Part 22

"We--ell, my first idea was that an aunt was the only relative I should have with me on this trip. Still, I'd have been delighted to be a brother to one of you, if I could only have kept the other up my sleeve, as you might say, to be useful in a different capacity."

"You love to puzzle me," I said.

"There are lots of things I love about you--as a brother," he answered with a funny sigh. And I wasn't sure whether he was poking fun at me or not. "But, as for Miss Van Buren, why couldn't she look upon van Buren as a brother?"

"He's her cousin, and she doesn't love him much," I explained.

"Alb, then."

"She doesn't love him at all."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Oh, certain," I assured him quite earnestly.

"She's sick with anxiety about him anyhow. I had to comfort her."

"That's because she feels guilty for being so disagreeable," I said; "and she would of course suffer dreadful remorse, poor girl, if he were drowned looking after her boat, as I pray he won't be."

I began to understand now. Poor Mr. Starr was jealous of his friend, the Jonkheer.

"Well, I wish she'd love me a little, then, as there's nobody else."

"Do you know, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she _does_," I almost whispered. "Perhaps that's what's making her so queer."

"I wish I could think so," sighed Mr. Starr. But he didn't look as radiant as one might have expected. He seemed more startled than delighted. "Anyhow," he went on, "you're a dove-hearted angel, and it's all fixed up that I'm to be a brother to you, whatever other relationships I may be engaged in. I must try and get to work, and earn my salt by making you happy."

"I don't feel to-night as if I could ever be happy again," I told him. "The world seems such a sad place to be in."

"I'll see what I can do, anyhow," said he. "Would it make you happier if van Buren were happier?"

"Oh yes," I exclaimed. "He's been so kind to Nell and me. But I'm afraid nothing can be done. An unfortunate marriage for a young man of--of an affectionate nature is such a tragedy, isn't it?"

"Awful. But it may never come off."

"I don't see what's to prevent it," I said. And the memory of that last look on Mr. van Buren's face came up so vividly that tears stood in my eyes.

"I've thought of something that might," said he; and I was burning to know what when the door opened, and Nell came in without her coat and hat.

She eyed Mr. Starr reproachfully. "Oh, you promised to ask Robert to go back with you to the pier," she said. "Has he gone by himself?"

"I don't--" Mr. Starr had begun guiltily, still sitting beside me on the sofa, when her cousin appeared on the threshold. He was very pale, and looked so grave that I thought some bad news must have come. Nell thought so, too, for she took a step toward him as he paused in the open doorway----

"You've--heard nothing?" she stammered.

"Poor Rudolph," he began; but at the sound of such a beginning she put out her hands as if to ward off a ghost, and her face was so death-like I was frightened lest she was going to faint. Then, suddenly, it changed, and lit up. I never saw her so beautiful as she was at that moment. She gave a cry of joy, and the next instant our handsome brown skipper had pushed pass Mr. van Buren at the door, and had both her hands in his.

He was dripping with water. Even his hair was so wet that I saw for the first time it was curly.

"Oh, I'm so glad, so glad!" faltered Nell. "Robert said 'poor Rudolph!' and I thought----"

"I was only going to say poor Rudolph had had a bad night of it," broke in Mr. van Buren; but I don't think either of them heard.

"Were you anxious about me? Did you care?" asked Jonkheer Brederode.

That seemed to call Nell back to herself. "I was anxious about 'Lorelei,'" she said. "You've brought her back all right?"

"Yes, and 'Waterspin,'" he answered, with the joy gone out of his voice. "We had rough weather to fight against, but we've come to no harm." He turned to me wistfully. "Had you a thought to spare for the skipper once or twice to-day, Miss Rivers?"

I was so grieved for him that, before I knew what I was saying, I exclaimed----

"Why, I've thought of nothing else!"

I put out my hand to him, and he shook it as if he never meant to let it go.

"How good you are," he said warmly.

And I didn't dare look at Mr. van Buren, for the idea came to me that maybe he would not now believe what I had told him a little while ago.

* * * * * *

This morning I scolded Nell before our chaperon for her coldness to Jonkheer Brederode, when he had done so much for her.

"How could you," I asked, "when the poor fellow seemed so pleased to think you cared? It was cruel."

"I didn't _want_ him to think I cared," Nell answered.

"Dear girl, you were quite right," said Lady MacNairne. Then she laughed. "He hoped to make our Phil jealous, I suppose, for his _real_ thought seems to have been for _her_, doesn't it?"

