Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated)

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

  But nothing occurred after this that day that was pleasant. I plodded along alone. Rain came down and mud increased, but still I plodded. It was pretended to me that we were unusually unlucky in the weather and that England does not as a rule have a summer of the sort; I, however, believe that it does, regularly every year, as a special punishment of Providence for its being there at all, or how should the thing be so very green? Mud and greenness mud and greenness, that is all the place is made of, thought I, trudging between the wet hedges after an hour’s rain had set everything dripping.

  Stolidly I followed, at my horse’s side, whither the others led. In the rain we passed through villages which the ladies in every tone of childish enthusiasm cried out were delightful, Edelgard joining in, Edelgard indeed loudest, Edelgard in fact falling in love in the silliest way with every thatched and badly repaired cottage that happened to have a show of flowers in its garden, and saying — I heard her with my own ears — that she would like to live in one. What new affectation was this, I asked myself? Not one of our friends who would not (very properly) leave off visiting us if we looked as poor as thatch. To get and to keep friends the very least that you must have is a handsome sofa-set in a suitably sized drawing-room. Edelgard till then had been justly proud of hers, which cost a sum so round that it seems written in velvet letters all over it. It is made of the best of everything — wood, stuffing, covers, and springs, and has a really beautiful walnut wood table in the middle, with its carved and shapely legs resting on a square of carpet so good that many a guest has exclaimed in tones of envy as her feet sank into it, “But dearest Baroness, where and how did you secure so truly glorious a carpet? It must have cost! “ And eyes and hands uplifted complete the sentence.

  To think of Edelgard with this set and all that it implies in the background of her consciousness affecting a willingness to leave it, tried my patience a good deal; and about three o’clock, having all collected in a baker’s shop in a wet village called Salehurst for the purpose of eating buns (no camp being in immediate prospect), I told her in a low tone how ill enthusiasms about things like thatch sit on a woman who is going to be thirty next birthday.

  ‘‘Dear wife,” I begged, ‘‘do endeavour not to be so calf-like. If you think these pretences pretty let me tell you you are mistaken. The others will not tell you so, because the others are not your husband. Nobody is taken in, nobody believes you. Everybody sees you are old enough to be sensible. But, not being your husband, they are obliged to be polite and feign to agree and sympathize, while they are really secretly lamenting your inability to adjust your conversation to your age.

  This I said between two buns; and would have said more had not the eternal Jellaby thrust himself between us. Jellaby was always coming between man and wife, and this time he did it with a glass of fizzy lemonade. Edelgard refused it, and Jellaby (pert Socialist) thanked her earnestly for doing so, saying he would be wholly unable to respect a woman who drank fizzy lemonade.

  Respect a woman? What a tone to adopt to a married lady whose husband is within ear-shot. And what could Edelgard’s tone have been to him before such a one on his side came within the range of the possible?

  “And I must warn you,” I continued with a slightly less pronounced patience, “very seriously against the consequences likely to accrue if you allow a person of Jellaby’s sex and standing to treat you with familiarity. Familiarity and disrespect are one and the same thing. They are inseparable. They are, in fact, twins. But not ordinary twins — rather that undividable sort of which there have been luckily only a few examples ‘‘

  “Dear Otto, do have another bun,’’ said she, pointing to these articles in a pile on the counter; and as I paused to choose (by means of squeezing) the freshest, she, although aware I had not finished speaking, slipped away.

  I begin to doubt as I proceed with my narrative whether any but relations had better be admitted to the readings aloud after all. Friends have certain Judas-like qualities, and might, perhaps, having listened to these sketches of Edelgard with every appearance of sympathy, go away and misrepresent me. Relations on the other hand are very sincere and never pretend (which is why one prefers friends, I sometimes think) and they have, besides, the family feeling which prevents their discussing each other to the unrelated. It is possible that I may restrict my invitations solely to them; and yet it seems a pity not to let my friends in as well. Have they not often suffered in the same way too? Have they not wives themselves? God help us all.

