Christopher and Columbus Part 34

"Our family," she said gently, "can hardly be said to come so much as to have been."

The old lady thought this over, her l.u.s.treless eyes on Anna-Felicitas's face.

The knitting lady clicked away very fast, content to leave the management of the Twinklers in more competent hands.

"How's that?" asked the old lady, finally deciding that she hadn't understood.

"It's extinct," said Anna-Felicitas. "Except us. That is, in the direct line."

The old lady was a little impressed by this, direct lines not being so numerous or so clear in America as in some other countries.

"You mean you two are the only Twinklers left?" she asked.

"The only ones left that matter," said Anna-Felicitas. "There are branches of Twinklers still existing, I believe, but they're so unimportant that we don't know them."

"Mere twigs," said Anna-Rose, recovering her nerves on seeing Anna-Felicitas handle the situation so skilfully; and her nose unconsciously gave a slight Junker lift.

"Haven't you got any parents?" asked the old lady.

"We used to have," said Anna-Felicitas flushing, afraid that her darling mother was going to be asked about.

The old gentleman gave a sudden chuckle. "Why yes," he said, forgetting his wife's presence for an instant, "I guess you had them once, or I don't see how--"

"Albert," said his wife.

"We are the sole surviving examples of the direct line of Twinklers,"

said Anna-Rose, now quite herself and ready to give Columbus a hand.

"There's just us. And we--" she paused a moment, and then plunged--"we come from England."

"Do you?" said the old lady. "Now I shouldn't have said that. I can't say just why, but I shouldn't. Should you, Miss Heap?"

"I shouldn't say a good many things, Mrs. Ridding," said Miss Heap enigmatically, her needles flying.

"It's because we've been abroad a great deal with our parents, I expect," said Anna-Rose rather quickly. "I daresay it has left its mark on us."

"Everything leaves its mark on one," observed Anna-Felicitas pleasantly.

"Ah," said the old lady. "I know what it is now. It's the foreign r.

You've picked it up. Haven't they, Miss Heap."

"I shouldn't like to say what they haven't picked up, Mrs. Ridding,"

said Miss Heap, again enigmatically.

"I'm afraid we have," said Anna-Rose, turning red. "We've been told that before. It seems to stick, once one has picked it up."

And the old gentleman muttered that everything stuck once one had picked it up, and looked resentfully at his wife.

She moved her slow eyes round, and let them rest on him a moment.

"Albert, if you talk so much you won't be able to sleep to-night," she said. "I can't get Mr. Ridding to remember we've got to be careful at our age," she added to the knitting lady.

"You seem to be bothered by your memory," said Anna-Rose politely, addressing the old gentleman "Have you ever tried making notes on little bits of paper of the things you have to remember? I think you would probably be all right then. Uncle Arthur used to do that. Or rather he made Aunt Alice do it for him, and put them where he would see them."

"Uncle Arthur," explained Anna-Felicitas to the old lady, "is an uncle of ours. The one," she said turning to the old gentleman, "we were just telling you about, who so unfortunately insisted on marrying our aunt.

Uncle, that is, by courtesy," she added, turning to the old lady, "not by blood."

The old lady's eyes moved from one twin to the other as each one spoke, but she said nothing.

"But Aunt Alice," said Anna-Rose, "is our genuine aunt. Well, I was going to tell you," she continued briskly, addressing the old gentleman.

"There used to be things Uncle Arthur had to do every day and every week, but still he had to be reminded of them each time, and Aunt Alice had a whole set of the regular ones written out on bits of cardboard, and brought them out in turn. The Monday morning one was: Wind the Clock, and the Sunday morning one was: Take your Hot Bath, and the Sat.u.r.day evening one was: Remember your Pill. And there was one brought in regularly every morning with his shaving water and stuck in his looking-gla.s.s: Put on your Abdominable Belt."

The knitting needles paused an instant.

"Yes," Anna-Felicitas joined in, interested by these recollections, her long limbs sunk in her chair in a position of great ease and comfort, "and it seemed to us so funny for him to have to be reminded to put on what was really a part of his clothes every day, that once we wrote a slip of our own for him and left it on his dressing-table: Don't forget your Trousers."

The knitting needles paused again.

"But the results of that were dreadful," added Anna-Felicitas, her face sobering at the thought of them.

"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "You see, he supposed Aunt Alice had done it, in a fit of high spirits, though she never had high spirits--"

"And wouldn't have been allowed to if she had," explained Anna-Felicitas.

"And he thought she was laughing at him," said Anna-Rose, "though we have never seen her laugh--"

"And I don't believe he has either," said Anna-Felicitas.

"So there was trouble, because he couldn't bear the idea of her laughing at him, and we had to confess."

"But that didn't make it any better for Aunt Alice."

"No, because then he said it was her fault anyhow for not keeping us stricter."

"So," said Anna-Felicitas, "after the house had been steeped in a sulphurous gloom for over a week, and we all felt as though we were being slowly and steadily ga.s.sed, we tried to make it up by writing a final one--a nice one--and leaving it on his plate at breakfast: Kiss your Wife. But instead of kissing her he--" She broke off, and then finished a little vaguely: "Oh well, he didn't."

"Still," remarked Anna-Rose, "it must be pleasant not to be kissed by a husband. Aunt Alice always wanted him to, strange to say, which is why we reminded him of it. He used to forget that more regularly than almost anything. And the people who lived in the house nearest us were just the opposite--the husband was for ever trying to kiss the person who was his wife, and she was for ever dodging him."

"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "Like the people on Keats's Grecian Urn."

"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "And that sort of husband, must be even worse.

"Oh, much worse," agreed Anna-Felicitas.

She looked round amiably at the three quiet figures in the chairs. "I shall refrain altogether from husbands," she said placidly. "I shall take something that doesn't kiss."

And she fell into an abstraction, wondering, with her cheek resting on her hand, what he, or it, would look like.

There was a pause. Anna-Rose was wondering too what sort of a creature Columbus had in her mind, and how many, if any, legs it would have; and the other three were, as before, silent.