THE EXCURSION
The following Monday was fine and warm, and since the whole previous
week had also been fine and warm, Mevrouw thought they might venture
to make the talked-of excursion. Messages were accordingly sent to the
Snieders, and from the Snieders back again, and after a wonderful
amount of talk and arranging, everything was settled. Dinner was a
little early that day, and a little hurried, though, since the
carriage was not to come till after five o'clock, there was perhaps
not much need for that. However, it is not every day in the week one
makes an excursion, so naturally things cannot be expected to go quite
as usual when such an event occurs.
The carriage came, Mevrouw had been waiting ten minutes, and three
times been to see why Julia was not waiting with her. At the sound of
wheels Julia came out; she had just finished washing the glasses
(which she had been told not to touch, as there was certainly no
time). She was quite ready, but Mevrouw at that moment discovered that
she had the wrong sunshade. Julia fetched the right one and carried it
out for the old lady; also an umbrella with a bow on the handle, a
mackintosh, a shawl, and a large basket. Mijnheer came from the office
with his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and a minute later
Joost also came to say good-bye; even the maidservant came from the
kitchen to see them start.
The carriage drew up; it was a strange-looking vehicle, in shape
something between a hearse and an ark on wheels, but with the greater
part of the sides open to the air. Vrouw Snieder and her two daughters
were already within, with their bow-trimmed umbrellas, sunshades,
mackintoshes, shawls and basket. There was necessarily a good deal of
greeting; Mijnheer and Joost shook hands with all the three ladies,
and inquired after Herr Snieder, and received polite inquiries in
return. Then Denah insisted on getting out, so that Mevrouw should be
better able to get in; also to show that she was athletic and agile,
like an English girl, and thought nothing of getting in and out of a
high carriage. Mevrouw kissed her husband and son, twice each, very
loud, called a good-bye to the servant, and got in. Julia shook hands,
said good-bye, and also got in. Denah watched her, and observed the
shape of her feet and ankles jealously. She glanced sharply at Joost,
but he was not guilty of such indecorum as even thinking about any
girl's legs, so, having said her good-bye, she got in reassured.
Finally they drove away amid wishes for a safe drive and a pleasant
excursion.
Of course there was a little settling to do inside the carriage, the
wraps and baskets to be disposed of, and each person to be assured
that the others had enough room, and just the place they preferred to
any other. By the time that was done they stopped again at the house
of Mijnheer's head clerk; here they were to take up two children,
girls of fourteen and fifteen, who had been invited to come with the
party. The carriage was not kept waiting, the children were out before
it had fairly stopped; they were flaxenly fair girls, wearing little
blue earrings, Sunday hats, and cotton gloves of course--all the party
wore cotton gloves; it was, Julia judged, part of the excursion
outfit.
Now they were really off, driving out beyond the outskirts of the
town; along flat roads where the wheels sank noiselessly into the soft
sand, and the horses' feet clattered on the narrow brick track in the
centre. For a time they followed the canal closely, but soon they left
it, and saw in the distance nothing but its high green banks, with the
brown sails of boats showing above, and looking as if they were a good
deal higher than the carriage road. They passed small fields,
subdivided into yet smaller patches, and all very highly cultivated.
And small black and white houses, and small black and white cows, and
black and white goats, and dogs, and even cats of the same combination
of colour. Everything was rather small, but everywhere very tidy;
nothing out of its place or wasted, and nobody hurrying or idling; all
were busy, with a small bustling business, as unlike aggressive
English idleness as it was unlike the deceptive, leisurely power of
English work.
Denah and Anna looked out of either side of the carriage, and pointed
out things to Julia and the two little girls. Here it was what they
called a country seat, a sort of castellated variety of overgrown
chalêt, surrounded by a wonderful garden of blazing flower-beds and
emerald lawns, all set round with rows and rows of plants in bright
red pots. Or there it was a cemetery, where the peaceful aspect made
Denah sentimental, and the beauty of the trees drew Anna's praise. The
two elder ladies paid less attention to what they passed; they
contented themselves with leaning back and saying how beautiful the
air was, and how refreshing the country. The girls said that as well;
they all agreed six times within the hour that it was a delightful
expedition, and they enjoying it much.
