The Four Beauties

by H. E. Bates

  Aunt Leonora instantly demanded to know what all this meant and I, not really having more than the faintest idea myself, as instantly translated it as:

  ‘Otto says the pudding could only have been made by the hands of angels.’

  It might have been a trick I’d learned from her. It might have been one of her own inspired half-truths. At any rate with a cry of joy she jumped up from the table, waltzed round it to Otto and excitedly kissed him, continental fashion, on both cheeks. Then, before he had time to recover from this affectionate onslaught, she kissed him with what I thought was astonishingly vigorous ardour on the lips, saying:

  ‘And that one’s for the Zugspitze. For luck. For old times. Who says there’s any lack of Anglo-German unity?’

  My swift examination of Mr Wilbram’s face found it far gone beyond melancholy. It was sunk in reproving gloom. At the same time his eye was arid. There were clearly excessive heights of passion towards which even Christmas pudding could not be permitted to reach. There were limits even to Anglo-German fellowship.

  It wasn’t surprising that, after all this, Otto took a second helping of pudding or that Aunt Leonora cut it even larger than the first. While he attacked it with that unremitting vigour Aunt Leonora found such a delight Uncle Freddie topped up the wine glasses, Otto at once seizing his and holding it aloft to schniff us all in general and the pudding again in particular, saying that he could only wish it was always Christmas in summer-time.

  ‘In Germany we have never this. Never this festival in Sommer.’

  ‘Oh! who says anything about angels?’ Aunt Leonora said. ‘You’re the angel if ever there was one. Oh! Otto, you haven’t changed a bit. Spoem, remember?’

  This new and sweeping word, this new marriage of German and English, suddenly fell on us, I thought, like an entrancing rocket.

  ‘You remember spoem, surely, Otto?’

  ‘Bitte?’

  ‘It was the second night at the Hirschen. We’d all been drinking that wild raspberry drink. Not framboise, that’s French. Himbeer or something like that, isn’t it? We’d been drinking it for hours. Perhaps I was a little far gone, I don’t know, but suddenly I turned to you and said ‘S’lovely, isn’t it? S’poem, isn’t it?’ Spoem – it became one of those words – spoem, like schniff, you know? Spoem – you surely remember?’

  ‘Bitte? Ah, so, so.’

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, with one of those entrancing and wholly unexpected turns of mind that sometimes make her, in fact, a sort of spoem herself, ‘who’s for cheese?’

  Uncle Freddie, Mr Wilbram and I were, reluctantly, not for cheese, but Otto was.

  ‘Ah! the Stilton,’ Aunt Leonora said. ‘At the last moment I remembered it. There must be one more very, very English thing, I thought, and Stilton was it.’

  While Aunt Leonora danced to the kitchen to fetch the Stilton Uncle Freddie went to the sideboard and came back with a decanter.

  ‘Well, if Stilton must be eaten,’ he said, ‘then port must be drunk. Agree, dear boy?’

  I said I very much agreed and in the same moment saw Mr Wilbram take a quick, cold look at his watch. Then as Freddie started to find glasses for the port Mr Wilbram whispered something into Herr Untermeyer’s ear and Herr Untermeyer looked at his watch too.

  ‘Ah! so. Fine, fine. Is plenty.’

  ‘Ah! port!’ Aunt Leonora came back into the room bearing dishes of butter and biscuits and a half Stilton. ‘Splendid idea. Have we time?’ She looked at her watch too. ‘Oh! oceans, oceans. That little orchid trip won’t take us the whisk of a donkey’s tail.’

  Here I thought it prudent to remind her that the orchids were not only rare but widely scattered, that their habitat was as jealously guarded as a state secret and that, in any case, the flowering season of many of them was already over; to which she replied, characteristically:

  ‘Well, we don’t expect to see all Rome in a day, do we? Of course we shan’t see them all. That isn’t the point. It’s the feeling that they might be there.’

  Herr Untermeyer attacked the Stilton. With an ardour undiminished he married it with the port. It was all, like the Kate and Sidney, the Christmas pudding and the Deidesheimer Hofstück ’59, schön, the work of angels. Every moment he looked more richly, expansively content.

