It was quite difficult to get myself to go downstairs. I seemed rooted. I knew that, seeing that I am that unfortunately situated person the hostess, my duty lay in morning smiles behind the coffee pot; but the conviction of what was going to happen to me after the coffee pot kept me rooted, even when the bell had rung twice.
When, however, after the second ringing quick footsteps pattered along the passage to my door I did get up, — jumped up, afraid of what might be coming-in. Bedrooms are no real protection from uncles. Those quick footsteps might easily be Uncle Rudolph’s. I hurried across to the door and pulled it open, so that at least by coming out I might stop his coming in; and there was Mrs. Antoine, her hand lifted up to knock.
‘Ces dames et Monsieur l’Evêque attendent,’ she said, with an air of reproachful surprise.
‘Il n’est pas un évêque,’ I replied a little irritably, for I knew I was in the wrong staying upstairs like that, and naturally resented not being allowed to be in the wrong in peace. ‘Il est seulement presque un.’
Mrs. Antoine said nothing to that, but stepping aside to let me pass informed me rather severely that the coffee had been on the table a whole quarter of an hour.
‘Comment appelle-t-on chez vous,’ I said, lingering in the doorway to gain time, ‘ce qui vient devant un évêque?’
‘Ce qui vient devant un évêque?’ repeated Mrs. Antoine doubtfully.
‘Oui. L’espèce de monsieur qui n’est pas tout à fait évêque mais presque?’
Mrs. Antoine knit her brows. ‘Ma foi—’ she began.
‘Oh, j’ai oublié,’ I said. ‘Vous n’êtes plus catholique. Il n’y a rien comme des évêques et comme les messieurs qui sont presque évêques dans votre église protestante, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Mais rien, rien, rien,’ asseverated Mrs. Antoine vehemently, her hands spread out, her shoulders up to her ears, passionately protesting the empty purity of her adopted church,— ‘mais rien du tout, du tout. Madame peut venir un dimanche voir....’
Then, having cleared off these imputations, she switched back to the coffee. ‘Le café — Madame désire que j’en fasse encore? Ces dames et Monsieur l’Evêque—’
‘Il n’est pas un év—’
‘Ah — here you are!’ exclaimed my uncle, his head appearing at the top of the stairs. ‘I was just coming to see if there was anything the matter. Here she is — coming, coming!’ he called out genially to the others; and on my hurrying to join him, for I am not one to struggle against the inevitable, he put his arm through mine and we went down together.
Having got me to the bottom he placed both hands on my shoulders and twisted me round to the light. ‘Dear child,’ he said, scrutinizing my face while he held me firmly in this position, ‘we were getting quite anxious about you. Mrs. Barnes feared you might be ill, and was already contemplating remedies—’ I shuddered— ‘however—’ he twisted me round to Mrs. Barnes— ‘nothing ill about this little lady, Mrs. Barnes, eh?’
Then he took my chin between his finger and thumb and kissed me lightly, gaily even, on each cheek, and then, letting me go, he rubbed his hands and briskly approached the table, all the warm things on which were swathed as usual when I am late either in napkins or in portions of Mrs. Barnes’s clothing.
‘Come along — come along, now, — breakfast, breakfast,’ cried my uncle. ‘For these and all Thy mercies Lord—’ he continued with hardly a break, his eyes shut, his hands outspread over Mrs. Barnes’s white woollen shawl in benediction.
We were overwhelmed. The male had arrived and taken us in hand. But we were happily overwhelmed, judging from Mrs. Barnes’s face. For the first time since she has been with me the blessing of heaven had been implored and presumably obtained for her egg, and I realised from her expression as she ate it how much she had felt the daily enforced consumption, owing to my graceless habits, of eggs unsanctified. And Dolly too looked pleased, as she always does when her poor Kitty is happy. I alone wasn’t. Behind the coffee pot I sat pensive. I knew too well what was before me. I distrusted my uncle’s gaiety. He had thought it all out in the night, and had decided that the best line of approach to the painful subject he had come to discuss would be one of cheerful affection. Certainly I had never seen him in such spirits; but then I haven’t seen him since my aunt’s death.
