CHAPTER FIVE.
LEFT BEHIND!
Wednesday dawned bright and fair; it had not seemed possible that itcould be wet, and the party of twelve, with their baskets and hampers,drove economically and gaily to the ferry in a three-horse omnibus, soostentatiously treating it as their own vehicle that the few alienpassengers sat abashed, and plainly felt themselves _de trop_. Darsie'sprophecy had been fulfilled, for Dan appeared at the starting-point,somewhat grim and sulky of demeanour, but obviously on picnic bent. Hewas the only member of the party whose hands were free of basket orbundle, and when the omnibus trundled into sight he walked forward tomeet it and swung himself up to a place on top as though anxious toconvince beholders that he had no connection with the noisy crowd at thecorner, whereupon the two mothers smiled at each other in amusedreminiscent fashion.
The girls were dressed in white; the boys wore flannel trousers withschool blazers and caps. Clemence had put on a veil to protect hercomplexion; plain Hannah's sailor hat left yards of forehead bleaklyexposed. Darsie wore her little Kodak swung across her shoulder injaunty military fashion. She invariably carried a camera on suchoccasions, and never by any chance used it to take any photographs; theprogramme was so unalterable that it had ceased to attract any attentionamong her companions.
The omnibus conveyed the party to the ferry, from whence an hourly boatpuffed several miles up the river to where the village of Earley stoodon the opposite bank. It was an ancient and by no means luxuriousbarque, impregnated from bow to stern with a hot, oily, funnelly smellfrom which it was impossible to escape, and as travellers to Earley werealmost invariably on pleasure bent, the usual satellites were inattendance. There was an old man in a long coat who had played the sameballads on the same old concertina with the same incredibly dirtyfingers for as long as memory could recall; there was an old woman witha clean apron and a tray of gingerbread biscuits slung pendant from hershoulders, who presented them to you for three a penny, and exclaimed,"Bless yer little 'art!" when you paid for them yourself, because mothersaid it was a pity to spoil your lunch. Deary me! one _would_ have tobe old to have one's appetite--and a picnic appetite at that!--spoiledby three gingerbread biscuits! The sail to Earley would have been shornof one of its chief joys without these sticky sweets. The absence ofthe clean, smiling old woman would have been resented as a positivecrime.
The ferry at Earley was an old-fashioned affair, sloping over the muddyshore to a little white pay-house with a clanky turnpike on either side.Once past these turnpikes, the visitor found himself in the midst ofthings with delightful suddenness. A wide green stretch of grass layalong the river bank, bordered by shady trees. To the right stood astone hotel with gardens of brilliant flower-beds, and an array ofwhite-covered tables dotted down the length of the veranda. Grand andluxurious visitors took their meals in the hotel, but such a possibilityof splendour had never dawned upon the minds of the Garnetts or theirfriends--as well might a wayfarer in Hyde Park think of asking for a cupof tea at Buckingham Palace! To-day a young girl stood in the porch ofthe hotel and gazed at the procession as it passed. She was arrayed ina white serge coat and skirt, and wore a white sailor hat with a blueband. "Exactly like yours!" said Lavender easily, but Clemence shookher head in sad denial. _Her_ coat and skirt had been bought ready-madeat a sale, was an inch too short in the waist, and cockled at the seams;her hat was last year's shape, while the girl in the porch hadjust--_the_--very--latest and most perfect specimen of both.
"Horrid thing, lunching in hotels in clothes like that! Some peoplehave all the luck!" said Clemence grudgingly, as she moved the heavybasket from one hand to the other to screen it from the gaze of thearistocratic eyes; and the girl in the porch spied it all the same, andsighed to herself wistfully: "They are going picnicking--all those boysand girls! Oh, how lovely to be them. How I _wish_ I were a bigfamily..." after the manner of the ungrateful people of this world, whoare so much occupied in envying the possessions of others that they haveno time left in which to be thankful for their own!
