CHAPTER FIVE.

LEFT BEHIND!

Wednesday dawned bright and fair; it had not seemed possible that it could be wet, and the party of twelve, with their baskets and hampers, drove economically and gaily to the ferry in a three-horse omnibus, so ostentatiously treating it as their own vehicle that the few alien pa.s.sengers sat abashed, and plainly felt themselves _de trop_. Darsie's prophecy had been fulfilled, for Dan appeared at the starting-point, somewhat grim and sulky of demeanour, but obviously on picnic bent. He was the only member of the party whose hands were free of basket or bundle, and when the omnibus trundled into sight he walked forward to meet it and swung himself up to a place on top as though anxious to convince beholders that he had no connection with the noisy crowd at the corner, whereupon the two mothers smiled at each other in amused reminiscent fashion.

The girls were dressed in white; the boys wore flannel trousers with school blazers and caps. Clemence had put on a veil to protect her complexion; plain Hannah's sailor hat left yards of forehead bleakly exposed. Darsie wore her little Kodak swung across her shoulder in jaunty military fashion. She invariably carried a camera on such occasions, and never by any chance used it to take any photographs; the programme was so unalterable that it had ceased to attract any attention among her companions.

The omnibus conveyed the party to the ferry, from whence an hourly boat puffed several miles up the river to where the village of Earley stood on the opposite bank. It was an ancient and by no means luxurious barque, impregnated from bow to stern with a hot, oily, funnelly smell from which it was impossible to escape, and as travellers to Earley were almost invariably on pleasure bent, the usual satellites were in attendance. There was an old man in a long coat who had played the same ballads on the same old concertina with the same incredibly dirty fingers for as long as memory could recall; there was an old woman with a clean ap.r.o.n and a tray of gingerbread biscuits slung pendant from her shoulders, who presented them to you for three a penny, and exclaimed, "Bless yer little 'art!" when you paid for them yourself, because mother said it was a pity to spoil your lunch. Deary me! one _would_ have to be old to have one's appet.i.te--and a picnic appet.i.te at that!--spoiled by three gingerbread biscuits! The sail to Earley would have been shorn of one of its chief joys without these sticky sweets. The absence of the clean, smiling old woman would have been resented as a positive crime.

The ferry at Earley was an old-fashioned affair, sloping over the muddy sh.o.r.e to a little white pay-house with a clanky turnpike on either side.

Once past these turnpikes, the visitor found himself in the midst of things with delightful suddenness. A wide green stretch of gra.s.s lay along the river bank, bordered by shady trees. To the right stood a stone hotel with gardens of brilliant flower-beds, and an array of white-covered tables dotted down the length of the veranda. Grand and luxurious visitors took their meals in the hotel, but such a possibility of splendour had never dawned upon the minds of the Garnetts or their friends--as well might a wayfarer in Hyde Park think of asking for a cup of tea at Buckingham Palace! To-day a young girl stood in the porch of the hotel and gazed at the procession as it pa.s.sed. She was arrayed in a white serge coat and skirt, and wore a white sailor hat with a blue band. "Exactly like yours!" said Lavender easily, but Clemence shook her head in sad denial. _Her_ coat and skirt had been bought ready-made at a sale, was an inch too short in the waist, and c.o.c.kled at the seams; her hat was last year's shape, while the girl in the porch had just--_the_--very--latest and most perfect specimen of both.

"Horrid thing, lunching in hotels in clothes like that! Some people have all the luck!" said Clemence grudgingly, as she moved the heavy basket from one hand to the other to screen it from the gaze of the aristocratic eyes; and the girl in the porch spied it all the same, and sighed to herself wistfully: "They are going picnicking--all those boys and girls! Oh, how lovely to be them. How I _wish_ I were a big family..." after the manner of the ungrateful people of this world, who are so much occupied in envying the possessions of others that they have no 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 straight like the columns of a cathedral, and dear old gnarled roots which ran along the ground, covered with lichens and soft green moss. To young people who spent their lives in one red-brick terrace looking out on another red-brick terrace across the road, it was like a voyage into fairyland to step within the cool, green shadow of the woods, to smell the sweet, sharp smell of the earth, and watch the dapplings of sunlight through the leaves overhead. Even the boys succ.u.mbed to the spell, and for the first half-hour asked nothing better than to roll about on the gra.s.s, poke in the roots of trees, and speculate concerning rabbit-holes and nests; but the half-hour over, one and all were convinced that watches were wrong and they were right in deciding that it was beyond all manner of doubt full time for lunch; so the cloth was spread on a level piece of turf, and the good things were consumed with the lingering enjoyment which they deserved.

