Christopher and Columbus by 'Elizabeth' (1919)

This book spans the ending of the First World War for the author, being set in 1916 and published in 1919. It is the first of her titles to have the war as a proper background, though its oncoming provided the ending of the novel before this one, the pseudonymous Christine. In this, Anglo-German twins Anna-Rose and Anna-Felicitas, having lost their German father some time ago and their English mother quite recently, are seen as 'too hot' by their uncle in England and sent packing to friends in America. Both girls are typically German in some senses, quite blonde and Aryan, rolling their rs, but with a significant amount of confusion caused by their semi-Englishness at the same time. Anna-Rose is slightly older, shorter, more honey-coloured and curly, and quite outwardly determined. Anna-Felicitas is the younger, taller and wispy, paler, and outwardly more reserved and wandery. On the liner on the way over the Atlantic they meet the American inventor of a patent teapot which doesn't dribble, and has made him millions. Edward Twist is dowdy, motherish, thirty-five and plain, and very warm-hearted toward these two, whom he regards as children, even though they are seventeen. The author sets the scene of potential danger well with reference to submarines and convoys and possible torpedoing; the remainder of the war-referencing is in the nature of interpersonal attitudes toward Germanness displayed by various characters. Once in New York, the plan is to part with Mr Twist, thank him for the constant assisting attention he has paid them on the journey, and meet up with their uncle's friends who have been forewarned they're coming. Unfortunately, they arrive to find that their welcome has been interrupted by the wife of the couple leaving home permanently with another man. It simply won't do for two young women to be domiciled with the husband alone, who is anyway beside himself and barely concentrating on them. They think of Mr Twist, who has been their sole go-to man, and decide that his family must be as warm as he is and will no doubt help them in their desperate state. When they reach his house in New England, the reception is decidedly cool. Mr Twist is flabbergasted to see them, his sister is shocked, and the very cold and domineering mother he hasn't told them about (or her about them) is suspicious and disgusted by what she sees as his defection from loyalty to her alone. A scene ensues, where Mr Twist reaches the point of no return with his family, and a realisation that these girls hold out to him a sense of love and care which is completely absent at home and a sense that the light, vibrant living of life which up until now he hasn't truly realised was what he wanted has become possible. He abjures the old to embrace the new, and agrees to chaperone them to California to go to their 'second option', a couple there who have agreed to house the girls on holidays by arrangement with their uncle. Once at their destination, called Acapulco but not seemingly in Mexico, rather California, they discover that the husband of the couple has just died and it would be insensitive to intrude. This proves a springboard for Mr Twist to provide for the girls on a more permanent basis. He puts into action a plan to purchase and renovate a small pretty cottage in the hills above the town and make it into a cafe and small inn whose profits are to go to the Red Cross for war work. But while all this takes place, the usual fascination which surrounds the girls starts to take hold. Are they in some sort of naughty relationhsip with Mr Twist? What nationality are they? They'd better not be German! Is everything entirely above board? Nice society starts to frown. Mr Twist thinks he'll make them his wards officially and then gets frightened off. Questions are avoided. Rumours spread. But all the while the twins are completely oblivious; fascinated by these odd Americans, they are puzzled by references in careful but nosy conversations to things they don't understand. It is this attitude of non-understanding and over-direct response which is at the core of the comedy here - it has something in common with her earlier masterpiece The Caravaners, but is less hefty satire, much sweeter in tone. In the end, love intervenes in the form of a recovering British soldier, who falls head over heels for Anna-Felicitas. Society has stayed away, in increasing wariness, from their newly opened cafe, and the only customers have been the despised local Germans (sensing the girls' origin) and oddballs like the soldier, John Elliott. Mr Twist has started to see the cafe as a mistake and a millstone around their necks. When Anna-Rose realises that her sister will become English when she marries Elliott and will leave her alone, as she has never been before - they have clung seizingly together since losing their parents - she breaks down. Mr Twist, always in need of a push in the right direction, has been to see the local lawyer, who is one of the only people in the town who will still speak to him in the general paranoia. The lawyer, as an aside, gives him a small but vital piece of advice: marry one of them, that'll make you respectable! Given that Anna-Felicitas is taken, there's only one choice, and he discovers that it's the one he would have made anyway. But will Anna-Rose accept him? Of course she does, and they decide to fulfil Mr Twist's wish to spend more time in Britain, so the girls can remain together. This is obviously a sweeter, lighter book than many Elizabeth wrote, and, strangely for one of those modalities, it is long - 500 pages. It's a little slow to start, but on the whole carries its point well. It may be affected, like Stella Benson's Living Alone, published the same year, by the exhausted-with-war wish for brightness and fancy. Certainly Elizabeth's prior two or three novels were more sharp and had more of seriousness in them. It will be interesting to see if this heralds a new way forward, or an isolated break in progress.