The Benefactress. Elizabeth von Arnim

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СКАЧАТЬ shall we do?" repeated Susie. "Poor Hilton—what barbarians they must be here."

      "We must send her in a Droschky, then, if it isn't too far, and we can get one to go."

      "A Droschky all that distance! It will be ruinous."

      "Well, we can't stand here amusing these people for ever."

      "Oh, I wish we had never come to this horrible place!" cried Susie, really made miserable by Hilton's rage.

      But Anna did not stay to listen either to her laments or to Hilton's monotonous "Only as a corpse, m'lady," and was already arranging with an unwilling driver, who had no desire whatever to drive to Kleinwalde, but consented to do so on being promised twenty marks, a rest and feed of oats for his horses, and any little addition in the shape of refreshment and extra money that might suggest itself to Anna's generosity.

      "You know, Anna, you can't expect me to pay for the fly," said Susie uneasily, when the appeased Hilton had been put into it and was out of earshot. "That dreadful cart is your property, I suppose."

      "Of course it is," said Anna, smiling, "and of course the fly is my affair. How magnificent I feel, disposing of carts and Droschkies. Now, will you please to get into my carriage? And do you observe the extreme respectfulness of my coachman?"

      The coachman, a strange-looking, round-shouldered being, with a long grizzled beard, a dark-blue cloth cap on his head, and a body clothed in a fawn-coloured suit and gaiters, on which a great many tarnished silver buttons adorned with Uncle Joachim's coat of arms were fastened at short intervals, removed his cap while his new mistress and her party were entering the carriage, and did not put it on again till they were ready to start.

      "Quite as though we were royalties," said Susie.

      "But the rest of him isn't," replied Anna, who was greatly amused by the turn-out. "Do you like my horses, Susie? Or do you suspect them of having been ploughing all the morning? Oh, well," she added quickly, ashamed of laughing at any part of her dear uncle's gift, "I suppose one has to have heavily built horses in this part of the world, where the roads are probably frightfully bad."

      "Their tails might be a little shorter," said Susie.

      "They might," agreed Anna serenely.

      With the aid of the porter, who knew all about Uncle Joachim's will and was deeply interested, they were at last somehow packed into the carriage, and away they rattled over the rough stones, threading the outskirts of the town on the mainland, the hail and wind in their faces, out into the open country, with their horses' heads turned towards the north. The fly containing Hilton followed more leisurely behind, and the farm cart containing the unused sack of straw followed the fly.

      "We can't see much of Stralsund," said Anna, trying to peep round the hood at the old town across the lakes separating it from the mainland.

      "It's a very historical town," observed Susie, who had happened to notice, as she idly turned over the pages of her Baedeker on the way down, that there was a long description of it with dates. "As of course you know," she added, turning sharply to her daughter.

      "Rather," said Letty. "Wallenstein said he'd take it if it were chained to heaven, and when he found it wasn't he was frightfully sick, and went away and left them all in the fields."

      Miss Leech, who was on the little seat, struggling to defend herself from the fury of the elements with an umbrella, looked anxious, but Susie only said in a gratified voice, "I'm glad you remember what you've been taught." To which Letty, who was in great spirits, and thought this drive in the wet huge fun, again replied heartily, "Rather," and her mother congratulated herself on having done the right thing in bringing her to Germany, home of erudition and profundity, already evidently beginning to do its work.

      The carriage smelt of fish, which presently upset Susie, who, unfortunately for her, had a nose that smelt everything. While they were in the town she thought the smell was in the streets, and bore it; but out in the open, where there was not a house to be seen, she found that it was in the carriage.

      She fidgeted, and looked about, feeling with her foot under the opposite seat, expecting to find a basket somewhere, and determined if she found one to push it out quietly and say nothing; for that she should drive for two hours with her handkerchief up to her nose was more than anybody could expect of her. Already she had done more than anybody ought to expect of her, she reflected, in going to the expense of the journey and the inconvenience of the absence from home for Anna's sake, and she hoped that Anna felt grateful. She had never yet shrunk from her duty towards Anna, or indeed from her duty towards anyone, and she was sure she never would; but her duty certainly did not include the passive endurance of offensive smells.

      "What are you looking for?" asked Anna.

      "Why, the fish."

      "Oh, do you smell it too?"

      "Smell it? I should think I did. It's killing me."

      "Oh, poor Susie!" laughed Anna, who was possessed by an uncontrollable desire to laugh at everything. The conveyance (it could hardly be called a carriage) in which they were seated, and which she supposed was the one destined for her use if she lived at Kleinwalde, was unlike anything she had yet seen. It was very old, with enormous wheels, and bumped dreadfully, and the seat was so constructed that she was continually slipping forward and having to push herself back again. It was lined throughout, including the hood, with a white and black shepherd's plaid in large squares, the white squares mellowed by the stains of use and time to varying shades of brown and yellow; when Miss Leech's umbrella was blown aside by a gust of wind Anna could see her coachman's drab coat, with a little end of white tape that he had forgotten to tie, and whose uses she was unable to guess, fluttering gaily between its tails in the wind; on the left side of the box was a very big and gorgeous coat of arms in green and white, Uncle Joachim's colours; and whichever way she turned her head, there was the overpowering smell of fish. "We must be taking our dinner home with us," she said, "but I don't see it anywhere."

      "There isn't anything under the seats. Perhaps the man has got it on the box. Ask him, Anna; I really can't stand it."

      Anna did not quite know how to attract his attention. It seemed undignified to poke him, but she did not know his name, and the wind blew her voice back in the direction of Stralsund when she had cleared it, and coughed, and called out rather shyly, "Oh, Kutscher! Kutscher!"

      Then she remembered that oh was not German, and that Uncle Joachim had used sonorous achs in its place, and she began again, "Ach, Kutscher! Kutscher!"

      Letty giggled. "Go it, Aunt Anna," she said encouragingly, "dig him in the ribs with your umbrella—or I will, if you like."

      Her mother, with her handkerchief to her nose, exhorted her not to be vulgar. Letty explained at some length that she was only being nice, and offering assistance.

      "I really shall have to poke him," said Anna, her faint cries of Kutscher quite lost in the rattling of the carriage and the howling of the wind. "Or perhaps you would touch his arm, Miss Leech."

      Miss Leech turned, and very gingerly touched his sleeve. He at once whistled to his horses, who stopped dead, snatched off his cap, and looking down at Anna inquired her commands.

      It was done so quickly that Anna, whose conversational German was exceedingly rusty, was quite unable to remember the word for fish, and sat looking up at him helplessly, while she vainly searched her brains.

      "What is fish in German?" she said, appealing to Susie, distressed that the man should be waiting СКАЧАТЬ