Christopher and Columbus Part 42

in medieval letters painted on it, all he said was, "Guess we've run it to earth."

Miss Heap sat with her hands in her lap, staring. Mrs. Ridding, her mind blocked by aspic, wasn't receiving impressions. She gazed with heavy eyes straight in front of her. There she saw cars. Many cars. All stopped at this particular spot. With a dull sensation of fathomless fatigue she dimly wondered at them.

"Looks as though it's a hostelry," said Mr. Ridding, who remembered his d.i.c.kens; and he blinked up, craning his head out, at the signboard, on which through a gap in the branches of the pepper trees a shaft of brilliant late afternoon sun was striking. "Don't see one, though."

He jerked his thumb. "Up back of the trees there, I reckon," he said.

Then he prepared to open the door and go and have a look.

A hand shot out of Miss Heap's lap at him. "Don't," she said quickly.

"Don't, Mr. Ridding."

There was a little green gate in the thick hedge that grew behind the pepper trees, and some people he knew, who had been in the car in front, were walking up to it. Some other people he knew had already got to it, and were standing talking together with what looked like leaflets in their hands. These leaflets came out of a green wooden box fastened on to one of the gate-posts, with the words _Won't you take one_? painted on it.

Mr. Ridding naturally wanted to go and take one, and here was Miss Heap laying hold of him and saying "Don't."

"Don't what?" he asked looking down at her, his hand on the door.

"h.e.l.lo Ridding," called out one of the people he knew. "No good getting out. Show doesn't open till to-morrow at four. Can't get in to-day.

Gate's bolted. Nothing doing."

And then the man detached himself from the group at the gate and came over to the car with a leaflet in his hand.

"Say--" he said,--"how are you to-day, Miss Heap? Mrs. Ridding, your humble servant--say, look at this. Teapot Twist wasn't born yesterday when it comes to keeping things dark. No mention of his name on this book of words, but it's the house he was doing up all right, and it is to be used as an inn. Afternoon-tea inn. Profits to go to the American Red Cross. Price per head five dollars. Bit stiff, five dollars for tea.

Wonder where those Twinkler girls come in. Here--you have this, Ridding, and study it. I'll get another." And taking off his hat a second time to the ladies he went back to his friends.

In great agitation Miss Heap turned to Mrs. Ridding, whose mind, galvanized by the magic words Twist and Twinkler, was slowly heaving itself free of aspic. "Perhaps we had best go back to the hotel, Mrs Ridding," said Miss Heap, her voice shaking. "There's something I wish particularly to tell you. I ought to have done so this morning, directly I knew, but I had no idea of course that this...." She waved a hand at the signboard, and collapsed into speechlessness.

"Albert--hotel," directed Mrs. Ridding.

And Mr. Ridding, clutching the leaflet, his face congested with suppressed emotions, obediently handed on the order through the speaking-tube to the chauffeur.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

"It's _perfect_," said the twins, looking round the tea-room.

This was next day, at a quarter to four. They had been looking round saying it was perfect at intervals since the morning. Each time they finished getting another of the little tables ready, each time they brought in and set down another bowl of flowers they stood back and gazed a moment in silence, and then said with one voice, "It's _perfect_."

Mr. Twist, though the house was not, as we have seen, quite as sober, quite as restrained in its effect as he had intended, was obliged to admit that it did look very pretty. And so did the Annas. Especially the Annas. They looked so pretty in the sea-blue frocks and little Dutch caps and big muslin ap.r.o.ns that he took off his spectacles and cleaned them carefully so as to have a thoroughly uninterrupted view; and as they stood at a quarter to four gazing round the room, he stood gazing at them, and when they said "It's _perfect_," he said, indicating them with his thumb, "Same here," and then they all laughed for they were all very happy, and Mrs. Bilton, arrayed exactly as Mr. Twist had pictured her when he engaged her in handsome black, her white hair beautifully brushed and neat, crossed over to the Annas and gave each of them a hearty kiss--for luck, she said--which Mr. Twist watched with an odd feeling of jealousy.

"I'd like to do that," he thought, filled with a sudden desire to hug.

Then he said it out loud. "I'd like to do that," he said boldly. And added, "As it's the opening day."

"I don't think it would afford you any permanent satisfaction," said Anna-Felicitas placidly. "There's nothing really to be gained, we think, by kissing. Of course," she added politely to Mrs. Bilton, "we like it very much as an expression of esteem."

"Then why not in that spirit--" began Mr. Twist.

"We don't hold with kissing," said Anna-Rose quickly, turning very red.

Intolerable to be kissed _en famille_. If it had to be done at all, kissing should be done quietly, she thought. But she and Anna-Felicitas didn't hold with it anyhow. Never. Never. To her amazement she found tears in her eyes. Well, of all the liquid idiots.... It must be that she was so happy. She had never been so happy. Where on earth had her handkerchief got to....

"h.e.l.lo," said Mr. Twist, staring at her.

Anna-Felicitas looked at her quickly.

"It's merely bliss," she said, taking the corner of her beautiful new muslin ap.r.o.n to Christopher's eyes. "Excess of it. We are, you know,"

she said, smiling over her shoulder at Mr. Twist, so that the corner of her ap.r.o.n, being undirected, began dabbing at Christopher's perfectly tearless ears, "quite extraordinarily happy, and all through you.