The woods lay not a hundred yards from the ferry itself--real, natural,untrammelled woods, with grand old trunks standing up tall and straightlike the columns of a cathedral, and dear old gnarled roots which ranalong the ground, covered with lichens and soft green moss. To youngpeople who spent their lives in one red-brick terrace looking out onanother red-brick terrace across the road, it was like a voyage intofairyland to step within the cool, green shadow of the woods, to smellthe sweet, sharp smell of the earth, and watch the dapplings of sunlightthrough the leaves overhead. Even the boys succumbed to the spell, andfor the first half-hour asked nothing better than to roll about on thegrass, poke in the roots of trees, and speculate concerning rabbit-holesand nests; but the half-hour over, one and all were convinced thatwatches were wrong and they were right in deciding that it was beyondall manner of doubt full time for lunch; so the cloth was spread on alevel piece of turf, and the good things were consumed with thelingering enjoyment which they deserved.
Every one felt that, as lunch marked what was perhaps the most enjoyableepoch of the whole day, it was his or her bounden duty to eat slowly andto go on demanding helpings so long as the supply endured; and a certainfeeling of blankness descended when there was no longer any excuse forlingering, inasmuch as nothing remained to be eaten but a dozen jampuffs, which, as mother said, had been _meant_ to be very nice, but hadsomehow failed to achieve success! The paste, hard enough on top, wasinside of a damp and doughy consistence, and cook had used gooseberryjam for the filling, thereby taking a mean advantage of absence fromhome, when she _knew_ that the family detested gooseberry in tarts, andsteadily plumped for apricot instead.
"We'll give them to the little boy at the ferry. _He_ won't be soparticular!" Mrs Garnett said as she laid the rejected dainties on oneside and proceeded to pack the oddments which had been required for themeal in one small basket, placing layers of paper in those left empty.The young people looked at each other with raised eyebrows as theywatched these proceedings, the meaning of which they knew only too well.It was forbidden to gather roots from the woods, but no authority haddreamt of forbidding visitors to carry away _soil_, and this was justwhat Mrs Garnett invariably insisted upon doing. The red-brown earth,rich with sweet fragments of leaf and twig, was too tempting to beresisted when she thought of her poor pot-bound plants at home;therefore, instead of swinging homewards with baskets light as air, theboys were doomed to bear even heavier weights than on the outwardjourney.
"Mother!" cried Clemence in a deep tone of protest. "Not _yet_!Remember the walk across the fields. Plenty of time to get soil in theAmphitheatre!" And Mrs Garnett put down her trowel with quite a guiltyair and resigned herself to wait.
"Well! Perhaps it would be best ... Mrs Vernon and I would like anhour's rest before going on. What are _you_ going to do now?"
Every one waited for every one else, and no suggestion was forthcoming.The boys were once more beginning to roll about on the grass, poking andpulling at each other in a manner which foretold the beginning of war.Clemence and Vie were gazing sentimentally through the branches. PlainHannah, stretched flat along the ground, was barricading the movementsof a tiny beetle, and chuckling over its persistent efforts to outwither schemes. Dan sat with arms clasped around his knees, a picture ofpatience on a monument. The sight of his twisted lips, his tilted,disconsolate chin fired Darsie to action. It was her doing that he washere at all; it was her duty to make the time pass as agreeably aspossible.
"Sports!" she cried quickly. "Competitive sports. We'll each plan anevent, and take them in turns. Dan shall be judge, and the one who getsmost marks shall have a prize."
"What prize?"
That was a stumper. Darsie could suggest nothing better than a generalsubscription.
