Part 30 (1/2)
”Haven't you heard of Co-operative Stores?” inquired Anna-Rose.
”Yes but--”
”Well, then.”
”Yes, but what would a co-operative inn be?” persisted Anna-Felicitas.
”One run on co-operative lines, of course,” said Anna-Rose grandly.
”Everybody pays for everything, so that n.o.body particular pays for anything.”
”Oh,” said Anna-Felicitas.
”I mean,” said Anna-Rose, who felt herself that this might be clearer, ”it's when you pay the servants and the rent and the cakes and things out of what you get.”
”Oh,” said Anna-Felicitas. ”And will they wait quite quietly till we've got it?”
”Of course, if we're all co-operative.”
”I see,” said Anna-Felicitas, who saw as little as before, but knew of old that Anna-Rose grew irascible when pressed.
”See here now,” said Mr. Twist weightily, ”if that isn't an idea. Only you've got hold of the wrong word. The word you want is profit-sharing.
And as this undertaking is going to be a big success there will be big profits, and any amount of cakes and salaries will be paid for as glibly and easily as you can say your ABC.”
And he explained that till they were fairly started he was going to stay in California, and that he intended during this time to be book-keeper, secretary, and treasurer to The Open Arms, besides Advertiser-in-Chief, which was, he said, the most important post of all; and if they would be so good as to leave this side of it unquestioningly to him, who had had a business training, he would undertake that the Red Cross, American or British, whichever they decided to support, should profit handsomely.
Thus did Mr. Twist artfully obtain a free hand as financial backer of The Open Arms. The profit-sharing system seemed to the twins admirable.
It cleared away every scruple and every difficulty, they now bought chintzes and pewter pots in the faith of it without a qualm, and even ceased to blench at the salary of the lady engaged to be their background,--indeed her very expensiveness pleased them, for it gave them confidence that she must at such a price be the right one, because n.o.body, they agreed, who knew herself not to be the right one would have the face to demand so much.
This lady, the widow of Bruce D. Bilton of Chicago of whom of course, she said, the Miss Twinklers had heard--the Miss Twinklers blushed and felt ashamed of themselves because they hadn't, and indistinctly murmured something about having heard of Cornelius K. Vanderbilt, though, and wouldn't he do--had a great deal of very beautiful snow-white hair, while at the same time she was only middle-aged. She firmly announced, when she perceived Mr. Twist's spectacles dwelling on her hair, that she wasn't yet forty, and her one fear was that she mightn't be middle-aged enough. The advertis.e.m.e.nt had particularly mentioned middle-aged; and though she was aware that her brains and fingers and feet couldn't possibly be described as coming under that heading, she said her hair, on the other hand, might well be regarded as having overshot the mark. But its turning white had nothing to do with age. It had done that when Mr. Bilton pa.s.sed over. No hair could have stood such grief as hers when Mr. Bilton took that final step. She had been considering the question of age, she informed Mr. Twist, from every aspect before coming to the interview, for she didn't want to make a mistake herself nor allow the Miss Twinklers to make a mistake; and she had arrived at the conclusion that what with her hair being too old and the rest of her being too young, taken altogether she struck an absolute average and perfectly fulfilled the condition required; and as she wished to live in the country, town life disturbing her psychically too much, she was willing to give up her home and her circle--it was a real sacrifice--and accept the position offered by the Miss Twinklers. She was, she said, very quiet, and yet at the same time she was very active.
She liked to fly round among duties, and she liked to retire into her own mentality and think. She was all for equilibrium, for the right balancing of body and mind in a proper alternation of suitable action.
Thus she attained poise,--she was one of the most poised women her friends knew, they told her. Also she had a warm heart, and liked both philanthropy and orphans. Especially if they were war ones.
Mrs. Bilton talked so quickly and so profusely that it took quite a long time to engage her. There never seemed to be a pause in which one could do it. It was in Los Angeles, in an hotel to which Mr. Twist had motored the twins, starting at daybreak that morning in order to see this lady, that the personal interview took place, and by lunch-time they had been personally interviewing her for three hours without stopping. It seemed years. The twins longed to engage her, if only to keep her quiet; but Mrs. Bilton's spirited description of life as she saw it and of the way it affected something she called her psyche, was without punctuation and without even the tiny gap of a comma in it through which one might have dexterously slipped a definite offer. She had to be interrupted at last, in spite of the discomfort this gave to the Twinkler and Twist politeness, because a cook was coming to be interviewed directly after lunch, and they were dying for some food.
The moment Mr. Twist saw Mrs. Bilton's beautiful white hair he knew she was the one. That hair was what The Open Arms wanted and must have; that hair, with a well-made black dress to go with it, would be a s.h.i.+eld through which no breath of misunderstanding as to the singleness of purpose with which the inn was run would ever penetrate. He would have settled it with her in five minutes if she could have been got to listen, but Mrs. Bilton couldn't be got to listen; and when it became clear that no amount of patient waiting would bring him any nearer the end of what she had to say Mr. Twist was forced to take off his coat, as it were, and plunge abruptly into the very middle of her flow of words and convey to her as quickly as possible, as one swimming for his life against the stream, that she was engaged. ”Engaged, Mrs. Bilton,”--he called out, raising his voice above the sound of Mrs. Bilton's rus.h.i.+ng words, ”engaged.” She would be expected at the Cosmopolitan, swiftly continued Mr. Twist, who was as particularly anxious to have her at the Cosmopolitan as the twins were particularly anxious not to,--for for the life of them they couldn't see why Mrs. Bilton should be stirred up before they started inhabiting the cottage,--within three days--
”Mr. Twist, it can't be done,” broke in Mrs. Bilton a fresh and mountainous wave of speech gathering above Mr. Twist's head. ”It absolutely--”
”Within a week, then,” he called out quickly, holding up the breaking of the wave for an instant while he hastened to and opened the door. ”And goodmorning Mrs. Bilton--my apologies, my sincere apologies, but we have to hurry away--”
The cook was engaged that afternoon. Mr. Twist appeared to have mixed up the answers to his advertis.e.m.e.nt, for when, after paying the luncheon-bill, he went to join the twins in the sitting-room, he found them waiting for him in the pa.s.sage outside the door looking excited.
”The cook's come,” whispered Anna-Rose, jerking her head towards the shut door. ”She's a man.”
”She's a Chinaman,” whispered Anna-Felicitas.
Mr. Twist was surprised. He thought he had an appointment with a woman,--a coloured lady from South Carolina who was a specialist in pastries and had immaculate references, but the Chinaman a.s.sured him that he hadn't, and that his appointment was with him alone, with him, Li Koo. In proof of it, he said, spreading out his hands, here he was.