The Chauffeur and the Chaperon Part 32

Exactly why he should have chosen Amsterdam to begin his quest, is not so clear; but he must have had reason to hope that he might get news of Lady MacNairne and my (supposed) motor-boat here. Doubtless he will sooner or later come upon a clue. If he turns up at the Amstel to prosecute his inquiries, he may hear of Tibe, and of the two beautiful young ladies. Then he will put two and two together, and will be after us--as Starr's favorite expression is--"before we can say knife."

At present I have all the sensations of being a villain, with none of the advantages.

XIX

It seemed homelike to be on board "Lorelei" again, in my place at the wheel, with the two girls and the Chaperon in their deck-chairs close by. Starr had been meaning to make a sketch of the group under the awning, but the dread apparition of his aunt's husband had twisted his nerves like wires struck by lightning, and he could do nothing. His is essentially the artistic temperament, and he is a creature of moods, impish in some, poetic in others; an extraordinary fellow, like no one I ever saw, yet curiously fascinating, and I find myself growing oddly fond of him, in an elder-brotherly, protecting sort of way.

Even I have my moods sometimes, though I can hide them better than he can; and this morning I was in the wrong key for the idyllic peace and prim prettiness of Broek-in-Waterland. I should have liked better to be out on a meer in Friesland, in a stiff breeze; but since it had to be Broek, I made the best of it.

The ca.n.a.l leading to that sleepy little village, which seems to float on the water like a half-closed lily, is one of the prettiest in the Netherlands. Almost at once, after parting from Amsterdam, we turned out of the North Sea Ca.n.a.l; and the smoke and bustle of the port were left behind like a troubled dream. We lifted a veil of sunbright mist, and found ourselves in the country--a friendly country of wide s.p.a.ces such as we pa.s.sed through in motoring between Amersfoort and Spaakenberg; of mossy farmhouses and hayfields, grazing cows, and swallows skimming low over little side-ca.n.a.ls carpeted with vegetation like a netting of green beads. But here the hay was not protected by the elevated roofs of thatch we had seen yesterday. It lay in loose heaps of yellowing gra.s.s, s.h.i.+ning in the sun like giant birds' nests of woven gold; and all the low-lying landscape s.h.i.+mmered pale golden and filmy green, too sweet and fresh for the green of any other country save mine, in mid-July. Here and there a peasant in some striking costume, or a horse in a blue coat, made a spot of color in the pearl and primrose light, under clouds changeful as opal; and each separate, dainty picture of farmhouse, or lock, or group of flags and reeds had its double in the water, lying bright and clear as a painting under gla.s.s, until our vandal boat came to s.h.i.+ver picture after picture.

As we moved, our progress not only sent an advance wave racing along the d.y.k.e, but tossed up a procession of tiny rainbow fountains, as if we threw handfuls of sapphires and diamonds into the water in pa.s.sing.

Sometimes we had glimpses of mysterious villages, a line of pink-and-green houses stretching along the ca.n.a.l banks below the level of the water, s.h.i.+elded by rows of trees trained, in the Dutch way, to grow flat and wide, screening the windows as an open fan screens the sparkling eyes of a woman who peeps behind its sticks.

These half-hidden dwelling-places inspired Starr to launch out in a disquisition upon some of the characteristics he has observed among my people.

"Funny thing," said Starr, "the Dutch are a queer mixture of reserve and curiosity. You don't see a town or village where the windows aren't covered with curtains, and protected by squares of blue netting. But though the beings behind those windows are so anxious to live in private, they're consumed with curiosity about what's going on outside.

For fear of missing something, they stick up looking-gla.s.ses on the walls to tell them what happens in the street. 'Seeing, unseen,' is the motto that ought to be written over the house doors."

"The Lady of Shalott started the fas.h.i.+on," said Nell.

As we drew nearer to Broek-in-Waterland, the landscape, already fragrant with daintiness, began to tidy itself anew, out of deference to Broek's reputation. The smallest and rudest wooden houses on the ca.n.a.l banks had frilled their windows with stiff white curtains and tied them with ribbon. Railings had painted themselves blue or green, and smartened their tips with white. Even the rakes, hoes, and implements of labor had got themselves up in red and yellow, and green buckets had wide-open scarlet mouths.