‘Dear child,’ he said, when the table had been picked up and carried off bodily by the Antoines from our midst, leaving us sitting round nothing with the surprised feeling of sudden nakedness that, as I have already explained, this way of clearing away produces — my uncle was actually surprised for a moment into silence,— ‘dear child, I would like to take you for a little run before lunch.’
‘Yes, Uncle Rudolph?’
‘That we may get rid of our cobwebs.’
‘Yes, Uncle Rudolph.’
‘I know you are a quick-limbed little lady—’
‘Yes, Uncle Rudolph?’
‘So you shall take the edge off my appetite for exercise.’
‘Yes, Uncle Rudolph.’
‘Then perhaps this afternoon one or other of these ladies—’ I noted his caution in not suggesting both.
‘Oh, delightful,’ Mrs. Barnes hastened to assure him. ‘We shall be only too pleased to accompany you. We are great walkers. We think a very great deal of the benefits to be derived from regular exercise. Our father brought us up to a keen appreciation of its necessity. If it were not that we so strongly feel that the greater part of each day should be employed in some useful pursuit, we would spend it, I believe, almost altogether in outdoor exercise.’
‘Why not go with my uncle this morning, then?’ I asked, catching at a straw. ‘I’ve got to order dinner—’
‘Oh no, no — not on any account. The Dean’s wishes—’
But who should pass through the hall at that moment, making for the small room where I settle my household affairs, his arms full of the monthly books, but Antoine. It is the first of October. Pay day. I had forgotten. And for this one morning, at least, I knew that I was saved.
‘Look,’ I said to Mrs. Barnes, nodding in the direction of Antoine and his burden.
I felt certain she would have all the appreciation of the solemnity, the undeferability, of settling up that is characteristic of the virtuous poor; she would understand that even the wishes of deans must come second to this holy household rite.
‘Oh, how unfortunate!’ she exclaimed. ‘Just this day of all days — your uncle’s first day.’
But there was nothing to be done. She saw that. And besides, never was a woman so obstinately determined as I was to do my duty.
‘Dear Uncle Rudolph,’ I said very amiably — I did suddenly feel very amiable— ‘I’m so sorry. This is the one day in the month when I am tethered. Any other day—’
And I withdrew with every appearance of reluctant but indomitable virtue into my little room and stayed there shut in safe till I heard them go out.
From the window I could see them presently starting off up the mountain, actively led by my uncle who hadn’t succeeded in taking only one, Mrs. Barnes following with the devoutness — she who in our walks goes always first and chooses the way — of an obedient hen, and some way behind, as though she disliked having to shed her cobwebs as much as I do, straggled Dolly. Then, when they had dwindled into just black specks away up the slope, I turned with lively pleasure to paying the books.
Those blessed books! If only I could have gone on paying them over and over again, paying them all day! But when I had done them, and conversed about the hens and bees and cow with Antoine, and it was getting near lunch-time, and at any moment through the window I might see the three specks that had dwindled appearing as three specks that were swelling, I thought I noticed I had a headache.
Addings-up often give me a headache, especially when they won’t, which they curiously often won’t, add up the same twice running, so that it was quite likely that I had got a headache. I sat waiting to be quite sure, and presently, just as the t
hree tiny specks appeared on the sky line, I was quite sure; and I came up here and put myself to bed. For, I argued, it isn’t grape-stones this time, it’s sums, and Mrs. Barnes can’t dose me for what is only arithmetic; also, even if Uncle Rudolph insists on coming to my bedside he can’t be so inhumane as to torment somebody who isn’t very well.
So here I have been ever since snugly in bed, and I must say my guests have been most considerate. They have left me almost altogether alone. Mrs. Barnes did look in once, and when I said, closing my eyes, ‘It’s those tradesmens’ books—’ she understood immediately, and simply nodded her head and disappeared.
Dolly came and sat with me for a little, but we hadn’t said much before Mrs. Antoine brought a message from my uncle asking her to go down to tea.
‘What are you all doing?’ I asked.
‘Oh, just sitting round the fire not talking,’ she said, smiling.
