Part 37 (1/2)
”And we--we wouldn't be--sep--separated,” said Anna-Rose, getting it out with a gasp.
Mr. Twist stood looking at them.
”Well, of all the--” he began, pus.h.i.+ng his hat back. ”Are you aware,”
he went on more calmly, ”that there are only two rooms over that kitchen, and that you and Mrs. Bilton will have to be all together in one of them?”
”We don't mind that as long as you're in the other one,” said Anna-Rose.
”Of course,” suggested Anna-Felicitas, ”if you were to happen to marry Mrs. Bilton it would make a fairer division.”
Mr. Twist's spectacles stared enormously at her.
”No, no,” said Anna-Rose quickly. ”Marriage is a sacred thing, and you can't just marry so as to be more comfortable.”
”I guess if I married Mrs. Bilton I'd be more uncomfortable,” remarked Mr. Twist with considerable dryness.
He seemed however to be quieted by the bare suggestion, for he fixed his hat properly on his head and said, sobriety in his voice and manner, ”Come along, then. We'll get a taxi and anyway go out and have a look at the rooms. But I shouldn't be surprised,” he added, ”if before I've done with you you'll have driven me sheer out of my wits.”
”Oh, _don't_ say that,” said the twins together, with all and more of their usual urbanity.
CHAPTER XXVI
By superhuman exertions and a lavish expenditure of money, the rooms Li Koo was later on to inhabit were ready to be slept in by the time Mrs.
Bilton arrived. They were in an outbuilding at the back of the house, and consisted of a living-room with a cooking-stove in it, a bedroom behind it, and up a narrow and curly staircase a larger room running the whole length and width of the shanty. This sounds s.p.a.cious, but it wasn't. The amount of length and width was small, and it was only just possible to get three camp-beds into it and a washstand. The beds nearly touched each other. Anna-Felicitas thought she and Anna-Rose were going to be regrettably close to Mrs. Bilton in them, and again urged on Mr.
Twist's consideration the question of removing Mrs. Bilton from the room by marriage; but Anna-Rose said it was all perfect, and that there was lots of room, and she was sure Mrs. Bilton, used to the camp life so extensively practised in America, would thoroughly enjoy herself.
They worked without stopping all the rest of the day at making the little place habitable, nailing up some of the curtains intended for the other house, unpacking cus.h.i.+ons, and fetching in great bunches of the pale pink and mauve geraniums that scrambled about everywhere in the garden and hiding the worst places in the rooms with them. Mr. Twist was in Acapulco most of the time, getting together the necessary temporary furniture and cooking utensils, but the twins didn't miss him, for they were helped with zeal by the architect, the electrical expert, the garden expert and the chief plumber.
These young men--they were all young, and very go-ahead--abandoned the main building that day to the undirected labours of the workmen they were supposed to control, and turned to on the shanty as soon as they realized what it was to be used for with a joyous energy that delighted the twins. They swept and they garnished. They cleaned the dust off the windows and the rust off the stove. They fetched out the parcels with the curtains and cus.h.i.+ons in them from the barn where all parcels and packages had been put till the house was ready, and extracted various other comforts from the piled up packing-cases,--a rug or two, an easy chair for Mrs. Bilton, a looking-gla.s.s. They screwed in hooks behind the doors for clothes to be hung on, and they tied the canary to a neighbouring eucalyptus tree where it could be seen and hardly heard.
The chief plumber found buckets and filled them with water, and the electrical expert rigged up a series of lanterns inside the shanty, even illuminating its tortuous staircase. There was much _badinage_, but as it was all in American, a language of which the twins were not yet able to apprehend the full flavour, they responded only with pleasant smiles.
But their smiles were so pleasant and the family dimple so engaging that the hours flew, and the young men were sorry indeed when Mr. Twist came back.
He came back laden, among other things, with food for the twins, whom he had left in his hurry high and dry at the cottage with nothing at all to eat; and he found them looking particularly comfortable and well-nourished, having eaten, as they explained when they refused his sandwiches and fruit, the chief plumber's dinner.
They were sitting on the stump of an oak tree when he arrived, resting from their labours, and the gra.s.s at their feet was dotted with the four experts. It was the twins now who were talking, and the experts who were smiling. Mr. Twist wondered uneasily what they were saying. It wouldn't have added to his comfort if he had heard, for they were giving the experts an account of their attempt to go and live with the Sacks, and interweaving with it some general reflections of a philosophical nature suggested by the Sack _menage_. The experts were keenly interested, and everybody looked very happy, and Mr. Twist was annoyed; for clearly if the experts were sitting there on the gra.s.s they weren't directing the workmen placed under their orders. Mr. Twist perceived a drawback to the twins living on the spot while the place was being finished; another drawback. He had perceived several already, but not this one. Well, Mrs.
Bilton would soon be there. He now counted the hours to Mrs. Bilton. He positively longed for her.
When they saw him coming, the experts moved away. ”Here's the boss,”
they said, nodding and winking at the twins as they got up quickly and departed. Winking was not within the traditions of the Twinkler family, but no doubt, they thought, it was the custom of the country to wink, and they wondered whether they ought to have winked back. The young men were certainly deserving of every friendliness in return for all they had done. They decided they would ask Mrs. Bilton, and then they could wink at them if necessary the first thing to-morrow morning.
Mr. Twist took them with him when he went down to the station to meet the Los Angeles train. It was dark at six, and the workmen had gone home by then, but the experts still seemed to be busy. He had been astonished at the amount the twins had accomplished in his absence in the town till they explained to him how very active the experts had been, whereupon he said, ”Now isn't that nice,” and briefly informed them they would go with him to the station.
”That's waste of time,” said Anna-Felicitas. ”We could be giving finis.h.i.+ng touches if we stayed here.”
”You will come with me to the station,” said Mr. Twist.