happen. She went several
times to the door through which her brother and mother had disappeared,
and out into whatever part of the house lay beyond it, and when she came
back after a minute or two was as wanting in composure as ever.
At last, finding these abrupt and repeated interruptions hindered any
real talk, they pointed out to her that reasoned conversation was
impossible if one of the parties persisted in not being in the room, and
inquired of her whether it were peculiar to her, or typical of the
inhabitants of America, to keep on being somewhere else. Edith smiled
abstractedly at them, said nothing, and went out again.
She was longer away this time, and the twins having eaten, among other
things, a great many meringues, grew weary of sitting with those they
hadn't eaten lying on the dish in front of them reminding them of those
they had. They wanted, having done with meringues, to get away from them
and forget them. They wanted to go into another room now, where there
weren't any. Anna-Felicitas felt, and told Anna-Rose who was staring
listlessly at the left-over meringues, that it was like having committed
murder, and being obliged to go on looking at the body long after you
were thoroughly tired of it. Anna-Rose agreed, and said that she wished
now she hadn't committed meringues,--anyhow so many of them.
Then at last Edith came back, and told them she was sure they were very
tired after their long day, and suggested their going upstairs to their
rooms. The rooms were ready, said Edith, the baggage had come, and she
was sure they would like to have nice hot baths and go to bed.
The twins obeyed her readily, and she checked a desire on their part to
seek out her mother and brother first and bid them good-night, on the
ground that her mother and brother were busy; and while the twins were
expressing polite regret, and requesting her to convey their regret for
them to the proper quarter in a flow of well-chosen words that
astonished Edith, who didn't know how naturally Junkers make speeches,
she hurried them by the drawing-room door through which, shut though it
was, came sounds of people being, as Anna-Felicitas remarked, very busy
indeed; and Anna-Rose, impressed by the quality and volume of Mr.
Twist's voice as it reached her passing ears, told Edith that intimately
as she knew her brother she had never known him as busy as that before.
Edith said nothing, but continued quickly up the stairs.
They found they each had a bedroom, with a door between, and that each
bedroom had a bathroom of its own, which filled them with admiration and
pleasure. There had only been one bathroom at Uncle Arthur's, and at
home in Pomerania there hadn't been any at all. The baths there had been
vessels brought into one's bedroom every night, into which servants next
morning poured water out of buckets, having previously pumped the water
into the bucket from the pump in the backyard. They put Edith in
possession of these facts while she helped them unpack and brushed and
plaited their hair for them, and she was much astonished,--both at the
conditions of discomfort and slavery they revealed as prevalent in other
countries, and at the fact that they, the Twinklers, should hail from
Pomerania.
Pomerania, reflected Edith as she tied up their pigtails with the
ribbons handed to her for that purpose, used to be in Germany when she
went to school, and no doubt still was. She became more thoughtful than
ever, though she still smiled at them, for how could she help it?
Everyone, Edith was certain, must needs smile at the Twinklers even if
they didn't happen to be one's own dear brother's _protegees_. And when
they came out, very clean and with scrubbed pink ears, from their bath,
she not only smiled at them as she tucked them up in bed, but she kissed
them good-night.
Edith, like her brother, was born to be a mother,--one of the
satisfactory sort that keeps you warm and doesn't argue with you.
Germans or no Germans the Twinklers were the cutest little things,
thought Edith; and she kissed them, with the same hunger with which,
being now thirty-eight, she was beginning to kiss puppies.
"You remind me so of Mr. Twist," murmured Anna-Felicitas sleepily, as
Edith tucked her up and kissed her.
"You do all the sorts of things he does," murmured Anna-Rose, also
sleepily, when it was her turn to be tucked up and kissed; and in spite
of a habit now fixed in her of unquestioning acceptance and uncritical
faith. Edith went downstairs to her restless vigil outside the
drawing-room door a little surprised.
At breakfast the twins learnt to their astonishment that, though
appearances all pointed the other way what they were really doing was
not being stationary at all, but merely having a night's lodging and
breakfast between, as it were, two trains.
Mr. Twist, who looked pale and said shortly when the twins remarked
solicitously on it that he felt pale, briefly announced the fact.
