Christopher and Columbus Part 4

Anna-Rose, feeling sure that n.o.body ought to say just h.e.l.lo to people they had never seen before, and that Aunt Alice would think they had brought it on themselves by being conspicuous, decided that perhaps "Good-evening" would regulate the situation, and said it.

"You ought to be at dinner," said the man, taking no notice of this.

"That's what _we_ think," agreed Anna-Felicitas earnestly.

"Can you please tell us how to get there?" asked Anna-Rose, still distant, but polite, for she too very much wanted to know.

"But _don't_ tell us to ask the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas, even more earnestly.

"No," said Anna-Rose, "because we won't."

The man laughed. "Come right along with me," he said, striding on; and they followed him as obediently as though such persons as possible _bose Buben_ didn't exist.

"First voyage I guess," said the man over his shoulder.

"Yes," said the twins a little breathlessly, for the man's legs were long and they could hardly keep up with him.

"English?" said the man.

"Ye--es," said Anna-Rose.

"That's to say, practically," panted the conscientious Anna-Felicitas.

"What say?" said the man, still striding on. "I said," Anna-Felicitas endeavoured to explain, hurrying breathlessly after him so as to keep within reach of his ear, "practically."

"Ah," said the man; and after a silence, broken only by the pantings for breath of the twins, he added: "Mother with you?"

They didn't say anything to that, it seemed such a dreadful question to have to answer, and luckily he didn't repeat it, but, having got to the door they had been searching for, opened it and stepped into the bright light inside, and putting out his arm behind him pulled them in one after the other over the high wooden door-frame.

Inside was the same stewardess they had seen earlier in the afternoon, engaged in heatedly describing what sounded like grievances to an official in b.u.t.tons, who seemed indifferent. She stopped suddenly when the man appeared, and the official took his hands out of his pockets and became alert and attentive, and the stewardess hastily picked up a tray she had set down and began to move away along a pa.s.sage.

The man, however, briefly called "Hi," and she turned round and came back even more quickly than she had tried to go.

"You see," explained Anna-Rose in a pleased whisper to Anna-Felicitas, "it's Hi she answers to."

"Yes," agreed Anna-Felicitas. "It's waste of good circ.u.mlocutions to throw them away on her."

"Show these young ladies the dining-room," said the man.

"Yes, sir," said the stewardess, as polite as you please.

He nodded to them with a smile that developed for some reason into a laugh, and turned away and beckoned to the official to follow him, and went out again into the night.

"Who was that nice man?" inquired Anna-Rose, following the stewardess down a broad flight of stairs that smelt of india-rubber and machine-oil and cooking all mixed up together.

"And please," said Anna-Felicitas with mild severity, "don't tell us to ask the Captain, because we really do know better than that."

"I thought you must be relations," said the stewardess.

"We are," said Anna-Rose. "We're twins."

The stewardess stared. "Twins what of?" she asked.

"What of?" echoed Anna-Rose. "Why, of each other, of course."

"I meant relations of the Captain's," said the stewardess shortly, eyeing them with more disfavour than ever.

"You seem to have the Captain greatly on your mind," said Anna-Felicitas. "He is no relation of ours."

"You're not even friends, then?" asked the stewardess, pausing to stare round at them at a turn in the stairs as they followed her down arm-in-arm.

"Of course we're friends," said Anna-Rose with some heat. "Do you suppose we quarrel?"

"No, I didn't suppose you quarrelled with the Captain," said the stewardess tartly. "Not on board this s.h.i.+p anyway."

She didn't know which of the two she disliked most, the short girl or the long girl.

"You seem to be greatly obsessed by the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas gently. "Obsessed!" repeated the stewardess, tossing her head. She was unacquainted with the word, but instantly suspected it of containing a reflection on her respectability. "I've been a widow off and on for ten years now," she said angrily, "and I guess it would take more than even the Captain to obsess _me_."

They had reached the gla.s.s doors leading into the dining-room, and the stewardess, having carried out her orders, paused before indignantly leaving them and going upstairs again to say, "If you're friends, what do you want to know his name for, then?"

