Chapter 18

I have always been brought up to think it rather rude to send postcards, unless they are picture ones for people to put in their albums; and of course it would be silly flooding Mr. van Buren with pictures of places he has seen dozens of times, so when I have written to him, I felt obliged to write regular letters.

I meant to scribble a line or two; but Holland is so fascinating that I have found myself running on about it, and Mr. van Buren has seemed grateful because it's his native land, and the places he likes best have turned out to be my favorites. In that way we have happened to write each other quite long letters, almost every day, for he has wanted to tell me I must be sure to see so and so, or do so and so, and I have had to answer that I have seen it or done it, and liked it as much as he thought I would.

If our trip could be improved it would be by having Mr. van Buren with us; but naturally that's impossible, as he's a man of affairs, and Freule Menela van der Windt would hardly sympathize with his kind wish to take care of his cousin, if he carried it so far as to leave her for any length of time, simply on account of Nell. As it is, his letters, and exchanging ideas with him, have been a pleasure to me, and I should have liked to share it with Nell--as we always have shared everything--if I hadn't been afraid she would laugh. Her cousin is too fine a fellow to be laughed at, so I have protected him by keeping our correspondence to myself.

I didn't want to come to Holland, as it seemed such a terrifying adventure for Nell and me to rush away from England and go darting about in a motor-boat; and so horribly extravagant to spend all the money poor Captain Noble left, in enjoying ourselves for a few weeks. However, it _was_ to be, and there is something about Holland which appeals to me more than I dreamed any country except England could. I loved it almost from the minute we landed; but when you like any person in a foreign place it makes you like the place itself better.

I do think Holland is the most complete little country imaginable. While you are in it, it feels like the whole world, because you appear to be in the very middle of the world; and, when you look over the wide, flat spaces, you think that your eyes reach to the end of everything.

And then, all you see is so characteristic of Holland, even the sunrises and sunsets. Nothing that you find in Holland could be in its right place anywhere else on earth; but perhaps one can hardly say that Holland _is_ on earth. Now I've got to know the "Hollow Land" (as Jonkheer Brederode often calls it), I think if I were kidnapped from England, taken up in a balloon, and dropped down here, even in a town I'd never seen, and without _any_ canals, I should say, the minute I opened my eyes and found my breath, "Why, I'm in dear little Holland."

I should like to be here in winter. Mr. van Buren says if we'll come he'll teach me to skate; and, according to Jonkheer Brederode, he is a "champion long-distance skater." But then Mr. van Buren told me the same thing about Jonkheer Brederode. They are great friends. And talking about the Jonkheer, I don't know what to make of him lately.

I believed at first that he was in love with Nell, and had got himself asked on board "Lorelei" so that he might have the chance of knowing her better. She had the same impression, I think, though she never said so to me, and she was very angry about something Freule Menela told us. It seems there was a bet, I don't know exactly about what, except that Nell was concerned in it, and Mr. van Buren mentioned it to his fiancee. She oughtn't to have repeated it to us, but she did, and gave the impression that Jonkheer Brederode was a tremendous flirt, who fancied himself irresistible with women. She warned us both that if he won his bet, and contrived to meet us again, we weren't to be carried away by any signs of admiration on his part, for it was just his way, and he would be too pleased if we showed ourselves flattered.

This made Nell _furious_, and she said that in her opinion Jonkheer Brederode ought to be flattered if we were in the least nice to him, but she for one didn't intend to be.

I was a little prejudiced against him, too, although I admired him very much when I saw him in the Prinzenhof at Delft, and afterwards at the _Concours Hippique_. I thought Nell might, in any case, be grateful to him for saving her when the bathing-machine horse ran away with her into the sea.

I didn't tell Mr. van Buren what Freule Menela said, for it would have been mean, as he might have felt vexed with her. But for his sake, as Jonkheer Brederode is such a hero in his eyes, I determined if ever we saw the Jonkheer again I wouldn't judge him too severely, and would give him the benefit of the doubt as long as I could.