Every one felt that, as lunch marked what was perhaps the most enjoyable epoch of the whole day, it was his or her bounden duty to eat slowly and to go on demanding helpings so long as the supply endured; and a certain feeling of blankness descended when there was no longer any excuse for lingering, inasmuch as nothing remained to be eaten but a dozen jam puffs, which, as mother said, had been _meant_ to be very nice, but had somehow failed to achieve success! The paste, hard enough on top, was inside of a damp and doughy consistence, and cook had used gooseberry jam for the filling, thereby taking a mean advantage of absence from home, when she _knew_ that the family detested gooseberry in tarts, and steadily plumped for apricot instead.

"We'll give them to the little boy at the ferry. _He_ won't be so particular!" Mrs Garnett said as she laid the rejected dainties on one side and proceeded to pack the oddments which had been required for the meal in one small basket, placing layers of paper in those left empty.

The young people looked at each other with raised eyebrows as they watched these proceedings, the meaning of which they knew only too well.

It was forbidden to gather roots from the woods, but no authority had dreamt of forbidding visitors to carry away _soil_, and this was just what Mrs Garnett invariably insisted upon doing. The red-brown earth, rich with sweet fragments of leaf and twig, was too tempting to be resisted when she thought of her poor pot-bound plants at home; therefore, instead of swinging homewards with baskets light as air, the boys were doomed to bear even heavier weights than on the outward journey.

"Mother!" cried Clemence in a deep tone of protest. "Not _yet_!

Remember the walk across the fields. Plenty of time to get soil in the Amphitheatre!" And Mrs Garnett put down her trowel with quite a guilty air and resigned herself to wait.

"Well! Perhaps it would be best ... Mrs Vernon and I would like an hour'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 gra.s.s, poking and pulling at each other in a manner which foretold the beginning of war.

Clemence and Vie were gazing sentimentally through the branches. Plain Hannah, stretched flat along the ground, was barricading the movements of a tiny beetle, and chuckling over its persistent efforts to outwit her schemes. Dan sat with arms clasped around his knees, a picture of patience on a monument. The sight of his twisted lips, his tilted, disconsolate chin fired Darsie to action. It was her doing that he was here at all; it was her duty to make the time pa.s.s as agreeably as possible.

"Sports!" she cried quickly. "Compet.i.tive sports. We'll each plan an event, and take them in turns. Dan shall be judge, and the one who gets most marks shall have a prize."

"What prize?"

That was a stumper. Darsie could suggest nothing better than a general subscription.

"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 and was 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 an event was altered and amended with a lordly superiority. It is somewhat difficult to introduce much variety into a programme of impromptu sports, but one or two of this afternoon's events had the advantage of novelty. A flower-gathering race, for instance, the object of which was to see how many varieties of wild flowers each compet.i.tor could gather in a given time, and a Roman water-carrier event, which consisted in balancing the hot-water jug on one's head and seeing how far one could walk without spilling its tepid contents over neck and shoulders. Plain Hannah was the only one of the girls who took part in this event, and to her joy succeeded in travelling a longer distance than any of the male compet.i.tors. The final and most elaborate event was the obstacle race, without which no compet.i.tion of the kind is ever considered complete, and the united wits of the company were put to work to devise traps for their own undoing. Harry discovered two small trees whose trunks grew so close together that it seemed impossible that any human creature could squeeze between, and insisted upon it being done as a _sine qua non_. Russell decreed that compet.i.tors should travel over a certain route without touching the ground, swinging themselves from branch to branch like so many monkeys, and as girls were plainly disqualified for this feat an alternative test was invented which should score equally to their credit. Hopping races, races complicated by arithmetical and other such baffling problems, were also devised, and at the last moment Darsie came forward with a thrilling novelty.

"Run to the hamper, turn round three times, seize a jam puff, eat it in two bites, and hop back to the goal!"

"Good!" cried the judge approvingly, and after that the compet.i.tors might storm and lament as they would; the event was fixed!