  ‘A little more Stilton, Otto? Another drop of port? A soupçon – kleine?—’

  Mr Wilbram, by this time, had grown visibly impatient. He didn’t want to interrupt things, he said, coldly, but he felt he had to remind Mrs Elphinstone about the bus. The bus had to be christened. At five o’clock prompt. And afterwards representatives of the two towns had to take a ride in it and this too couldn’t be delayed. Was this – this other – so important?’

  ‘Of course, it’s important.’ She gave him one of those characteristically dark, accusatory glares of hers that had him silenced completely. ‘It’s important to show him our heritage and all that, isn’t it? That’s what he’s here for, isn’t he?’

  It is always hard to reply to these caustic darts of Aunt Leonora’s; they disarm the best of men; and Mr Wilbram remained miserably, but I thought wisely, silent.

  ‘After all it is the little things that count. It’s neglecting them that leads to wars.’ After this astonishing statement of untruth she declared, rather sharply, that she would get the coffee. ‘It’s only a matter of a mile, anyway. Goodness gracious, it isn’t a route march, is it? The walk will do us all the world of good.’

  Our hills are not high; their grassy slopes, rich with cowslips in spring and light drifts of harebells in summer, have nothing in common with the slopes of the Zugspitze; but they rise with sudden abruptness, hard, dry bosoms of grass that present, to those who have just lunched well on two sorts of pudding, two of wine, Stilton cheese and coffee, obstacles as formidable as those in a steeplechase.

  ‘We might possibly see the Spider,’ Aunt Leonora said. We were all struggling up the steep rough hillside, she and Otto ahead together, I next, Mr Wilbram last, in single file, in the heat of afternoon. ‘And the Bee. But not of course anything so rare as the Military. That’s only known to a dozen or more choice spirits.’

  I always admired certain phrases of Aunt Leonora’s and ‘choice spirits’, I thought, was good.

  ‘We are not seeing this military?’ Herr Untermeyer stopped suddenly to say. ‘This camp?’

  ‘No, no, Otto. You don’t quite understand. The Military is not a camp. It’s a flower.’

  ‘Not a camp? But this Romans?—’

  ‘That,’ she said, ‘is quite a different matter.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Left fork here!’

  At the command Herr Untermeyer turned, stomping behind Aunt Leonora up an even steeper path. Before I joined them something made me stop and look back. Twenty yards behind me, bent at the knees, head well down, Mr Wilbram had stopped for breath.

  ‘Everything all right?’ I called. ‘Shall I wait for you?’

  There was no sound in answer; Mr Wilbram merely waved one hand, flat, like a man counting a boxer out.

  A minute or two later, as I climbed the path, I saw that Aunt Leonora and Herr Untermeyer had also paused. They seemed, I thought, to be having something of an argument. It became evident, presently, that Herr Untermeyer wasn’t happy about the military. I heard him declare, rather aggressively, that he was confused, that he did not understood.

  It was very hot and a slight breeze blowing from the sea only seemed to make the air more burning. But with a coolness I thought remarkable Aunt Leonora started to explain, clearly not for the first time, that the military on the one hand wasn’t quite the same as the military on the other. To make it worse she explained that in any case we wouldn’t see either.

  ‘So? But Herr Wilbram is spoking of a camp.’

  ‘I know Mr Wilbram spoke of a camp. But there is nothing to be seen. It has all disappeared. You can only stand on the spot and say “It was here”. Or rather probably.’

  ‘Ah! it is here?’r />
  ‘No, no, it isn’t here. It was probably a mile or two over there. There were probably two camps anyway.’

  ‘Ah! two camps? This is why you are spoking of the military twice?’

  In answer Aunt Leonora developed a sudden sharp concern for Mr Wilbram. Where was the man? She turned and looked back to where Mr Wilbram, practically on all fours now, seemed to be fumbling for the right fork in the path. Good God, she said, speaking as if the man were slacking, did he expect them to stand around and wait? They hadn’t got all day.

  Here I suggested that Mr Wilbram might perhaps be feeling the effects of lunch, particularly the puddings. Herr Untermeyer at once struck his chest a resounding blow.

  ‘No, no, that can’t be so. You are not feeling this buddings. Not here.’ He struck his chest again. ‘With the bestest cooking you are not feeling it. In one half hour it is not felt.’

  With these praises falling enthusiastically on her ears Aunt Leonora positively purred.

  ‘Shall we press on to the top then? Best foot forward. Achtung!’