It was a surprise, though, to find that he was the "friend" Mr. Starr had got as skipper, when the real skipper--the professional one--failed at the last moment.

Naturally, I remembered instantly about the bet, which somehow concerned his being introduced to Nell within a certain length of time--so Freule Menela said--and I couldn't help thinking it was impertinent, winning it in such a way on Nell's own boat.

However, Nell was so horrid to him from the first minute, I grew sorry for the poor fellow, and he took her snubs like a combination of saint and gentleman. The more I saw of him the more I began to feel that Freule Menela van der Windt must have done him an injustice, at least in some of the things she told us.

I try to keep watch over my temper always, and I hope it isn't too bad; yet I'm certain that in Jonkheer Brederode's place I couldn't have endured Nell's behavior, but would have stopped being skipper the second day out, even if I left a whole party of inoffensive people stranded. Instead of leaving us in the lurch after undertaking to act as skipper, however, he has worked for us like a Trojan. Not only has he been skipper, but guide, philosopher and friend--to say nothing of chauffeur on shore, and "general provider" of motor-cars, carriages, surprise-dinners, flowers, and fruit on board the boat.

The trip would have been comparatively tame, if it hadn't been for him, as none of the rest of us know anything about Holland, and he knows everything. No trouble has seemed too much for him, if it could add in any way to our happiness; and I thought it was all for Nell.

He looked at her so wistfully sometimes, and such a dark red came up to his forehead when she said anything particularly sarcastic or snubbing, that even if he deserved it I couldn't bear to see him treated so, while he was doing everything for our pleasure. So I tried to be nice to him, just as I have to Mr. van Buren; and, oddly enough, both times with the same motive--to make up for Nell's naughtiness.

I could see that the Jonkheer was grateful, and liked me a little; but the night Mr. van Buren met us at Volendam so unexpectedly Lady MacNairne gave Nell and me both quite a shock. She said she had it on very _good authority_ that it was entirely a mistake about Jonkheer Brederode being in love with Nell. Perhaps he had wished to blind people by making them think so, but it was really for _my_ sake he had suggested to his friend, Mr. Starr, that he should be skipper of "Lorelei."

"I won't go so far as to say," Lady MacNairne went on, "that he's actually in love with Phyllis" (she calls us "Phyllis" and "Nell" now), "but he was so much taken that he wished to make her acquaintance. At present it entirely rests with Phyllis whether he goes on to fall in love or stops at admiration."

She said this before Nell; and although Nell has behaved so hatefully to him (except for the last three or four days, when she has been nicer), she didn't look as much relieved as I should in her place. She went very pink, and then very pale, with anger at Lady MacNairne for talking on such a subject, she explained afterwards. But at the time she didn't show any resentment against Lady MacNairne. She only laughed and said, "Dear me, how interesting. What shall you do about it, Phil?"

"I shall show him that I am _his friend_," I answered decidedly. "I like and admire him, and I hope I shall keep his friendship always."

"That's a pretty beginning to what may be a pretty romance, isn't it, Tibe, darling?" asked Lady MacNairne.

I tried not to blush, but usually the more you try not to blush the more you do. It was so with me then, just as it was when we were coming into harbor at Volendam, and everybody said to Nell, "There is your cousin Robert!" or "Why is your cousin Robert here?"

I was glad to stoop down and pat Tibe, who is the nicest dog I ever knew. It's true, as Nell says, he is "geared ridiculously low"; and having such a short nose and stick out lower jaw, when he wants to eat or smell things, he has practically to stand on his head; also he can never see anything that goes on under his chin. She says, too, that when he's troubled, and a lot of lines meet together at one point in the middle of his forehead, his face looks exactly like Clapham Junction; and so it does. Nevertheless, he's beautiful, and has the sort of features Old Masters gave dogs in pictures, features more like those of people than animals, and a human expression in the eyes.

It is odd, Nell and I used to tell each other every thought we had, and we talked over all the people we knew; but now, though I think a good deal about Jonkheer Brederode, and wonder how he really does feel toward us both, I never speak about him to Nell when I can avoid it, and she never mentions his name to me.

