Knight Without Armour

“Oh, then it wouldn’t do at all.” She laughed in a way which Fothergill liked instantly and exceedingly—a deep fresh laugh as from some spring-like fountain of humour. “Mother hates hotels where you don’t get a private bathroom next to your bedroom.”

“She can’t be very keen on Roone’s, then.”

“I don’t think she is, but I just love it. I’d hate to find everything exactly like the Plaza at New York. Besides, I don’t think it really matters if you miss the morning bath once now and again.”

“No, I don’t think it really does.” And they smiled at each other, sharing their first confidence.

As they left the chapel he was surprised to see her genuflect; so she was a Catholic, then. That set him thinking of the profound reasonableness of Catholics in holding their faith in reverence while at the same time being free to call one of their churches ugly if it were ugly; and that, in turn, set him thinking of the reasonableness of Father Farington, and of that long conversation in London before he left…

She was saying: “What is your name, by the way?”

“Fothergill.”

“Ours is Consett. I don’t know whether you knew.”

“I did, as a matter of fact. I overheard you asking for letters last night.”

“Oh, did you? That must have been before you passed us on the verandah, then? I noticed you particularly because—I daresay you’ll smile at this—you looked what in America we should call ‘typically English.’”

“‘Typically English,’ eh?” And for the first time for some years he was thoroughly astonished. To be called that, of all things!

She said: “The quiet way, I suppose, that Englishmen have—a sort of look of being rather bored by everything, though really they’re not bored at all. Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said it, though—you don’t look very complimented.”

He smiled. “’Would you be complimented if I were to describe you as ’typically American?”

She paused a moment and then gave him a look of amused candour. “That’s rather clever of you, because I wouldn’t. And, anyhow, in my own case—” She stopped hurriedly, and he said, holding open the wicket-gate for her to pass from the island on to the causeway: “Yes, what were you about to say?”

“I was really going to say that I’m not an American at all.”

“Oh?”

There was rather a long interval .until she went on: “It’s queer to be telling you all this after knowing you for about five minutes—I don’t know what mother would think. But, as it happens, you once lived in Russia, so perhaps that’s an excuse. I’m Russian.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. I came over with the refugees in 1919. That sounds a bit like coming over with the Pilgrim Fathers, doesn’t it, but it’s really not quite so illustrious. There were just a few hundred refugee orphans who were allowed into America before the government woke up and decided it didn’t want any more of them. They were all adopted into families in various parts of the country. I was six when I came over.”

“That makes you how old now?”

“Just eighteen.”

“I don’t suppose you remember much of your life in Russia.”

“Hardly anything. Sometimes I dream of things which I think might have something to do with it. I wonder if that’s possible?”

“It might be.”

“Here comes mother to meet us. I think I’d better tell her how much I’ve told you.”

The confession was made, and Mrs. Consett, after hearing all the circumstances, bestowed her magnanimous approval. It enabled her to continue the conversation with Fothergill on rather more intimate lines, and this she did all the way during the drive back to Roone’s. “So curious that we should all be learning about one another so quickly, isn’t it? But there, I always think that one should take all the chances one can of making friends wherever one goes—I’m sure Mary and I have already met some charming people during our trip—there was a most delightful man in the hotel at Naples—a Swiss—only a commercial traveller, I surmised—but still, who are we to be snobbish? I’m sure I never try to conceal the fact that my husband made his money out of other people’s washing. But this Swiss man, as I was saying, was such a pleasant companion—he went to Pompeii with us to see those wonderful Roman ruins—and lie was most helpful, too, when we wanted to buy anything in the shops. I should think he saved us quite a lot of money, for, as you know, the Italians think every American must be a millionaire, though, as a matter of fact, we’re not really very well- off—we’ve been saving up for this trip for quite a time, haven’t we, Mary?” And so on.