  Promptly Herr Untermeyer stomped ahead, now as it were in command, the fuehrer leading us. I felt warm sweat dribble down my hair into my neck and I turned to take yet another look at Mr Wilbram. His position on all fours seemed, I thought, to have become infinitely more acute, as if he had in fact resigned himself to the idea of crawling the rest of the way to the top.

  ‘I think perhaps I ought to wait for Mr Wilbram,’ I called.

  ‘Oh! do no such thing. He’ll catch up. He isn’t tied to his mother’s apron strings, is he? Press on!’

  ‘Right,’ I said. I started to press on. ‘Excelsior!’

  Herr Untermeyer, in spite of years, fat, puddings and port, pressed on too, climbing at a punishing pace. Even Aunt Leonora, inspired no doubt by memories of other, more youthful ascents, could hardly keep up. Nor in fact could I.

  Far down the hillside Mr Wilbram crawled like a tortoise in pain. I paused once, looking back, to offer succour, but Mr Wilbram seemed merely to be sunk in an attitude of prayer.

  By the time I reached the crest of the hillside Herr Untermeyer and Aunt Leonora were surveying the wide pastoral scene below them, its uttermost fringes pencilled with the faint line of the sea, with an air of triumphant satisfaction, almost if not quite smug.

  ‘I said it was only a jaunt. I can’t think why that man Wilbram makes so much fuss of it.’

  ‘Herr Wilbram is tired? He does not seem to have the strong.’

  Clearly Mr Wilbram had not the strong. A little concerned now, I made the suggestion that I should go back and help him to the top, an idea Aunt Leonora greeted with withering scorn.

  ‘Good God, man, let him fend for himself. He’ll be needing a rope next.’

  Flabby-kneed, panting wretchedly, Mr Wilbram took nearly another five minutes to drag himself to the top, only to be greeted by Aunt Leonora, never the most tactful of women, saying:

  ‘Well, you made it. Next time we’ll bring an ice-axe.’

  Herr Untermeyer laughed stentoriously. It was a laugh, fruity and slightly coarse, in which you could fairly hear the heavy power of puddings and it fell on Mr Wilbram, still periodically gasping for breath, like a mocking blow.

  ‘I don’t see that there’s anything particularly funny about it.’

  ‘No?’ Herr Untermeyer merely let out another laugh, fruitier and coarser than the first.

  ‘Oh! very well, if that’s how you feel about it.’

  Unexpectedly Herr Untermeyer now revealed a sense of humour hitherto entirely unexpected; or perhaps it was merely the good humour of the Deidesheimer Hofstück ’59, the port and the flaming rum that was speaking.

  ‘We should perhaps have brought a dachshund, eh, mit brandy?’

  ‘I don’t quite follow that remark,’ Mr Wilbram said.

  ‘So?’ Herr Untermeyer laughed yet again, this time I thought a little loftily, with a touch of the master-race. ‘On the great mountain you have the great hund. St Bernard. On the small mountain you have the small. You follow?’

  Mr Wilbram did not follow; he turned, instead, very icy.

  ‘Was that illustration meant as a personal affront,’ he said, ‘or what?’

  ‘Oh! it was a bit of light-heartedness,’ Aunt Leonora said.

  ‘It was not exactly,’ Mr Wilbram said, ‘my idea of light-heartedness. But of course there’s a difference between English and German humour.’

  ‘Oh! is there? I never noticed it.’

  ‘We are dragged up here on some – some pretext,’ Mr Wilbram said, ‘and I find myself laughed at. I say “we”. All except Mr Elphinstone, of course. I noticed he didn’t come.’

  Hitherto no one had remarked on the absence of Uncle Freddie who, as was customary, had conveniently stayed behind to have a zizz.

  ‘My husband has nothing to do with it. He always retires after lunch.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Then,’ she said with one of those wide, enchanting, large-toothed smiles of hers, ‘you should have said so.’

  Mr Wilbram gasped impotently. Herr Untermeyer stood erect, very stiff. A train, crossing the valley far below, gave a sudden shrilling whistle, the sound ripping the warm still air.

  ‘Men make such a song and dance about little things,’ Aunt Leonora went on. ‘You could have had a zizz too if you’d wanted to. You only had to say.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A zizz. A nap. Good gracious me, you might have thought we’d asked you to climb the Matterhorn.’

