Christopher and Columbus. Elizabeth von Arnim

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СКАЧАТЬ 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, screwing 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.

      Anna-Rose observed her for a moment in silence, then was suddenly seized herself with a dreadful desire to laugh, and with a hasty glance round at the bulging curtains scrambled back into her own berth and pulled the sheet over her mouth.

      She was sobering herself by going over her different responsibilities, checking them off on her fingers—the two five-pound notes under her pillow for extra expenses till they were united in New York to their capital, the tickets, the passports, and Anna-Felicitas—when two thick fair pigtails appeared dangling over the edge of her berth, followed by Anna-Felicitas's head.

      "You've forgotten to turn out the light," whispered Anna-Felicitas, her eyelashes still wet from her late attack; and stretching her neck still further down till her face was scarlet with the effort and the blood rushing into it, she expressed a conviction to Anna-Rose that the human freight behind the curtains, judging from the suspicious negativeness of its behaviour, had no business in their cabin at all and was really stowaways.

      "German stowaways," added Anna-Felicitas, nodding her head emphatically, which was very skilful of her, thought Anna-Rose, considering that it was upside down. "German stowaways," whispered Anna-Felicitas, sniffing expressively though cautiously.

      Anna-Rose raised herself on her elbows and stared across at the bulging curtains. They certainly were very motionless and much curved. In spite of herself her flesh began to creep a little.

      "They're men," whispered Anna-Felicitas, now dangerously congested. "Stowaways are."

      There had been no one in the cabin when first they came on board and took their things down, and they hadn't been in it since till they came to bed.

      "German men," whispered Anna-Felicitas, again with a delicate expressive sniff.

      "Nonsense," whispered Anna-Rose, stoutly. "Men never come into ladies' cabins. And there's skirts on the hooks."

      "Disguise," whispered Anna-Felicitas, nodding again. "Spies' disguise." She seemed quite to be enjoying her own horrible suggestions.

      "Take your head back into the berth," ordered Anna-Rose quickly, for Anna-Felicitas seemed to be on the very brink of an apoplectic fit.

      Anna-Felicitas, who was herself beginning to feel a little inconvenienced, obeyed, and was thrilled to see Anna-Rose presently very cautiously emerge from underneath her and on her bare feet creep across to the opposite side. She knew her to be valiant to recklessness. She sat up to watch, her eyes round with interest.

      Anna-Rose didn't go straight across, but proceeded slowly, with several pauses, to direct her steps toward the pillow-end of the berths. Having got there she stood still a moment listening, and then putting a careful finger between the curtain of the lower berth and its frame, drew it the smallest crack aside and peeped in.

      Instantly she started back, letting go the curtain. "I beg your pardon," she said out loud, turning very red. "I—I thought—"

      Anna-Felicitas, attentive in her berth, felt a cold thrill rush down her back. No sound came from the berth on the other side any more than before the raid on it, and Anna-Rose returned quicker than she had gone. She just stopped on the way to switch off the light, and then felt along the edge of Anna-Felicitas's berth till she got to her head, and pulling it near her by its left pigtail whispered with her mouth close to its left ear, "Wide awake. Watching me all the time. Not a man. Fat."

      And she crawled into her berth feeling unnerved.

CHAPTER V

       Table of Contents

      The lady in the opposite berth was German, and so was the lady in the berth above her. Their husbands were American, but that didn't make them less German. Nothing ever makes a German less German, Anna-Rose explained to Anna-Felicitas.

      "Except," replied Anna-Felicitas, "a judicious dilution of their blood by the right kind of mother."

      "Yes," said Anna-Rose. "Only to be found in England."

      This conversation didn't take place till the afternoon of the next day, by which time Anna-Felicitas already knew about the human freight being Germans, for one of their own submarines came after the St. Luke and no one was quite so loud in expression of terror and dislike as the two Germans.

      They demanded to be saved first, on the ground that they were Germans. They repudiated their husbands, and said marriage was nothing compared to how one had been born. The curtains of their berths, till then so carefully closed, suddenly yawned open, and the berths gave up their contents just as if, Anna-Felicitas remarked afterwards to Anna-Rose, it was the resurrection and the berths were riven sepulchres chucking up their dead.

      This happened at ten o'clock the next morning when the St. Luke was pitching about off the southwest coast of Ireland. The twins, waking about seven, found with a pained surprise that they were not where they had been dreaming they were, in the sunlit garden at home playing tennis happily if a little violently, but in a chilly yet stuffy place that kept on tilting itself upside down. They lay listening to the groans coming from the opposite berths, and uneasily wondering how long it would be before they too began to groan. Anna-Rose raised her head once with the intention of asking if she could help at all, but dropped it back again on to the pillow and shut her eyes tight and lay as quiet as the ship would let her. Anna-Felicitas didn't even raise her head, she felt so very uncomfortable.

      At eight o'clock the stewardess looked in—the same stewardess, they languidly noted, with whom already they had had two encounters, for it happened that this was one of the cabins she attended to—and said that if anybody wanted breakfast they had better be quick or it would be over.

      "Breakfast!" СКАЧАТЬ