Mr. Britling Sees It Through (3 page)

After shouting again several times, it became manifest that he had attracted the attention of two willing but deliberate labouring men. They emerged slowly, first as attentive heads, from the landscape. With their assistance the car was restored to the road again. Mr. Direck assisted manfully, and noted the respect that was given to Mr. Britling, and the shillings that fell to the men, with an intelligent detachment. They touched their hats, they called Mr. Britling “Sir.” They examined the car distantly but kindly. “Aint 'urt 'e, not a bit 'e ain't, not reely,” said one encouragingly. And indeed except for a slight crumpling of the mud-guard and the detachment of the wire of one of the headlights the automobile was uninjured. Mr. Britling resumed his seat; Mr. Direck gravely and in silence got up beside him. They started with the usual convulsion, as though something had pricked the vehicle unexpectedly and shamefully behind. And from this point Mr. Britling, driving with meticulous care, got home without further mishap, excepting only that he scraped off some of the metal edge of his foot-board against the gate-post of his very agreeable garden.

His family welcomed his safe return, visitor and all, with undisguised relief and admiration. A small boy appeared at the corner of the house, and then disappeared hastily again.

“Daddy's got back all right at last,” they heard him shouting to unseen hearers.

§ 8

Mr. Direck, though he was a little incommoded by the suppression of his story about Robinson—for when he had begun a thing he liked to finish it—found Mr. Britling's household at once thoroughly British, quite un-American and a little difficult to follow. It had a quality that at first he could not define at all. Compared with anything he had ever seen in his life before it struck him as being—he found the word at last—sketchy. For instance, he was introduced to nobody except his hostess, and she was indicated to him by a mere wave of Mr. Britling's hand. “That's Edith,” he said, and returned at once to his car to put it away. Mrs. Britling was a tall, freckled woman with pretty bright brown hair and preoccupied brown eyes. She welcomed him with a handshake, and then a wonderful English parlourmaid—she at least was according to expectations—took his gripsack and guided him to his room. “Lunch, sir,” she said, “is outside,” and closed the door and left him to that and a towel-covered can of hot water.

It was a square-looking old red-brick house he had come to, very handsome in a simple Georgian fashion, with a broad lawn before it and great blue cedar-trees, and a drive that came frankly up to the front door and then went off with Mr. Britling and the car round to unknown regions at the back. The centre of the house was a big airy hall, oak-panelled, warmed in winter only
by one large fireplace and abounding in doors which he knew opened into the square separate rooms that England favours. Book-shelves and stuffed birds comforted the landing outside his bedroom. He descended to find the hall occupied by a small bright bristling boy in white flannel shirt and knickerbockers and bare legs and feet. He stood before the vacant open fireplace in an attitude that Mr. Direck knew instantly was also Mr. Britling's. “Lunch is in the garden,” the Britling scion proclaimed, “and I've got to fetch you. And, I say! is it true? Are you American?”

“Why surely,” said Mr. Direck.

“Well, I know some American,” said the boy. “I learned it.”

“Tell me some,” said Mr. Direck, smiling still more amiably.

“Oh! Well—Gol darn you! Ouch. Gee-whizz! Soak him Maud! It's up to you, Duke. …”

“Now where did you learn all that?” asked Mr. Direck recovering.

“Out of the Sunday Supplement,” said the youthful Britling.

“Why! Then you know all about Buster Brown,” said Mr. Direck. “He's Fine—eh?”

The Britling child hated Buster Brown. He regarded Buster Brown as a totally unnecessary infant. He detested the way he wore his hair and the peculiar cut of his knickerbockers and—him. He thought Buster Brown the one drop of paraffin in the otherwise delicious feast of the Sunday Supplement. But he was a diplomatic child.

“I think I like Happy Hooligan better,” he said. “And dat ole Maud.”

He reflected with joyful eyes, Buster clean forgotten. “Every week,” he said, “she kicks some one.”

It came to Mr. Direck as a very pleasant discovery that a British infant could find a common ground with the small
people at home in these characteristically American jests. He had never dreamt that the fine wine of Maud and Buster could travel.

