Chapter 5

UNDER the impression that I had not closed my eyes all night I was surprised to find when I opened them in the morning that I had. I must have slept, and with some soundness; for there stood Edelgard, holding back the curtain that concealed me when in bed from the gaze of any curious should the caravan door happen to burst open, already fully dressed and urging me to get up. It is true that I had been dreaming I was still between Flushing and Queenboro’, so that in my sleep I was no doubt aware of the heavings of the caravan while she dressed; for a caravan gives, so to speak, to every movement of the body, and I can only hope that if any of you ever go in one the other person in the bed above you may be a motionless sleeper. Indeed, I discovered that after all it was not an advantage to occupy the lower bed. While the rain was striking the roof with the deafening noise of unlimited and large stones I heard nothing of Edelgard, though I felt every time she moved. When, however, it left off, the creakings and crunchings of her bed and bedding (removed only a few inches from my face) every time she turned round were so alarming that disagreeable visions crossed my mind of the bed, unable longer to sustain a weight greater perhaps than what it was meant to carry, descending in toto in one of these paroxysms upon the helpless form (my own) stretched beneath. Clearly if it did I should be very much hurt, and would quite likely suffocate before assistance could be procured. These visions, however, in spite of my strong impression of unclosed eyes, must ultimately and mercifully have been drowned in sleep, and my bed being very comfortable and I at the end of my forces after the previous day when I did sleep I did it soundly and I also apparently did it long; for the sun was coming through the open window accompanied by appetizing smells of hot coffee when Edelgard roused me by the information that breakfast was ready, and that as everybody seemed hungry if I did not come soon I might as well not come at all.

She had put my clothes out, but had brought me no hot water because she said the two sisters had told her it was too precious, what there was being wanted for washing up. I inquired with some displeasure whether I, then, were less important than forks, and to my surprise Edelgard replied that it depended on whether they were silver; which was, of course, perilously near repartee. She immediately on delivering this left the caravan, and as I could not go to the door to call her back—as she no doubt recollected—I was left to my cold water and to my surprise. For though I had often noticed a certain talent she has in this direction (my hearers will remember instances) it had not yet been brought to bear personally on me. Repartee is not amiss in the right place, but the right place is never one’s husband. Indeed, on the whole I think it is a dangerous addition to a woman, and best left alone. For is not that which we admire in woman womanliness? And womanliness, as the very sound of the word suggests, means nothing that is not round, and soft, and pliable; the word as one turns it on one’s tongue has a smoothly liquid sound as of sweet oil, or precious ointment, or balm, that very well expresses our ideal. Sharp tongues, sharp wits—what are these but drawbacks and blots on the picture?

Such (roughly) were my thoughts while I washed in very little and very cold water, and putting on my clothes was glad to see that Edelgard had at least brushed them. I had to pin the curtains carefully across the windows because breakfast was going on just outside, and hurried heads kept passing to and fro in search, no doubt, of important parts of the meal that had either been forgotten or were nowhere to be found.

I confess I thought they might have waited with breakfast till I came. It is possible that Frau von Eckthum was thinking so too; but as far as the others were concerned I was dealing, I remembered, with members of the most inconsiderate nation in Europe. And besides, I reflected, it was useless to look for the courtesy we in Germany delight to pay to rank and standing among people who had neither of these things themselves. For what was Menzies-Legh? A man with much money (which is vulgar) and no title at all. Neither in the army, nor in the navy, nor in the diplomatic service, not even the younger son of a titled family, which in England, as perhaps my hearers have heard with surprise, is a circumstance sometimes sufficient to tear the title a man would have had in any other country from him and send him forth a naked Mr. into the world—Menzies-Legh, I suppose, after the fashion of our friend the fabled fox in a similar situation, saw no dignity in, nor any reason why he should be polite to, noble foreign grapes. And his wife’s original good German blood had become so thoroughly undermined by the action of British microbes that I could no longer regard her as a daughter of one of our oldest families; while as for the two young men, on asking Menzies-Legh the previous evening over that damp and dreary supper of insufficient eggs who they were, being forced to do so by his not having as a German gentleman would have done given me every information at the earliest opportunity of his own accord, with details as to income, connections, etc., so that I would know the exact shade of cordiality my behaviour toward them was to be tinged with—on asking Menzies-Legh, I repeat, he merely told me that the one with the spectacles and the hollow cheeks and the bull terrier was Browne, who was going into the Church, and the other with the Pomeranian and the round, hairless face was Jellaby.