Mr. Twist, his mind at ease, was in the charming room that was to be the
tea-room. It was full of scattered fittings and the noise of hammering,
but even so anybody could see what a delightful place it would presently
turn into.
The Open Arms was to make a specialty of wet days. Those were the days,
those consecutive days of downpour that came in the winter and lasted
without interruption for a fortnight at a time, when visitors in the
hotels were bored beyond expression and ready to welcome anything that
could distract them for an hour from the dripping of the rain on the
windows. Bridge was their one solace, and they played it from after
breakfast till bedtime; but on the fourth or fifth day of doing this,
just the mere steady sitting became grievous to them. They ached with
weariness. They wilted with boredom. All their natural kindness got
damped out of them, and they were cross. Even when they won they were
cross, and when they lost it was really distressing. They wouldn't, of
course, have been in California at all at such a time if it were
possible to know beforehand when the rains would begin, but one never
did know, and often it was glorious weather right up to and beyond
Christmas. And then how glorious! What a golden place of light and
warmth to be in, while in the East one's friends were being battered by
blizzards.
Mr. Twist intended to provide a break in the day each afternoon for
these victims of the rain. He would come to their rescue. He made up
his mind, clear and firm on such matters, that it should become the
habit of these unhappy people during the bad weather to motor out to The
Open Arms for tea; and, full of forethought, he had had a covered way
made, by which one could get out of a car and into the house without
being touched by a drop of rain, and he had had a huge open fireplace
made across the end of the tea-room, which would crackle and blaze a
welcome that would cheer the most dispirited arrival. The cakes, at all
times wonderful were on wet days to be more than wonderful. Li Koo had a
secret receipt, given him, he said, by his mother for cakes of a quite
peculiar and original charm, and these were to be reserved for the rainy
season only, and be made its specialty. They were to become known and
endeared to the public under the brief designation of Wet Day Cakes. Mr.
Twist felt there was something thoroughly American about this
name--plain and business-like, and attractively in contrast to the
subtle, the almost immoral exquisiteness of the article itself. This
cake had been one of those produced by Li Koo from the folds of his
garments the day in Los Angeles, and Mr. Twist had happened to be the
one of his party who ate it. He therefore knew what he was doing when he
decided to call it and its like simply Wet Day Cakes.
The twins found him experimenting with a fire in the fireplace so as to
be sure it didn't smoke, and the architect and he were in their shirt
sleeves, deftly manipulating wood shavings and logs. There was such a
hammering being made by the workmen fixing in the latticed windows, and
such a crackling being made by the logs Mr. Twist and the architect kept
on throwing on the fire, that only from the sudden broad smile on the
architect's face as he turned to pick up another log did Mr. Twist
realize that something that hadn't to do with work was happening behind
his back.
He looked round and saw the Annas picking their way toward him. They
seemed in a hurry.
"Hello," he called out.
They made no reply to this, but continued hurriedly to pick their way
among the obstacles in their path. They appeared to be much perturbed.
What, he wondered, had they done with Mrs. Bilton? He soon knew.
"We've given Mrs. Bilton notice," panted Anna-Rose as soon as she got
near enough to his ear for him to hear her in the prevailing noise.
Her face, as usual when she was moved and excited, was scarlet, her eyes
looking bluer and brighter than ever by contrast.
"We simply can't stand it any longer," she went on as Mr. Twist only
stared at her.
"And you wouldn't either if you were us," she continued, the more
passionately as he still didn't say anything.
"Of course," said Anna-Felicitas, taking a high line, though her heart
was full of doubt, "it's your fault really. We could have borne it if we
hadn't had to have her at night."
"Come outside," said Mr. Twist, walking toward the door that led on to
the verandah.
They followed him, Anna-Rose shaking with excitement, Anna-Felicitas
trying to persuade herself that they had acted in the only way
consistent with real wisdom.
The architect stood with a log in each hand looking after them and
smiling all by himself. There was something about the Twinklers that
lightened his heart whenever he caught sight of them. He and his fellow
experts had deplored the absence of opportunities since Mrs. Bilton came
of developing the friendship begun the first day, and talked of them on
their way home in the afternoons with affectionate and respectful
familiarity as The Cutes.
"Now," said Mr. Twist, having passed through the verandah and led the
twins to the bottom of the garden where he turned and faced them,
"perhaps you'll tell me exactly what you've done."
