THE HOLIDAY
The Dunes lay some little distance from the town, a low, but
suddenly-rising hill boundary, that shut in the basin of flat land.
They were all of pure sand, though in many places so matted with
vegetation that it was hardly recognisable as such. Trees grew in
places, especially on the side that fronted towards the town; the way
up lay through a dense young wood of beech and larch, and a short,
broad-leafed variety of poplar. There was no undergrowth, but between
the dead leaves one could see that a dark green, short-piled moss had
managed to find a hold here and there, though so smooth was it that it
looked more like old enamel than a natural growth. The trees had the
appearance of high summer, deeply, intensely green, so that they
seemed almost blackish in mass. There was no breeze among them; even
the dapples of sunlight which found their way through the roof of
leaves hardly stirred, but lay in light patches, like scattered gold
upon the ground. Flies and gnats moved and shimmered, a busy life,
whose small voices were the only sound to be heard; all else was very
still, with the glorious reposeful stillness of full summer; not
oppressive, without weariness or exhaustion, rather as if the whole
creation paused at this zenith to look round on its works, and beheld
and saw that they were all very good.
There were no clear paths, apparently few people went that way;
certainly there was no one about when Julia and Rawson-Clew came. It
is true they saw a kind of little beer-garden at the foot of the
slope, but there was no one idling about it.
"We shall have to come back here for lunch," Julia said.
And when he suggested that it was rather a pity to have to retrace
their steps, she answered, "It doesn't matter, we are not going
anywhere particular; we may just as well wander one way as another.
When we get to the top this time we will explore to the right, and
when we get there again after lunch, we will go to the left; don't you
think that is the best way? This is to be a holiday, you know."
"Is a real holiday like a dog's wanderings?" Rawson-Clew inquired;
"bounded by no purpose except dinner when hungry?"
Julia thought it must be something of the kind. "Though," she said,
"dogs always seem to have some end in view, or perhaps a dozen ends,
for though they tear off after an imaginary interest as if there was
nothing else in the world, they get tired of it, or else start
another, and forget all about the first."
"That must also be part of the essence of a holiday," Rawson-Clew
said; "at least, one would judge it to be so; boys and dogs, the only
things in nature who really understand the art of holiday-making,
chase wild geese, and otherwise do nothing of any account, with an
inexhaustible energy, and a purposeful determination wonderful to
behold. Also, they forget that there is such a thing as to-morrow, so
that must be important too."
"I can't do that," Julia said.
"You might try when you get to the top," he suggested. "I will try
then; I don't think I could do anything requiring an effort just now."
Julia agreed that she could not either, and they went on up straight
before them. It is as easy to climb a sand-hill in one place as in
another, provided you stick your feet in the right way, and do not
mind getting a good deal of sand in your boots. So they went straight,
and at last got clear of the taller trees, and were struggling in
thickets of young poplars, and other sinewy things. The sand was
firmer, but honeycombed with rabbit holes, and tangled with brambles,
and the direction was still upwards, though the growth was so thick,
and the ground so bad, that it was often necessary to go a long way
round. But in time they were through this too, and really out on the
top. Here there was nothing but the Dunes, wide, curving land, that
stretched away and away, a tableland of little hollows and hills, like
some sea whose waves have been consolidated; near at hand its colours
were warm, if not vivid, but in the far distance it grew paler as the
vegetation became less and less, till, far away, almost beyond sight,
it failed to grey helm grass, and then altogether ceased, leaving the
sand bare. Behind lay the trees through which they had come, sloping
downwards in banks of cool shadows to the map-like land and the
distant town below; away on right and left were other groups of trees,
on sides of hills and in rounded hollows, looking small enough from
here, but in reality woods of some size. Here there was nothing; but,
above, a great blue sky, which seemed very close; and, underfoot,
low-growing Dune roses and wild thyme which filled the warm, still air
with its matchless scent; nothing but these, and space, and sunshine,
and silence.
Julia stopped and looked round, drawing in her breath; she had found
what she had come to see--what, perhaps, she had been vaguely wanting
to find for a long time.
"Isn't it good?" she said at last. "Did you know there was so much
room--so much room anywhere?"