I don't know what happened to make her suddenly nice to him at Amsterdam, but something did, and she is nice still, only her manner is different somehow. I can hardly tell what the difference is, but it is there. At first, when we went to Spaakenberg and the other places, before Lady MacNairne said that thing, she was agreeable to the Jonkheer in a brilliant, bewitching, coquettish sort of way, as though she wished after all to attract him. But since that evening at the Hotel Spaander, in Volendam, she has been quite subdued. Jonkheer Brederode is quiet and rather distant, too, and sometimes I think he speaks to Nell coldly, as if he distrusted such shy signs of friendliness as she still shows.

Now, it seems to me that he and Mr. van Buren and Mr. Starr are three friends worth having, not just the accidental sort of friends ("friendines" Nell calls that kind) who happen to be your friends because you were thrown with them somewhere, and you would not miss them dreadfully if by-and-by you drifted apart. They seem ones you were _destined_ to meet, just as much as you are destined to be born, and to die; friends intended to be in your life and never go out of it. I scarcely knew in the beginning of our acquaintance which of the three I liked best; and now that I _do_ know, I'm equally nice to them all, because one should do as one would be done by, and I love to have people nice to me.

Mr. van Buren has been with us the last two days, and I can see that he watches his friend and me, if we chance to be together. I should like to know if he, too, has the idea that Jonkheer Brederode cares about me, and, if so, whether he wonders how it's possible for any man to admire me more than Nell, who is so beautiful and brilliant and amusing? I can't help being flattered that such an interesting person as the Jonkheer _should_ like my society better than Nell's, though I can hardly believe it's true. But somehow it would be nice to have Mr. van Buren believe it, as then he would be obliged to think me quite a fascinating girl, even though it probably wouldn't have occurred to him before--being engaged and so on--to regard me in that light of his own accord.

I should love to talk to Nell about all this in the sweet old way we used to have, and I do miss a _confidante_. Lady MacNairne is a most wonderful little woman, who manages every one of us, and we would do anything to please her; yet I should never dream of confiding in her. I don't know why, unless it's because she's all blue spectacles and gray hair. And if you never can see what people are thinking about behind their glasses, whether they're sighing over your troubles or laughing, how can you tell them sacred things about yourself?

Sometimes I think it a pity that Mr. Starr is a man. If only he were a girl he would be the most delightful person to have for a confidant. In spite of his impish moods, which make him seem often like an "elfin boy," as Jonkheer Brederode says, he's extraordinarily sympathetic. I feel that he understands Nell and me thoroughly, and as he is good to look at, and clever and fascinating in his manner when he chooses, I wonder why neither of us has fallen in love with him. But very likely Nell has. If she hasn't she has been flirting with him horribly.

XXII

It was like finding an old friend to see Mr. van Buren waiting to meet us at quaint little Volendam. He explained that Freule Menela had gone to Brussels to pay a visit; so, hearing from me when we would arrive, he ran out to inquire how his cousin was getting on. When his fiancee came back, he said, he would bring her and his sisters to see us.

Our first sight of Volendam was at sunset. Everything seemed so beautiful, and I felt so happy walking up to the hotel where we were to spend the night, that I should have liked to sing. Great clouds had boiled up out of the west; but underneath, a wonderful, almost supernatural light streamed over the sea. The sky was indigo, and the water a sullen lead color; but along the horizon blazed a belt of gold, and the sails on a fleet of fishing-boats were scarlet, like a bed of red geraniums blooming in the sea.

It was in this strange light that we walked from the harbor up the main street of the village, which is a long dyke of black Norwegian granite, protecting little pointed-roofed houses, the lower stories of a sober color, the upper ones with the peaked gables pea-green or blue, and the sabots of the family lying on the door-steps. Here and there in a window were a few bits of gaudy china for sale, or a sabot over a door as the sign of a shoe-shop; but we hardly looked at the houses, so interesting were their inmates, who seemed to be all in the street.

