My frowns, however, were smoothed when I entered the comfortable breakfast-room and was greeted with a pleasant chorus of welcome and inquiries.
Frau von Eckthum made room for me beside her, and herself ministered to my wants. Mrs. Menzies-Legh laughed and praised me for my sensibleness in getting up instead of giving way. The breakfast was abundant and excellent. And I discovered that it was the ever kind and thoughtful Lord Sigismund who had helped Edelgard out of the caravan, Jellaby being harmlessly occupied writing picture postcards to (I suppose) his constituents.
By the time I had had my third cup of coffee—so beneficial is the effect of that blessed bean—I was able silently to forgive Edelgard and be ready to overlook all her conduct since the camp by the Medway and start fresh again; and when toward eleven o’clock we resumed the march, a united and harmonious band (for the child Jumps was also that day restored to health and her friends) we found the rain gone and the roads being dried up with all the efficiency and celerity of an unclouded August sun.
That was a pleasant march. The best we had had. It may have been the weather, which was also the best we had had, or it may have been the country, which was undeniably pretty in its homely unassuming way—nothing, of course, to be compared with what we would have gazed at from the topmost peak of the Rigi or from a boat on the bosom of an Italian lake, but very nice in its way—or it may have been because Frau von Eckthum walked with me, or because Lord Sigismund told me that next day being Sunday we were going to rest in the camp we got to that night till Monday, and dine on Sunday at the nearest inn, or, perhaps it was all this mingled together that made me feel so pleasant.
Take away annoyances and worry, and I am as good-natured a man as you will find. More, I can enjoy anything, and am ready with a jest about almost anything. It is the knowledge that I am really so good-humoured that principally upsets me when Edelgard or other circumstances force me into a condition of vexation unnatural to me. I do not wish to be vexed. I do not wish ever to be disagreeable. And it is, I think, down-right wrong of people to force a human being who does not wish it to be so. That is one of the reasons why I enjoyed the company of Frau von Eckthum. She brought out what was best in me, what I may be pardoned for calling the perfume of my better self, because though it contains the suggestion that my better self is a flower-like object it also implies that she was the warming and vivifying and scent-extracting sun.
There is a dew-pond at the top of one of the hills we walked up that day (at least Mrs. Menzies-Legh said it was a dew-pond, and that the water in it was not water at all but dew, though naturally I did not believe her—what sensible man would?) and by its side in the shade of an oak tree Frau von Eckthum and I sat while the three horses went down to fetch up the third caravan, nominally taking care of those already up but really resting in that pretty nook without bothering about them, for of all things in the world a horseless caravan is surely most likely to keep quiet. So we rested, and I amused her. I really do not know about what in particular, but I know I succeeded, for her oh’s became quite animated, and were placed with such dexterous intelligence that each one contained volumes.
She was interested in everything, but especially so in what I said about Jellaby and his doctrines, of which I made great fun. She listened with the most earnest attention to my exposure of the fallacies with which he is riddled, and became at last so evidently convinced that I almost wished the young gentleman had been there too to hear me.
Altogether an agreeable, invigorating day; and when, about three o’clock, we found a good camping ground in a wide field sheltered to the north by a copse and rising ground, and dropping away in front of us to a most creditable and extensive view, for the second time since I left Panthers I was able to suspect that caravaning might not be entirely without its commendable points.
CHAPTER XII
WE supped that night beneath the stars with the field dropping downward from our feet into the misty purple of the Sussex Weald. What we had for supper was chicken and rice and onions, and very excellent it was. The wind had gone, and it was cold. It was like a night in North Germany, where the wind sighs all day long and at sunset it suddenly grows coldly and clearly calm.