The Chauffeur and the Chaperon Part 55

After that, what? Getting back to Rotterdam again, for the last time.

Good-bys. Selling the boat, perhaps--at least, Nell used to talk of that in the first days, when the end seemed far-off and vague.

The L.C.P. kept to her sitting-room on the plea that she had "a lot of writing to do," and Tibe was on guard. As for the Albatross, he went off without excuse to seek the friends of his past, with which the Mariner has no connection.

A premonition of the future came upon me. I remembered the Prince in the fairy tale, who was given by the Fates three magic citrons, and told that each one contained a beautiful sylph, who would appear to him as he cut the rind of her prison. She would ask for a drink of water, and if he wished to keep her for his wife he must instantly obey or she would vanish, never to return, even in response to the most fervent prayer.

When the Prince cut the first citron, the fairy vision which flashed before his eyes was so dazzling, that, bewildered, he let her go. With the second the same thing happened, and it was only by the greatest effort of self-control that he preserved the third beauty for his own, eventually marrying her, as a virtuous Prince should.

"Now," said I to myself, "I'm not as well off as that Prince. Being only a commoner, I ought to consider that I'm lucky to have two citrons, where he had three. I've let the first sylph vanish, and if I don't secure the second, I need never hope to get such another present of fairy citrons, for they'll have run out of stock."

The thought of going gray-haired to my grave, bereft of Phyllis and Nell citrons, all through my own folly, made me feel elderly at twenty-seven; and perhaps my day of gloom was not wasted, because, long before the red car brought back the girl I have lost and the girl I have still to win, I had made up my mind to propose to Miss Van Buren before I should be twenty-four hours older.

When Alb appeared, it seemed that he had been among his aquatic friends, tactfully seeking news of Sir Alec MacNairne and "Wilhelmina." But he had learned nothing; and we had to console each other by saying that "no news is good news." There's a chance, of course, of running across him again in Zeeland: but it's only one in ten, for there are other places where he is more likely to be pursuing us, since he lost the trail in Leeuwarden. Or perhaps he has given up the idea that Aunt Fay is on Rudolph Brederode's boat, and has gone to search for her in some other less watery country. In any case, the trip will be over in a few days now; and once the L.C.P. has vanished with Tibe into the vast obscurity whence she emerged in answer to my advertis.e.m.e.nt, poor hot-tempered Alec may pounce upon me when he likes.

If I can persuade Nell that she and I were born for each other, as Robert seems without difficulty to have persuaded Phyllis in his regard, it ought to be easy to convince her that a sin for her sake is no sin. Having confessed all, and been forgiven, I can defy Alec to do his worst.

As for Alb, he has had his fun for his wages. And there are many beautiful girls in Holland and other countries, who ask nothing better than to become Jonkheeresses.

x.x.xIV

Robert came on board with us as a matter of course in starting for Zeeland. Has he not more right than I to the deck of "Mascotte," as the cousin of the owner and the fiance of her stepsister? He and Phyllis were the only ones among us who had the same air of cheerful, light-hearted antic.i.p.ation at setting off for new scenes, which all used to have when the trip was but a few days old. For them there is no thought of any end, since the tour of life together is just beginning, full petrol ahead.

Even when she was "Lorelei," and had no concealments from the world, "Mascotte" never sped more bravely. Through the wide Noord Ca.n.a.l she took us as unconcernedly as if our hopes and fears for the future were nothing to her. Out of sheer spite at her lack of sympathy, I enjoyed my private knowledge that, whatever happens to her, she is certain to lose her companion, "Waterspin." But she didn't know that; so she jogged on, purring, in blissful ignorance of the separation in store for her.

If Dordrecht had come under our eyes when they were fresh to Dutch waterways, we could not have pa.s.sed it. Even now, _blase_ with sight-seeing, and preoccupied with private heartburnings, it seemed rather like pa.s.sing Venice without troubling to stop; for Dordrecht appeared to me more reminiscent of Venice than any other place seen during the trip.

So attractive did it look, as we peered up its pink-and-green ca.n.a.ls, that I did suggest pausing.

"It would give us one more day together," I said, "if we took this for exploring Dordrecht and arrived at Middelburg to-morrow. Why are we in a hurry?"

Brederode laughed. "Ask Robert," he said.

But Robert's face and Phyllis's both answered before the question could be put. I guessed that Robert would have liked to stop the tour at Rotterdam (for what to him are the joys of traveling with a party compared to the bliss of the honeymoon?), but that Phyllis would not cheat Nell of Zeeland, which has always been talked of as the climax of the trip; Zeeland the mysterious, Zeeland the strange, proud daughter of the sea.