Along the dyke squatted a double row of men, old and young--mostly old; but all as brown as if they had been carved out of oak. Every one had a tight-fitting jersey and enormously baggy trousers, like those other men round the corner of the Zuider Zee at Marken. But at Marken the jerseys were dark and here of the most wonderful crimson; the new ones the shade of a Jacqueminot rose, the faded ones like the lovely roses which Nell calls "American beauties."

There they sat, tailor-fashion, with their legs crossed and their cloth or fur caps tilted over their eyes as they smoked (very handsome, bold eyes, some of them!) and, passing up and down, up and down in front of the row as if in review, with a musical clatter of sabots, bands of women, lovely girls, and charming little buttons of children.

Nell and I admired the costumes more than at Marken, though they're not as striking, only innocently pretty. But I can't imagine anything more becoming than the transparent white caps that fold back and flare out over the ears like a soaring bird's wings. Perhaps it was partly the effect of the light, but the young girls in their straight dark bodices, with flowered handkerchief-chemisettes, full blue skirts--pieced with pale-tinted stuff from waist to hips--and those flying, winged caps, looked angelic.

They walked with their arms round each other's waists, or else they knitted with gleaming needles. Quite toddling creatures had blue yokes over their shoulders, and carried splashing pails of water as big as themselves, or they had round tots of babies tucked under their arms. But whatever they were doing--men, women, girls, boys, and babies--all stopped doing it instantly when they spied Tibe. I don't believe they knew he was a dog; and though he has invariably had a _succes fou_ wherever we have been, I never saw people so mad about him as at Volendam.

The Jonkheer says there are nearly three thousand inhabitants, and half of them were after Tibe on the dyke as we walked toward the hotel. The news of him seemed to fly, as they say tidings travel through the Indian bazaars. Faces appeared in windows; then quaint figures popped out of doors, and Tibe was actually mobbed. A procession trailed after him, shouting, laughing, calling.

Tibe was flattered at first, and preened himself for admiration; but presently he became worried, then disgusted, and ran before the storm of voices and wooden shoes. We were all glad to get him into the hotel.

Such a quaint hotel, with incredibly neat, box-like rooms, whose varnished, green wooden walls you could use for mirrors. I didn't know that it was famous, but it seems that it is; also the landlord and his many daughters. Every artist who has ever come to Volendam has painted a picture for the big room which you enter as you walk in from the street, and I saw half a dozen which I should love to own.

It was fun dining out-of-doors on a big, covered balcony looking over the Zuider Zee, and seeing the horizon populous with fishing-boats. In the falling dusk they looked like the flitting figures of tall, graceful ladies moving together hand in hand, with flowing skirts; some in gossiping knots, others hovering proudly apart in pairs like princesses.

It is wonderful how our chaperon makes friends with people, and gets them to do as she likes. If she were young and pretty it wouldn't be strange--at least, where men are concerned; but though her complexion (what one can see of it) looks fresh, if pale, and she has no hollows or wrinkles, her hair is gray, and she wears blue spectacles, with only a bit of face really visible. One hardly knows what she does look like. Nevertheless, the men of our party are her slaves; and it is the same at hotels. If at first landlords say Tibe can't live in the house, the next minute, when she has wheedled a little, they are patting his head, calling him "good dog," and telling his mistress that they will make an exception in his case.

The morning after we arrived in Volendam I got up early, because Mr. van Buren offered to show me the place if I cared to take a walk. It was only half-past eight when we strolled out of the hotel, and the first person I met was Lady MacNairne. She had been walking, and was on her way back, looking like the Old Woman in the Shoe, surrounded by children of all sizes. She had made friends with them, and taken their photographs, and their grown-up sisters had told her lots of things about Volendam.

She had found out that as soon as the fisherfolk's sons begin to dress like boys, they are given their buckles and neck-buttons: the gold or silver knobs which are different for each fishing-village of Holland; so that, if a man is found drowned, you can tell where he comes from by his buttons.

She had learned that the trousers are baggy, because in storms the men don't get as wet as in tight ones. That the women wear eight petticoats, not only because it's "the mode," but because it's considered beautiful for a girl to look stout; and besides, it's not thought modest to show how you are shaped.