In time they came to the wood. An unpaved road ran through it of
soft, deep sand, which deadened every sound; on either hand the trees
rose, pines and larch and beech principally, with a few large-leafed
shivering poplars here and there. There was no undergrowth, and few
bird songs, only the dim wood aisles stretching away, quiet and green.
Suddenly it seemed to Julia that the world's horizon had been
stretched, the little neatness, the clean, trim brightness, the
bustling, industrious toy world was gone; in its place was the
twilight of the trees, the silence, the repose, the haunting,
indefinable sense of home which is only to be found in these
cathedrals of Nature's making.
"Ah, the wood!" Denah said, with a profound sigh. "The beautiful wood!
Miss Julia, do you not love it?"
Julia did not assent, but Denah went on quite satisfied, "You cannot
love it as I do; I think I am a child of Nature, nothing would please
me more than always to live here."
"You would have to go into the town sometimes," Julia said, "to buy
gloves; the ones you have would not last for ever."
Denah looked a little puzzled by the difficulty; she had not
apparently thought out the details of life in a natural state; but
before she could come to any conclusion one of the little girls cried,
"Music--I hear music!"
All the ladies said "Delicious!" together, and "How beautiful!" and
Denah, content to ignore Nature, added rapturously, "Music in the
wood! Ah, exquisite! two beauties together!"
Julia echoed the remark, though the music was that of a piano-organ.
The horizon had drawn in again, and the prospect narrowed; the silence
was full of noises now, voices and laughter, amidst which the organ
notes did not seem out of place. And near at hand under the trees
there were tables spread and people having tea, enjoying themselves in
a simple-hearted, noisy fashion, in no way suggestive of cathedral
twilight.
The carriage was put up, the tea ordered, and in a little they, too,
were sitting at one of the square tables. Each lady was provided with
a high wooden chair, and a little wooden box footstool. A kettle on a
hot potful of smouldering wood ashes was set on the table; cups and
saucers and goats' milk were also supplied to them, and opaque
beet-root sugar. The food they had brought in their baskets, big new
_broodje_ split in half, buttered and put together again with a
slither of Dutch cheese between. These and, to wind up with, some thin
sweet biscuits carried in a papier-maché box, and handed out singly by
Vrouw Van Heigen, who had brought them as a surprise and a treat.
"Do they have such picnics as this in England?" Anna asked, as she
gathered up the crumbs of her biscuit.
"I have never been to one," Julia answered, and inwardly she thought
of her mother and Violet driving in a wheeled ark to the wood, there
to sit at little wooden tables and stretch their mouths in the public
eye.
"Ah!" said Vrouw Snieder; "then it is all the more of a pleasure and a
novelty to you."
Julia said it was, and soon afterwards they rose from the table to
walk in the wood. The two elder ladies did not get far, and before
long came back to sit on their wooden chairs again. The girls went
some little distance, all keeping together, and being careful not to
wander out of sight and sound of the other picnic parties. Once when
they came to the extreme limit of their walk, Julia half-hesitated.
She looked into the quiet green distance. It would be easy to leave
them, to give them the slip; she could walk at double their pace with
half their exertion, she could lose herself among the trees while
they were wondering why she had gone, and making up their minds to
follow her; and, most important of all, when she came back she could
explain everything quite easily, so that they would not think it in
the least strange--an accident, a missing of the way, anything. Should
she do it--should she? The wild creature that had lived half-smothered
within her for all the twenty years of her life fluttered and stirred.
It had stirred before, rebelling against the shams of the Marbridge
life, as it rebelled against the restrictions of the present; it had
never had scope or found vent; still, for all that it was not dead;
possibly, even, it was growing stronger; it called her now to run
away. But she did not do it; advisability, the Polkingtons' patron
saint, suggested to her that one does not learn to shine in the caged
life by allowing oneself the luxury of occasional escape.