The two mothers had retired from the scene of the fray and with backs resting against two friendly trees were peacefully discoursing on household trials; there was no one to preach concerning indigestion, and the perils of rapid eating; hot and gasping from their previous trials, the compet.i.tors ran, twirled, hopped and gobbled, and finally subsided in paroxysms of laughter on the mossy bank. The sports were over; the prize had fallen to Russell, as every one had known from the start that it must inevitably do; he sat snoring with pride, waving aside Dan's inquiries as to the nature of his prize in a gentlemanly manner worthy of his reputation, until the two mothers, becoming conscious that the afternoon was pa.s.sing away, rose heavily from their seats and announced that 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, which to the town-livers afforded a refreshing change from noisy and dusty streets, and when the little village was reached, "our old woman's cottage" was found to be as clean and neat and hospitably attractive as of yore. It was a tiny whitewashed cottage standing back from the lane in a garden bright with old-fashioned flowers, and the stone-floored kitchen boasted an old oak dresser and table which were the envy of all beholders.

"They're always after it!" our old woman would announce, chuckling.

"t.i.tled gentry I've had, driving up in their own carriage, a-coaxing and wheedling so as never was. '_No_,' I says, 'they was my mother's afore me, and her mother's afore that, and it's a poor tale if I can't have the pleasure of them while _I_ live! If it's waluable to you, it's waluable to me, too. That's only common sense...' And what's your fancy today, lovies? boiled eggs and b.u.t.tered toast, same as afore?"

Boiled eggs and b.u.t.tered toast it was, despite the protests of the mothers, who thought that really, after such a lunch--! And after tea our old woman provided b.u.t.tonholes for each member of the party, and hobbled to the gate to see them off, a.s.suring them, as was her yearly custom, that "the gamekeepers was getting very crusty of late, but you leave the roots alone and n.o.body can't say nothing about a few bits of flowers." That yearly threat of the gamekeeper lent a _soupcon_ of excitement to the scramble over the sloping woods, which surrounded as an amphitheatre a deep green meadow through which meandered a tiny stream.

At any moment, as it appeared, a stalwart figure in velveteen bearing a gun over his shoulder might appear round the trunk of a tree, demanding your licence or your life. It was interesting to discuss exactly what you would do or say under the circ.u.mstances, and the very worst thing in punishments which could possibly be your fate!

To-day, however, no such interruption took place, and the dear old playground looked, if possible, more beautiful than ever. The ground was carpeted with b.u.t.tercups, and when one stood on the top of the steep banks and looked down on the green and the gold, and caught glimpses of the blue sky beyond--well, it was as near an approach to fairyland as one could hope to find within twenty miles of a big manufacturing town.

Mrs Garnett packed her basket full of the soft, loamy soil; the girls roamed up and down making up bouquets of wild roses, honeysuckle, and fragrant meadowsweet; the boys were blissfully happy, risking life and limb in an exciting endeavour to travel from top to bottom of the bank without once touching gra.s.s. An occasional tree-trunk was permitted as a foothold, otherwise you swung yourself from one branch to another, or took flying leaps into s.p.a.ce, and trusted to fate to catch hold of something before you fell.

Russell's hairbreadth escapes would have terrified his mother had she been there to see, but the boys were wise in their generation and had quietly worked their way round to the opposite bank before beginning their experiments. It took a considerable time to call them back and rally forces in time to catch the eight o'clock train, and it was a dishevelled and by no means aristocratic-looking party which climbed over the high stone stile leading into the high-road.

It seemed hard luck that this last mile, when every one was feeling tired and a trifle flat, should have to be traversed along a dusty, uninteresting road, and the straggly line grew even farther and farther apart as the distance to the station decreased. Dan led the way, walking in the middle of the road, his head flung back with the old proud air of detachment. The two mothers plodded steadily in the rear.

Russell, scratched and dusty, and looking more like a street arab than a youth renowned for gentlemanly demeanour, scuffled in the gutter, kicking up the gathered dust which enveloped him as in a cloud; Harry and John bore the big hamper slung on a stick, the ends of which they frequently released for the purpose of straightening their backs and rubbing their tired hands. Plain Hannah limped on the sideway, being afflicted with corns which, as she expressed it, always "came on" at the end of a day's pleasuring. Vie and Clemence, arm-in-arm, were deep in sentimental conclave. Darsie, the last of the line, hung back of intent until a curve in the road hid the others from sight. A shadow of melancholy had descended upon her spirit during the last hour; that fear of "the last time" which at times makes cowards of us all, was strong upon her; the possibility of separation suddenly became a terror which gripped her breath and left her faint and weak.