"Whose name?" asked Anna-Felicitas.

"The Captain's," said the stewardess.

"We don't want to know the Captain's name," said Anna-Felicitas patiently. "We don't want to know anything about the Captain."

"Then--" began the stewardess. She restrained herself, however, and merely bitterly remarking: "That gentleman _was_ the Captain," went upstairs and left them.

Anna-Rose was the first to recover. "You see we took your advice," she called up after her, trying to soften her heart, for it was evident that for some reason her heart was hardened, by flattery. "You _told_ us to ask the Captain."

CHAPTER IV

In their berths that night before they went to sleep, it occurred to them that perhaps what was the matter with the stewardess was that she needed a tip. At first, with their recent experiences fresh in their minds, they thought that she was probably pa.s.sionately pro-Ally, and had already detected all those Junkers in their past and accordingly couldn't endure them. Then they remembered how Aunt Alice had said, "You will have to give your stewardess a little something."

This had greatly perturbed them at the time, for up to then they had been in the easy position of the tipped rather than the tippers, and anyhow they had no idea what one gave stewardesses. Neither, it appeared, had Aunt Alice; for, on being questioned, she said vaguely that as it was an American boat they were going on she supposed it would have to be American money, which was dollars, and she didn't know much about dollars except that you divided them by four and multiplied them by five, or else it was the other way about; and when, feeling still uninformed, they had begged her to tell them why one did that, she said it was the quickest way of finding out what a dollar really was, and would they mind not talking any more for a little while because her head ached.

The tips they had seen administered during their short lives had all been given at the end of things, not at the beginning; but Americans, Aunt Alice told them, were in some respects, in spite of their talking English, different, and perhaps they were different just on this point and liked to be tipped at both ends. Anna-Rose wanted to crane out her head and call up to Anna-Felicitas and ask her whether she didn't think that might be so, but was afraid of disturbing the people in the opposite berths.

Anna-Felicitas was in the top berth on their side of the cabin, and Anna-Rose as the elder and accordingly as she explained to Anna-Felicitas, needing more comfort, in the lower one. On the opposite side were two similar berths, each containing as Anna-Felicitas whispered after peeping cautiously through their closed curtains,--for at first on coming in after dinner to go to bed the cabin seemed empty, except for inanimate things, like clothes hanging up and an immense smell,--its human freight. They were awed by this discovery, for the human freight was motionless and speechless, and yet made none of the noises suggesting sleep.

They unpacked and undressed as silently and quickly as possible, but it was very difficult, for there seemed to be no room for anything, not even for themselves. Every now and then they glanced a little uneasily at the closed curtains, which bulged, and sniffed cautiously and delicately, trying to decide what the smell exactly was. It appeared to be a mixture of the sauce one had with plum pudding at Christmas, and German bedrooms in the morning. It was a smell they didn't like the idea of sleeping with, but they saw no way of getting air. They thought of ringing for the stewardess and asking her to open a window, though they could see no window, but came to the conclusion it was better not to stir her up; not yet, at least, not till they had correctly diagnosed what was the matter with her. They said nothing out loud, for fear of disturbing whatever it was behind the curtains, but they knew what each was thinking, for one isn't, as they had long ago found out, a twin for nothing.

There was a slight scuffle before Anna-Felicitas was safely hoisted up into her berth, her legs hanging helplessly down for some time after the rest of her was in it, and Anna-Rose, who had already neatly inserted herself into her own berth, after watching these legs in silence and fighting a desire to give them a tug and see what would happen, had to get out at last on hearing Anna-Felicitas begin to make sounds up there as though she were choking, and push them up in after her. Her head was then on a level with Anna-Felicitas's berth, and she could see how Anna-Felicitas, having got her legs again, didn't attempt to do anything with them in the way of orderly arrangement beneath the blankets, but lay huddled in an irregular heap, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her eyes up very tight and stuffing one of her pigtails into her mouth, and evidently struggling with what appeared to be an attack of immoderate and ill-timed mirth.