"What?" exclaimed Anna-Rose, staring at Mr. Twist and then at
Edith--Mrs. Twist, they were told, was breakfasting in bed--"Why, we've
unpacked."
"You will re-pack," said Mr. Twist.
They found difficulty in believing their ears.
"But we've settled in," remonstrated Anna-Felicitas, after an astonished
pause.
"You will settle out," said Mr. Twist.
He frowned. He didn't look at them, he frowned at his own teapot. He had
made up his mind to be very short with the Annas until they were safely
out of the house, and not permit himself to be entangled by them in
controversy. Also, he didn't want to look at them if he could help it.
He was afraid that if he did he might be unable not to take them both in
his arms and beg their pardon for the whole horridness of the world.
But if he didn't look at them, they looked at him. Four round, blankly
surprised eyes were fixed, he knew, unblinkingly on him.
"We're seeing you in quite a new light," said Anna-Rose at last,
troubled and upset.
"Maybe," said Mr. Twist, frowning at his teapot.
"Perhaps you will be so good," said Anna-Felicitas stiffly, for at all
times she hated being stirred up and uprooted, "as to tell us where you
think we're going to."
"Because," said Anna-Rose, her voice trembling a little, not only at the
thought of fresh responsibilities, but also with a sense of outraged
faith, "our choice of residence, as you may have observed, is strictly
limited."
Mr. Twist, who had spent an hour before breakfast with Edith, whose eyes
were red, informed them that they were _en route_ for California.
"To those other people," said Anna-Rose. "I see."
She held her head up straight.
"Well, I expect they'll be very glad to see us," she said after a
silence; and proceeded, her chin in the air, to look down her nose,
because she didn't want Mr. Twist, or Edith or Anna-Felicitas, to notice
that her eyes had gone and got tears in them. She angrily wished she
hadn't got such damp eyes. They were no better than swamps, she
thought--undrained swamps; and directly fate's foot came down a little
harder than usual, up oozed the lamentable liquid. Not thus should the
leader of an expedition behave. Not thus, she was sure, did the original
Christopher. She pulled herself together; and after a minute's struggle
was able to leave off looking down her nose.
But meanwhile Anna-Felicitas had informed Mr. Twist with gentle dignity
that he was obviously tired of them.
"Not at all," said Mr. Twist.
Anna-Felicitas persisted. "In view of the facts," she said gently, "I'm
afraid your denial carries no weight."
"The facts," said Mr. Twist, taking up his teapot and examining it with
care, "are that I'm coming with you."
"Oh are you," said Anna-Felicitas much more briskly; and it was here
that Anna-Rose's eyes dried up.
"That rather dishes your theory," said Mr. Twist, still turning his
teapot about in his hands. "Or would if it didn't happen that I--well, I
happen to have some business to do in California, and I may as well do
it now as later. Still, I could have gone by a different route or train,
so you see your theory _is_ rather dished, isn't it?"
"A little," admitted Anna-Felicitas. "Not altogether. Because if you
really like our being here, here we are. So why hurry us off somewhere
else so soon?"
Mr. Twist perceived that he was being led into controversy in spite of
his determination not to be. "You're very wise," he said shortly, "but
you don't know everything. Let us avoid conjecture and stick to facts.
I'm going to take you to California, and hand you over to your friends.
That's all you know, and all you need to know."
"As Keats very nearly said," said Anna-Rose
"And if our friends have run away?" suggested Anna-Felicitas.
"Oh Lord," exclaimed Mr. Twist impatiently, putting the teapot down with
a bang, "do you think we're running away all the time in America?"
"Well, I think you seem a little restless," said Anna-Felicitas.
Thus it was that two hours later the twins found themselves at the
Clark station once more, once more starting into the unknown, just as if
they had never done it before, and gradually, as they adapted themselves
to the sudden change, such is the india-rubber-like quality of youth,
almost with the same hopefulness. Yet they couldn't but meditate, left
alone on the platform while Mr. Twist checked the baggage, on the
mutability of life. They seemed to live in a kaleidoscope since the war
began what a series of upheavals and readjustments had been theirs!
Silent, and a little apart on the Clark platform, they reflected
retrospectively; and as they counted up their various starts since the
days, only fourteen months ago, when they were still in their home in
Germany, apparently as safely rooted, as unshakably settled as the pine
trees in their own forests, they couldn't but wonder at the elusiveness
of the unknown, how it wouldn't let itself be caught up with and at the
trouble it was giving them.