Rawson-Clew looked in the direction she did; he had seen so much of
the world, and she had seen so little of it--that is, of the part
which is solitary and beautiful. Yet he felt something of her
enthusiasm for this sunny, empty place--than which he had seen many
finer things every year of his life.
Perhaps this thought occurred to her, for she turned to him rather
wistfully: "I expect it does not seem very much to you," she said;
"you have seen such a great deal."
"I do not remember to have seen anything quite like this," he
answered; "and if I had, what then? One does not get tired of things."
Julia looked at him thoughtfully. "I wonder," she said, "if one would?
If one would get weary of it, and want to go back to the other kind of
life?"
She was not thinking of Dune country, rather of the simple life it
represented to her just then. Rawson-Clew caught the note of
seriousness in her tone and reminded her that thought for the past or
future was no part of a holiday. "Remember," he said, "you are to-day
to emulate dogs and boys."
She laughed. "How am I to begin?" she asked. "How will you?"
"I shall sit down," he said; "I feel I could be inconsequent much
better if I sat down to it; that is no doubt because I am past my
first youth."
"No," she said, sitting down and putting her hat beside her; "it is
because your folly-muscles are stiff from want of use; you have played
lots of things, I expect--it is part of your necessary equipment to
be able to do so, but I doubt if you have ever played the fool
systematically. I don't believe you have ever done, and certainly
never enjoyed anything inconsequent or foolish in your life."
"If you were to ask me," he returned, "I should hardly say you
excelled in that direction either. How many inconsequent and foolish
things have you done in your life?"
"Some, and I should like to do some more. If I were alone now, do you
know what I should do? You see that deep hollow of sparkling white
sand? I should take off my clothes and lie there in the sun."
Rawson-Clew turned so that his back was that way. "Do not let me
prevent you," he said.
Julia made use of the opportunity to empty the sand out of her boots.
He looked round as she was finishing fastening them. "But why put them
on again?" he asked.
"Because I haven't retired from the world, yet," she answered, "and so
I can't do quite all I like."
"When you do retire, will this ideal summer costume also be included
in the programme? Your taste in dress grows simpler; quite ancient
British, in fact."
"The ancient Britons wore paint, and probably had fashions in it; I
don't think of imitating them. Tell me," she said, turning now to
gather the sweet-scented wild thyme, "did you ever really do anything
foolish in your life? I should like to know."
He answered her that he had, but without convincing her. Afterwards,
he came to the conclusion that, whatever might have been the case
before, he that day qualified to take rank with any one in the matter.
All the same, it was a very pleasant day, and they both enjoyed it
much; it is doubtful if any one in the town or its environs enjoyed
that holiday more than these two, who, from different reasons, had
probably never had so real a holiday before. They wandered over the
great open tract of land, meeting no one; once they came near enough
to the seaward edge to see the distant shimmer of water; once they
found themselves in the part where there has been some little attempt
at cultivation, and small patches of potatoes struggle for life, and a
little railway crosses the sandhills. Twice they came upon the road
along which, on working days, the peasant women bring their fish to
market in the town. But chiefly they kept to the small, dense woods,
where the sunlight only splashed the ground; or to the open solitary
spaces where the bees hummed in the wild thyme, and the butterflies
chased each other over the low rose bushes.
A good deal after mid-day, at a time dictated entirely by choice, and
not custom, they made their way back to the beer garden. It was a very
little place, scarcely worthy of the name; the smallest possible
house, more like a barn than anything else, right in the shadow of the
wood. The fare to be obtained was bad beer, excellent coffee, new
bread, and old cheese; but it was enough, supplemented by the cakes
bought yesterday in the town; Julia knew enough of the ways of the
place to know one can bring one's own food to such places without
giving offence. As in the morning, when they first passed it, there
was no one about, every one had gone to the fair, except one taciturn
old woman who brought the required things and then shut herself in the
house. The meal was spread under the trees on a little green-painted
table, with legs buried deep in sand; there were two high, straight
chairs set up to the table, and a wooden footstool put by one for
Julia, who, seeing it, said this was certainly a picnic, and it was
really necessary to eat the _broodje_ in the correct picnic way.
