Part 6 (1/2)
Her mother, with her handkerchief to her nose, exhorted her not to be vulgar. Letty explained at some length that she was only being nice, and offering a.s.sistance.
”I really shall have to poke him,” said Anna, her faint cries of _Kutscher_ quite lost in the rattling of the carriage and the howling of the wind. ”Or perhaps you would touch his arm, Miss Leech.”
Miss Leech turned, and very gingerly touched his sleeve. He at once whistled to his horses, who stopped dead, s.n.a.t.c.hed off his cap, and looking down at Anna inquired her commands.
It was done so quickly that Anna, whose conversational German was exceedingly rusty, was quite unable to remember the word for fish, and sat looking up at him helplessly, while she vainly searched her brains.
”What _is_ fish in German?” she said, appealing to Susie, distressed that the man should be waiting capless in the rain.
”Letty, what's the word for fish?” inquired Susie sternly.
”Fish?” repeated Letty, looking stupid.
”Fish?” echoed Miss Leech, trying to help.
”_Fisch?_” said the coachman himself, catching at the word.
”Oh, yes; how utterly silly I am,” cried Anna blus.h.i.+ng and showing her dimples, ”it's _Fisch_, of course. _Kutscher, wo ist Fisch?_”
The man looked blank; then his face brightened, and pointing with his whip to the rolling sea on their right, visible across the flat intervening fields, he said that there was much fish in it, especially herrings.
”What does he say?” asked Susie from behind her handkerchief.
”He says there are herrings in the sea.”
”Is the man a fool?”
Letty laughed uproariously. The coachman, seeing Letty and Anna laugh, thought he must have said the right thing after all, and looked very pleasant.
”_Aber im Wagen_,” persisted Anna, ”_wo ist Fisch im Wagen?_”
The coachman stared. Then he said vaguely, in a soothing voice, not in the least knowing what she meant, ”_Nein, nein, gnadiges Fraulein_,” and evidently hoped she would be satisfied.
”_Aber es riecht, es riecht!_” cried Anna, not satisfied at all, and lifting up her nose in unmistakeable displeasure.
His face brightened again. ”_Ach so--jawohl, jawohl_,” he exclaimed cheerfully; and hastened to explain that there were no fish nearer than the sea, but that the grease he had used that morning to make the leather of the hood and ap.r.o.n s.h.i.+ne certainly had a fishy smell, as he himself had noticed. ”The gracious Miss loves not the smell?” he inquired anxiously; for he had seven children, and was very desirous that his new mistress should be pleased.
Anna laughed and shook her head, and though she said with great emphasis that she did not love it at all, she looked so friendly that he felt rea.s.sured.
”What does he say?” asked Susie.
”Why, I'm afraid we shall have it all the way. It's the grease he's been rubbing the leather with.”
”Barbarian!” cried Susie angrily, feeling sick already, and certain that she would be quite ill by the end of the drive. ”And you laugh at him and encourage him, instead of taking up your position at once and showing him that you won't stand any nonsense. He ought to be--to be unboxed!” she added in great wrath; for she had heard of delinquent clergymen being unfrocked, and why should not delinquent coachmen be unboxed?
Anna laughed again. She tried not to, but she could not help it; and Susie, made still more angry by this childish behaviour, sulked during the rest of the drive.
”Go on--_avanti_!” said Anna, who knew hardly any Italian, and when she was in Italy and wanted her words never could find them, but had been troubled the last two days by the way in which these words came to her lips every time she opened them to speak German.
The coachman understood her, however, and they went on again along the straight high-road, that stretched away before them to a distant bend.