Part 8 (1/2)
”Except when he looks at one and tells one to sit up straight,” said Anna-Rose pointedly to Anna-Felicitas, whose habit of drooping still persisted in spite of her father's admonishments.
”Of course he's very kind and benevolent when he happens to remember that one is there,” said Anna-Felicitas, sitting up beautifully for a moment, ”but that's about everything.”
”And of course,” said Anna-Rose, ”one's father's intentions are perfectly sound and good, but his attention seems to wander. Whereas one's mother--”
”Yes,” said Anna-Felicitas, ”one's mother--”
They broke off and looked straight in front of them. It didn't bear speaking of. It didn't bear thinking of.
Suddenly Anna-Felicitas, weak from excessive sea-sickness, began to cry.
The tears just slopped over as though no resistance of any sort were possible.
Anna-Rose stared at her a moment horror-struck. ”Look here, Anna-F.,”
she exclaimed, wrath in her voice, ”I won't _have_ you be sentimental--I won't _have_ you be sentimental....”
And then she too began to cry.
Well, once having hopelessly disgraced and exposed themselves, there was nothing for it but to take Mr. Twist into their uttermost confidence. It was dreadful. It was awful. Before that strange man. A person they hardly knew. Other strangers pa.s.sing. Exposing their feelings. Showing their innermost miserable places.
They writhed and struggled in their efforts to stop, to pretend they weren't crying, that it was really nothing but just tears,--odd ones left over from last time, which was years and years ago,--”But _really_ years and years ago,” sobbed Anna-Rose, anxiously explaining,--”the years one falls down on garden paths in, and cuts one's knees, and one's mother--one's mother--c-c-c-comforts one--”
”See here,” said Mr. Twist, interrupting these incoherences, and pulling out a beautiful clean pocket-handkerchief which hadn't even been unfolded yet, ”you've got to tell me all about it right away.”
And he shook out the handkerchief, and with the first-aid promptness his Red Cross experience had taught him, started competently wiping up their faces.
CHAPTER VII
There was that about Mr. Twist which, once one had begun them, encouraged confidences; something kind about his eyes, something not too determined about his chin. He bore no resemblance to those pictures of efficient Americans in advertis.e.m.e.nts with which Europe is familiar,--eagle-faced gentlemen with intimidatingly firm mouths and chins, wiry creatures, physically and mentally perfect, offering in capital letters to make you Just Like Them. Mr. Twist was the reverse of eagle-faced. He was also the reverse of good-looking; that is, he would have been very handsome indeed, as Anna-Rose remarked several days later to Anna-Felicitas, when the friends.h.i.+p had become a settled thing,--which indeed it did as soon as Mr. Twist had finished wiping their eyes and noses that first afternoon, it being impossible, they discovered, to have one's eyes and noses wiped by somebody without being friends afterwards (for such an activity, said Anna-Felicitas, belonged to the same order of events as rescue from fire, lions, or drowning, after which in books you married him; but this having only been wiping, said Anna-Rose, the case was adequately met by friends.h.i.+p)--he would have been very handsome indeed if he hadn't had a face.
”But you have to _have_ a face,” said Anna-Felicitas, who didn't think it much mattered what sort it was so long as you could eat with it and see out of it.
”And as long as one is as kind as Mr. Twist,” said Anna-Rose; but secretly she thought that having been begun so successfully at his feet, and carried upwards with such grace of long limbs and happy proportions, he might as well have gone on equally felicitously for the last little bit.
”I expect G.o.d got tired of him over that last bit,” she mused, ”and just put on any sort of head.”
”Yes--that happened to be lying about,” agreed Anna-Felicitas. ”In a hurry to get done with him.”
”Anyway he's very kind,” said Anna-Rose, a slight touch of defiance in her voice.
”Oh, _very_ kind,” agreed Anna-Felicitas.
”And it doesn't matter about faces for being kind,” said Anna-Rose.
”Not in the least,” agreed Anna-Felicitas.
”And if it hadn't been for the submarine we shouldn't have got to know him. So you see,” said Anna-Rose,--and again produced her favourite remark about good coming out of evil.
Those were the days in mid-Atlantic when England was lost in its own peculiar mists, and the suns.h.i.+ne of America was stretching out towards them. The sea was getting calmer and bluer every hour, and submarines more and more unlikely. If a s.h.i.+p could be pleasant, which Anna-Felicitas doubted, for she still found difficulty in dressing and undressing without being sea-sick and was unpopular in the cabin, this s.h.i.+p was pleasant. You lay in a deck-chair all day long, staring at the blue sky and blue sea that enclosed you as if you were living in the middle of a jewel, and tried not to remember--oh, there were heaps of things it was best not to remember; and when the rail of the s.h.i.+p moved up across the horizon too far into the sky, or moved down across it and showed too much water, you just shut your eyes and then it didn't matter; and the sun shone warm and steady on your face, and the wind tickled the ta.s.sel on the top of your German-knitted cap, and Mr. Twist came and read aloud to you, which sent you to sleep quicker than anything you had ever known.