‘Not talking?’ I said, surprised.
But she was gone.
Perhaps, I thought, they’re not talking for fear of disturbing me. This really was most considerate.
As for Uncle Rudolph, he hasn’t even tried to come and see me. The only sign of life he has made was to send me the current number of the Nineteenth Century he brought out with him, in which he has an article, — a very good one. Else he too has been quite quiet; and I have read, and I have pondered, and I have written this, and now it really is bedtime and I’m going to sleep.
Well, a whole day has been gained anyhow, and I have had hours and hours of complete peace. Rather a surprising lot of peace, really. It is rather surprising, I think. I mean, that they haven’t wanted to come and see me more. Nobody has even been to say goodnight to me. I think I like being said goodnight to. Especially if nobody does say it.
October 2nd.
Twenty-four hours sometimes produce remarkable changes. These have.
Again it is night, and again I’m in my room on my way to going to sleep; but before I get any sleepier I’ll write what I can about to-day, because it has been an extremely interesting day. I knew that what we wanted was a man.
At breakfast, to which I proceeded punctually, refreshed by my retreat yesterday, armed from head to foot in all the considerations I had collected during those quiet hours most likely to make me immune from Uncle Rudolph’s inevitable attacks, having said my prayers and emptied my mind of weakening memories, I found my three guests silent. Uncle Rudolph’s talkativeness, so conspicuous at yesterday’s breakfast, was confined at to-day’s to saying grace. Except for that, he didn’t talk at all. And neither, once having said her Amen, did Mrs. Barnes. Neither did Dolly, but then she never does.
‘I’ve not got a headache,’ I gently said at last, looking round at them.
Perhaps they were still going on being considerate, I thought. At least, perhaps Mrs. Barnes was. My uncle’s silence was merely ominous of what I was in for, of how strongly, after another night’s thinking it out, he felt about my affairs and his own lamentable connection with them owing to God’s having given me to him for a niece. But Mrs. Barnes — why didn’t she talk? She couldn’t surely intend, because once I had a headache, to go on tiptoe for the rest of our days together?
Nobody having taken any notice of my first announcement I presently said, ‘I’m very well indeed, thank you, this morning.’
At this Dolly laughed, and her eyes sent little morning kisses across to me. She, at least, was in her normal state.
‘Aren’t you—’ I looked at the other two unresponsive breakfasting heads— ‘aren’t you glad?’
‘Very,’ said Mrs. Barnes. ‘Very.’ But she didn’t raise her eyes from her egg, and my uncle again took no notice.
So then I thought I might as well not take any notice either, and I ate my breakfast in dignity and retirement, occasionally fortifying myself against what awaited me after it by looking at Dolly’s restful and refreshing face.
Such an unclouded face; so sweet, so clean, so sunny with morning graciousness. Really an ideal breakfast-table face. Fortunate Juchs and Siegfried, I thought, to have had it to look forward to every morning. That they were undeserving of their good fortune I patriotically felt sure, as I sat considering the gentle sweep of her eyelashes while she buttered her toast. Yet they did, both of them, make her happy; or perhaps it was that she made them happy, and caught her own happiness back again, as it were on the rebound. With any ordinarily kind and decent husband this must be possible. That she had been happy was evident, for unhappiness leaves traces, and I’ve never seen an object quite so unmarked, quite so candid as Dolly’s intelligent and charming brow.
We finished our breakfast in silence; and no sooner had the table been plucked out from our midst by the swift, disconcerting Antoines, than my uncle got up and went to the window.
There he stood with his back to us.
‘Do you feel equal to a walk?’ he asked, not turning round.
Profound silence.
We three, still sitting round the blank the vanished table had left, looked at each other, our eyes inquiring mutely, ‘Is it I?’
But I knew it was me.
‘Do you mean me, Uncle Rudolph?’ I therefore asked; for after all it had best be got over quickly.
‘Yes, dear child.’
‘Now?’
‘If you will.’
‘There’s no esc — you don’t think the weather too horrid?’
‘Bracing.’
I sighed, and went away to put on my nailed boots.