  ‘Of course some of us,’ Mr Wilbram said, ‘have the advantage of being mountain climbers.’

  ‘We were all so jolly and friendly,’ she said, ‘and then suddenly you went all spokey.’

  ‘Spokey? I must say you use the oddest words sometimes. What exactly does that mean?’

  ‘It means,’ I said, ‘bloody-minded.’

  ‘Oh! it does? Do you mind cutting out the bad language? I don’t think that helps.’

  I didn’t say anything; I didn’t think, at that moment, that anything would help. There was a feeling in the air, it seemed to me, of undeclared conflict. The forces of Anglo-German unity had drifted rather far apart.

  ‘Well,’ Aunt Leonora said, with remarkable poise and cordiality, ‘shall we sort of drift back?’

  I loved the expression ‘sort of drift back’; but if it was intended as balm on the troubled air it failed completely.

  ‘Oh! do exactly as you like,’ Mr Wilbram said. ‘Take no notice of me. I don’t want to break up the afternoon.’

  ‘Would you like to go back, Otto?’ Aunt Leonora said. ‘There’d be just time for a cup of tea.’

  ‘I am thinking yet,’ Herr Untermeyer said, ‘of the military. This perhaps we have time to see?’

  ‘No, no, Otto. I’ve already explained. There isn’t any military. Except for the orchid. And that’s quite different.’

  ‘Exactly. Why don’t you tell him,’ Mr Wilbram said, ‘that there aren’t any orchids either? I don’t want to press the point, but could we get back? We’ve got a bus to christen.’

  Without waiting for an answer, Mr Wilbram started back down the hill. Aunt Leonora, under her breath, said she wished people wouldn’t get so huffy and spokey and then, in a voice deliberately loud, said:

  ‘Otto. Straight across there – right across – so far as you can see – is Hastings. Where the great battle was fought.’

  ‘Oh! who cares about the Battle of Hastings?’ Mr Wilbram said. ‘We’re late now.’

  ‘I do for one,’ she said. ‘I care about it awfully. We wouldn’t be the same without it, would we? It’s part of our heritage, isn’t it?’ And then, in one of those delightfully diplomatic thrusts of hers: ‘It might do a bit more good if you showed the flag.’

  ‘Flag?’ Mr Wilbram said. ‘What flag?’

  ‘Our flag. You were fast enough showing that German one.’

  Oh! indeed and where was that? Mr Wilbram wanted to know.

  ‘In tha
t wretched paper. You were waving the German one and Otto had the Union Jack.’

  ‘That,’ Mr Wilbram said, ‘is what it is all about. In case you’ve missed the point.’

  ‘Oh! is it? Then I can only say it would have made more sense if you’d have waved ours instead of theirs. What next? I expect we’ll all soon be waving the hammer-and-sickle.’

  ‘Oh! my dear woman—’

  For the second time Mr Wilbram started down the hillside. I thought it prudent to follow and then heard Otto say:

  ‘This battle. This is the affair military we are coming to see?’

  ‘No, no, Otto. We should go. You have your bus to christen.’

  ‘You are speaking also of flags.’

  ‘Well, yes, just in passing. Shall I lead the way?’

  ‘Herr Wilbram is angry? Yes, I think. Why is Herr Wilbram angry?’

  ‘I told him he was waving the wrong flag.’

  ‘So? Which is the wrong flag?’

  ‘The German flag.’

  ‘So? You are not liking the German flag?’

  There are moments when my Aunt Leonora, divine crackpot that she is, is capable of the most deliberate, endearing honesty.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It does something to me. It curls me up inside.’

  We descended the hillside in absolute silence. The heat of the sun, coming more from the westward now, seemed more burning than ever. A chalky dust rose from our footsteps. I now felt powerfully thirsty and, unlike Herr Untermeyer, could feel the two puddings engaged in heavy, sometimes windy, conflict inside me.

  By the time we reached the foot of the hill some hidden force had conquered Mr Wilbram’s lethargy. Armed with second wind, he was striding out strongly, fifty yards ahead. Long before we reached Aunt Leonora’s house he had doubled the distance and by the time we reached it too he was already sitting, pale and impatient, at the wheel of his car.

  ‘Wouldn’t you all care for a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’m afraid we haven’t the time.’