Rawson-Clew tried, with much gravity, but she laughed till the
taciturn old woman looked out of window, and wondered who they were,
and how they came to be here.
When the meal was done, they went back again up the steep slope, and
then away on the left. The country on this side was less open, and
more hilly, deeper hollows and larger woods, still there was not much
difficulty in finding the way. The latter part of the day was not so
fine as the earlier, the sky clouded over, and, though there was still
no wind, the air grew more chilly. They hardly noticed the change,
being in a dense young wood where there was little light, but Julia
lost something of the holiday spirit, and Rawson-Clew became grave,
talking more seriously of serious things than had ever before happened
in their curious acquaintanceship. They sat down to rest in a green
hollow, and Julia began to arrange neatly the bunch of short-stemmed
thyme flowers that she carried. They had been quiet for some little
time, she thinking about their curious acquaintance, and wondering
when it would end. Of course it would end--she knew that; it was a
thing of mind only; there was very little feeling about it--a certain
mutual interest and a liking that had grown of late, kindness on his
part, gratitude on hers, nothing more. But of its sort it had grown to
be intimate; she had told him things of her thoughts, and of herself,
and her people too, that she had told to no one else; and he, which
was perhaps more remarkable, had sometimes returned the compliment.
And yet by and by--soon, perhaps--he would go away, and it would be as
if they had never met; it was like people on a steamer together, she
thought, for the space of the voyage they saw each other daily, saw
more intimately into each other than many blood relations did, and
then, when port was reached, they separated, the whole thing
finished. She wondered when this would finish, and just then
Rawson-Clew spoke, and unconsciously answered her thought.
"I am going back to England soon," he said.
She looked up. "Is your work here finished?" she asked.
"It is at an end," he answered; "that is the same thing."
Then she, her intuition enlightened by a like experience suddenly knew
that he, too, had failed. "You mean it cannot be done," she said.
He opened his cigarette case, and selected a cigarette carefully. "May
I smoke?" he asked; "there are a good many gnats and mosquitoes about
here." He felt for a match, and, when he had struck it, asked
impersonally, "Do you believe things cannot be done?"
"Yes," she answered; "I know that sometimes they cannot; I have proved
it to myself."
"You have not, then, much opinion of the people who do not know when
they are beaten?"
"I don't think I have," she answered; "you cannot help knowing when
you are beaten if you really are--that is, unless you are a fool. Of
course, if you are only beaten in one round, or one effort, that is
another thing; you can get up and try again. But if you are really and
truly beaten, by yourself, or circumstances, or something--well,
there's an end; there is nothing but to get up and go on."
"Just so; in that case, as you say, there is not much going to be
done, except going home."
Julia nodded. "But I can't even do that," she said. "I am beaten, but
I have got to stay here all the same, having nowhere exactly to go."
This was the first time she had spoken even indirectly of her own
future movements. "But, perhaps," he suggested, "if you stay, you may
find a back way to your object after all."
She shook her head. "It is the back way I tried. No, there is no way;
it is blocked. I know, because it is myself that blocks it."
"In that case," he said, "I'm afraid I must agree with you; there is
no way; oneself is about the most insurmountable block of all. I
might have known that you were hardly likely to make any mistake as to
whether you were really beaten or not."
"I should not think it was a mistake you were likely to make either,"
she observed.
"You think not? Well, I had no chance this time; the fact has been
made pretty obvious to me."
She did not say she was sorry; in her opinion it was an impertinence
to offer condolence to failure. "I suppose," she said, after a pause,
"there is not a back way--a door, or window, even, to your object?"
"Unfortunately, no. There are no windows at the back; and as to the
door--like you, it was that which I tried, with the result that
recently--yesterday, in fact--I was metaphorically shown out."