Relations ... what right had he ... as though I hadn’t suffered horribly ... and on such an unpleasant morning ... if at least it had been fine and warm ... but to be taken up a mountain in a bitter wind so as to be made miserable on the top....
And two hours later, when I was perched exactly as I had feared on a cold rock, reached after breathless toil in a searching wind, perched draughtily and shorn of every cob-web I could ever in my life have possessed, helplessly exposed to the dreaded talking-to, Uncle Rudolph, settling himself at my feet, after a long and terrifying silence during which I tremblingly went over my defences in the vain effort to assure myself that perhaps I wasn’t going to be much hurt, said:
‘How does she spell it?’
Really one is very fatuous. Absorbed in myself, I hadn’t thought of Dolly.
October 3rd.
It was so late last night when I got to that, that I went to bed. Now it is before breakfast, and I’ll finish about yesterday.
Uncle Rudolph had taken me up the mountain only to talk of Dolly. Incredible as it may seem, he has fallen in love. At first sight. At sixty. I am sure a woman can’t do that, so that this by itself convinces me he is a man. Three days ago I wrote in this very book that a dean isn’t quite my idea of a man. I retract. He is.
Well, while I was shrinking and shivering on my own account, waiting for him to begin digging about among my raw places, he said instead, ‘How does she spell it?’ and threw my thoughts into complete confusion.
Blankly I gazed at him while I struggled to rearrange them on this new basis. It was such an entirely unexpected question. I did not at this stage dream of what had happened to him. It never would have occurred to me that Dolly would have so immediate an effect, simply by sitting there, simply by producing her dimple at the right moment. Attractive as she is, it is her ways rather than her looks that are so adorable; and what could Uncle Rudolph have seen of her ways in so brief a time? He has simply fallen in love with a smile. And he sixty. And he one’s uncle. Amazing Dolly; irresistible apparently, to uncles.
‘Do you mean Mrs. Jewks’s name?’ I asked, when I was able to speak.
‘Yes,’ said my uncle.
‘I haven’t seen it written,’ I said, restored so far by my relief — for Dolly had saved me — that I had the presence of mind to hedge. I was obliged to hedge. In my mind’s eye I saw Mrs. Barnes’s face imploring me.
‘No doubt,’ said my uncle after another silence, ‘it is spelt on the same principle as
Molyneux.’
‘Very likely,’ I agreed.
‘It sounds as though her late husband’s family might originally have been French.’
‘It does rather.’
‘Possibly Huguenot.’
‘Yes.’
‘I was much astonished that she should be a widow.’
‘Yet not one widow but two widows....’ ran at this like a refrain in my mind, perhaps because I was sitting so close to a dean. Aloud I said, for by now I had completely recovered, ‘Why, Uncle Rudolph? Widows do abound.’
‘Alas, yes. But there is something peculiarly virginal about Mrs. Jewks.’
I admitted that this was so. Part of Dolly’s attractiveness is the odd impression she gives of untouchedness, of gay aloofness.
My uncle broke off a stalk of the withered last summer’s grass and began nibbling it. He was lying on his side a little below me, resting on his elbow. His black, neat legs looked quaint stuck through the long yellow grass. He had taken off his hat, hardy creature, and the wind blew his grey hair this way and that, and sometimes flattened it down in a fringe over his eyes. When this happened he didn’t look a bit like anybody good, but he pushed it back each time, smoothing it down again with an abstracted carefulness, his eyes fixed on the valley far below. He wasn’t seeing the valley.
‘How long has the poor young thing—’ he began.
‘You will be surprised to hear,’ I interrupted him, ‘that Mrs. Jewks is forty.’
‘Really,’ said my uncle, staring round at me. ‘Really. That is indeed surprising.’ And after a pause he added, ‘Surprising and gratifying.’
‘Why gratifying, Uncle Rudolph?’ I inquired.
‘When did she lose her husband?’ he asked, taking no notice of my inquiry.
The preliminary to an accurate answer to this question was, of course, Which? But again a vision of Mrs. Barnes’s imploring face rose before me, and accordingly, restricting myself to Juchs, I said she had lost him shortly before the war.
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 240