As we walked to the village, after mooring "Lorelei" at the bridge, the girls laughed and chatted together, but involuntarily they hushed their voices on entering the green shadow of the little town under its slow-marching procession of great trees; and the spell of somnolent silence seized them.

I think no one coming into Broek-in-Waterland could escape that spell.

There is no noise there. Even the trees whisper, and not the most badly brought up dog would dare to bark aloud.

"Have you noticed," Nell asked me softly, "that you never hear _sounds_ in dreams? No matter how exciting things are, there's never any noise; everything seems to be acted in pantomime. Well, it's like that here.

We're dreaming Broek-in-Waterland as we have other places."

"And dreaming each other, too?"

"I shouldn't wonder."

"Then I hope nothing will happen to wake me up."

Just then we arrived at a dream curiosity-shop which gave her an excuse not to answer.

On the edge of the town it stands, one of the first among the little old houses, which look as if they had been made to accommodate well-to-do dolls of a century or two ago. Modestly retired in a doll's garden, with an imitation stalact.i.te grotto, and groups of miniature statues among box-tree animals, its door is always open to welcome visitors and allure them. Within, vague splashes of color against a dim background; blues that mean old Delft; yellow that means ancient bra.s.s; and all gleaming in the dusk with the strange values that flowers gain in twilight.

I knew that Nell and Phyllis and the Chaperon would not pa.s.s by, and they didn't.

There was a man inside, but he did not ask us to buy anything. He had the air of a host, pleased to show his treasures, and the Chaperon feared that I was playing some joke when I encouraged them to invade the quaint and pretty rooms.

"I don't believe it _is_ a shop," said she. "It's just an eccentric little house, that belongs to somebody who's away--a dear old maiden lady, perhaps, a collector of antiques, for her own pleasure. This man's her caretaker."

"She's strayed into some other dream, maybe," suggested Nell. "She's lost her way, poor old dear, and can never find it again, to come back, so that's why the things are for sale--if they really _are_. But listen, all the clocks in the house are talking to each other about her. _They_ expect her to come, and that's why they keep on ticking, through the years, to make the time seem short in pa.s.sing; for some of them must have had their hundredth birthday, long, long ago."

"He's a faithful caretaker then, to keep everything in such good order,"

said Phyllis. "But perhaps he believes what the clocks are saying about the old lady coming back. He's got the sweetest little clean curtains at the windows, and this too adorable wall-bed is ready for her to hop into, and dream the right dream again."

"He'd be mobbed by other Broekites, if he didn't keep things clean," I answered. "You know, Broek-in-Waterland is supposed to be the cleanest place in the Netherlands, which is something of a boast, isn't it? The saying used to be that, if a leaf dropped off a tree, or a wisp of hay off a pa.s.sing cart, and one of the inhabitants saw it, he ran out of his house and threw the dreadful thing into the ca.n.a.l."

"Let's scatter a few bits of paper," said Starr, "and see what would happen."

"I'm afraid they're not as observant or energetic as they used to be. I counted three straws on the bricks, coming up."

"What wouldn't I give to have lunch in this house, on that charming old mahogany table, with those Delft plates and pewter mugs," sighed Miss Rivers, her eyes traveling over the old furniture which, as she said, seems to be ready and waiting till the wrong dream shall break.

"I'm going to take you to lunch somewhere else," I told her. "But you can buy Delft plates and pewter mugs here for your own table, if you like."

Then some exchange and barter did take place; although Nell said it seemed cruel to buy anything and separate it from its old friends. One ought to apologize to the things that were left for tearing their companions away.

There was time to step into the nearest cheese factory, and to go on and see the old church, I said, if they didn't mind lunching late. Of course they did not; so we strolled into the show place of Broek, a large house where cows live in neat bedrooms carpeted with something which resembles grated cheese. The Chaperon suggested that, after all, it was nothing but sawdust, and probably she was right; nevertheless each little cubicle in the long row, with its curtained window and blue-white wall, looked pretty enough for a fastidious human being. We should have lingered looking at the cheeses and sniffing dairy smells, but suddenly a tidal wave of tourists from an excursion steamer swept in, swamped us, and swallowed Tibe. He was retrieved after a search, in the doorway of the curiosity-shop, whither he had wisely returned to await his friends, and we then went on past the meer with its deserted bandstand, to one of the few lovable churches left in my country.