"If we each paid a penny entrance--"
"Oh, be bothered the pennies! I'll give a prize!" cried Dan loftily.Darsie saw with joy that he had brisked up at the prospect of sports andw
as already beginning to cast his eye around in professional manner,taking in the lie of the land, the outstanding features of the position.As judge and manager he was in his element, and each suggestion of anevent was altered and amended with a lordly superiority. It is somewhatdifficult to introduce much variety into a programme of impromptusports, but one or two of this afternoon's events had the advantage ofnovelty. A flower-gathering race, for instance, the object of which wasto see how many varieties of wild flowers each competitor could gatherin a given time, and a Roman water-carrier event, which consisted inbalancing the hot-water jug on one's head and seeing how far one couldwalk without spilling its tepid contents over neck and shoulders. PlainHannah was the only one of the girls who took part in this event, and toher joy succeeded in travelling a longer distance than any of the malecompetitors. The final and most elaborate event was the obstacle race,without which no competition of the kind is ever considered complete,and the united wits of the company were put to work to devise traps fortheir own undoing. Harry discovered two small trees whose trunks grewso close together that it seemed impossible that any human creaturecould squeeze between, and insisted upon it being done as a _sine quanon_. Russell decreed that competitors should travel over a certainroute without touching the ground, swinging themselves from branch tobranch like so many monkeys, and as girls were plainly disqualified forthis feat an alternative test was invented which should score equally totheir credit. Hopping races, races complicated by arithmetical andother such baffling problems, were also devised, and at the last momentDarsie came forward with a thrilling novelty.
"Run to the hamper, turn round three times, seize a jam puff, eat it intwo bites, and hop back to the goal!"
"Good!" cried the judge approvingly, and after that the competitorsmight storm and lament as they would; the event was fixed!
The two mothers had retired from the scene of the fray and with backsresting against two friendly trees were peacefully discoursing onhousehold trials; there was no one to preach concerning indigestion, andthe perils of rapid eating; hot and gasping from their previous trials,the competitors ran, twirled, hopped and gobbled, and finally subsidedin paroxysms of laughter on the mossy bank. The sports were over; theprize had fallen to Russell, as every one had known from the start thatit must inevitably do; he sat snoring with pride, waving aside Dan'sinquiries as to the nature of his prize in a gentlemanly manner worthyof his reputation, until the two mothers, becoming conscious that theafternoon was passing away, rose heavily from their seats and announcedthat it was time to start on the second half of the day's expedition.
The three-mile walk lay for three parts of the way through fields, whichto the town-livers afforded a refreshing change from noisy and dustystreets, and when the little village was reached, "our old woman'scottage" was found to be as clean and neat and hospitably attractive asof yore. It was a tiny whitewashed cottage standing back from the lanein a garden bright with old-fashioned flowers, and the stone-flooredkitchen boasted an old oak dresser and table which were the envy of allbeholders.
"They're always after it!" our old woman would announce, chuckling."Titled gentry I've had, driving up in their own carriage, a-coaxing andwheedling so as never was. `_No_,' I says, `they was my mother's aforeme, and her mother's afore that, and it's a poor tale if I can't havethe pleasure of them while _I_ live! If it's waluable to you, it'swaluable to me, too. That's only common sense...' And what's yourfancy today, lovies? boiled eggs and buttered toast, same as afore?"
Boiled eggs and buttered toast it was, despite the protests of themothers, who thought that really, after such a lunch--! And after teaour old woman provided buttonholes for each member of the party, andhobbled to the gate to see them off, assuring them, as was her yearlycustom, that "the gamekeepers was getting very crusty of late, but youleave the roots alone and nobody can't say nothing about a few bits offlowers." That yearly threat of the gamekeeper lent a _soupcon_ ofexcitement to the scramble over the sloping woods, which surrounded asan amphitheatre a deep green meadow through which meandered a tinystream.
At any moment, as it appeared, a stalwart figure in velveteen bearing agun over his shoulder might appear round the trunk of a tree, demandingyour licence or your life. It was interesting to discuss exactly whatyou would do or say under the circumstances, and the very worst thing inpunishments which could possibly be your fate!
To-day, however, no such interruption took place, and the dear oldplayground looked, if possible, more beautiful than ever. The groundwas carpeted with buttercups, and when one stood on the top of the steepbanks and looked down on the green and the gold, and caught glimpses ofthe blue sky beyond--well, it was as near an approach to fairyland asone could hope to find within twenty miles of a big manufacturing town.
