Wednesday dawned bright and fair; it had not seemed possible that it
could be wet, and the party of twelve, with their baskets and hampers,
drove economically and gaily to the ferry in a three-horse omnibus, so
ostentatiously treating it as their own vehicle that the few alien
passengers sat abashed, and plainly felt themselves _de trop_. Darsie's
prophecy had been fulfilled, for Dan appeared at the starting-point,
somewhat grim and sulky of demeanour, but obviously on picnic bent. He
was the only member of the party whose hands were free of basket or
bundle, and when the omnibus trundled into sight he walked forward to
meet it and swung himself up to a place on top as though anxious to
convince beholders that he had no connection with the noisy crowd at the
corner, whereupon the two mothers smiled at each other in amused
reminiscent fashion.
The girls were dressed in white; the boys wore flannel trousers with
school blazers and caps. Clemence had put on a veil to protect her
complexion; plain Hannah's sailor hat left yards of forehead bleakly
exposed. Darsie wore her little Kodak swung across her shoulder in
jaunty military fashion. She invariably carried a camera on such
occasions, and never by any chance used it to take any photographs; the
programme was so unalterable that it had ceased to attract any attention
among her companions.
The omnibus conveyed the party to the ferry, from whence an hourly boat
puffed several miles up the river to where the village of Earley stood
on the opposite bank. It was an ancient and by no means luxurious
barque, impregnated from bow to stern with a hot, oily, funnelly smell
from which it was impossible to escape, and as travellers to Earley were
almost invariably on pleasure bent, the usual satellites were in
attendance. There was an old man in a long coat who had played the same
ballads on the same old concertina with the same incredibly dirty
fingers for as long as memory could recall; there was an old woman with
a clean apron and a tray of gingerbread biscuits slung pendant from her
shoulders, who presented them to you for three a penny, and exclaimed,
"Bless yer little 'art!" when you paid for them yourself, because mother
said it was a pity to spoil your lunch. Deary me! one _would_ have to
be old to have one's appetite--and a picnic appetite at that!--spoiled
by three gingerbread biscuits! The sail to Earley would have been shorn
of one of its chief joys without these sticky sweets. The absence of
the clean, smiling old woman would have been resented as a positive
crime.
The ferry at Earley was an old-fashioned affair, sloping over the muddy
shore to a little white pay-house with a clanky turnpike on either side.
Once past these turnpikes, the visitor found himself in the midst of
things with delightful suddenness. A wide green stretch of grass lay
along the river bank, bordered by shady trees. To the right stood a
stone hotel with gardens of brilliant flower-beds, and an array of
white-covered tables dotted down the length of the veranda. Grand and
luxurious visitors took their meals in the hotel, but such a possibility
of splendour had never dawned upon the minds of the Garnetts or their
friends--as well might a wayfarer in Hyde Park think of asking for a cup
of tea at Buckingham Palace! To-day a young girl stood in the porch of
the hotel and gazed at the procession as it passed. She was arrayed in
a white serge coat and skirt, and wore a white sailor hat with a blue
band. "Exactly like yours!" said Lavender easily, but Clemence shook
her head in sad denial. _Her_ coat and skirt had been bought ready-made
at a sale, was an inch too short in the waist, and cockled at the seams;
her hat was last year's shape, while the girl in the porch had
just--_the_--very--latest and most perfect specimen of both.
"Horrid thing, lunching in hotels in clothes like that! Some people
have all the luck!" said Clemence grudgingly, as she moved the heavy
basket from one hand to the other to screen it from the gaze of the
aristocratic eyes; and the girl in the porch spied it all the same, and
sighed to herself wistfully: "They are going picnicking--all those boys
and girls! Oh, how lovely to be them. How I _wish_ I were a big
family..." after the manner of the ungrateful people of this world, who
are so much occupied in envying the possessions of others that they have
no time left in which to be thankful for their own!