Julia had learnt enough by this time, though she had not been told for
certain, that her first suspicions were right; to be sure, it was the
explosive which took Rawson-Clew to the little village evening after
evening. She had gathered as much from various things which had been
said, though she did not know at all how he was trying to get it, nor
in what way he had introduced himself to Herr Van de Greutz. Whatever
method he had tried it was now clear he had failed; no doubt been
found out, for the chemist, unlike Joost Van Heigen, was the very
reverse of unsuspecting, and thoroughly on the look-out for other
nations who wanted to share his discovery. For a moment Julia wished
she had been in Rawson-Clew's place; of course she, too, might have
failed--probably would; she had no reason to think she would succeed
where he could not; but she certainly would not have failed in this
for the reason she had failed with the blue daffodil. The attempt
would have been so thoroughly well worth making; there would have been
some sport in it, and a foe worthy of her steel. In spite of her
desire for the simple life, she had too much real ability for this
sort of intrigue, and too much past practice in subterfuge, not to
experience lapses of inclination for it when she saw such work being
done, and perhaps not done well. Of this, however, she naturally did
not speak to Rawson-Clew; she rearranged her flowers in silence for a
little while, at last she said--
"It is hateful to fail."
"It is ignominious, certainly; one does not wish to blazon it from the
housetops; still, doubtless like your crochet work, it is good
discipline."
"Maybe," Julia allowed, but without conviction. "Yours seems a simple
failure, mine is a compound one. If it is ignominious, as you say, to
fail, it would have been equally ignominious in another way if I had
succeeded. I could not have been satisfied either way."
"That sounds very complicated," Rawson-Clew said; "but then, I imagine
you are a complicated young person."
"And you are not."
"Not young, certainly," he said, lighting another cigarette.
"Nor complicated," she insisted; "you are built on straight lines;
there are given things you can do and can't do, would do and would not
do, and might do in an emergency. It is a fine kind of person to be,
but it is not the kind which surprises itself."
Rawson-Clew blew a smoke-ring into the air; he was smiling a little.
"How old are you?" he said. "Twenty? Almost twenty-one, is it? And
until you were sixteen you knocked about a bit? Sixteen is too young
to come much across the natural man--not the artful dodging man, or
the man of civilisation, but the natural, primitive man, own blood
relation to Adam and the king of the Cannibal Islands. You may meet
him by and by, and if you do he may surprise you; he is full of
surprises--he rather surprises himself, that is, if his local habitat
is ordinarily an educated, decent person."
"You have not got a natural man," Julia said shortly; she was annoyed,
without quite knowing why, by his manner.
"Have I not? Quite likely; certainly, he has never bothered me, but I
should not like to count on him. Since we have got to personalities,
may I say that you have got a natural woman, and plenty of her; also a
marked taste for the works of the machine, in preference to the face
usually presented to the company?"
"The works are the only interesting part; I don't care for the
drawing-room side of things; they are cultivated, but they are too
much on the skin. I would much rather be a stoker, or an engineer,
than sit on deck all day and talk about Florentine art, and the Handel
Festival, and Egyptology, and the gospel of Tolstoy, and play cricket
and quoits, and dance a little, and sing a little, and flirt a little,
ever so nicely. Oh, there are lots of girls who can do all those
things, and do them equally well; I know a few who can, well off,
well-bred girls--you must know a great many. They are clever to begin
with, and they are taught that way; it is a perfect treat to meet
them and watch them, but I never want to imitate them, even if I
could--and there is no danger of that. I would rather be in the
engine-room, with my coat off, a bit greasy and very profane, and
doing something. There would be more flesh and blood there, even if it
were a bit grubby; I believe I'm more at home with people who can
do--well, what's necessary, even if it is not exactly nice."
Rawson-Clew knew exactly the kind of woman she had described for the
deck--he met them often; charming creatures, far as the poles asunder
from the girl who spoke of them; he liked them--in moderation, and in
their place, much as his forebears of fifty years ago had liked
theirs, the delicate, sensitive creatures of that era. He had never
regarded Julia in that light; he found her certainly more entertaining
as a companion, though also very far short of the standard as a woman
and an ornament.
"The people in the engine-room," he observed, "would certainly be more
useful in an emergency; still, life is not made up entirely of
emergencies."
"No," Julia answered; "and in between times such people are better not
on show--I know that; that is why I do not care for the drawing-room
side of things, I don't know enough to shine in them."
