Christopher and Columbus Part 43

This was a blow. He hadn't run risks and walked in the afternoon heat to sit and talk to Twist. Mr. Ridding was a friendly and amiable old man, and at any other time would have talked to him with pleasure; but he had made up his mind for the Twinklers as one makes up one's mind for a certain dish and is ravaged by strange fury if it isn't produced.

Besides, hang it all, he was going to pay five dollars for his tea, and for that sum he ought to least to have it under the conditions he preferred.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Twist," he nevertheless said as Mr. Twist introduced himself, his eyes, however, roving over the ministering Annas,--a roving Mr. Twist noticed with fresh misgivings.

It made him sit down firmly at the table and say, "If you don't mind, Mr.--"

"Ridding is my name."

"If you don't mind, Mr. Ridding, I'd like to explain our objects to you."

But he couldn't help wondering what he would do if there were several tables with roving-eyed guests at them, it being clear that there wouldn't be enough of him in such a case to go round.

Mr. Ridding, for his part, couldn't help wondering why the devil Teapot Twist sat down unasked at his table. Five dollars. Come now. For that a man had a right to a table to himself.

But anyhow the Annas wouldn't have stayed talking for at that moment a car stopped in the lane and quite a lot of footsteps were heard coming up the neatly sanded path. Mr. Ridding p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, for from the things he had heard being said all the evening before and all that morning in Acapulco, besides most of the night from the lips of that strange old lady with whom by some dreadful mistake he was obliged to sleep, he hadn't supposed there would be exactly a rush.

Four young men came in. Mr. Ridding didn't know them. No cla.s.s, he thought, looking them over; and was seized with a feeling of sulky vexation suitable to twenty when he saw with what enthusiasm the Twinklers flew to meet them. They behaved, thought Mr. Ridding crossly, as if they were the oldest and dearest friends.

"Who are they?" he asked curtly of Mr. Twist, cutting into the long things he was saying.

"Only the different experts who helped me rebuild the place," said Mr.

Twist a little impatiently; he too had p.r.i.c.ked up his ears in expectation at the sound of all those feet, and was disappointed.

He continued what Mr. Ridding, watching the group of young people, called sulkily to himself his rigmarole, but continued more abstractedly. He also was watching the Annas and the experts. The young men were evidently in the highest spirits, and were walking round the Annas admiring their get-up and expressing their admiration in laughter and exclamations. One would have thought they had known each other all their lives. The twins were wreathed in smiles. They looked as pleased, Mr. Twist thought, as cats that are being stroked. Almost he could hear them purring. He glanced helplessly across to where Mrs. Bilton sat, as he had told her, bent pen in hand over the ledger. She didn't move. It was true he had told her to sit like that, but hadn't the woman any imagination? What she ought to do now was to bustle forward and take that laughing group in charge.

"As I was telling you--" resumed Mr. Twist, returning with an effort to Mr. Ridding, only to find his eyes fixed on the young people and catch an unmistakably thwarted look in his face.

In a flash Mr. Twist realized what he had come for,--it was solely to see and talk to the twins. He must have noticed them at the Cosmopolitan, and come out just for them. Just for that. "Unprincipled old scoundrel," said Mr. Twist under his breath, his ears flaming. Aloud he said, "As I was telling you--" and went on distractedly with his rigmarole.

Then some more people came in. They had motored, but the noise the experts were making had drowned the sound of their arrival. Mr. Ridding and Mr. Twist, both occupied in glowering at the group in the middle of the room, were made aware of their presence by Anna-Felicitas suddenly dropping the pencil and tablets she had been provided with for writing down orders and taking an uncertain and obviously timid step forward.

They both looked round in the direction of her reluctant step, and saw a man and two women standing on the threshold. Mr. Twist, of course, didn't know them; he hardly knew anybody, even by sight. But Mr. Ridding did. That is, he knew them well by sight and had carefully avoided knowing them any other way, for they were Germans.

Mr. Ridding was one of those who didn't like Germans. He was a man who liked or disliked what his daily paper told him to, and his daily paper was anti-German. For reasons natural to one who disliked Germans and yet at the same time had a thirstily affectionate disposition, he declined to believe the prevailing theory about the Twinklers. Besides, he didn't believe it anyhow. At that age people were truthful, and he had heard them explain they had come from England and had acquired their rolling r's during a sojourn abroad. Why should he doubt? But he refrained from declaring his belief in their innocence of the unpopular nationality, owing to a desire to avoid trouble in that bedroom he couldn't call his but was obliged so humiliatingly to speak of as ours. Except, however, for the Twinklers, for all other persons of whom it was said that they were Germans, naturalized or not, immediate or remote, he had, instructed by his newspaper, what his called a healthy instinctive abhorrence.