The woods lay not a hundred yards from the ferry itself--real, natural,
untrammelled woods, with grand old trunks standing up tall and straight
like the columns of a cathedral, and dear old gnarled roots which ran
along the ground, covered with lichens and soft green moss. To young
people who spent their lives in one red-brick terrace looking out on
another red-brick terrace across the road, it was like a voyage into
fairyland to step within the cool, green shadow of the woods, to smell
the sweet, sharp smell of the earth, and watch the dapplings of sunlight
through the leaves overhead. Even the boys succumbed to the spell, and
for the first half-hour asked nothing better than to roll about on the
grass, poke in the roots of trees, and speculate concerning rabbit-holes
and nests; but the half-hour over, one and all were convinced that
watches were wrong and they were right in deciding that it was beyond
all manner of doubt full time for lunch; so the cloth was spread on a
level piece of turf, and the good things were consumed with the
lingering enjoyment which they deserved.
Every one felt that, as lunch marked what was perhaps the most enjoyable
epoch of the whole day, it was his or her bounden duty to eat slowly and
to go on demanding helpings so long as the supply endured; and a certain
feeling of blankness descended when there was no longer any excuse for
lingering, inasmuch as nothing remained to be eaten but a dozen jam
puffs, which, as mother said, had been _meant_ to be very nice, but had
somehow failed to achieve success! The paste, hard enough on top, was
inside of a damp and doughy consistence, and cook had used gooseberry
jam for the filling, thereby taking a mean advantage of absence from
home, when she _knew_ that the family detested gooseberry in tarts, and
steadily plumped for apricot instead.
"We'll give them to the little boy at the ferry. _He_ won't be so
particular!" Mrs Garnett said as she laid the rejected dainties on one
side and proceeded to pack the oddments which had been required for the
meal in one small basket, placing layers of paper in those left empty.
The young people looked at each other with raised eyebrows as they
watched these proceedings, the meaning of which they knew only too well.
It was forbidden to gather roots from the woods, but no authority had
dreamt of forbidding visitors to carry away _soil_, and this was just
what Mrs Garnett invariably insisted upon doing. The red-brown earth,
rich with sweet fragments of leaf and twig, was too tempting to be
resisted when she thought of her poor pot-bound plants at home;
therefore, instead of swinging homewards with baskets light as air, the
boys were doomed to bear even heavier weights than on the outward
journey.
"Mother!" cried Clemence in a deep tone of protest. "Not _yet_!
Remember the walk across the fields. Plenty of time to get soil in the
Amphitheatre!" And Mrs Garnett put down her trowel with quite a guilty
air and resigned herself to wait.
"Well! Perhaps it would be best ... Mrs Vernon and I would like an
hour's rest before going on. What are _you_ going to do now?"
Every one waited for every one else, and no suggestion was forthcoming.
The boys were once more beginning to roll about on the grass, poking and
pulling at each other in a manner which foretold the beginning of war.
Clemence and Vie were gazing sentimentally through the branches. Plain
Hannah, stretched flat along the ground, was barricading the movements
of a tiny beetle, and chuckling over its persistent efforts to outwit
her schemes. Dan sat with arms clasped around his knees, a picture of
patience on a monument. The sight of his twisted lips, his tilted,
disconsolate chin fired Darsie to action. It was her doing that he was
here at all; it was her duty to make the time pass as agreeably as
possible.
"Sports!" she cried quickly. "Competitive sports. We'll each plan an
event, and take them in turns. Dan shall be judge, and the one who gets
most marks shall have a prize."
"What prize?"
That was a stumper. Darsie could suggest nothing better than a general
subscription.
"If we each paid a penny entrance--"
"Oh, be bothered the pennies! I'll give a prize!" cried Dan loftily.
Darsie saw with joy that he had brisked up at the prospect of sports and
was already beginning to cast his eye around in professional manner,
taking in the lie of the land, the outstanding features of the position.