They had had so many changes in the last year that they did want now to
have time to become familiar with some one place and people. Already
however, being seventeen, they were telling themselves, and each other
that after all, since the Sacks had failed them, California was their
real objective. Not Clark at all. Clark had never been part of their
plans. Uncle Arthur and Aunt Alice didn't even know it existed. It was a
side-show; just a little thing of their own, an extra excursion slipped
in between the Sacks and the Delloggs. True they had hoped to stay there
some time, perhaps even for months,--anyhow, time to mend their
stockings in, which were giving way at the toes unexpectedly, seeing how
new they were; but ultimately California was the place they had to go
to. It was only that it was a little upsetting to be whisked out of
Clark at a moment's notice.
"I expect you'll explain everything to us when we're in the train and
have lots of time," Anna-Rose had said to Mr. Twist as the car moved
away from the house and Edith, red-eyed, waved her handkerchief from the
doorstep.
Mrs. Twist had not come down to say good-bye, and they had sent her many
messages.
"I expect I will," Mr. Twist had answered.
But it was not till they were the other side of Chicago that he really
began to be himself again. Up to then--all that first day, and the next
morning in New York where he took them to the bank their £200 was in and
saw that they got a cheque-book, and all the day after that waiting in
the Chicago hotel for the train they were to go on in to California--Mr.
Twist was taciturn.
They left Chicago in the evening; a raw, wintery October evening with
cold rain in the air, and the twins, going early to bed in their
compartment, a place that seemed to them so enchanting that their
spirits couldn't fail to rise, saw no more of him till breakfast next
morning. They then noticed that the cloud had lifted a little; and as
the day went on it lifted still more. They were going to be three days
together in that train, and it would be impossible for Mr. Twist, they
were sure, to go on being taciturn as long as that. It wasn't his
nature. His nature was conversational. And besides, shut up like that in
a train, the sheer getting tired of reading all day would make him want
to talk.
So after lunch, when they were all three on the platform of the
observation car, though there was nothing to observe except limitless
flat stretches of bleak and empty country, the twins suggested that he
should now begin to talk again. They pointed out that his body was
bound to get stiff on that long journey from want of exercise, but that
his mind needn't, and he had better stretch it by conversing agreeably
with them as he used to before the day, which seemed so curiously long
ago, when they landed in America.
"It does indeed seem long ago," agreed Mr. Twist, lighting another
cigarette. "I have difficulty in realizing it isn't a week yet."
And he reflected that the Annas had managed to produce pretty serious
havoc in America considering they had only been in it five days. He and
his mother permanently estranged; Edith left alone at Clark sitting
there in the ruins of her loving preparations for his return, with
nothing at all that he could see to look forward to and live for except
the hourly fulfilment of what she regarded as duty; every plan upset;
the lives, indeed, of his mother and of his sister and of himself
completely altered,--it was a pretty big bag in the time, he thought,
flinging the match back towards Chicago.
Mr. Twist felt sore. He felt like somebody who had had a bad tumble, and
is sore and a little dizzy; but he recognized that these great ruptures
cannot take place without aches and doubts. He ached, and he doubted and
he also knew through his aches and doubts that he was free at last from
what of late years he had so grievously writhed under--the shame of
pretence. And the immediate cause of his being set free was, precisely,
the Annas.
It had been a violent, a painful setting free, but it had happened; and
who knew if, without their sudden appearance at Clark and the immediate
effect they produced on his mother, he wouldn't have lapsed after all,
in spite of the feelings and determinations he had brought back with
him from Europe, into the old ways again under the old influence, and
gone on ignobly pretending to agree, to approve, to enjoy, to love, when
he was never for an instant doing anything of the sort? He might have
trailed on like that for years--Mr. Twist didn't like the picture of his
own weakness, but he was determined to look at himself as he
was--trailed along languidly when he was at home, living another life
when he was away, getting what he absolutely must have, the irreducible
minimum of personal freedom necessary to sanity, by means of small and
shabby deceits. My goodness, how he hated deceits, how tired he was of
the littleness of them!