  Continuing our march in the rain we left Salehurst (where I earnestly but vainly suggested we should camp in the back-yard of the inn) and went toward Bodiam — a ruined castle, explained Lord Sigismund coming and walking with me, of great interest and antiquity, rising out of a moat which at that time of the year would be filled with white and yellow water-lilies.

  He knew it well and talked a good deal about it, its position, its preservation, and especially its lilies. But I was much too wet to care about lilies. A tight roof and a shut window would have interested me far more. However, it was agreeable to converse with him, and I soon deftly turned the conversation while at the same time linking it, as it were, on to the next subject, by remarking that his serene Aunt in Germany must also be very old. He vaguely said she was, and showed a tendency to get back to the ruins nearer at hand, which I dodged by observing that she must make a perfect picture in her castle in Thuringia, the background being so harmonious, such an appropriate setting for an old lady, for, as is well known, the castle grounds contain the most magnificent ruins in Europe. “And your august Aunt, my dear Lord Sigismund,” I continued, “is, I am certain, not one whit less magnificent than the rest.”

  ‘‘Well, I don’t think Aunt Lizzie actually crumbles yet, you know, Baron,” said Lord Sigismund smiling. “You should see her going about in gaiters looking after things.”

  “There is nothing I would like better than to see her,” I replied with enthusiasm, for this was surely almost an invitation.

  He, however, made no direct answer but got back to the Bodiam ruins again, and again I broke the thread of what threatened to become a narrative by inquiring how long it took to go by train from London to his father the Duke’s place in Cornwall.

  ‘‘Oh, it’s at the end of the world,” said he.

  “I know, I know. But my wife and I would not like to leave England without having journeyed thither and looked at a place so famous according to Baedeker both for its size, its splendour, and its associations. Of course, my dear Lord Sigismund,” I added with the utmost courtesy, “we expect nothing. We would be content to go as the merest tourists. In spite of the length of the journey we should not hesitate to put up at the inn which is no doubt not far from the ducal gates. There should be no trading on what has become, certainly on my side and I hope and believe on yours, a warm friendship.”

  “My dear Baron,’’ said Lord Sigismund heartily, “I agree entirely with you. Friendship should be as warm as one can possibly make it. Which reminds me that I haven’t asked poor Menzies-Legh how his foot is getting on. That wasn’t very warm of me, was it? I must go and see how he is.”

  And he dropped behind.

  At this time I was leading the procession (by some accident of the start from the bun shop) and had general orders to go straight ahead unless signalled to from the rear. I went, accordingly, straight ahead down a road running along a high ridge, the blank space of rain and mist on either side filled in no doubt on more propitious days by a good view. Bodiam lay below somewhere in the flat, and we were going there; for Mrs. Menzies-Legh, and indeed all the others including Edelgard, wished (or pretended to wish) to see the ruins. I must decline to believe in the genuineness of such a wish when expressed, as in this case, by the hungry and the wet. Ruins are very well, no doubt, but they do come last. A man will not look at a ruin if he is honest until every other instinct, even the smallest, has been satisfied. If, not having had his dinner, he yet expresses eagerness to visit such things, then
I say that that man is a hypocrite. To enjoy looking at the roofless must you not first have a roof yourself? To enjoy looking at the empty must you not first be filled? For the roofless and the empty to visit and admire other roofless and other empties seems to me as barren as for ghosts to go to tea with ghosts.

  Alone I trudged through a dripping world. My thoughts from ruins and ghosts strayed naturally — for when you are seventy there must be a good deal of the ghost about you — once more to Lord Sigismund’s august and aged Aunt in Thuringia, to the almost invitation (certainly encouragement) he had given me to go and behold her in princely gaiters, to the many distinct advantages of having such a lady on our visiting list, to conjecture as to the extent of the Duke her brother’s hospitality should we go down and take up our abode very openly at the inn at his gates, to the pleasantness (apart from every other consideration) of staying in his castle after staying in a caravan, and to the interest of Storchwerder when it heard of it.