"You should rather inquire what Mrs. Bilton has done," said
Anna-Felicitas, pulling herself up as straight and tall as she would go.
She couldn't but perceive that the excess of Christopher's emotion was
putting her at a disadvantage in the matter of dignity.
"I can guess pretty much what she has done," said Mr. Twist.
"You can't--you can't," burst out Anna-Rose. "Nobody could--nobody ever
could--who hadn't been with her day and night."
"She's just been Mrs. Bilton," said Mr. Twist, lighting a cigarette to
give himself an appearance of calm.
"Exactly," said Anna-Felicitas. "So you won't be surprised at our having
just been Twinklers."
"Oh Lord," groaned Mr. Twist, in spite of his cigarette, "oh, Lord."
"We've given Mrs. Bilton notice," continued Anna-Felicitas, making a
gesture of great dignity with her hand, "because we find with regret
that she and we are incompatible."
"Was she aware that you were giving it her?" asked Mr. Twist,
endeavouring to keep calm.
"We wrote it."
"Has she read it?"
"We put it into her hand, and then came away so that she should have an
opportunity of quietly considering it."
"You shouldn't have left us alone with her like this," burst out
Anna-Rose again, "you shouldn't really. It was cruel, it was wrong,
leaving us high and dry--never seeing you--leaving us to be talked to
day and night--to be read to--would _you_ like to be read to while
you're undressing by somebody still in all their clothes? We've never
been able to open our mouths. We've been taken into the field for our
airing and brought in again as if we were newborns, or people in prams,
or flocks and herds, or prisoners suspected of wanting to escape. We
haven't had a minute to ourselves day or night. There hasn't been a
single exchange of ideas, not a shred of recognition that we're grown
up. We've been followed, watched, talked to--oh, oh, how awful it has
been! Oh, oh, how awful! Forced to be dumb for days--losing our power of
speech--"
"Anna-Rose Twinkler," interrupted Mr. Twist sternly, "you haven't lost
it. And you not only haven't, but that power of yours has increased
tenfold during its days of rest."
He spoke with the exasperation in his voice that they had already heard
several times since they landed in America. Each time it took them
aback, for Mr. Twist was firmly fixed in their minds as the kindest and
gentlest of creatures, and these sudden kickings of his each time
astonished them.
On this occasion, however, only Anna-Rose was astonished. Anna-Felicitas
all along had had an uncomfortable conviction in the depth of her heart
that Mr. Twist wouldn't like what they had done. He would be upset, she
felt, as her reluctant feet followed Anna-Rose in search of him. He
would be, she was afraid very much upset. And so he was. He was appalled
by what had happened. Lose Mrs. Bilton? Lose the very foundation of the
party's respectability? And how could he find somebody else at the
eleventh hour and where and how could the twins and he live,
unchaperoned as they would be, till he had? What a peculiar talent these
Annas had for getting themselves and him into impossible situations! Of
course at their age they ought to be safe under the wing of a wise and
unusually determined mother. Well, poor little wretches, they couldn't
help not being under it; but that aunt of theirs ought to have stuck to
them--faced up to her husband, and stuck to them.
"I suppose," he said angrily, "being you and not being able to see
farther than the ends of your noses, you haven't got any sort of an idea
of what you've done."
"We--"
"She--"
"And I don't suppose it's much use my trying to explain, either. Hasn't
it ever occurred to you, though I'd be real grateful if you'd give me
information on this point--that maybe you don't know everything?"
"She--"
"We--"
"And that till you do know everything, which I take it won't be for some
time yet, judging from the samples I've had of your perspicacity, you'd
do well not to act without first asking some one's advice? Mine, for
instance?"
"She--" began Anna-Rose again; but her voice was trembling, for she
couldn't bear Mr. Twist's anger. She was too fond of him. When he looked
at her like that her own anger was blown out as if by an icy draught and
she could only look back at him piteously.
But Anna-Felicitas, being free from the weaknesses inherent in
adoration, besides continuing to perceive how Christopher's feelings put
her at a disadvantage, drew Mr. Twist's attention from her by saying
with gentleness, "But why add to the general discomfort by being
bitter?"
"Bitter!" cried Mr. Twist, still glaring at Anna-Rose.