Neither of us answered. I quite fancied last night that she had been wrong about those surmises of hers; but now, when she put it in this way, I wasn't so sure, after all.

XXIV

Nell has been very strange for the last few days, but singularly lovable to everybody except Jonkheer Brederode; and to him she has never been the same for ten consecutive minutes. Perhaps it is a mercy if Lady MacNairne is right, and he was never in love with her, though it would be sad if he thought of me in that way. I should be sorry to have any one as unhappy as I now am. It's a good thing for me that we were traveling, for if we were at home I should hardly be able to go through it without letting Nell or others suspect the change. As it is, there is always something new to keep my thoughts away from myself and other people, of whom it may be still more unwise to think.

Nell avoided Jonkheer Brederode as much as she could the morning after the storm. She said that, as he took no interest in her, it could not matter what she did so far as he was concerned. She was quite meek and subdued when she answered any question of his, until they differed about something. It was about Urk, a little island she had discovered on the map, exactly in the middle of the Zuider Zee.

When she heard that "Lorelei-Mascotte's" motor had been injured slightly, and we could not go on, she suggested that while we were waiting we might take steamer to the island, stop all night, and come back to Enkhuisen next day. By that time Hendrik, our chauffeur, would have repaired the damage.

"Urk isn't worth seeing," said our skipper.

Nell asked if he had ever been there.

"No," he replied; but he had heard that it was a dull little hole, and it would be far better to stop at Enkhuisen till next morning, when we could get away, if the weather changed, to Stavoren.

"There's nothing to do in Enkhuisen," said Nell.

"No," said he; "but there'll be less in Urk. I strongly advise you not to go."

"That decides it," said Mr. van Buren, who was stopping on for a day or two.

At once Nell fired up. "Not at all," said she. "No one who doesn't want to, need go; but those who do, will. All favorably inclined hold up their hands."

Up went Mr. Starr's, and Lady MacNairne slowly followed his example. Whether it is that she wishes to be with her nephew because she's fond of him, or whether she thinks highly of her duties as our chaperon; anyway, she generally comes with us if he does. I hated displeasing Mr. van Buren; but when Nell said, "Phil, you'll stick by me, won't you?" I couldn't desert her, especially as I feel that, for some reason or other, she's as restless and unhappy as I am. It may be the poor dear's conscience that troubles her; but I sympathize with her just the same, for _mine_ is far from clear. I have such hard, uncharitable thoughts toward one of my own sex--one perhaps not as much older than I am, as she _looks_.

I think Mr. van Buren was torn between his desire to stand by his friend (who said he must stay to superintend the repairs) and his natural wish to see his cousin through any undertaking, no matter how imprudent. He went on trying to dissuade Nell from going to Urk, but the more he talked the more determined she grew. She was surprised at our indifference to a wonderful pinhead of earth, which had contrived to stick up out of the water and become an island after the great inundation that formed the Zuider Zee. Judging from guide-books, the population was quite unspoiled, as Urk was too remote to be a show place, although the costumes were said to be beautiful. Such a spot was romance itself, and it would be almost a crime not to visit it. The steamer would leave Enkhuisen after luncheon, returning next day, so we must stop on the island for about eighteen hours; but as the guides mentioned an inn, it would be as simple as interesting to spend a night at the idyllic little place.

Jonkheer Brederode made no more objections after the first, and finally it was settled that all of us should go, except our skipper and Mr. van Buren.

We packed small bags, and took cameras. And we had to scramble through luncheon to catch the steamer, which was rather a horrid one, apparently being intended more for the convenience of enormous bales, sacks, and fruit-baskets than that of its passengers, who were stuffed in anyhow among the cargo. Lady MacNairne was furious, because it was too cold for Tibe on deck, and he wasn't allowed below in the tiny, poky cabin. She argued with the captain, or somebody in authority and velvet slippers; but he being particularly Dutch, and very old, even her fascination had no power. (It is strange, but when Lady MacNairne gets excited she talks more like an American than a Scotswoman; however, I believe she has been to the States.) At last we all three formed a kind of hollow square round Tibe with our skirts over his back, and when he wasn't asleep he amused himself by pretending that our shoes were bones.

Even Mr. Starr could not keep us gay and laughing for the whole two hours of the trip, for we were squeezed in between bags of potatoes (he sat on one), and our feet kept going to sleep. But Nell said, think of Urk, and how seeing Urk would make up for everything.

Eventually we did see it, and it really did look pretty from a distance, with its little close-clustered red roofs like a buttonhole bouquet floating on the sea. As the steamer brought us nearer the island something of the glamor faded; but there were about a dozen girls assembled to watch the arrival of the boat, wearing rather nice, winged white caps and low-necked black dresses.