Mrs Garnett packed her basket full of the soft, loamy soil; the girlsroamed up and down making up bouquets of wild roses, honeysuckle, andfragrant meadowsweet; the boys were blissfully happy, risking life andlimb in an exciting endeavour to travel from top to bottom of the bankwithout once touching grass. An occasional tree-trunk was permitted asa foothold, otherwise you swung yourself from one branch to another, ortook flying leaps into space, and trusted to fate to catch hold ofsomething before you fell.
Russell's hairbreadth escapes would have terrified his mother had shebeen there to see, but the boys were wise in their generation and hadquietly worked their way round to the opposite bank before beginningtheir experiments. It took a considerable time to call them back andrally forces in time to catch the eight o'clock train, and it was adishevelled and by no means aristocratic-looking party which climbedover the high stone stile leading into the high-road.
It seemed hard luck that this last mile, when every one was feelingtired and a trifle flat, should have to be traversed along a dusty,uninteresting road, and the straggly line grew even farther and fartherapart as the distance to the station decreased. Dan led the way,walking in the middle of the road, his head flung back with the oldproud air of detachment. The two mothers plodded steadily in the rear.Russell, scratched and dusty, and looking more like a street arab than ayouth renowned for gentlemanly demeanour, scuffled in the gutter,kicking up the gathered dust which enveloped him as in a cloud; Harryand John bore the big hamper slung on a stick, the ends of which theyfrequently released for the purpose of straightening their backs andrubbing their tired hands. Plain Hannah limped on the sideway, beingafflicted with corns which, as she expressed it, always "came on" at theend of a day's pleasuring. Vie and Clemence, arm-in-arm, were deep insentimental conclave. Darsie, the last of the line, hung back of intentuntil a curve in the road hid the others from sight. A shadow ofmelancholy had descended upon her spirit during the last hour; that fearof "the last time" which at times makes cowards of us all, was strongupon her; the possibility of separation suddenly became a terror whichgripped her breath and left her faint and weak.
Mother--Father--Home! The dear delights of the sea. Could she--couldshe _bear_ to give them up? Darsie whimpered miserably, and stoppedshort in the middle of the road to pull out her handkerchief, and wipe athreatening tear. She really did not think she could, and yet every oneseemed to take it for granted that Aunt Maria's choice would fall uponherself. Was there nothing, nothing that she could do to lessen theprobability? Nothing to make herself look ugly, unattractive, unsuitedfor the post of lady's companion?
A stranger walking along the high-road at this moment would have beenamused to see a pretty, disconsolate-looking young girl deliberatelytwisting her features into one grimace after another, and criticallyexamining the effect in the back of a small silver watch. Every newgrimace necessitated a pause for inspection, so that the distancebetween Darsie and her companions increased more and more, until onturning the next corner of the winding road she was surprised to find noone in sight--surprised and a trifle startled, for the early dusk wasalready casting its shadow over the landscape, and the solitude of acountry road has in it something eerie to a lifelong dweller in
towns.Darsie forgot her grimaces and set off at a trot to make up lost ground,and even as she ran a sound came from afar which quickened the trot intoa run--the scream of an engine! the engine of the approaching trainwhich was to bear the picnickers back to town.
The next turn of the road showed that the rest of the party had takenalarm also, for the flying figures of Vie and Clemence could be seendisappearing in the distance, evidently following hastily after those infront.
"They'll catch it--they'll rush down the steps just as it's going tostart, bundle in anyhow, into different carriages--never miss me--gooff, never know I'm not there till they get out!" These thoughts rushedthrough Darsie's head as she ran gaspingly along the dusty road. It wasimperative that she must catch up to her friends--to be left behind,without a penny in her pocket to buy a ticket, would be too awful forwords. The shriek of the engine had given place to a repeated snortwhich was momentarily growing slower and less pronounced; the train wasslackening speed before drawing up at the platform.
Faster! Faster! One rush to reach the goal! Darsie set her teeth andput on a last desperate spurt, caught her foot on an outstanding stoneof the roadway, and fell heavily to the ground.