She turned her back on the green distance. "Shall we not go back to
where the music is playing?" she said.
They went, walking with their arms entwined as other girls were doing,
Julia between the broad, white-skinned sisters, like a rapier between
cushions. The two younger girls ran on in front. "There is Mevrouw,"
they cried. "She is calling us. The carriage is ready, too; oh, do you
think it is already time to go?"
It seemed as if it really was the case. Vrouw Snieder stood clapping
her hands and beckoning to them, and the coachman appeared impatient
to be off. With reluctance, and many times repeated regrets, they
collected their wraps and baskets, and got into the carriage.
"Good-bye, beautiful wood, good-bye!" Denah said, leaning far out as
they started. "Oh, if one could but remain here till the moon rose!"
"It would be very damp," her mother observed. "The dew would fall."
To which incontestable remark Denah made no reply.
The return journey was much like the drive there, with one exception;
they passed one object of interest they had not seen before. It was
when they were nearing the outskirts of the town that Anna exclaimed,
"An Englishman! Look, look, Miss Julia, a compatriot of yours!"
The season was full early for tourists, and at no time did the place
attract many. Englishmen who came now probably came on business which
was unlikely to bring them out to these quiet, flat fields. But Anna
and Denah, who joined her in a much more demonstrative look-out than
Marbridge would have considered well-bred, were insistent on the
nationality.
"He walks like an Englishman," Anna said, "as if all the world
belonged to him."
"And looks like one," Denah added; "he has no moustache, and wears a
glass in his eye, look, Miss Julia."
Julia looked, then drew back rather quickly. They were right, it was
an Englishman; it was of all men Rawson-Clew.
What was he doing here? By what extraordinary chance he came to be in
this unlikely place she could not think. She was very glad that
Mevrouw felt the air chilly, and so had had the leather flaps pulled
over part of the open sides of the carriage; this and the eager
sisters screened her so well that it was unlikely he could see her.
"Is he not an Englishman?" Anna asked.
"Yes," she answered; "one could not mistake him for anything else."
"I wonder if he recognised you as a country-woman," Anna speculated;
and Julia said she did not consider herself typically English in
appearance.
The sisters talked for the rest of the way of the Englishman; of his
air and bearing, and the fact, of which they declared themselves
convinced, that he was a person of distinction.
But it was not till the drive was over, and the party had separated,
that Denah was able to say what was burning on her tongue. They had
left the clerk's children at their house, said good-bye to Vrouw Van
Heigen and Julia, and were within their own home at last; the girls
went up to their bedroom, and Denah carefully fastened the door, then
she said mysteriously, "Miss Julia knows that Englishman."
Anna jumped at the intelligence, and still more at the tone. "Did she
tell you?" she asked.
"No," Denah replied with some scorn; "she would not tell any one, she
wishes it concealed; she thinks it is so, but I saw it."
The tone and manner suggested many things, but Anna was a terribly
matter-of-fact person, to whom suggestions were nothing. "Why should
she wish it concealed?" she inquired.
"I do not know why," Denah answered; "that remains to be seen. As for
how I know it, I saw it in her face; when she looked at him her lips
became set, and her eyes--she looked--" She hesitated for a word, and
dropped to the homely, "She looked as if she would bite with annoyance
that he should be here. The expression was gone in a moment; she spoke
with an ease and naturalness that was astonishing, even disgusting;
but it had been there. I do not trust her."
The last was said with great seriousness, and for a little Anna was
impressed. But not for long, she could not accept such evidence as
this; in her opinion it was "fancy."
"You read too many romances," she said; "your head is full of such
things. I do not believe Miss Julia knew the Englishman, she would not
have hidden from us her knowledge if she did; it is not so easy to
hide one's feelings in the flash of an eye, besides there was no
reason. Also"--this as an afterthought--"he was a man of good family;
you could see at a glance that he was of the aristocracy, while she is
a paid companion to Vrouw Van Heigen; she could never before have met
him."
Denah, however, was not convinced; she only repeated darkly, "I
mistrust her."