“Maud's a treat,” said the youthful Britling, relapsing into his native tongue.

Mr. Britling appeared coming to meet them. He was now in a grey flannel suit—he must have jumped into it—and altogether very much tidier. …

§ 9

The long narrow table under the big sycamores between the house and the adapted barn that Mr. Direck learned was used for “dancing and all that sort of thing” was covered with a blue linen diaper cloth, and that too surprised him. This was his first meal in a private household, and for obscure reasons he had expected something very stiff and formal with “spotless napery.” He had also expected a very stiff and capable service by implacable parlour-maids, and the whole thing indeed highly genteel. But two cheerful women servants appeared from what was presumably the kitchen direction, wheeling a curious wicker erection, which his small guide informed him was called Aunt Clatter—manifestly deservedly—and which bore on its shelves the substance of the meal. And while the maids at this migratory sideboard carved and opened bottles and so forth, the small boy and a slightly larger brother, assisted a little by two young men of no very defined position and relationship, served the company. Mrs. Britling sat at the head of the table, and conversed with Mr. Direck by means of hostess questions and imperfectly accepted answers while she kept a watchful eye on the proceedings.

The composition of the company was a matter for some perplexity to Mr. Direck. Mr. and Mrs. Britling were at either end of the table, that was plain enough. It was also fairly plain that the two bare-footed boys were little Britlings. But beyond this was a cloud of uncertainty. There was a youth perhaps seventeen, much darker than Britling, but with nose and freckles rather like his, who might be an early son or a stepson; he was shock-headed and with that look about his arms and legs that suggests overnight growth; and there was an unmistakable young German, very pink, with close-cropped fair hair, glasses and a panama hat, who was probably the tutor of the younger boys. (Mr. Direck also was wearing his hat, his mind had been filled with an exaggerated idea of the treacheries of the English climate before he left New York. Every one else was hatless.) Finally, before one reached the limits of the explicable there was a pleasant young man with a lot of dark hair and very fine dark blue eyes, whom everybody called “Teddy.” For him, Mr. Direck hazarded “secretary.”

But in addition to these normal and understandable presences, there was an entirely mysterious pretty young woman in blue linen who sat and smiled next to Mr. Britling, and there was a rather kindred-looking girl with darker hair on the right of Mr. Direck who impressed him at the very outset as being still prettier, and—he didn't quite place her at first—somehow familiar to him; there was a large irrelevant middle-aged lady in black with a gold chain and a tall middle-aged man with an intelligent face, who might be a casual guest; there was an Indian young gentleman faultlessly dressed up to his brown soft linen collar and cuffs, and thereafter an uncontrolled outbreak of fine bronze modelling and abundant fuzzy hair; and there was a very erect and attentive baby of a year or less, sitting up in
a perambulator and gesticulating cheerfully to everybody. This baby it was that most troubled the orderly mind of Mr. Direck. The research for its paternity made his conversation with Mrs. Britling almost as disconnected and absent-minded as her conversation with him. It almost certainly wasn't Mrs. Britling's. The girl next to him or the girl next to Mr. Britling or the lady in black might any of them be married, but if so where was the spouse? It seemed improbable that they would wheel out a foundling to lunch. …

Realising at last that the problem of relationship must be left to solve itself if he did not want to dissipate and consume his mind entirely, Mr. Direck turned to his hostess, who was enjoying a brief lull in her administrative duties, and told her what a memorable thing the meeting of Mr. Britling in his own home would be in his life, and how very highly America was coming to esteem Mr. Britling and his essays. He found that with a slight change of person, one of his premeditated openings was entirely serviceable here. And he went on to observe that it was novel and entertaining to find Mr. Britling driving his own automobile and to note that it was an automobile of American manufacture. In America they had standardised and systematised the making of such things as automobiles to an extent that would, he thought, be almost startling to Europeans. It was certainly startling to the European manufacturers. In illustration of that he might tell a little story of a friend of his called Robinson—a man who curiously enough in general build and appearance was very reminiscent indeed of Mr. Britling. He had been telling Mr. Britling as much on his way here from the station. His friend was concerned with several others in one of the biggest attacks that had ever been made upon what one might describe
in general terms as the thousand-dollar light automobile market. What they said practically was this: This market is a jig-saw puzzle waiting to be put together and made one. We are going to do it. But that was easier to figure out than to do. At the very outset of this attack he and his associates found themselves up against an expected and very difficult proposition. …

