The Chauffeur and the Chaperon. C. N. Williamson
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that?"
"It's his aunt's character that matters most, and the MacNairnes are irreproachable."
(I had never heard the name until this morning, but there are some things which you seem to have been born knowing; and I was in a mood to stake my life upon Lady MacNairne.)
"It is better that you see my mother," said Cousin Robert.
"It will be sweet of her to call on us."
"I do not think she can do that. She is too large; and she does not easily move from Scheveningen. But if she writes you a note, to ask you and Miss Rivers, you will go, is it not?"
"With pleasure," I said, "if it isn't too far. You see, Lady MacNairne may arrive soon, and when she does——"
"But now I will see my mother, and I will bring back the letter. I will drive with an automobile which a friend has lent me—Rudolph Brederode; and when you have read the note, you will both go in the car with me to Scheveningen to stay for all night, perhaps more."
"Oh, we couldn't think of staying all night," I exclaimed. "We'll stop here till——"
"It is not right that you stop here. I will go now, and, please, you will pack up to be ready."
"We haven't unpacked yet," I said. "But we couldn't possibly—for one thing, your mother may not find it convenient."
My cousin Robert's jaw set. "She surely will find it convenient."
"What people you Dutch are!" the words broke from me.
He looked surprised. "We are the same like others."
"I think you are the same as you used to be hundreds of years ago, when you first began to do as you pleased; and I suppose you have been doing it ever since."
Cousin Robert smiled. "Maybe we like our own way," he admitted.
"And maybe you get it!"
"I hope. And now I will go to order the automobile." He glanced at his watch, an old-fashioned gold one. "In an hour and a quarter I will be at Scheveningen. Fifteen minutes there will be enough. Another hour and a quarter to come back. I will be for you at four."
"You don't allow any time for the motor to break down," I said.
"I do not hope that she will break down. She is a Dutch car."
"And serves a Dutch master. Oh no; certainly she won't break down."
He stared, not fully comprehending; but he did not pull his mustache, as an Englishman does, when he wonders if he is being chaffed. He shook hands with us gravely, and bowed several times at the door. Then he was gone, and we knew that if he didn't come back at four with that letter from his mother, it would be because she—or the motor—was more Dutch than he.
When he disappeared, Phil and I went out into the garden for the sole purpose, we told each other, of having coffee; and when we saw Mr. Starr sitting with an empty cup and a cigarette, we both exclaimed, "Oh, are you here?" as if we were surprised; so I suppose we were.
He had caught a glimpse of Cousin Robert, and said what a splendid-looking fellow he was—a regular Viking; but when we agreed, he appeared depressed. "Oh, my prophetic soul!" he murmured. "The cousin will want his mother to go with you, and my poor aunt will be nowhere."
"His mother is too large for the boat," I assured him confidently. Mr. Starr brightened at this, but clouded again when he heard that Phil and I were to stop the night with my cousins.
"They will tear you away from me—I mean, from my aunt," he said.
I shook my head. "No. It's difficult to resist the Dutch, I find, when they want you to do anything; but when they want you not to do anything—why, that is too much. Your pride comes to the rescue, and you fight for your life. We'll promise, if you like; for your aunt's sake. Won't we, Phil?"
"Yes; for your aunt's sake," she echoed.
"We can depend upon you, then—my aunt and I?"
"Upon us and 'Lorelei.'"
"You're angels. My aunt will bless you. And now, would you care to look at the barge I've got the refusal of? If you're going to tow her, you ought to know what she's like. I don't think she'll put 'Lorelei' to shame, though, for she's good of her kind; belongs to a Dutch artist who's in the habit of living aboard, but he has a commission for work in France, this summer, and wants to let her. She's lying near by."
Who would have thought, when we arrived a few hours before, strangers in Rotterdam, that we would be sauntering about the town with an American young man, calmly making plans for a cruise in his society? I'm sure that if a palmist had contrived to capture Phil's virtuous little hand, and foretold any such events, my stepsister would have considered them as impossible as monstrous. Nevertheless, she now accepted the arrangements Fate made for her, as quietly as the air she breathed; for was not the figure of our future chaperon already hovering in the background, title and old Scotch blood and all, sanctifying the whole proceeding?
Phil was so enchanted with the barge (which turned out to be a sort of glorified Dutch sea-going house-boat) that she was fired with sudden enthusiasm for our cruise. And the thing really is a delectable craft—stout, with a square-shouldered bow, and a high, perky nose of brass, standing up in the air as one sees the beak of a duck sometimes, half-sunk among its feathers and pointing upward. "Waterspin" (which means "water-spider") is the creature's name, and she is a brilliant emerald, lined and painted round her windows with an equally brilliant scarlet. This bold scheme of color would be no less than shocking on the Thames; but, sitting in that olive-green canal, in a retired part of Rotterdam, "Waterspin" looked like a pleasing Dutch caricature of Noah's Ark.
Inside we found her equally desirable, with four little boxes of sleeping-rooms, yellow painted floors, and bunks curtained with hand-embroidered dimity, stiff as a frozen crust of snow; a studio, with a few charming bits of old painted Dutch furniture to redeem it from bareness, and a kitchen which roused all Phil's domestic instincts.
"Oh, the darling blue and white china, and brass things, and those adorable pewter pots!" she cried. "I love this boat. I could be quite happy living on her all the rest of my life."
"So you shall! I mean, while she is mine you must consider yourselves as much at home on her as on your own boat," stammered Mr. Starr. "Or, if you'd rather take up your quarters on the barge——"
"No, no. Nell and I will live on 'Lorelei'; but I do think, if you'll let me, I'll come sometimes and cook things in that heavenly kitchen."
"Let you? Whatever you make shall be preserved in amber."
"Wouldn't it be better to eat it?" asked Phil.
"Can you cook? I should as soon expect to see a Burne-Jones lady run down the Golden Stair into a kitchen——"
"I can make delicious toast and tea-cakes and salad dressing—can't I, Nell?—and lots of other things."
"Pluperfect. I only wish I could. I shan't trouble your kitchen, Mr. Starr."
"But you can sing so beautifully, dear, and sketch, too; and your stories——"
"Don't dare speak of them!" I glared; and poor Phil, unselfishly anxious to show off my accomplishments to Lady MacNairne's nephew, was silent and abashed. I hoped that Mr. Starr hadn't heard.
He was delighted with our approval of the barge, and enlarged upon the good times before us. No one could know Holland properly without seeing her from the waterways, he said, and we would know her by-and-by as few foreigners did. She could not hide a secret from us that was worth finding out. He hadn't planned any regular tour for himself; he had meant to wander here and there, as the fancy seized him; but now the route was for us to decide. Whatever