It is whitewashed and bare, but somehow, instead of making it grim, the whiteness has given it a religious look. The old canopied rosewood pulpit makes you feel good, though not disagreeably good, and the bra.s.s-work is a joy.

"You've seen a comic opera cheese factory," said I, when we had left the church. "Now, I'll show you the real thing, and then you shall have lunch. It won't be conventional, but I think you'll like it."

"For heaven's sake let's drown our sorrows in cheese, or something else supporting, and soon, or we perish," said the Mariner. "Our blood will then be upon your head, and as it's blue, and you're brown, it won't be at all becoming."

At this, I hurried them on, and presently arrived at a red-brick house set in a little garden. The gla.s.s of the white-curtained windows, and the varnished woodwork of the door at which I knocked, glittered so intolerably that they hurt the eyes, and made one envy the Chaperon her blue gla.s.ses. It was a relief when the dazzling door flew back to disclose a dim interior, and a delightful old lady in a lace-covered gold helmet, a black dress, and an elaborate ap.r.o.n.

"Something to eat?" she echoed my demand. "But, mynheer, we have nothing which these ladies would fancy. For you two we could do well enough, for you are men, and young. What does it matter what you eat, if it is enough? These ladies will laugh at our fare."

"They'll laugh with pleasure," said I. "You can give us eggs, cheese, bread and b.u.t.ter, and coffee, can't you, and strawberries and cream, perhaps?"

"Yes, mynheer, and some fresh cake."

"Food for kings and queens, as you'll serve it, y'vrouw," I a.s.sured her; and we flocked into the hall.

"Would you like to show your friends how we make our cheese, while I get ready the food?" asked the dame. "If you would, I will send for my son to guide you, though you know it so well yourself, mynheer, you need no explanations."

Her son being one of the princ.i.p.al objects of interest at Wilhelminaberg, however, the visit would not be complete without his society, and his presence was commanded. Promptly he appeared, bringing with him a smell of clover, and milk, and new-made cheese; a young man with the long, clever nose, narrow blue eyes, and length of upper lip, which you can see on any canvas of an old Dutch master.

Wilhelminaberg is not a show place; few tourists find their way there, and it is never flooded by a wave of strangers; but if some of the stage effects are lacking, it is more interesting for that reason.

Starr was captivated with the cows' part of the house, divided from their human companions only by a door. He whipped out the sketch-block and small box of colors which he always carries, and began jotting down impressions. A dash of red for the painted brick walls, and of green for the mangers; a yellow blur for the mote-filled rays of suns.h.i.+ne streaming through the cows' white-curtained windows, and on the flower-pots adorning their window-sills; a trifle more elaboration for the carpet of sawdust stamped with an ornamental pattern, and the quaint design of the cupboard-beds for the stablemen in the wall opposite; a streak here and there for the cords which loop the cows' tails to nails in the ceiling; gorgeous spots of crimson and yellow for the piled cheeses. And in the adjoining room, the while our guide described in creditable English the process of cheese-making, Starr sketched him standing before his big blue press, printing out his molds with an odd, yellow reflection from the cheese cannonb.a.l.l.s heaped on trays, s.h.i.+ning up into the shrewd Dutch face. Then in came the young wife, with a child or two (pretty dark creatures like their mother, with the innocent brown eyes of calves), followed by grandmama in her gold helmet, to say that our meal was ready; and Starr induced them to stand for him, though they were reluctant and self-conscious, and it was by sheer fascination that he prevailed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Starr induced them to stand for him, though they were reluctant and self-conscious_]

Never had any of the party except myself seen a room like that to which we were summoned for luncheon, and Starr could not eat until he had said in a "few words of paint" what he thought of its paneled walls, its shelves littered with quaint and foolish china, ostrich eggs, sh.e.l.ls, model s.h.i.+ps, and hundred-year-old toys; its ancient bra.s.s-handled chests of drawers, its extraordinary fireplace, and best of all, its white-curtained cupboard-beds; one for grandmama, with a kind of trapeze arrangement to help her rise; one for papa and mama, with an inner shelf like a nest for baby; and one with a fence for a parcel of children. The artist's cream-eggs grew cold while he worked, but it was worth the sacrifice, for the result was excellent, and Nell's admiration gave me, I'm ashamed to say, a qualm of jealousy. I have no such accomplishments with which to win her.