"And she's got it too," he thought, much gratified at this bond between them, as he noted Anna-Felicitas's hesitating and reluctant advance to meet the new guests. "There's proof that people are wrong."

But what Anna-Felicitas had got was stage-fright; for here were the first strangers, the first real, proper visitors such as any shop or hotel might have. Mr. Ridding was a friend. So were the experts friends.

This was trade coming in,--real business being done. Anna-Felicitas hadn't supposed she would be shy when the long-expected and prepared-for moment arrived, but she was. And it was because the guests seemed so disconcertingly pleased to see her. Even on the threshold the whole three stood smiling broadly at her. She hadn't been prepared for that, and it unnerved her.

"Charming, charming," said the newcomers, advancing towards her and embracing the room and the tables and the Annas in one immense inclusive smile of appreciation.

"Know those?" asked Mr. Ridding, again cutting into Mr. Twist's explanations.

"No," said he.

"w.a.n.gelbeckers," said Mr. Ridding briefly.

"Indeed," said Mr. Twist, off whose ignorance the name glanced harmlessly. "Well, as I was telling yous--"

"But this is delicious--this is a conception of genius," said Mr.

w.a.n.gelbecker all-embracingly, after he had picked up Anna-Felicitas's tablets and restored them to her with a low bow.

"Charming, charming," said Mrs. w.a.n.gelbecker, looking round.

"Real cunning," said Miss w.a.n.gelbecker, "as they say here." And she laughed at Anna-Felicitas with an air of mutual understanding.

"Will you have tea or coffee?" asked Anna-Felicitas nervously. "Or perhaps you would prefer frothed chocolate. Each of these beverages can be--"

"Delicious, delicious," said Mrs. w.a.n.gelbecker, enveloping Anna-Felicitas in her smile.

"The frothed chocolate is very delicious," said Anna-Felicitas with a kind of grave nervousness.

"Ah--charming, charming," said Mrs. w.a.n.gelbecker, obstinately appreciative.

"And there's ice-cream as well," said Anna-Felicitas, her eyes on her tablets so as to avoid seeing the w.a.n.gelbecker smile. "And--and a great many kinds of cakes--"

"Well, hadn't we better sit down first," said Mr. w.a.n.gelbecker genially, "or are all the tables engaged?"

"Oh I _beg_ your pardon," said Anna-Felicitas, blus.h.i.+ng and moving hastily towards a table laid for three.

"Ah--that's better," said Mr. w.a.n.gelbecker, following closely on her heels. "Now we can go into the serious business of ordering what we shall eat comfortably. But before I sit down allow me to present myself.

My name is w.a.n.gelbecker. An honest German name. And this is my wife. She too had an honest German name before she honoured mine by accepting it--she was a Niedermayer. And this is my daughter, with whom I trust you will soon be friends."

And they all put out their hands to be shaken, and Anna-Felicitas shook them.

"Look at that now," said Mr. Ridding watching.

"As I was telling you--" said Mr. Twist irritably, for really why should Anna II. shake hands right off with strangers? Her business was to wait, not to get shaking hands. He must point out to her very plainly.

"Pleased to meet you Miss von Twinkler," said Mrs. w.a.n.gelbecker; and at this Anna-Felicitas was so much startled that she dropped her tablets a second time.

"As they say here," laughed Miss w.a.n.gelbecker, again with that air of mutual comprehension.

"But they don't," said Anna Felicitas hurriedly, taking her tablets from the restoring hand of Mr. w.a.n.gelbecker and forgetting to thank him.

"What?" said Mrs. w.a.n.gelbecker. "When you are both so charming that for once the phrase must be sincere?"

"Miss von Twinkler means she finds it wiser not to use her t.i.tle," said Mr. w.a.n.gelbecker. "Well, perhaps--perhaps. Wiser perhaps from the point of view of convenience. Is that where you will sit, Gustchen? Still, we Germans when we are together can allow ourselves the refreshment of being ourselves, and I hope to be frequently the means of giving you the relief, you and your charming sister, of hearing yourselves addressed correctly. It is a great family, the von Twinklers. A great family. In these sad days we Germans must hang together--"

Anna-Felicitas stood, tablets in hand, looking helplessly from one w.a.n.gelbecker to the other. The situation was beyond her.

"But--" she began; then stopped. "Shall I bring you tea or coffee?" she ended by asking again.

"Well now this is amusing," said Mr. w.a.n.gelbecker, sitting down comfortably and leaning his elbows on the table. "Isn't it, Gustchen. To see a von Twinkler playing at waiting on us."

"Charming, charming," said his wife.

"It's real sporting," said his daughter, laughing up at Anna-Felicitas, again with comprehension,--with, almost, a wink. "You must let me come and help. I'd look nice in that costume, wouldn't I mother."