  The hooting of a yet invisible motor interrupted these musings. It was hidden in the mist at first, but immediately loomed into view, coming down the straight road toward me at a terrific pace, coming along with a rush and a roar, the biggest, swiftest, and most obviously expensive example I had yet seen.

  The road was wide, but sloped away considerably on either side from the crown of it, and on the crown of it I walked with my caravan. It was a clay road, made slippery by the rain; did these insolent vulgarians, I asked myself, suppose I was going to slide down one side in order to make room for them? Room there was plenty between me in the middle and the gutter and hedge at the sides. If there was to be sliding, why should it not be they who slid?

  The motor, with the effrontery usual to its class, was right on the top of the road, in the very pick and middle of it. I perceived that here was my chance. No motor would dare dash straight on in the face of so slow and bulky an obstacle as a caravan, and I was sick of them — sick of their dust, their smell, and their vulgar ostentation. Also I felt that all the other members of our party would be on my side, for I have related their indignant comments on the slaying of a pretty young woman by one of these goggled demons. Therefore I kept on immovably, swerving not an inch from the top of the road.

  The motor, seeing this and now very near, shrieked with childish rage (it had a voice like an angry woman) at my daring to thwart it. I remained firmly on my course, though I was obliged to push up the horse which actually tried of itself to make way. The motor, still shrieking, saw nothing for it but to abandon the heights to me, and endeavoured to pass on the slope. As it did it skidded violently, and after a short interval of upheaval and activity among its occupants subsided into calm and the gutter.

  An old gentleman with a very red face struggled into view from among many wrappers.

  I waited till he had finally emerged, and then addressed him impressively and distinctly from the top of the road. ‘‘Road hog,” I said, ‘‘let this be a lesson to you.”

  I would have said more, he being unable to get away and I holding, so to speak, the key to the situation, if the officious Jellaby and the too kind Lord Sigismund had not come running up from behind breathlessly eager to render an assistance that was obviously not required.

  The old gentleman, shaking himself free from his cloak and rising in the car, was in the act of addressing me in his turn, for his eyes were fixed on me and his mouth was opening and shutting in the spasms preliminary to heated conversation (all of which I observed calmly, leaning against my horse’s shaft and feeling myself to be in the right) when Lord Sigismund and Jellaby arrived.

  “I do hope you’ve not been hurt “ began Lord Sigismund with his usual concern for those to whom anything had happened.

  The old gentleman gasped. “What? Sidge? It’s your lot?” he exclaimed.

  “Hullo, Dad!” was Lord Sigismund’s immediate and astonished response.

  It was the Duke.

  Now was not that very unfortunate?

  CHAPTER XV

  I HAVE observed on frequent occasions in a life now long enough to have afforded many, a tendency on the part of Providence to punish the just man because he has been just. Not one to criticize Providence if I can avoid it, I do feel that this is to be deplored. It is also inexplicable. Marie-Luise died, I recollect, the very day I had had occasion to speak sharply to her, which almost looked, I remember thinking at the time, like malice. I was aware, however, that it was only Providence. My poor wife was being wielded as the instrument which was to put me in the wrong, and I need not say to you, my friends, who knew her and know me and were witness of the harmony of our married life, that her death had nothing to do with my rebukes. You all remember she was in perfect health that day, and was snatched from my side late in the afternoon by means of a passing droschke. The droschke passed over her, and left me, with incredible suddenness, a widower on the pavement. This might have happened to anybody, but what was so peculiarly unfortunate was that I had been forced, if I would do my duty, to rebuke her during the hours immediately preceding the occurrence. Of course, I could not know about the droschke. I could not know about it; I did my duty; and by the evening I was the most crushed of men, a prey to the cruelest regrets and self-reproaches. Yet had I not acted aright? Conscience told me Yes. Alas, how little could Conscience do for my comfort then! In time I got over it, and regained the calm balance of mind that saw life would stand still if we feared to speak out because people might die. Indeed, I saw this so clearly that I not only married again within the year, but made up my mind that no past experience should intimidate me into not doing my duty by my second wife; I assumed, that is, from the first my proper position in the household as its guide and censor, and up to now I am glad to say Providence has left Edelgard alone, and has not used her (except in minor matters) as a weapon for making me regret I have done right.

