England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
The season was full early for tourists, and at no time did the place
attract many. Englishmen who came now probably came on business which
was unlikely to bring them out to these quiet, flat fields. But Anna
and Denah, who joined her in a much more demonstrative look-out than
Marbridge would have considered well-bred, were insistent on the
nationality.
"He walks like an Englishman," Anna said, "as if all the world
belonged to him."
"And looks like one," Denah added; "he has no moustache, and wears a
glass in his eye, look, Miss Julia."
Julia looked, then drew back rather quickly. They were right, it was
an Englishman; it was of all men Rawson-Clew.
What was he doing here? By what extraordinary chance he came to be in
this unlikely place she could not think. She was very glad that
Mevrouw felt the air chilly, and so had had the leather flaps pulled
over part of the open sides of the carriage; this and the eager
sisters screened her so well that it was unlikely he could see her.
"Is he not an Englishman?" Anna asked.
"Yes," she answered; "one could not mistake him for anything else."
"I wonder if he recognised you as a country-woman," Anna speculated;
and Julia said she did not consider herself typically English in
appearance.
The sisters talked for the rest of the way of the Englishman; of his
air and bearing, and the fact, of which they declared themselves
convinced, that he was a person of distinction.
But it was not till the drive was over, and the party had separated,
that Denah was able to say what was burning on her tongue. They had
left the clerk's children at their house, said good-bye to Vrouw Van
Heigen and Julia, and were within their own home at last; the girls
went up to their bedroom, and Denah carefully fastened the door, then
she said mysteriously, "Miss Julia knows that Englishman."
Anna jumped at the intelligence, and still more at the tone. "Did she
tell you?" she asked.
"No," Denah replied with some scorn; "she would not tell any one, she
wishes it concealed; she thinks it is so, but I saw it."
The tone and manner suggested many things, but Anna was a terribly
matter-of-fact person, to whom suggestions were nothing. "Why should
she wish it concealed?" she inquired.
"I do not know why," Denah answered; "that remains to be seen. As for
how I know it, I saw it in her face; when she looked at him her lips
became set, and her eyes--she looked--" She hesitated for a word, and
dropped to the homely, "She looked as if she would bite with annoyance
that he should be here. The expression was gone in a moment; she spoke
with an ease and naturalness that was astonishing, even disgusting;
but it had been there. I do not trust her."
The last was said with great seriousness, and for a little Anna was
impressed. But not for long, she could not accept such evidence as
this; in her opinion it was "fancy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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