The caravaners

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

CHAPTER XV

I HAVE observed on frequent occasions in a life now long enough to have afforded many, a tendency on the part of Providence to punish the just man because he has been just. Not one to criticize Providence if I can avoid it, I do feel that this is to be deplored. It is also inexplicable. Marie-Luise died, I recollect, the very day I had had occasion to speak sharply to her, which almost looked, I remember thinking at the time, like malice. I was aware, however, that it was only Providence. My poor wife was being wielded as the instrument which was to put me in the wrong, and I need not say to you, my friends, who knew her and know me and were witness of the harmony of our married life, that her death had nothing to do with my rebukes. You all remember she was in perfect health that day, and was snatched from my side late in the afternoon by means of a passing droschke. The droschke passed over her, and left me, with incredible suddenness, a widower on the pavement. This might have happened to anybody, but what was so peculiarly unfortunate was that I had been forced, if I would do my duty, to rebuke her during the hours immediately preceding the occurrence. Of course, I could not know about the droschke. I could not know about it; I did my duty; and by the evening I was the most crushed of men, a prey to the crudest regrets and self-reproaches. Yet had I not acted aright? Conscience told me Yes. Alas, how little could Conscience do for my comfort then! In time I got over it, and regained the calm balance of mind that saw life would stand still if we feared to speak out because people might die. Indeed, I saw this so clearly that I not only married again within the year, but made up my mind that no past experience should intimidate me into not doing my duty by my second wife; I assumed, that is, from the first my proper position in the household as its guide and censor, and up to now I am glad to say Providence has left Edelgard alone, and has not used her (except in minor matters) as a weapon for making me regret I have done right.

But here, now, was this business with the Duke. Nothing could have been warmer and more cordial than my feelings toward him and his family. I admired and liked his son; I infinitely respected his sister; and I only asked to be allowed to admire, like, and respect himself. Such was my attitude toward him. Toward motors it was equally irreproachable. I detested their barbarous methods, and was as anxious as any other decent man to give them a lesson and help avenge their many unhappy victims. Now came Providence, stepping in between these two meritorious intentions, and frustrating both at one blow by the simple expedient of combining the Duke with the motor. It confounded me; it punished me; it put me in the wrong; and for what? For doing what I knew was right.

“No one, not even a pastor, can expect me to like that sort of thing,” I complained to Mrs. Menzies-Legh, to whom I had been talking, owing to her sister’s being somewhere else.

“No,” said she; and looked at me reflectively as though tempted to say more. But (no doubt remembering my dislike of talkative women) she refrained.

I was sitting under one of the ruined arches of Bodiam Castle (never, my friends, go there; it is a terribly damp place), with the lean lady, while the others peered about as well as they could, being too tired to do anything but sit, and weary, too, of spirit, for I am a sensitive man, and had had a troubled day. The evening had done that which English people call drawing in. Lord Sigismund was gone—gone with his unreasonably incensed father in the motor to some place whose name I did not catch, and was not to be back till the next day. The others, including myself, had, after a prolonged search, found a very miserable camp with cows in it. It was too late to object to anything, so there we huddled round our stew-pot in an exposed field, while the wind howled and a fine rain fell. Our party was oddly silent and cheerless considering its ordinary spirits. No one said it was healthy and jolly; even the children did not speak, and sat buttoned up in mackintoshes, their hands clasped round their knees, their faces, shining with rain, set and serious. I think the way the Duke had behaved after getting out of the gutter had depressed them. It had been a disagreeable scene—I should say he was a man of a hot and uncontrolled temper—and my apologies had been useless. Then the supper took an unconscionable time preparing. For some reason the chickens would not boil (they missed Lord Sigismund’s persuasive talent) and the potatoes could not because the stove on which they stood went out and nobody noticed it. How bleak and autumnal that field, bare of trees, with the rain driving over it, looked after the unsatisfactory day I cannot describe to you. Its dreariness, combined with what had gone before, and with the bad supper, made me dislike it more than any camp we had had. The thought that up there on those dank cow-ridden heights we were to spend the night, while down in Bodiam lights twinkled and happy cottagers undressed in rooms and went into normal beds instead of inserting themselves sideways into what was in reality a shelf, was curiously depressing. And when, after supper, our party was washing up by the flickering lantern-light, with the rain wetting the plates as quickly as they were dried, I could not refrain from saying as I stood looking down at them, “So this is what is called pleasure.”

Nobody had anything to say to that.

In self-defense we went down later on, dark and wild though it was, to the ruins. Sit up there in the wet we could not, and it was too early to go to bed. Nor could we play at cards in each other’s caravans, because of questions of decorum. Mrs. Menzies-Legh did, indeed, suggest it, but on my pointing this out to her with a severity I was prepared to increase if she had made the least opposition, the suggestion was dropped. Forced to stay out-of-doors we were forced to move, or rheumatism would certainly have claimed us for its own, so we set out once again along the muddy lanes, leaving Menzies-Legh (who was sulking terribly) to mind the camp, and trudged the two miles down to the castle.

Mrs. Menzies-Legh walked with me. Directly she saw I was alone, the others hurrying on ahead at a pace I did not care to keep up with, she loitered behind till I overtook her and walked with me.

I have made no secret of the fact that this lady seemed to mark me during the tour for her special prey. You, my hearers, must have noticed it by now, for I conceal nothing. I can safely say I was not to blame, for in no way did I encourage her. Not only must she have been over thirty, but more than once she had allowed herself to do that which can only be described as poking fun at me. Besides, I do not care for the type. I dislike the least suggestion of wiriness in woman; and there was nothing of her bodily (except wire) and far too much intellectually—I mean so far as a woman can be intellectual, which, of course, is not far at all. I therefore feel entirely conscience-clear, and carefully avoiding any comments which might give the impression of vanity on my part, merely state the bare facts that the lady was constantly at my elbow, that my elbow was reluctant, and that no other member of the party clung to it like that.