  But here, now, was this business with the Duke. Nothing could have been warmer and more cordial than my feelings toward him and his family. I admired and liked his son; I infinitely respected his sister; and I only asked to be allowed to admire, like, and respect himself. Such was my attitude toward him. Toward motors it was equally irreproachable. I detested their barbarous methods, and was as anxious as any other decent man to give them a lesson and help avenge their many unhappy victims. Now came Providence, stepping in between these two meritorious intentions, and frustrating both at one blow by the simple expedient of combining the Duke with the motor. It confounded me; it punished me; it put me in the wrong; and for what? For doing what I knew was right.

  “No one, not even a pastor, can expect me to like that sort of thing,” I complained to Mrs. Menzies-Legh, to whom I had been talking, owing to her sister’s being somewhere else.

  “No,’’ said she; and looked at me reflectively as though tempted to say more. But (no doubt remembering my dislike of talkative women) she refrained.

  I was sitting under one of the ruined arches of Bodiam Castle (never, my friends, go there; it is a terribly damp place), with the lean lady, while the others peered about as well as they could, being too tired to do anything but sit, and weary, too, of spirit, for I am a sensitive man, and had had a troubled day. The evening had done that which English people call drawing in. Lord Sigismund was gone — gone with his unreasonably incensed father in the motor to some place whose name I did not catch, and was not to be back till the next day. The others, including myself, had, after a prolonged search, found a very miserable camp with cows in it. It was too late to object to anything, so there we huddled round our stew-pot in an exposed field, while the wind howled and a fine rain fell. Our party was oddly silent and cheerless considering its ordinary spirits. No one said it was healthy and jolly; even the children did not speak, and sat buttoned up in mackintoshes, their hands clasped round their knees, their faces, shining with rain, set and serious. I think the way the Duke had behaved after getting out of the gutter had depressed them. It had been a disagreeable scene — I should say he was a man of a hot and
uncontrolled temper — and my apologies had been useless. Then the supper took an unconscionable time preparing. For some reason the chickens would not boil (they missed Lord Sigismund’s persuasive talent) and the potatoes could not because the stove on which they stood went out and nobody noticed it. How bleak and autumnal that field, bare of trees, with the rain driving over it, looked after the unsatisfactory day I cannot describe to you. Its dreariness, combined with what had gone before, and with the bad supper, made me dislike it more than any camp we had had. The thought that up there on those dank cow-ridden heights we were to spend the night, while down in Bodiam lights twinkled and happy cottagers undressed in rooms and went into normal beds instead of inserting themselves sideways into what was in reality a shelf, was curiously depressing. And when, after supper, our party was washing up by the flickering lantern-light, with the rain, wetting the plates as quickly as they were dried, I could not refrain from saying as I stood looking down at them, “So this is what is called pleasure,”

  Nobody had anything to say to that.

  In self-defense we went down later on, dark and wild though it was, to the ruins. Sit up there in the wet we could not, and it was too early to go to bed. Nor could we play at cards in each other’s caravans, because of questions of decorum. Mrs. Menzies-Legh did, indeed, suggest it, but on my pointing this out to her with a severity I was prepared to increase if she had made the least opposition, the suggestion was dropped. Forced to stay out-of-doors we were forced to move, or rheumatism would certainly have claimed us for its own, so we set out once again along the muddy lanes, leaving Menzies-Legh (who was sulking terribly) to mind the camp, and trudged the two miles down to the castle.