"Do you think it is a matter of knowledge?" he asked, "or inclination?
If it comes to knowledge I should say you had a rather remarkable
stock of an unusual sort, and at first hand. That may not be what is
required for a complete drawing-room success, though I am not sure
that it is not more interesting--say for an excursion--than a flitting
glance at the subjects you mention, and about eighteen or twenty more
that you did not."
Julia looked up, half pleased, doubtful as to whether or not to
interpret this as a compliment; she never knew quite how much he meant
of what he said; his manner was exactly the same, whether he was in
fun or in earnest. But if she thought of asking him now she was
prevented, for at that moment Mr. Gillat's watch slipped out of her
belt into her lap, and she saw the time.
"How late is it!" she exclaimed. "We ought to have started
half-an-hour ago; it will take me two hours, and more, to get home
from here, even if I go by the tram in the town."
She rose as she spoke, and he rose more slowly.
"Shall I take your flowers for you?" he asked. "They seem rather
inclined to tumble about; don't you think they would be safer in my
pocket? As you say you are going to dry them, it won't matter crushing
them."
She gave them to him, and he put the sweet-smelling bunch into his
pocket, then they started for the edge of the wood.
"It is much colder," Julia said; "and the sun is all gone; I suppose
the clouds have been coming gradually, but I did not notice before. If
it is going to rain, we shall get decidedly wet before we get back."
"I am afraid so," he agreed; "you have no coat."
She told him that did not matter, she did not mind getting wet, and
she spoke with a cheerful buoyancy that carried conviction.
When they reached the outskirts of the wood, however, they saw there
was not much chance of rain, but a much worse evil threatened. All the
distance on the seaward side was blotted out, a fine white mist shut
out the curving land in that direction. It was blowing up towards
them, rolling down the little hills in billowy puffs, and lying
filmy, yet dense, in the hollows, moved by a wind unfelt here.
"A sea fog," Julia said; "I wonder how far it is coming."
Rawson-Clew wondered too; he thought, as she did, that there was every
chance of its coming far and fast, but it did not seem necessary to
either of them to say anything so unpleasantly and obviously probable.
They set out homewards as fast as they could; it was a long way to the
place where they had climbed up, unfortunately all across open
country, entirely without roads or definite paths, and the drifting
sea fog was coming up fast, bound, it would seem, the same way. Soon
it was upon them; they felt its advance in the chill that, like cold
fingers, laid hold on everything; it came quite silently up from
behind, without noticeable wind, eerily creeping up and enfolding
everything, putting a white winding-sheet not about the earth only,
but the very air also. The cotton blouse that Julia wore became limp
and wet as if it had been dipped in water; she could see the fog
condensing in beads on her companion's coat almost like hoar frost; it
lay on every low-growing rose bush and bramble that they stepped upon,
a curious transformer of all near objects, a complete obliterator of
all more distant ones.
They pushed on as quickly as might be, climbing little hills,
descending into hollows; stumbling among rabbit holes, threading their
way through thickets; apparently finding something amusing in the
patriarchal colonies of rabbit burrows that tripped them up, and
stopping to argue, though hardly in earnest, as to whether they had
passed that way or not, when some white-barked tree, or other
landmark, loomed suddenly out of the thickening mist. Once it seemed
the fog was going to lift; Julia thought she saw the outline of a
distant hill, but either it was closed in again directly, or else she
mistook a thicker fold of cloud for a more solid object, for it was
lost almost before she pointed it out.
For something over two hours they walked and stumbled, and went up
small ascents and came down small declines; then suddenly they came
upon the white-barked tree again. It was the same one that they had
seen more than an hour and a half ago; Rawson-Clew recognised it by a
peculiar warty growth where the branches forked; they had now
approached it from the other side, but clearly it was the same one,
and they had come round in a circle.
He stopped and pointed it out to her. "I am afraid," he said, "we had
better do what is recommended when the clouds come down on the
mountains."
"And that is?" Julia asked.
"Sit down and wait till they shift."
