Part 17 (1/2)
The black porter, whose heart happened not to be black and who had children of his own, perceived the helpless ignorance that lay behind the twins' a.s.sumption a of severe dignity, and took them in hand and got seats for them in the parlour car. As they knew nothing about cars, parlour or otherwise, but had merely and quite uselessly reiterated to the booking-clerk, till their porter intervened, that they wanted third-cla.s.s tickets, they accepted these seats, thankful in the press and noise round them to get anything so roomy and calm as these dignified arm-chairs; and it wasn't till they had been in them some time, their feet on green footstools, with attendants offering them fruit and chocolates and magazines at intervals just as if they had been in heaven, as Anna-Felicitas remarked admiringly, that counting their money they discovered what a hole the journey had made in it. But they were too much relieved at having accomplished so much on their own, quite uphelped for the first time since leaving Aunt Alice, to take it particularly to heart; and, as Anna-Felicitas said, there was still the 200, and, as Anna-Rose said, it wasn't likely they'd go in a train again for ages; and anyhow, as Anna-Felicitas said, whatever it had cost they were bound to get away from being constant drains on Mr. Twist's purse.
The train journey delighted them. To sit so comfortably and privately in chairs that twisted round, so that if a pa.s.senger should start staring at Anna-Felicitas one could make her turn her back altogether on him; to have one's feet on footstools when they were the sort of feet that don't reach the ground; to see the lovely autumn country flying past, hills and woods and fields and gardens golden in the October sun, while the horrible Atlantic was nowhere in sight; to pa.s.s through towns so queerly reminiscent of English and German towns shaken up together and yet not a bit like either; to be able to have the window wide open without getting soot in one's eyes because one of the ministering angels--clad, this one, appropriately to heaven, in white, though otherwise black--pulled up the same sort of wire screen they used to have in the windows at home to keep out the mosquitoes; to imitate about twelve, when they grew bold because they were so hungry, the other pa.s.sengers and cause the black angel to spread a little table between them and bring clam broth, which they ordered in a spirit of adventure and curiosity and concealed from each other that they didn't like; to have the young man who pa.s.sed up and down with the candy, and whose mouth was full of it, grow so friendly that he offered them toffee from his own private supply at last when they had refused regretfully a dozen suggestions to buy--”Have a bit,” he said, thrusting it under their noses. ”As a gentleman to ladies--no pecuniary obligations--come on, now;” all this was to the twins too interesting and delightful for words.
They accepted the toffee in the spirit in which it was offered, and since n.o.body can eat somebody's toffee without being pleasant in return, intermittent amenities pa.s.sed between them and the young man as he journeyed up and down through the cars.
”First visit to the States?” he inquired, when with some reluctance, for presently it appeared to the twins that the clam broth and the toffee didn't seem to be liking each other now they had got together inside them, and also for fear of hurting his feelings if they refused, they took some more.
They nodded and smiled stickily.
”English, I guess.”
They hesitated, covering their hesitation with the earnest working of their toffee-filled jaws.
Then Anna-Felicitas, her cheek distorted, gave him the answer she had given the captain of the _St. Luke,_ and said, ”Practically.”
”Ah,” said the young man, turning this over in his mind, the r in ”practically” having rolled as no English or American r ever did; but the conductor appearing in the doorway he continued on his way.
”It's evident,” said Anna-Rose, speaking with difficulty, for her jaws clave together because of the toffee, ”that we're going to be asked that the first thing every time a fresh person speaks to us. We'd better decide what we're going to say, and practise saying it without hesitation.”
Anna-Felicitas made a sound of a.s.sent.
”That answer of yours about practically,” continued Anna-Rose, swallowing her bit of toffee by accident and for one moment afraid it would stick somewhere and make her die, ”causes first surprise, then reflection, and then suspicion.”
”But,” said Anna-Felicitas after a pause during which she had disentangled her jaws, ”it's going to be difficult to say one is German when America seems to be so very neutral and doesn't like Germans.
Besides, it's only in the eye of the law that we are. In G.o.d's eye we're not, and that's the princ.i.p.al eye after all.”
Her own eyes grew thoughtful. ”I don't believe,” she said, ”that parents when they marry have any idea of all the difficulties they're going to place their children in.”
”I don't believe they think about it at all,” said Anna-Rose. ”I mean,”
she added quickly, lest she should be supposed to be questioning the perfect love and forethought of their mother, ”fathers don't.”
They were silent a little after this, each thinking things tinged to sobriety by the effect of the inner conflict going on between the clam broth and the toffee. Also Boston was rus.h.i.+ng towards them, and the Clouston Sacks. Quite soon they would have to leave the peaceful security of the train and begin to be active again, and quick and clever. Anna-Felicitas, who was slow, found it difficult ever to be clever till about the week after, and Anna-Rose, who was impetuous, was so impetuous that she entirely outstripped her scanty store of cleverness and landed panting and surprised in situations she hadn't an idea what to do with. The Clouston Sacks, now--Aunt Alice had said, ”You must take care to be very tactful with Mr. and Mrs. Clouston Sack;” and when Anna-Rose, her forehead as much puckered as Mr. Twist's in her desire to get exactly at what tactful was in order to be able diligently to be it, asked for definitions, Aunt Alice only said it was what gentlewomen were instinctively.
”Then,” observed Anna-Felicitas, when on nearing Boston Anna-Rose repeated Aunt Alice's admonishment and at the same time provided Anna-Felicitas for her guidance with the definition, ”seeing that we're supposed to be gentlewomen, all we've got to do is to behave according to our instincts.”
But Anna-Rose wasn't sure. She doubted their instincts, especially Anna-Felicitas's. She thought her own were better, being older, but even hers were extraordinarily apt to develop in unexpected directions according to the other person's behaviour. Her instinct, for instance, when engaged by Uncle Arthur in conversation had usually been to hit him. Was that tact? Yet she knew she was a gentlewoman. She had heard that, since first she had heard words at all, from every servant, teacher, visitor and relation--except her mother--in her Prussian home.
Indeed, over there she had been told she was more than a gentlewoman, for she was a n.o.blewoman and therefore her instincts ought positively to drip tact.
”Mr. Dodson,” Aunt Alice had said one afternoon towards the end, when the twins came in from a walk and found the rector having tea, ”says that you can't be too tactful in America. He's been there.”
”Sensitive--sensitive,” said Mr. Dodson, shaking his head at his cup.
”Splendidly sensitive, just as they are splendidly whatever else they are. A great country. Everything on a vast scale, including sensitiveness. It has to be met vastly. But quite easy really---” He raised a pedagogic finger at the twins. ”You merely add half as much again to the quant.i.ty of your tact as the quant.i.ty you encounter of their sensitiveness, and it's all right.”
”Be sure you remember that now,” said Aunt Alice, pleased.
As Boston got nearer, Anna-Rose, trying to learn Mr. Dodson's recipe for social success by heart, became more silent. On the s.h.i.+p, when the meeting with the Sacks was imminent, she had fled in sudden panic to her cabin to hide from them. That couldn't have been tact. But it was instinct. And she was a gentlewoman. Now once again dread took possession of her and she wanted to hide, not to get there, to stay in the train and go on and on. She said nothing, of course, of her dread to Anna-Felicitas in order not to undermine that young person's _morale_, but she did very much wish that principles weren't such important things and one needn't have cut oneself off from the protecting figure of Mr.
Twist.