He turned his head and looked at the profiles of the Annas sitting
alongside him. His heart suddenly grew warm within him. They had on the
blue caps again which made them look so bald and cherubic, and their
eyes were fixed on the straight narrowing lines of rails that went back
and back to a point in the distance. The dear little things; the dear,
dear little things,--so straightforward, so blessedly straight and
simple, thought Mr. Twist. Fancy his mother losing a chance like this.
Fancy _anybody_, thought the affectionate and kind man, missing an
opportunity of helping such unfortunately placed children.
The twins felt he was looking at them, and together they turned and
looked at him. When they saw his expression they knew the cloud had
lifted still more, and their faces broke into broad smiles of welcome.
"It's pleasant to see you back again," said Anna-Felicitas heartily, who
was next to him.
"We've missed you very much," said Anna-Rose.
"It hasn't been like the same place, the world hasn't," said
Anna-Felicitas, "since you've been away."
"Since you walked out of the dining-room that night at Clark," said
Anna-Rose.
"Of course we know you can't always be with us," said Anna-Felicitas.
"Which we deeply regret," interjected Anna-Rose.
"But while you are with us," said Anna-Felicitas, "for these last few
days, I would suggest that we should be happy. As happy as we used to be
on the _St. Luke_ when we weren't being sea-sick." And she thought she
might even go so far as to enjoy hearing the "Ode to Dooty," now.
"Yes," said Anna-Rose, leaning forward. "In three days we shall have
disappeared into the maw of the Delloggs. Do let us be happy while we
can. Who knows what their maw will be like? But whatever it's like," she
added firmly, "we're going to stick in it."
"And perhaps," said Anna-Felicitas, "now that you're a little restored
to your normal condition, you'll tell us what has been the matter."
"For it's quite clear," said Anna-Rose, "that something _has_ been the
matter."
"We've been talking it over," said Anna-Felicitas, "and putting two and
two together, and perhaps you'll tell us what it was, and then we shall
know if we're right."
"Perhaps I will," said Mr. Twist, cogitating, as he continued
benevolently to gaze at them. "Let's see--" He hesitated, and pushed
his hat off his forehead. "I wonder if you'd understand--"
"We'll give our minds to it," Anna-Felicitas assured him.
"These caps make us look more stupid than we are," Anna-Rose assured
him, deducing her own appearance from that of Anna-Felicitas.
Encouraged, but doubtful of their capabilities of comprehension on
this particular point, Mr. Twist embarked rather gingerly on his
explanations. He was going to be candid from now on for the rest of his
days, but the preliminary plunges were, he found, after all a little
difficult. Even with the pellucidly candid Annas, all ready with ears
pricked up attentively and benevolently and minds impartial, he found it
difficult. It was because, on the subject of mothers, he feared he was
up against their one prejudice. He felt rather than knew that their
attitude on this one point might be uncompromising,--mothers were
mothers, and there was an end of it; that sort of attitude, coupled with
extreme reprobation of himself for supposing anything else.
He was surprised and relieved to find he was wrong. Directly they got
wind of the line his explanations were taking, which was very soon for
they were giving their minds to it as they promised and Mr. Twist's
hesitations were illuminating, they interrupted.
"So we were right," they said to each other.
"But you don't know yet what I'm going to say," said Mr. Twist. "I've
only started on the preliminaries."
"Yes we do. You fell out with your mother," said Anna-Rose.
"Quarrelled," said Anna-Felicitas, nodding
"We didn't think so at the time," said Anna-Rose.
"We just felt there was an atmosphere of strain about Clark," said
Anna-Felicitas.
"But talking it over privately, we concluded that was what had
happened."
Mr. Twist was so much surprised that for a moment he could only say
"Oh." Then he said, "And you're terribly shocked, I suppose."
"Oh no," they said airily and together.
"No?"
"You see--" began Anna-Felicitas.
"You see--" began Anna-Rose.
"You see, as a general principle," said Anna-Felicitas, "it's
reprehensible to quarrel with one's mother."
"But we've not been able to escape observing--" said Anna-Rose.
"In the course of our brief and inglorious career," put in
Anna-Felicitas.
"--that there are mothers and mothers," said Anna-Rose.
"Yes," said Mr. Twist; and as they didn't go on he presently added,
"Yes?"
"Oh, that's all," said the twins, once more airily and together.