Part 20 (1/2)
”Yes, yes,” said Mr. Sack. ”Exactly. That's what I did.”
”And though I wouldn't wish,” said Anna-Felicitas, ”to say anything against somebody who so very nearly was my hostess, yet really, you know, wasn't Mrs. Sack's att.i.tude rather churlish?”
Mr. Sack gazed at her. ”Oh, aren't you a pretty--” he began again, with a kind of agonized enthusiasm; but he was again cut short by Anna-Rose, on whom facts of a disturbing nature were beginning to press.
”Aunt Alice,” she said, looking and feeling extremely perturbed as the situation slowly grew clear to her, ”told us we were never to stay with people whose wives are somewhere else. Unless they have a mother or other female relative living with them. She was most particular about it, and said whatever else we did we weren't ever to do this. So I'm afraid,” she continued in her politest voice, determined to behave beautifully under circ.u.mstances that were trying, ”much as we should have enjoyed staying with you and Mrs. Sack if she had been here to stay with, seeing that she isn't we manifestly can't.”
”You can't stay with me,” murmured Mr. Sack, turning his bewildered eyes to her. ”Were you going to?”
”Of course we were going to. It's what we've come for,” said Anna-Felicitas.
”And I'm afraid,” said-Anna-Rose, ”disappointed as we are, unless you can produce a mother--”
”But where on earth are we to go to, Anna-R.?” inquired Anna-Felicitas, who, being lazy, having got to a place preferred if possible to stay in it, and who besides was sure that in their forlorn situation a Sack in the hand was worth two Sacks not in it, any day. Also she liked the look of Mr. Sack, in spite of his being so obviously out of repair. He badly wanted doing up she said to herself, but on the other hand he seemed to her lovable in his distress, with much of the pathetic helplessness her own dear Irish terrier, left behind in Germany, had had the day he caught his foot in a rabbit trap. He had looked at Anna-Felicitas, while she was trying to get him out of it, with just the same expression on his face that Mr. Sack had on his as he walked about the room twisting and untwisting his fingers behind his back. Only, her Irish terrier hadn't had a Gibson profile. Also, he had looked much more efficient.
”Can't you by any chance produce a mother?” she asked.
Mr. Sack stared at her.
”Of course we're very sorry,” said Anna-Rose.
Mr. Sack stared at her.
”But you understand, I'm sure, that under the circ.u.mstances--”
”Do you say,” said Mr. Sack, stopping still after a few more turns in front of Anna-Rose, and making a great effort to collect his thoughts, ”that I--that we--had arranged to look after you?”
”Arranged with Uncle Arthur,” said Anna-Rose. ”Uncle Arthur Abinger. Of course you had. That's why we're here. Why, you wrote bidding us welcome. He showed us the letter.”
”Abinger. Abinger. Oh--_that_ man,” said Mr. Sack, his mind clearing.
”We thought you'd probably feel like that about him,” said Anna-Felicitas sympathetically.
”Why, then,” said Mr. Sack, his mind getting suddenly quite clear, ”you must be--why, you _are_ the Twinklers.”
”We've been drawing your attention to that at frequent intervals since we got here,” said Anna-Felicitas.
”But whether you now remember or still don't realize,” said Anna-Rose with great firmness, ”I'm afraid we've got to say good-bye.”
”That's all very well, Anna-R.,” again protested Anna-Felicitas, ”but where are we to go to?”
”Go?” said Anna-Rose with a dignity very creditable in one of her size, ”Ultimately to California, of course, to Uncle Arthur's other friends.
But now, this afternoon, we get back into a train and go to Clark, to Mr. Twist. He at least has a mother.”
CHAPTER XV
And so it came about that just as the reunited Twists, mother, son and daughter, were sitting in the drawing-room, a little tired after a long afternoon of affection, waiting for seven o'clock to strike and, with the striking, Amanda the head maid to appear and announce supper, but waiting with la.s.situde, for they had not yet recovered from an elaborate welcoming dinner, the Twinklers, in the lovely twilight of a golden day, were hastening up the winding road from the station towards them.
Silent, and a little exhausted, the unconscious Twists sat in their drawing-room, a place of marble and antimaca.s.sars, while these light figures, their shoes white with the dust of a country-side that had had no rain for weeks, sped every moment nearer.