"Some time we shall meet again, for you must all join in paying a visit to Phyllis and me. Then we will take you to Dordrecht, and we will all speak together of this day," said Robert.

That settled it, for though Nell is owner of the boat and mistress of the situation, she would do nothing to postpone Phyllis's happiness.

Something of the sort she murmured to me as we puffed past Dordrecht; but I could see by her face that Phyllis's idea of happiness is not hers.

"Good excuse to get in my entering wedge," I thought. "Ask her if she doesn't think it a risk for a girl to marry anybody but one of her own countrymen. If she says 'yes,' there's my chance. If she's inclined to argue, try to convince her, with our case in point."

No sooner, however, had I got my blue-serge shoulder closer to her white serge shoulder, as we both leaned over the rail, looking back toward the old town founded by great Count Dietrich, than up sidled the lady who sometimes over-estimates her duties as chaperon. She wanted to know about Dordrecht and John of Brabant and the siege, and the inundation that set the town upon an island; nor would she be discouraged when I told her flatly that I knew nothing about it, and advised application to Baedeker.

She lingered, prattling pleasantly of the Merevede, and of the peace and watery silence into which we had pa.s.sed, now that Dordrecht was left behind. She drew Tibe's attention to the low-skimming gulls, and our attention to Tibe. She asked if we did not smell salt, and insisted on our sniffing actively to make sure; then cried, "I told you so!" when, after slipping under a huge railway-bridge, hanging so high that the train upon it looked like a child's toy, we turned westward and floated out upon a wide arm of the sea.

Altogether, she would not let us forget her presence for a moment, and blandly refused to understand when my raised eyebrows telegraphed, "I didn't hire you for this."

We seemed now to have said good-by to the sheltered coziness of Holland, just as we had said good-by to several other pleasant dreams of the past. On either side the land ran away from us and hid beneath the dancing waves which ruffled the sea's sleeve, so that we saw of it only long stripes of green, which were great d.y.k.es, and irregular frillings of red, which were steeples and tiled roofs of houses.

The tide was in our favor, and we moved so quickly that Alb thought we would have no difficulty in reaching Middelburg by nightfall. Large steamers pa.s.sed us, their decks piled with cargo, pa.s.sengers crowding to the side to stare curiously down upon us as we rocked coquettishly in their wash. Save for these big floating houses, and broad bowed, coughing motor-barges, "Mascotte" and "Waterspin" had the wide waterway to themselves; and when we had taken a southerly course, to enter a channel between low-lying islands, we were in Zeeland. Still, though we were skirting the sh.o.r.e of the island of Schouwen, it was as if it ducked its head rather than submit to the ignominy of being seen by strangers. It was just as Alb said, "Zeeland was witch-like, illusive, with the power of making herself invisible." The endless, straight lines of the d.y.k.es protecting Schouwen and Tholen from the terrible power of the sea, stretched like close-drawn ranks of devoted soldiers--each stone a knight in armor--defending their liege ladies from an invading giant, hiding the besieged damsels' beauty behind their shields, so that the monster's appet.i.te might not be whetted by their charms.

Schouwen on the one hand, Tholen on the other, seemed to fall apart as Brederode cast us upon the broad bosom of the Oster Scheldt, steering for North Beveland, and told us legends the while of that strange archipelago which has for its arms a lion swimming in deep waters. He told of the yellow-haired Siren, who would sing to lure sailors to her rock because she was bored by the society of the Merman, her husband; how some fisherman one night caught her in a net, and, because she was beautiful, would not give her back to the Merman, though he begged and prayed, offering a rich bribe of pearls and coral; how the Merman swam away at last, cursing the fishermen and their country, vowing never to rest till he and his brothers, with their own hands, had brought enough sand to choke all the city ports.

He told, too, of the tempests which throw on the sh.o.r.es of Zeeland's little isles the bodies of strange mummied monsters, part man, part boat; and of still, clear dawnings when the fisherfolk of Domburg can discern, far down under the green water, pagan temples of marble, and gleaming statues more perfect than any fashioned by known sculptors, even the greatest masters, when Greek art was in its prime. He told of the great d.y.k.e building, and how, at high tide, the North Sea beats fiercely on Zeeland's locked door. He told of the inundations, and how Schouwen, North and South Beveland, Tholen and Walcheren, had all been devoured by the sea, only to rise up again braver and stronger than before. He told how the men of Zeeland had fought against the men of Spain in the old, bad days; and it was all very interesting and instructive; but how was I to oppose my frail vow against such a tide of information? There were no d.y.k.es built round my resolve to propose to Nell within the s.p.a.ce of four and twenty hours; and between Alb's eloquence and the L.C.P.'s persistence, it dissolved like a Dutch town in an inundation.