Julia, in the meantime, was busy with her household duties, talking
over the excursion the while with Mevrouw, and helping to detail it to
Mijnheer. At last the table was ready for supper and the coffee made.
Mevrouw sat with her crochet, and Mijnheer opposite her with his
paper. It wanted more than a quarter of an hour to supper time, Julia
had been too quick; still it did not matter, the coffee would not hurt
standing on the spirit-stove; it stood there half the day. She had all
this time to spare, but she did not fetch her crochet work; she went
outside to the veranda.
It was almost dark by this time, as dark as it ever got on these
nights; the air was still and warm. She opened the glass door and went
out and sat down on the step. There was a smell of water in the air,
not unpleasant, but quite un-English, and mixed with it a faint smell
of flowers, the late blooming bulbs have little scent on the whole; it
was more the heavy dew than the flowers themselves which one could
smell. It was very quiet out here; the town, at no time noisy, was
some distance away--so quiet that Julia could hear the ticking of Mr.
Gillat's large watch in her belt. She pushed it further down; she did
not want to hear it.
She propped her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands. She
wished she had not seen Rawson-Clew that day; she wished she was not
here, she wished there was no such thing as a blue daffodil; she was
vaguely angry and dissatisfied, but not willing to face things. It was
unlikely that the man had seen her, unlikely that she would see him
again; but he was incongruous in this simple life, and he brought
forcibly home the incongruity of herself and her errand. She had come
for the blue daffodil, it was no good pretending she had not; she told
herself angrily, as she had told herself when she had first looked at
Johnny's yellow-faced watch, that she was going to get it in some way
that was justifiable. Only it was not so easy to believe that now she
knew more about it and the Van Heigens. But she must have it, that was
the argument she fell back on, the necessity was so great that she was
justified (the Polkingtons had always found necessity a justification
for doing things that could be anyhow made to square with their
position).
She wished she had not been for the excursion to-day, that she lived
less really in their simple, sincere life. She wished from her heart
that the Van Heigens had been different sort of people--almost any other
sort, then she would not have had these tiresome feelings--Johnny and
Johnny's watch, Joost Van Heigen--there was something about them all
that was hatefully embarrassing. No self-respecting thief robbed a
child; even the most apathetic conscience revolted at such an idea. No
gentleman worthy of the name attacked an unarmed man, the preparedness
of the parties made all the difference between murder and fair fight. Of
course, in the abstract, stealing was stealing under all conditions, and
killing killing, and both open to condemnation; but in the concrete, in
fact, the equality of the two persons made all the difference, at least
to honour.
Julia moved uneasily and looked, without seeing, across the dark
garden. The monotonous sound of voices floated out indistinctly; the
old pair in the sitting-room were talking in the lamplight, Mevrouw
going over once again the little incidents of the day. Joost was in
the drawing-room at the other end of the house; he had been playing
some of his favourite composer; he had stopped now, and was doubtless
sorting his music and putting it away, each piece four-square and
absolutely neat. Day by day, and year by year, they lived this quiet
life, with a drive for a rare holiday treat, and the discovery of a
new flower as the goal of all hope and ambition. Things did not happen
to them, bad things that needed doubtful remedies; they had never had
to scratch for their living, and show one face outwards and another
in. They, none of them, ever wanted to do things; they had not the
courage. How much of virtue was lack of courage and a desire not to be
remarkable?
Julia asked herself the question defiantly, and did not hear Joost
come out of the house. He was carrying a lantern, and was going to
make his nightly round of the barns. She did not hear his step, and so
started when she saw the light swing across the ground at her feet.
He was quite as startled to see her as she was to see him, but his
greeting was a very usual question in Holland, "Will you not catch
cold?"
She shook her head, and he asked, "What are you doing? Thinking?
Weaving in your head all that you have seen and heard to-day?"
"No," she answered; "I was thinking about courage."
"Courage?" he repeated, puzzled.
"Yes, it is very different in different places; some people are afraid
to tell the truth, so they lie; and some are afraid to be dishonest,
so they are honest; I believe it depends partly on fashion."