Mother--Father--Home! The dear delights of the sea. Could she--could she _bear_ to give them up? Darsie whimpered miserably, and stopped short in the middle of the road to pull out her handkerchief, and wipe a threatening tear. She really did not think she could, and yet every one seemed to take it for granted that Aunt Maria's choice would fall upon herself. Was there nothing, nothing that she could do to lessen the probability? Nothing to make herself look ugly, unattractive, unsuited for the post of lady's companion?

A stranger walking along the high-road at this moment would have been amused to see a pretty, disconsolate-looking young girl deliberately twisting her features into one grimace after another, and critically examining the effect in the back of a small silver watch. Every new grimace necessitated a pause for inspection, so that the distance between Darsie and her companions increased more and more, until on turning the next corner of the winding road she was surprised to find no one in sight--surprised and a trifle startled, for the early dusk was already casting its shadow over the landscape, and the solitude of a country 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 into a run--the scream of an engine! the engine of the approaching train which was to bear the picnickers back to town.

The next turn of the road showed that the rest of the party had taken alarm also, for the flying figures of Vie and Clemence could be seen disappearing in the distance, evidently following hastily after those in front.

"They'll catch it--they'll rush down the steps just as it's going to start, bundle in anyhow, into different carriages--never miss me--go off, never know I'm not there till they get out!" These thoughts rushed through Darsie's head as she ran gaspingly along the dusty road. It was imperative 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 for words. The shriek of the engine had given place to a repeated snort which was momentarily growing slower and less p.r.o.nounced; the train was slackening speed before drawing up at the platform.

Faster! Faster! One rush to reach the goal! Darsie set her teeth and put on a last desperate spurt, caught her foot on an outstanding stone of the roadway, and fell heavily to the ground.

CHAPTER SIX.

DAN TO THE RESCUE.

There were no bones broken; she was not seriously hurt; but one has to try for oneself the experiment of running at full tilt, and while so doing to pitch forward at full length on the ground, to realise how extremely disagreeable and disconcerting it can be. Darsie dragged herself slowly to a sitting position, and sat dazed and stupefied, a forlorn, dust-encrusted figure, with hat tilted rakishly on one side, and the palm of her right hand scratched to bleeding where it had dragged along the stony ground. She blinked and stared, and mechanically brushed at her blackened skirts, but it was several moments before remembrance of her position returned to her brain, and with it the realisation of the consequences of delay. She scrambled to her feet, ran forward for a few paces, and stopped short with a sharp groan of pain. She had bruised her knees as well as her hand, and the rapid movement was quite startlingly painful; she fell into a limp, straining her head upwards to peep over the hedgerow at the road beyond. And then, clear and distinct after the interval of silence, came another sharp whistle, another laborious puff, puff, puff.

The train was leaving the station, and she was left behind!

Darsie stopped short, and leaned against the hedge. There was no longer any need to hurry. Either her absence had been discovered or it had not, and a few minutes' time would settle that question once for all.

It soothed her to pretend that there was a chance that she might find some one waiting her arrival on the platform, but at the bottom of her heart she had little hope of such a possibility. As members of a large family whose parents were not rich enough to pay for the modern plethora of nurses and governesses, the Garnetts and Vernons had been brought up to be independent, and to fend for themselves, hence the two mothers would not be so anxious to count the number of their brood, to see that each member was safe and sound, as would have been the parents of smaller, more indulged families.

There would be a rush for tickets, a hurried glance around on emerging from the office, the signal of waving hands, and bobbing heads from half a dozen windows, a quick leap into the nearest seats, and off they would all steam, panting and puffing, congratulating themselves on their escape.

No, Darsie told herself, it was stupid to pretend; certainly, quite certainly she was left behind; nevertheless, when two or three minutes later she reached the top of the railway bridge and peered over the stone wall, it was with quite a big pang of dismay that she beheld the empty platform. Not a soul! Not a single soul except a cross-looking porter sitting astride a barrow, with his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

Anything less promising in the shape of a forlorn hope it would be difficult to imagine, but the circ.u.mstances offered no alternative.