At first Mrs. Britling had listened to Mr. Direck with an almost undivided attention, but as he had developed his opening the feast upon the blue linen table had passed on to a fresh phrase that demanded more and more of her directive intelligence. The two little boys appeared suddenly at her elbows.

“Shall we take the plates and get the strawberries, Mummy?” they asked simultaneously. Then one of the neat maids in the background had to be called up and instructed in undertones, and Mr. Direck saw that for the present Robinson's illuminating experience was not for her ears. A little baffled, but quite understanding how things were, he turned to his neighbour on his left.

The girl really had an extraordinarily pretty smile, and there was something in her soft bright brown eye—like the movement of some quick little bird. And—she was like somebody he knew! Indeed she was. She was quite ready to be spoken to.

“I was telling Mrs. Britling,” said Mr. Direck, “what a very great privilege I esteem it to meet Mr. Britling in this highly familiar way.”

“You've not met him before?”

“I missed him by twenty-four hours when he came through Boston on the last occasion. Just twenty-four hours. It was a matter of very great regret to me.”

“I wish I'd been paid to travel round the world.”

“You must write things like Mr. Britling and then Mr. Kahn will send you.”

“Don't you think if I promised well?”

“You'd have to write some promissory notes, I think—just to convince him it was all right.”

The young lady reflected on Mr. Britling's good fortune.

“He saw India. He saw Japan. He had weeks in Egypt. And he went right across America.”

Mr. Direck had already begun on the liner to adapt himself to the hopping inconsecutiveness of English conversation. He made now what he felt was quite a good hop, and he dropped his voice to a confidential undertone. (It was probably Adam in his first conversation with Eve who discovered the pleasantness of dropping into a confidential undertone beside a pretty ear with a pretty wave of hair above it.)

“It was in India, I presume,” murmured Mr. Direck, “that Mr. Britling made the acquaintance of the coloured gentleman?”

“Coloured gentleman!” She gave a swift glance down the table as though she expected to see something purple with yellow spots. “Oh, that is one of Mr. Lawrence Carmine's young men!” she explained even more confidentially and with an air of discussing the silver bowl of roses before him. He's a great authority on Indian literature, he belongs to a society for making things pleasant for Indian students in London, and he has them down.”

“And Mr. Lawrence Carmine?” he pursued.

Even more intimately and confidentially she indicated Mr. Carmine, as it seemed by a motion of her eyelash.

Mr. Direck prepared to be even more
sotto voce
and to plumb a much profounder mystery. His eye rested on the perambulator; he leaned a little nearer to the ear. … But the strawberries interrupted him.

“Strawberries!” said the young lady, and directed his regard to his left shoulder by a movement of her head.

He found one of the boys with a high-piled plate ready to serve him.

And then Mrs. Britling resumed her conversation with him. She was so ignorant, she said, of things American that she did not even know if they had strawberries there. At any rate, here they were at the crest of the season, and in a very good year. And in the rose season too. It was one of the dearest vanities of English people to think their apples and their roses and their strawberries the best in the world.

“And their complexions,” said Mr. Direck, over the pyramid of fruit, quite manifestly intending a compliment. So that was all right. … But the girl on the left of him was speaking across the table to the German tutor, and did not hear what he had said. So that even if it wasn't very neat it didn't matter. …

Then he remembered that she was like that old daguerreotype of a cousin of his grandmother's that he had fallen in love with when he was a boy. It was her smile. Of course! Of course! … And he'd sort of adored that portrait. … He felt a curious disposition to tell her as much. …