Another thing she learned was that, just as the boys must have their buckles and buttons (and ear-rings, if they can get them), each Volendam girl, if she wishes to be anybody, must have a coral necklace with a gold cross; several silver rings; a silver buckle for her purse; and a scent-bottle with a silver top and foot. No girl could hope to marry well, Lady MacNairne said, without these things; and as the ones who told her had no rings or scent-bottles in their collections, she would get her nephew to buy them. It wouldn't do for him to make the presents himself, as the girls were proud, though their fathers earned only five gulden a week; but she would give them, and then it would be all right. One of the girls was unhappy, as she was in love with a young fisherman, and they were too poor to marry, so she expected to go to Rotterdam as a nursemaid.

"It seems," said Lady MacNairne, "that Volendam girls are in demand all over Holland, as nurses; they're so good to children and animals. But this one won't have to go, for dear Ronny must supply her _dot_."

"Have you asked him?" I inquired.

She laughed. "No," said she. "He'll do it, though, to please me, I know."

These things were not all she had found out. She knew that Volendam had first been made famous twenty or thirty years ago by an artist named Clausen, who came by accident and went away to tell all his friends. She knew how the Hotel Spaander had been started to please the artists, and how it had grown year by year; and all the things that people told her she had written in a note-book which she wears dangling from a chatelaine. It does seem odd for a Scotswoman, and one of her rank, to be so keen about every detail of travel, that she must scribble it down in a book, in a frantic hurry. But then, many things about Lady MacNairne _are_ odd.

The sun was blazing that morning, but a wind had come up in the night, and beaten the waves into froth. The dark sea-line stretched unevenly along the horizon, and there were no fishing-boats to be seen. All were snugly nestled in harbor, with their gay pennants just visible over the pointed roofs of the houses; and we had an exciting breakfast on the balcony, because, though it wasn't cold, the tablecloths and napkins flapped wildly in the wind, like big white rings of frightened swans.

Jonkheer Brederode had planned to go northward, skirting the coast to see two more Dead Cities of the Zuider Zee, Hoorn and Enkhuisen, and cut across the sea to Stavoren on the other side, to enter the Frisian Meers. But now he refused to take us that way. The men might go, if they liked, he said, and there really wasn't much danger; but in such rough weather he couldn't allow women to run the risk in "Lorelei."

"But it wouldn't be in 'Lorelei,' Lady MacNairne put in. 'Lorelei' has ceased to exist."

Nell grew pink and I think I grew pale. It was an awful shock to hear her speak so calmly about the loss of our dear boat, of which we have grown so fond.

"Ceased to exist!" I repeated, cold all over. "Has she _gone under_?"

"Only under a coat of paint," said Mr. Starr, hurriedly. "You know, Miss Van Buren consented to humor my aunt, who thought the name unlucky, by rechristening the boat 'Mascotte,' so I did it myself, this morning, the first thing, before there were many people about to get in my way."

"I'd forgotten," said Nell. "But if she's 'Mascotte' now, isn't that a sign she could take us safely through the sea? They're only miniature waves."

"You wouldn't think so if you were in their midst in a motor-boat," said the Jonkheer.

"I'm ready to try," Nell answered.

"But I'm not ready to let you," he said, with one of his nice smiles.

However, this didn't conciliate Nell. In an instant she bristled up, as she used to with him, before Amsterdam.

"It's my boat," she said.

"But I'm the boat's skipper. The skipper must act according to his judgment. Joking apart though----"

"I'm _not_ joking. If men can go, why can't women? We're not afraid. It would be fun."

"Not for the men, if they had women to think of. You see, the boat is top-heavy, owing to the cabin superstructure, and it wouldn't be impossible for her to turn turtle in a heavy sea. Besides, rough waves might break the cabin windows, and if she began to take in water in that way, we should be done, for no bailing could help us. Do you still want to make the trip, Miss Van Buren?"

"I do," Nell insisted. "Because I don't believe those things will happen."