The Chauffeur and the Chaperon Part 2

"Well, then, a--a waiter."

"A _waiter_!"

"We could ask the head one. And, anyway, he would be a _man_."

"My darling child, have we ever depended on a man since your father died?"

"We've never had emergencies, except taking our flat--oh, and buying my type-writer. Besides, I can't bear all I shall have to bear without a cup of tea."

This settled it. We climbed into that frail sh.e.l.l, our chosen cab, and I opened the Dutch phrase-book which I bought in London. I wanted to find out what hotel was nearest to the lair of our boat, but in that wild moment I could discover nothing more appropriate than "I wish immediately some medicine for seasickness," and (hastily turning over the pages) "I have lost my pet cat." I began mechanically to stammer French and the few words of German which for years have lain peacefully buried in the dustiest folds of my intellect.

"Oh, dear, how _shall_ I make him understand what we want?" I groaned, my nerves quivering under the pitying eye of the cabman, and the early-Christian-martyr expression of Phyllis.

"Don't ask _me_," said she, in icy vengefulness; "you _would_ bring me to Holland, and I shouldn't speak Dutch if I could."

"I spik Eengleesh," announced the cabman.

I could have fallen upon his bosom, which, though littered with dust and grease-spots, I was sure concealed a n.o.ble heart. But I contented myself with taking him into my confidence. I said we had a motor-boat, and wanted to go to a hotel as near it as possible. I then showed the precious paper with the "i's" and "j's" dotted about, and he nodded so much that his tall hat, which looked like a bit cut out of a rusty stove-pipe, almost fell off on my nose.

"You get on my carriage, and I drive you to where you want," he replied rea.s.suringly, making of our luggage a resting-place for his honest boots, and climbing into his seat.

Magnetized by his manner, we obeyed, and it was not until we had started, rattling over the stone-paved street, that Phil bethought herself of an important detail.

"Wait a moment. Ask him if it's a nice hotel where he's taking us."

I stood up, seized the railing of the driver's seat to steady myself, and shrieked the question above the noise of the wheels.

"I take you right place," he returned; and I repeated the sentence to Phyllis.

"That's no answer. Ask him if it's respectable; we can't go if it isn't.

Ask him if it's expensive; we can't go if it is."

I yelled the message.

"I take you hotel by-and-by. You see Rotterdam a little first."

"But we don't want to see Rotterdam first. We want breakfast. Rotterdam by-and-by."

A sudden b.u.mp flung me down onto the hard seat. I half rose to do battle again; then, as I gazed up at that implacable Dutch back, I began dimly to understand how Holland, though a dot of a nation, tired out and defeated fiery Spain. I knew that no good would be accomplished by resisting that back. Short of hurling ourselves out on the stones, we would have to see Rotterdam, so we might as well make the best of it.

And this I urged upon Phil, with reproaches for her n.i.g.g.ardliness in not buying Baedeker, who would have put stars to tell us the names of hotels, and given us crisp maps to show where they were situated in connection with other things.

I should think few people who have lived in Rotterdam for years have really seen as much of the town as we saw on this clear blue morning.

At first the information bestowed upon us by the owner of the back seemed an adding of insult to injury. How dared he explain what he was forcing us to see in spite of ourselves? But, by-and-by, even Phyllis fell to laughing, and her dimples are to her temper what rainbows are to thunder-showers--once they are out there can be no more storm.

"I feel as if we'd seen samples of all Holland, and were ready to go to our peaceful home again," said Phil, after we'd driven about from the region of big shops and imposing arcades, to shady streets mirroring brown mansions in gla.s.sy ca.n.a.ls; on to toy villages of miniature painted houses, standing in flowery gardens, far below the level of adjacent ponds adorned with flower-islands; through large parks and intricate plantations; past solemnly flapping windmills; far beyond, to meadows where black and white cows recognized the fact that we were not Dutch and despised us for it; then back to parks and gardens again. "I shouldn't think there could be any sort of characteristic thing left which we haven't met with. I'm sure I could go home now and talk intelligently about Holland."

We couldn't help being interested in everything, though we were seeing it against our wills; yet it was a relief to our feelings when the Back unbent to the extent of stopping before an old-fas.h.i.+oned, low-built hotel, close to a park. So far as we could judge, it was miles from anywhere, and had no connection with anything else; but we were too thankful for the privilege of stopping, to be critical. The house had an air of quiet rect.i.tude which appealed to Phil, and without a word she allowed our luggage to be taken off the cab.

When we came to pay, it appeared that our driver hadn't made us acquainted with every secret of Rotterdam, purely in a spirit of generosity. We were called upon to part with almost all the gulden we had got in exchange for s.h.i.+llings on board the boat, and Phil looked volumes as it dawned on her intelligence that each one of these coins (with the head of an incredibly mild and whiskered old gentleman upon it) was worth one and eightpence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _We were called upon to part with almost all the gulden_]

"At this rate we shall soon be in the poorhouse," she said.

"If it comes to that, we can stop the motor-boat at villages and solicit alms," I suggested.