Still I was not as furious as I ought to have been. My steeples and chimneys remained above water, and the sky was so cloudless that I could not despair. It seemed like old times to hear Alb holding forth upon the history, drama, and legend of the little country of which he is so proud, and in spite of myself my heart was warm for him. I rather wondered how Nell had contrived to harden hers so relentlessly against those clear brown features, those deep brown eyes, and the firm mouth which is not cold.

"A good thing for me," thought I, "that she has. And if I don't get a chance to ask her to-day, I'll write a note and beg the L.C.P.--no, I'll get Sister Phyllis to give it to her this evening."

I was arranging the wording of the note, after tea, which we had on deck, when, quite idly at first, my eyes dwelt upon a black speck moving far away, in our wake. It amused me to see the speck grow, for at the moment I had no one to talk to, and Tibe was asleep with his chin on my knee. I lost track of a sentence which was shaping itself nicely in my mind and ought to have been irresistible to Nell, in wondering what the speck would turn out to be, by-and-by.

It was growing fast, which meant that it was moving fast, perhaps faster than we. Could it be a motor-barge? But why should a motor-barge be forging out to sea, where no motor-barges or motor-boats of any sort, except racers, had any need to venture, unless they were navigated to gratify the whim of a wilful American girl?

Now, it did not appear likely that in Dutch waters there could be at this moment an indefinite number of American girls, wilful or otherwise, owning motor-vessels, and wishing to visit Zeeland in them.

If it were not such a fine day, Alb would not have taken the risk with "Mascotte" and "Waterspin," even to please his particular American girl, and if it were not to please her, he would probably not have come in any case. Yet that thing behind us was skimming along too fast to be anything else save a motor-boat. What then was its errand in this wide, lake-like expanse of water, which did not lend itself to the encouragement of promiscuous motor-boats?

It was gaining on us now, for it had no fat "Waterspin" to drag. One might almost think it was following, it came so straight, and--Suddenly my ears and the top of my head felt hot.

I got up, and went to Alb, who was standing silent at the wheel. Before I spoke to him I glanced at the others to see that they were all fully occupied in listening to Robert talk of the house, next door to his mother's in Rotterdam, which he had the intention of buying "as a wedding present for Phyllis."

"Alb," said I, "just throw a look over your shoulder, and say what manner of thing you think that is coming after us."

He threw the look. "I think," he answered slowly, "that it's by way of being Sir Alec MacNairne's 'Wilhelmina.'"

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "you take it pretty calmly." But even as I reproached him, I was conscious of an increase of speed. Alb can regulate this by means of a long lever which goes down through the deck to the motor.

"What makes you think it's Sir Alec?" I asked. "You can't tell yet what the thing looks like."

"Neither can you," said Alb. "You _felt_ what it was. It's the same with me. I feel it's 'Wilhelmina,' and I'm going to try and give her the slip again, if I can. But honestly, if it's she, and she wants to overhaul us, we haven't got much chance weighted down by 'Waterspin.' If it weren't for that, I'd guarantee to let 'Wilhelmina' see nothing but our heels."

"Let's cut 'Waterspin' adrift," I whispered, glaring at poor Toon, who stood steering the squat little barge, with an irritatingly complacent look on his nice face.

"Impossible, my dear fellow. But you don't mean it, of course."

"I'm capable of meaning anything," said I. "See here, old Alb, you've pulled me through a lot of things, since you tied yourself round my neck; pull me through this, and you shall be best man at my wedding."

"Who'll be the bride?" he asked, as I stared back at the following craft, which was now too big to be called a speck. It was a black blot upon the water, as upon my hopes.

"The bride?" I repeated. "Why, N--Oh, by Jove! wasn't she the one _you_ wanted at one time? You never would tell which, you know, so you can't blame me."

"Are you engaged to her?" he asked, in rather a queer voice; and I realized how much I was at his mercy, as, fascinated, I watched his brown hand tighten on the wheel. If he liked, he could stop "Mascotte"

in mid sea, and let me lie at the mercy of the enemy. _I_ could do nothing. Hendrik would obey him, not me. Even Tibe would not seize him by the throat to please me. Tibe likes and respects Alb even more, strange to say, than he does me.

But, to do Alb justice, he was not slowing down. On the contrary, he was putting on speed, as much, I feared, as "Mascotte" was capable of making.