As judge and manager he was in his element, and each suggestion of an
event was altered and amended with a lordly superiority. It is somewhat
difficult to introduce much variety into a programme of impromptu
sports, but one or two of this afternoon's events had the advantage of
novelty. A flower-gathering race, for instance, the object of which was
to see how many varieties of wild flowers each competitor could gather
in a given time, and a Roman water-carrier event, which consisted in
balancing the hot-water jug on one's head and seeing how far one could
walk without spilling its tepid contents over neck and shoulders. Plain
Hannah was the only one of the girls who took part in this event, and to
her joy succeeded in travelling a longer distance than any of the male
competitors. The final and most elaborate event was the obstacle race,
without which no competition of the kind is ever considered complete,
and the united wits of the company were put to work to devise traps for
their own undoing. Harry discovered two small trees whose trunks grew
so close together that it seemed impossible that any human creature
could squeeze between, and insisted upon it being done as a _sine qua
non_. Russell decreed that competitors should travel over a certain
route without touching the ground, swinging themselves from branch to
branch like so many monkeys, and as girls were plainly disqualified for
this feat an alternative test was invented which should score equally to
their credit. Hopping races, races complicated by arithmetical and
other such baffling problems, were also devised, and at the last moment
Darsie came forward with a thrilling novelty.
"Run to the hamper, turn round three times, seize a jam puff, eat it in
two bites, and hop back to the goal!"
"Good!" cried the judge approvingly, and after that the competitors
might storm and lament as they would; the event was fixed!
The two mothers had retired from the scene of the fray and with backs
resting against two friendly trees were peacefully discoursing on
household trials; there was no one to preach concerning indigestion, and
the perils of rapid eating; hot and gasping from their previous trials,
the competitors ran, twirled, hopped and gobbled, and finally subsided
in paroxysms of laughter on the mossy bank. The sports were over; the
prize had fallen to Russell, as every one had known from the start that
it must inevitably do; he sat snoring with pride, waving aside Dan's
inquiries as to the nature of his prize in a gentlemanly manner worthy
of his reputation, until the two mothers, becoming conscious that the
afternoon was passing away, rose heavily from their seats and announced
that it was time to start on the second half of the day's expedition.
The three-mile walk lay for three parts of the way through fields, which
to the town-livers afforded a refreshing change from noisy and dusty
streets, and when the little village was reached, "our old woman's
cottage" was found to be as clean and neat and hospitably attractive as
of yore. It was a tiny whitewashed cottage standing back from the lane
in a garden bright with old-fashioned flowers, and the stone-floored
kitchen boasted an old oak dresser and table which were the envy of all
beholders.
"They're always after it!" our old woman would announce, chuckling.
"Titled gentry I've had, driving up in their own carriage, a-coaxing and
wheedling so as never was. `_No_,' I says, `they was my mother's afore
me, and her mother's afore that, and it's a poor tale if I can't have
the pleasure of them while _I_ live! If it's waluable to you, it's
waluable to me, too. That's only common sense...' And what's your
fancy today, lovies? boiled eggs and buttered toast, same as afore?"
Boiled eggs and buttered toast it was, despite the protests of the
mothers, who thought that really, after such a lunch--! And after tea
our old woman provided buttonholes for each member of the party, and
hobbled to the gate to see them off, assuring them, as was her yearly
custom, that "the gamekeepers was getting very crusty of late, but you
leave the roots alone and nobody can't say nothing about a few bits of
flowers." That yearly threat of the gamekeeper lent a _soupcon_ of
excitement to the scramble over the sloping woods, which surrounded as
an amphitheatre a deep green meadow through which meandered a tiny
stream.
At any moment, as it appeared, a stalwart figure in velveteen bearing a
gun over his shoulder might appear round the trunk of a tree, demanding
your licence or your life. It was interesting to discuss exactly what
you would do or say under the circumstances, and the very worst thing in
punishments which could possibly be your fate!
To-day, however, no such interruption took place, and the dear old
playground looked, if possible, more beautiful than ever. The ground
was carpeted with buttercups, and when one stood on the top of the steep
banks and looked down on the green and the gold, and caught glimpses of
the blue sky beyond--well, it was as near an approach to fairyland as
one could hope to find within twenty miles of a big manufacturing town.