After all, the Back had had some method in its madness, for on showing the caretaker's address to a giant hall-porter, it appeared that the place was within ten minutes' walk of the hotel. We refused to decide upon rooms until our future plans had shaped themselves; and our luggage reposed in the hall while we had cups of tea and a Dutch conception of toast in a garden, whose charms we shared with a rakish wandering Jew of a tortoise.

Many times since I induced Phyllis to join me in becoming an adventuress, have we vaguely arranged what we would do on arriving at Rotterdam. The program seemed simple enough from a distance--just to go and pick up our boat (so to speak) and motor away with it; but when we actually started off, pioneered by a small boy from the hotel, to take possession of our property, I had a horrid sinking of the heart, which I wouldn't for many heads of whiskered old gentlemen on gulden have confessed to Phil. I felt that "something was going to happen."

The "ten minutes'" walk prolonged itself into twenty, and then there was a ferry over a wide, brown, swift-flowing stream. This brought us to a little basin opening from the river, where one or two small yachts and other craft nestled together.

"Look!" I exclaimed, with a sudden throb of excitement, which bubbled up like a geyser through the cold crust of my depression. "_There_ she is!"

"Who?" cried Phyllis, starting. "Any one we know?"

"Our boat, silly. 'Lorelei.' I suppose you think she ought to be called 'White Elephant'?"

Yes, there she was, with "Lorelei" in gold letters on her bows, this fair siren who had lured us across the North Sea; and instead of being covered up and shabby to look at after her long winter of retirement and neglect, she had the air of being ready to start off at a moment's notice to begin a cruise.

Every detail of her smart white dress looked new. There was no fear of delay for painting and patching. Clean cocoa-nut matting was spread upon the floor of the little decks fore and aft; the bra.s.s rails dazzled our eyes with their brilliance; the windows of the roofed cabin were brighter than the Ko-hi-nur, the day I went to see it in the Tower of London; basket-chairs, with pink and blue and primrose silk cus.h.i.+ons, stood on deck, their arms open in a welcoming gesture. There was a little table, too, which looked born and bred for a tea-table. It really was extraordinary.

"Oh, Nell, it is a _pretty_ boat!" The words were torn from Phil in reluctant admiration. "Of course it's most awfully reckless of us to have come, and I don't see what's going to happen in the end; but--but it _does_ seem as if we might enjoy ourselves. Fancy having tea on our own deck! Why, it's almost a yacht! I wonder what Lady Hutchinson would say if she could see us sitting in those chairs! She'd be polite to me for a whole month."

Lady Hutchinson is Phil's one t.i.tled client. Long ago her husband was a grocer. She writes sentimental poetry, and her idea of dignity is to snub her type-writer. But I couldn't concentrate my mind on the pleasure of astonis.h.i.+ng Lady Hutchinson. I was thinking what a wonderful caretaker Jan Paasma must be.

"Conscientious" hardly expressed him, because it's almost a year since Captain n.o.ble used "Lorelei," and we hadn't written that we were coming to claim her; yet here she was, _en fete_ for our reception. But then, I thought, perhaps our dear old friend had left instructions to keep the boat always ready. It would be rather like him: and, in any case, we should soon know all, as Mr. Paasma's dwelling is a little green house close to the miniature quay. We saw his name over the door, for evidently he doesn't entirely depend upon his guardians.h.i.+p of boats for a livelihood. He owns a shop, with indescribable things in the one cramped but s.h.i.+ning window--things which only those who go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps could possibly wish to have.

For all we could tell he might be on board the boat, which floated a yard or two from sh.o.r.e, moored by ropes; but it seemed more professional to seek Mr. Paasma under his own roof, and we did so, nearly falling over a stout child who was scrubbing the floor of the shop.

"What a queer time of day to be cleaning--eleven o'clock," muttered Phil, having just saved herself from a tumble. I thought so too; but then we'd been in Holland only a few hours. We hadn't yet realized the relative importance of certain affairs of life, according to a Dutchwoman's point of view.

We glared reproachfully at the stout child, as much as to say, "Why _don't_ you finish your swabbing at a proper hour?" She glared at us as if she would have demanded, "What the (Dutch) d.i.c.kens do you mean by bouncing in and upsetting my arrangements?"

Little was accomplished on either side by this skirmis.h.i.+ng; so I put my pride in my pocket and inquired for her master.

"Boot," replied the creature. "Boot," pointing with her mop in the direction whence we had come.

We understood by this that the caretaker was at his post, and we returned to shout the name of Heer Paasma.

Nothing happened at first; but after several spasmodic repet.i.tions a blue silk curtain flickered at one of the cabin windows on "Lorelei,"

and a little, old, brown face, with a fringe of fluff round the chin, appeared in the aperture--a walnut of a face, with a pair of shrewd, twinkling eyes, and a pipe in a slit of a mouth. Another call brought on deck a figure which matched the face; and on deck Mr. Paasma (it looked like a gnome, but it could be no other than the caretaker) evidently intended to remain until he got a satisfactory explanation.

III