Joost set down the lantern in sheer surprise. "Such things cannot
depend on fashion," he said severely.
"I am not so sure," Julia answered; "lots of things you would not
expect depend on it. I know people who sometimes go without the food
they want so that they can buy expensive cakes to show off when their
acquaintances come to tea--that's silly, isn't it? Then I know other
people who blush if a pair of breeches, or something equally
inoffensive, are mentioned; that seems equally silly. One lot of
people is ashamed to be seen eating bread-and-cheese suppers, another
lot is ashamed to be seen walking off the side-walk, and with no
gloves on. One would hardly expect in, yet I almost believe these
silly little things somehow make a difference to what the people think
right and wrong."
Joost regarded her doubtfully, though he could only see the outline of
her face. "Are you making fun?" he asked. "I do not know when you are
making fun; I think you must be now. Are you speaking of us?"
"I never felt less like making fun in my life," Julia answered
ignoring the last question. Something in her tone struck Joost as sad,
and he forgot his question in sympathy.
"I am sorry," he said; "you are unhappy, and I have intruded upon you;
will you forgive me? You are thinking of your home, no doubt; you have
not had a letter from England for a long time."
Julia wished he did not notice so many things. "I did not expect a
letter," she said; "my eldest sister was married last week, there
would be no time to write to me till everything was over; most likely
I shall hear to-morrow."
"Is your sister married?" he asked; "and you were not able to be
present?"
"It is too far to go home from here," Julia said; then asked, "Were
you going to the barns?"
"Yes," he answered, suddenly reminded of the fact. Then seeing she did
not resume her seat on the steps, he ventured diffidently, "Will you
come too?"
She assented, and they started together in silence, Joost thinking her
homesick, not knowing quite what to say. When they came to the first
of the dark buildings they went in, and he swung the lantern round so
that their shadows danced fantastically. Then he tried various doors,
and glanced up the wall-ladder to the square opening which led to the
floor above. There was no need to examine the place minutely, it was
all quiet and dark; if there had been any one about they would
certainly have heard, and if there had been anything smouldering--a
danger more to be feared, seeing that the men smoked everywhere--it
could have been smelt in the dry air.
"I like these barns," Julia said, looking round: "they are so big and
quiet and orderly, somehow so respectable."
"Respectable!" he repeated, as if he did not approve of the word. "Is
that what you like? The respectable?"
"Yes, in its place; and its place is here."
"You think us respectable?"
"Well, are you not? I think you are the most respectable people in the
world."
She led the way through to the next barn as she spoke. "You are going
here, too, I suppose?" she said.
"I will just look round," he answered.
They went on together until they came to the last barn of all; while
they paused there a moment they heard a rustling and movement in the
dark, far corner. Joost started violently, then he said, "It is a rat,
you must not be afraid; it will not run this way."
"I am not afraid," Julia said with amusement. "Do you think I am
afraid of rats?"
"Girls often are."
"Well, I am not," and it was clear from her manner that she spoke the
truth.
"Would you be afraid to come out here alone?" he asked curiously.
"No," she said; "any night that you like I will come here alone, go
through the barns and fasten the doors."
"I do not believe there are many girls who would do that," he said; he
was thinking of Denah and Anna.
Julia told him there were plenty who would. As they came back,
stopping to fasten each door after them, he remarked, "I think girls
are usually brought up with too much protection; I mean girls of our
class, they are too much shielded; one has them for the house only; if
they were flowers I would call them stove-plants."
Julia laughed. "You believe in the emancipation of women then?" she
said; "you would rather a woman could take care of herself, and not be
afraid, than be womanly?"
"No," he answered; "I would like them to be both, as you are."
They had come outside now; she was standing in the misty moon-light,
while he stayed to fasten the last door.
"I?" she said; "you seem to think me a paragon--clever, brave,
womanly. Do you know what I really am? I am bad; by a long way the
wickedest person you have known."
But he did not believe her, which was perhaps not altogether
surprising.