Mrs Garnett packed her basket full of the soft, loamy soil; the girls
roamed up and down making up bouquets of wild roses, honeysuckle, and
fragrant meadowsweet; the boys were blissfully happy, risking life and
limb in an exciting endeavour to travel from top to bottom of the bank
without once touching grass. An occasional tree-trunk was permitted as
a foothold, otherwise you swung yourself from one branch to another, or
took flying leaps into space, and trusted to fate to catch hold of
something before you fell.
Russell's hairbreadth escapes would have terrified his mother had she
been there to see, but the boys were wise in their generation and had
quietly worked their way round to the opposite bank before beginning
their experiments. It took a considerable time to call them back and
rally forces in time to catch the eight o'clock train, and it was a
dishevelled and by no means aristocratic-looking party which climbed
over the high stone stile leading into the high-road.
It seemed hard luck that this last mile, when every one was feeling
tired and a trifle flat, should have to be traversed along a dusty,
uninteresting road, and the straggly line grew even farther and farther
apart as the distance to the station decreased. Dan led the way,
walking in the middle of the road, his head flung back with the old
proud air of detachment. The two mothers plodded steadily in the rear.
Russell, scratched and dusty, and looking more like a street arab than a
youth renowned for gentlemanly demeanour, scuffled in the gutter,
kicking up the gathered dust which enveloped him as in a cloud; Harry
and John bore the big hamper slung on a stick, the ends of which they
frequently released for the purpose of straightening their backs and
rubbing their tired hands. Plain Hannah limped on the sideway, being
afflicted with corns which, as she expressed it, always "came on" at the
end of a day's pleasuring. Vie and Clemence, arm-in-arm, were deep in
sentimental conclave. Darsie, the last of the line, hung back of intent
until a curve in the road hid the others from sight. A shadow of
melancholy had descended upon her spirit during the last hour; that fear
of "the last time" which at times makes cowards of us all, was strong
upon her; the possibility of separation suddenly became a terror which
gripped her breath and left her faint and weak.
Mother--Father--Home! The dear delights of the sea. Could she--could
she _bear_ to give them up? Darsie whimpered miserably, and stopped
short in the middle of the road to pull out her handkerchief, and wipe a
threatening tear. She really did not think she could, and yet every one
seemed to take it for granted that Aunt Maria's choice would fall upon
herself. Was there nothing, nothing that she could do to lessen the
probability? Nothing to make herself look ugly, unattractive, unsuited
for the post of lady's companion?
A stranger walking along the high-road at this moment would have been
amused to see a pretty, disconsolate-looking young girl deliberately
twisting her features into one grimace after another, and critically
examining the effect in the back of a small silver watch. Every new
grimace necessitated a pause for inspection, so that the distance
between Darsie and her companions increased more and more, until on
turning the next corner of the winding road she was surprised to find no
one in sight--surprised and a trifle startled, for the early dusk was
already casting its shadow over the landscape, and the solitude of a
country road has in it something eerie to a lifelong dweller in towns.
Darsie forgot her grimaces and set off at a trot to make up lost ground,
and even as she ran a sound came from afar which quickened the trot into
a run--the scream of an engine! the engine of the approaching train
which was to bear the picnickers back to town.
The next turn of the road showed that the rest of the party had taken
alarm also, for the flying figures of Vie and Clemence could be seen
disappearing in the distance, evidently following hastily after those in
front.
"They'll catch it--they'll rush down the steps just as it's going to
start, bundle in anyhow, into different carriages--never miss me--go
off, never know I'm not there till they get out!" These thoughts rushed
through Darsie's head as she ran gaspingly along the dusty road. It was
imperative that she must catch up to her friends--to be left behind,
without a penny in her pocket to buy a ticket, would be too awful for
words. The shriek of the engine had given place to a repeated snort
which was momentarily growing slower and less pronounced; the train was
slackening speed before drawing up at the platform.
Faster! Faster! One rush to reach the goal! Darsie set her teeth and
put on a last desperate spurt, caught her foot on an outstanding stone
of the roadway, and fell heavily to the ground.