Nevertheless Anna-R." she continued, addressing her with firmness while she finished her eyes and began her nose, "You may like to be reminded that there's only ten minutes left now before all those cars that were here yesterday come again, and you wouldn't wish to embark on your career as a waitress hampered by an ugly face, would you?"

But half an hour later no cars had come. Pepper Lane was still empty.

The long shadows lay across it in a beautiful quiet, and the crickets in the gra.s.s chirruped undisturbed. Twice sounds were heard as if something was coming up it, and everybody flew to their posts--Li Koo to the boiling water, Mrs. Bilton to her raised desk at the end of the room, and the twins to the door--but the sounds pa.s.sed on along the road and died away round the next corner.

At half-past four the _personnel_ of The Open Arms was sitting about silently in a state of increasing uneasiness, when Mr. Ridding walked in.

There had been no noise of a car to announce him; he just walked in mopping his forehead, for he had come in the jitney omnibus to the nearest point and had done the last mile on his own out-of-condition feet. Mrs. Ridding thought he was writing letters in the smoking-room.

She herself was in a big chair on the verandah, and with Miss Heap and most of the other guests was discussing The Open Arms in all its probable significance. He hadn't been able to get away sooner because of the nap. He had gone through with the nap from start to finish so as not to rouse suspicion. He arrived very hot, but with a feeling of dare-devil running of risks that gave him great satisfaction. He knew that he would cool down again presently and that then the consequences of his behaviour would be unpleasant to reflect upon, but meanwhile his blood was up.

He walked in feeling not a day older than thirty,--most gratifying sensation. The _personnel_, after a moment's open-mouthed surprise, rushed to greet him. Never was a man more welcome. Never had Mr. Ridding been so warmly welcomed anywhere in his life.

"Now isn't this real homey," he said, beaming at Anna-Rose who took his stick. "Wish I'd known you were going to do it, for then I'd have had something to look forward to."

"Will you have tea or coffee?" asked Anna-Felicitas, trying to look very solemn and like a family butler but her voice quivering with eagerness.

"Or perhaps you would prefer frothed chocolate? Each of these beverages can be provided either hot or iced--"

"There's ice-cream as well," said Anna-Rose, tumultuously in spite of also trying to look like a family butler. "_I'd_ have ice-cream if I were you. There's more body in it. Cold, delicious body. And you look so hot. Hot things should always as soon as possible be united to cold things, so as to restore the proper balance--"

"And there's some heavenly stuff called cinnamon-toast--hot, you know, but if you have ice-cream at the same time it won't matter," said Anna-Felicitas, hanging up his hat for him. "I don't know whether you've studied the leaflets," she continued, "but in case you haven't I feel I oughtn't to conceal from you that the price is five dollars whatever you have."

"So that," said Anna-Rose, "you needn't bother about trying to save, for you can't."

"Then I'll have tea to start with and see how I get on," said Mr.

Ridding, sitting down in the chair Anna-Felicitas held for him and beaming up at her.

She flicked an imaginary grain of dust off the cloth with the corner of her ap.r.o.n to convey to him that she knew her business, and hurried away to give the order. Indeed, they both hurried away to give the order.

"Say--" called out Mr. Ridding, for he thought one Anna would have been enough for this and he was pining to talk to them; but the twins weren't to be stopped from both giving the very first order, and they disappeared together into the pantry.

Mrs. Bilton sat in the farthest corner at her desk, apparently absorbed in an enormous ledger. In this ledger she was to keep accounts and to enter the number of teas, and from this high seat she was to preside over the activities of the _personnel_. She had retired hastily to it on the unexpected entrance of Mr. Ridding, and pen in hand was endeavouring to look as if she were totting up figures. As the pages were blank this was a little difficult. And it was difficult to sit there quiet. She wanted to get down and go and chat with the guest; she felt she had quite a good deal she could say to him; she had a great itch to go and talk, but Mr. Twist had been particular that to begin with, till the room was fairly full, he and she should leave the guests entirely to the Annas.

He himself was going to keep much in the background at all times, but through the half-open door of his office he could see and hear; and he couldn't help thinking, as he sat there watching and observed the effulgence of the beams the old gentleman just arrived turned on the twins, that the first guest appeared to be extraordinarily and undesirably affectionate. He thought he had seen him at the Cosmopolitan, but wasn't sure. He didn't know that the Annas, after their conversation with him there, felt towards him as old friends, and he considered their manner was a little unduly familiar. Perhaps, after all, he thought uneasily, Mrs. Bilton had better do the waiting and the Annas sit with him in the office. The ledger could be written up at the end of the day. Or he could hire somebody....

Mr. Twist felt worried, and pulled at his ear. And why was there only one guest? It was twenty minutes to five; and this time yesterday the road had been choked with cars. He felt very much worried. With every minute this absence of guests grew more and more remarkable. Perhaps he had better, this beings the opening day, go in and welcome the solitary one there was. Perhaps it would be wise to elaborate the idea of the inn for his edification, so that he could hand on what he had heard to those others who so unaccountably hadn't come.

He got up and went into the other room; and just as Anna-Felicitas was reappearing with the teapot followed by Anna-Rose with a tray of cakes, Mr. Ridding, who was sitting up expectantly and giving his tie a little pat of adjustment, perceived bearing down upon him that fellow Teapot Twist.