"Do you dispute that God made us?" inquired Anna-Felicitas, placing
herself as it were like a shield between Mr. Twist's wrathful
concentration on Christopher and that unfortunate young person's
emotion.
"See here," said Mr. Twist turning on her, "I'm not going to argue with
you--not about _anything_. Least of all about God."
"I only wanted to point out to you," said Anna-Felicitas mildly, "that
that being so, and we not able to help it, there seems little use in
being bitter with us because we're not different. In regard to anything
fundamental about us that you deplore I'm afraid we must refer you to
Providence."
"Say," said Mr. Twist, not in the least appeased by this reasoning but,
as Anna-Felicitas couldn't but notice, quite the contrary, "used you to
talk like this to that Uncle Arthur of yours? Because if you did, upon
my word I don't wonder--"
But what Mr. Twist didn't wonder was fortunately concealed from the
twins by the appearance at that moment of Mrs. Bilton, who, emerging
from the shades of the verandah and looking about her, caught sight of
them and came rapidly down the garden.
There was no escape.
They watched her bearing down on them without a word. It was a most
unpleasant moment. Mr. Twist re-lit his cigarette to give himself a
countenance, but the thought of all that Mrs. Bilton would probably say
was dreadful to him, and his hand couldn't help shaking a little.
Anna-Rose showed a guilty tendency to slink behind him. Anna-Felicitas
stood motionless, awaiting the deluge. All Mr. Twist's sympathies were
with Mrs. Bilton, and he was ashamed that she should have been treated
so. He felt that nothing she could say would be severe enough, and he
was extraordinarily angry with the Annas. Yet when he saw the injured
lady bearing down on them, if he only could he would have picked up an
Anna under each arm, guilty as they were, and run and run; so much did
he prefer them to Mrs. Bilton and so terribly did he want, at this
moment, to be somewhere where that lady wasn't.
There they stood then, anxiously watching the approaching figure, and
the letter in Mrs. Bilton's hand bobbed up and down as she walked, white
and conspicuous in the sun against her black dress. What was their
amazement to see as she drew nearer that she was looking just as
pleasant as ever. They stared at her with mouths falling open. Was it
possible, thought the twins, that she was longing to leave but hadn't
liked to say so, and the letter had come as a release? Was it possible,
thought Mr. Twist with a leap of hope in his heart, that she was taking
the letter from a non-serious point of view?
And Mr. Twist, to his infinite relief, was right. For Mrs. Bilton, woman
of grit and tenacity, was not in the habit of allowing herself to be
dislodged or even discouraged. This was the opening sentence of her
remarks when she had arrived, smiling, in their midst. Had she not
explained the first night that she was one who, having put her hand to
the plough, held on to it however lively the movements of the plough
might be? She would not conceal from them, she said, that even Mr. Bilton
had not, especially, at first, been entirely without such movements. He
had settled down, however on finding he could trust her to know better
than he did what he wanted. Don't wise wives always? she inquired. And
the result had been that no man ever had a more devoted wife while he
was alive, or a more devoted widow after he wasn't. She had told him one
day, when he was drawing near the latter condition and she was
conversing with him, as was only right, on the subject of wills, and he
said that his affairs had gone wrong and as far as he could see she
would be left a widow and that was about all she would be left--she had
told him that if it was any comfort to him to know it, he might rely on
it that he would have the most devoted widow any man had ever had, and
he said--Mr. Bilton had odd fancies, especially toward the end--that a
widow was the one thing a man never could have because he wasn't there
by the time he had got her. Yes, Mr. Bilton had odd fancies. And if she
had managed, as she did manage, to steer successfully among them, he
being a man of ripe parts and character, was it likely that encountering
odd fancies in two very young and unformed girls--oh, it wasn't their
fault that they were unformed, it was merely because they hadn't had
time enough yet--she would be unable, experienced as she was, to steer
among them too? Besides, she had a heart for orphans; orphans and dumb
animals always had had a special appeal for her. "No, no, Mr. Twist,"
Mrs. Bilton wound up, putting a hand affectionately on Anna-Rose's
shoulder as a more convenient one than Anna-Felicitas's, "my young
charges aren't going to be left in the lurch, you may rely on that. I
don't undertake a duty without carrying it out. Why, I feel a lasting
affection for them already. We've made real progress these few days in
intimacy. And I just love to sit and listen to all their fresh young
chatter."