Quickly we made our cameras ready, expecting them to smile shyly and seem pleased, as at Volendam; but with one accord they sneered and turned their backs, as if on a word of command. We "snapped" nothing but a row of sunburnt necks under the caps. The girls laughed scornfully, and when we landed they repaid our first interest in them by staring at us with impudent contempt. There was no one to carry our bags, so we had to do it ourselves, Mr. Starr taking all he could manage; and as we trailed off to find the hotel, about forty or fifty ugly and disagreeable-looking people followed after us, jeering and evidently making the most personal remarks.

Nobody could, or would, tell us where to find the inn; but it was close by really, as we presently found out for ourselves, after we had gone the wrong way once or twice. Perhaps it wasn't strange, though, that we missed it, for it was a shabby little house with no resemblance to a hotel; and when we went in, the landlord, who was cleaning lamps and curtain-rods in a scene of great disorder in the principal room, showed signs of bewildered surprise at sight of us. But he was a great deal more surprised when he heard that we wished to stay the night. He had not many rooms, he said, and people seldom asked for them; indeed, no tourist had ever done so before within his experience. Still, he would do his best for us, and--yes, we could see the rooms.

He dropped his cleaning-rags and curtain-rods on the floor, and, opening a door, started to go up a ladder which led to a square hole in the floor above. We followed, all but Lady MacNairne, who would not go because Tibe could not, and at the top of the hole were two little boxes of rooms with beds in the wall--stuffy, unmade beds, which perhaps the landlord and some members of the family had slept in.

"This is going to be an adventure," said Nell; but her voice did not sound very cheerful, and I felt I could have cried when I heard that she and I would have to bunk together in the wall, in a two-foot wide bed smelling like wet moss.

We were dying for tea, or even coffee, but it seemed useless to ask for it, as apparently there were no servants, and the landlord went back to his cleaning the instant we had scrambled down the ladder.

"Perhaps," said I, "we can find a _cafe_, if we go out and explore."

So we went, followed by beggars for the first time in Holland, and it was a hideous island, with no sign of a _cafe_ or anything else nice, or even clean. All was as unlike as possible to the ideas we had formed of the dear little Hollow Land. There were dead cats, and bad eggs, and old bones lying about the oozy gutters, and people shouted disagreeable things at us from their doorways.

Mr. Starr tried to be merry, but it was as difficult, even for him, as making jokes in the tumbril on the way to have your head cut off, and Lady MacNairne said at last that she would much rather have hers cut off than stay seventeen more hours in such a ghastly hole.

"I simply can't and won't, and you shan't, either!" she exclaimed. "We've been here an hour, and it seems a month. Somehow we must get away."

Poor Nell was sadly crushed. She admitted that she had made a horrible mistake, which she regretted more for our sakes than her own, though she herself was so bored that she felt a decrepit wreck, a hundred years old.

"But the steamer doesn't come back till eight or nine to-morrow morning. I'm afraid we'll have to grin and bear it till then," said Mr. Starr.

"I can't grin, and I won't bear it," replied Lady MacNairne. "Dearest Ronny, you are a man, and we look to you to get us away from here."

Poor Mr. Starr stared wildly out to sea, as if he would call a bark of some sort from the vasty deep; but there was nothing to be seen except an endless expanse of gray water. Nell had torn her dress on a barbed-wire fence which shut us away from the only spot of green on the hideous island; Tibe had unfortunately eaten part of what Mr. Starr said was an Early Christian egg; I had wrenched my ankle badly on a bit of banana peel; Lady MacNairne's smart coat was spoilt by some mud which a small Urkian boy had thrown at her, and Mr. Starr must have felt that, if he didn't instantly perform a miracle, he would be blamed by us all for everything.

"We might get a sailing-boat," he said, when he had thought passionately for a few minutes.

We snapped at the idea, and a moment later we were on our way to the harbor to find out.

Now was the time that I became a person of importance. Owing to my studies, in which Mr. van Buren has encouraged me so kindly, I know enough Dutch to ask for most things I want, and to understand whether people mean to let me have them or not, which seems odd, considering that I deliberately made up my mind not to learn a word when Nell almost dragged me to Holland. Under Mr. Starr's guidance, and at his dictation, I interviewed every sailor we met lounging about the harbor.