She could not but see the advisability of this, also she was very
tired, the going for these two hours had not been easy, and it had
come at the end of a long day. She would not admit, even to herself,
that she was tired, but she was, so she agreed to the waiting; after
all, it was impossible to pretend longer that they were going to get
home easily, and were not really hopelessly astray.
"We will go a little way in among the trees," Rawson-Clew said; "it is
more sheltered, and we shall be able to find the way quite as easily
from one place as another when the fog lifts."
They found as sheltered a spot as they could, and sat down under a big
tree; as they did so his hand came in contact with Julia's wet sleeve
and cold arm. "How cold you are!" he said. "You have nothing on."
"Oh, yes, I have," she assured him. "I did not avail myself of your
permission this morning."
He took off his coat and put it round her.
But she threw it off again. "That won't do at all," she said; "now you
have nothing on, and that is much more improper; women may sit in
their shirt sleeves, men may not."
"Don't be absurd!" he said authoritatively; "you are to keep that on,"
and he wrapped it about her with a decision that brought home to her
her youth and smallness.
"You are shutting all the damp in," she protested, shifting her point
of attack, "and that is very unwholesome. I shan't get warm; I haven't
any warmth to start with; you are wasting what you have got to no
purpose."
But he did not waste it, for eventually it was arranged that they sat
close together under the tree, with the coat put as far as it would go
over both of them. Rawson-Clew was not given to thinking how things
looked, he did what he thought necessary, or advisable, without taking
any thought of that kind; so it did not occur to him how this
arrangement might look to an unprejudiced observer, had there been any
such. But Julia, with her faculty for seeing herself as others saw
her, was much, though silently, amused as she thought of the Van
Heigens. Poor, kind folks, they were doubtless already wondering what
could have become of her; if they could only have seen her sitting
thus, with an unknown man, what would their Dutch propriety have said?
"Do you suppose this fog will be in the town?" Rawson-Clew said, after
a time.
"No," she answered, "I should think not; from what I have heard, I
think it is very unlikely."
"Then the Van Heigens won't know what has become of you?"
"Not a bit in the world; they don't even know where I was going
to-day. I did not tell them; I am afraid they will be rather uneasy
about me, but perhaps not so very much, they know by this time I can
take care of myself; besides, I shall be home before bed-time, if the
fog lifts."
Rawson-Clew agreed, and they talked of other things. Julia held the
opinion that when an evil has to be endured, not cured, there is no
good in discussing it over and over again; she had a considerable gift
for making the best of other things besides opportunities.
But the fog did not lift soon; it did not grow denser, but it did not
grow less; it just lay soft and chilly, casting a white pall of
silence on all things, closing day before its time, and making it
impossible to say when evening ended and night began. Gradually the
two who waited for its lifting fell into silence, and Julia, tired
out, at last dropped asleep, her head tilted back against the
tree-trunk, her shoulder pressed close against Rawson-Clew under the
shelter of his coat.
He did not move, he was afraid of waking her; he sat watching, waiting
in the eerie white stillness, until at last the space before him
altered, and gradually between the trees he saw the faint outline of a
hill, dark against the dark sky. Slowly the white mist rolled from it,
a billowy, ghostly thing, that left a black, vague world, only dimly
seen. He looked at the sleeping girl, then at the hill; the fog was
clearing, there was no doubt about that; soon it would be quite gone,
but it would be a very dark night, the stars would hardly show, and
the moon was now long down. He was not at all sure of being able to
find his way across this undulating country, so entirely devoid of
prominent features, in a very dark night. Rather he was nearly sure
that he could not do it; and though he had a by no means low opinion
of Julia's abilities, he did not think that she could either. Also,
with a sense of dramatic fitness equal to that of the girl's he
thought their arrival in the town would be rather ill-timed if they
started now. It would be wiser to wait till after it was light, though
dawn was not so very early now, the summer being far advanced. So he
decided, and Julia slept peacefully on, her head dropping lower and
lower, till finally it reached his shoulder. But he did not move; he
left it resting there, and waited, thinking of nothing perhaps, or
anything; or perhaps of that unknown quantity, the natural man, which
has a way of stirring sometimes even in the most civilised, at night
time. So he sat and watched for the dawn.