It was very discouraging at first. The men were all sure that no sailing-boat could get to Enkhuisen, as the wind was exactly in the wrong quarter; but just as our hearts were on their way down to the boots Tibe had gnawed so much, a brown young man, with crisp black curls and ear-rings, said we could go to Kampen if we liked. It would take four or five hours, and we should have to sleep there, taking the steamer when it started back in the morning. Kampen was beautiful, he told us, with old buildings and water-gates; but even if it hadn't been, we were convinced that it must be better than Urk; so we joyously engaged a large fishing-boat owned by the brown man and his still browner father.

We made poor Mr. Starr go back alone to the inn and break it to the landlord that we were not going to stay, after all; but he paid for the rooms, so the old man was delighted that he could go on with his cleaning in peace.

Now we began to be quite happy and excited. Mr. Starr brought us bread and cheese from the inn to eat on board, and presently we were all packed away in the fishing-boat, which smelt interestingly of ropes and tar.

Nell and I sat on the floor, where we could feel as well as hear the knocking of the little waves against the planks which alone separated us from the water.

There was not much breeze to begin with, for the winds seemed to be resting after their orgy of yesterday, and just as the old bronze statue and the young bronze statue were ready to start, the little there was died as if of exhaustion.

There we sat and waited, our muscles involuntarily straining, as if to help the boat along; but the sail flapped idly: we might as well have tried to sail on the waxed floor of a ballroom with the windows shut.

"Can't they do _something_?" asked Lady MacNairne, in growing despair.

I passed the question on; but the men shook their heads. Without some faint breeze to help them along they could not move.

When half an hour had dragged itself away, and still the air was dead, or fast asleep (Mr. Starr said that Urk had stifled it), we began to realize the fate to which we were doomed. We would either have to spend the night curled up among coils of rope, with no shelter except a windowless, furnitureless cupboard of four feet by three, which maybe called itself a cabin, or we would have to crawl humbly back to the inn and sue for a night's lodging.

We were hungry and cross, a little tired, and very, very hot. It would have been a great relief to burst into tears, or be disagreeable to some one. I don't know why, but I had the most homesick longing to see Mr. van Buren. It seemed as if, had he come with us, everything would have been right, or at least bearable.

Suddenly, as we were dismally trying to make up our minds what to do, and Mr. Starr had proposed to toss a coin, Lady MacNairne pointed wildly out to sea, crying----

"Look there--look there!"

A dot of a thing was tearing over the water--a dot of a thing, like our own darling, blessed motor-boat, and the nearer it came the more like it was. At last there was no room for doubt. "Lorelei-Mascotte" was speeding to our rescue, across the Zuider Zee, all alone, without fat, waddling "Waterspin."

I don't believe, if I'd heard that some one had made me a present of the Tower of London, with everything in it, I should have been as distracted with joy as I was now, for the Tower couldn't have got us away from Urk, and "Lorelei-Mascotte" could. Besides, Mr. van Buren would probably not have been in the Tower, whereas intuition told me that he was coming to me--that is to us--as fast as "Mascotte's" motor could bring him.

We stood up, and waved, and shouted. I hardly know what other absurd things we may not have done, in our delirium of joy. As I said to Mr. van Buren a few minutes later, it was exactly like being rescued from a desert island when your food had just given out, and you thought savages were going to kill you in the night.

Jonkheer Brederode was almost superhumanly nice, considering what he had endured at Nell's hands, and that it was really through her obstinacy that we'd suffered so much, and made ourselves and everybody else concerned so much trouble. Mr. van Buren said, for his part, he would have tried to persuade his friend to punish Nell by leaving her to her fate, if he hadn't been sorry to have it involve me--and, of course, the others.

When Jonkheer Brederode found that by ferociously hard work on his part and Hendrik's, the damage could be repaired sooner than he had expected, he at once proposed following us to Urk. He knew what it was like, and how, within a few minutes after landing, we would hate it. He was certain that we would be in despair at being tied to the wretched island for the night, and he had proposed to go teuf-teufing to our succor. The lack of wind which had meant ruin to our hopes, was a boon to the motor-boat, which had flown along the smooth water at her best speed. And when "Mascotte" was received by us with acclamations, our noble skipper did not even smile a superior smile.

He only said that, when he found he could, he thought he might as well follow, and spin us back, if we liked to go, and he hoped Miss Van Buren would pardon the liberty he had taken with her boat.

If she had been horrid to him then, I do believe I should have slapped her; but she had the grace to laugh and say that "Mascotte" really was a mascot. There is something, I suppose, in having a sense of humor, in which I'm alleged to be deficient.

XXV