Book: The Good Comrade

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[Illustration: "'Tell me,' she said, 'did you ever really do anything
foolish in your life?'"]


The Good Comrade



By

UNA L. SILBERRAD


Illustrated by
Anna Whelan Betts





New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1907




COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY DOUBLEDAY PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1907




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I. THE POLKINGTONS

II. THE DEBT

III. NARCISSUS TRIANDRUS AZUREUM

IV. THE OWNER OF THE BLUE DAFFODIL

V. THE EXCURSION

VI. DEBTOR AND CREDITOR

VII. HOW JULIA DID NOT GET THE BLUE DAFFODIL

VIII. POOFERCHJES AND JEALOUSY

IX. THE HOLIDAY

X. TO-MORROW

XI. A REPRIEVE

XII. THE YOUNG COOK

XIII. THE HEIRESS

XIV. THE END OF THE CAMPAIGN

XV. THE GOOD COMRADE

XVI. THE SIMPLE LIFE

XVII. NARCISSUS TRIANDRUS STRIATUM, THE GOOD COMRADE

XVIII. BEHIND THE CHOPPING-BLOCK

XIX. CAPTAIN POLKINGTON

XX. THE BENEFACTOR

XXI. THE GOING OF THE GOOD COMRADE

XXII. THE LINE OF LEAST RESISTANCE

XXIII. PAYMENT AND RECEIPT




ILLUSTRATIONS


"'Tell me,' she said, 'did you ever
really do anything foolish in your
life?'" Frontispiece

"Julia"

"A wonderful woman"

"'Now you must call your flower a
name,' he said"




THE GOOD COMRADE

CHAPTER I

THE POLKINGTONS


The Polkingtons were of those people who do not dine. They lunched,
though few besides Johnny Gillat, who did not count, had been invited
to share that meal with them. They took tea, the daintiest,
pleasantest, most charming of teas, as the _elite_ of Marbridge knew;
everybody--or, rather, a selection of everybody, had had tea with them
one time or another. After that there was no record; the _elite_, who
would as soon have thought of going without their heads as without
their dinner, concluded they dined, because they were "one of us." But
some humbler folk were of opinion that they only dined once a week,
and that after morning service on Sundays; but even this idea was
dispelled when the eldest Miss Polkington was heard to excuse her
non-appearance at an organ recital because "lunch was always so late
on Sunday."

Let it not be imagined from this that the Polkingtons were common
people--they were not; they were extremely well connected; indeed,
their connections were one of the two striking features about them,
the other was their handicap, Captain Polkington, late of the ----th
Bengal Lancers. He was well connected, though not quite so much so as
his wife; still--well, but he was not very presentable. If only he
had been dead he would have been a valuable asset, but living, he was
decidedly rather a drawback; there are some relatives like this. Mrs.
Polkington bore up under it valiantly; in fact, they all did so well
that in time they, or at least she and two of her three daughters,
came almost to believe some of the legends they told of the Captain.

The Polkingtons lived at No. 27 East Street, which, as all who know
Marbridge are aware, is a very good street in which to live. The house
was rather small, but the drawing-room was good, with two beautiful
Queen Anne windows, and a white door with six panels. The rest of the
house did not matter. On the whole the drawing-room did not so very
much matter, because visitors seldom went into it when the Miss
Polkingtons were not there; and when they were, no one but a jealous
woman would have noticed that the furniture was rather slight, and
there were no flowers except those in obvious places.

There was only one Miss Polkington in the drawing-room that wintry
afternoon--Julia, the middle one of the three, the only one who could
not fill even a larger room to the complete obliteration of furniture
and fitments. Julia was not pretty, therefore she was seldom to be
found in the drawing-room alone; she knew better than to attempt to
occupy that stage by herself. But it was now almost seven o'clock, too
late for any one to come; also, since there was no light but the fire,
deficiencies were not noticeable. She felt secure of interruption, and
stood with one foot on the fender, looking earnestly into the fire.

That day had been an important one to the Polkingtons; Violet, the
eldest of the sisters, had that afternoon accepted an offer of
marriage from the Reverend Richard Frazer. The young man had not left
the house an hour, and Mrs. Polkington was not yet returned from some
afternoon engagement more than half, but already the matter had been
in part discussed by the family. Julia, standing by the drawing-room
fire, was in a position to review at least some points of the case
dispassionately. Violet was two and twenty, tall, and of a fine
presence, like her mother, but handsomer than the elder woman could
ever have been. She had undoubted abilities, principally of a social
order, but not a penny apiece to her dower. She had this afternoon
accepted Richard Frazer, though he was only a curate--an aristocratic
one certainly, with a small private income, and an uncle lately made
bishop of one of the minor sees. Violet was fond of him; she was too
nice a girl to accept a man she was not fond of, though too well
brought up to become fond of one who was impossible. The engagement,
though it probably did not fulfil all Mrs. Polkington's ambitions, was
in Julia's opinion a good thing for several reasons.

There was a swish and rustle of silk by the door--Mrs. Polkington did
not wear silk skirts, only a silk flounce somewhere, but she got more
creak and rustle out of it than the average woman does out of two
skirts. An imposing woman she was, with an eye that had once been
described as "eagle," though, for that, it was a little inquiring and
eager now, by reason of the look-out she had been obliged to keep for
a good part of her life. She entered the room now, followed by her
eldest and youngest daughters, Violet and Cherie.

"At twelve to-morrow?" she was saying as she came in. "Is that when he
is coming to see your father?"

Violet said it was; then added, in a tone of some dissatisfaction, "I
suppose he must see father about it? We couldn't arrange something?"

"Certainly not," Mrs. Polkington replied with decision; "it is not for
me to give or refuse consent to your marriage. Of course, Mr. Frazer
knows your father does not have good health, or trouble himself to mix
much in society here--it is not likely that an old military man
should, but in a case like this he would expect to be called upon; it
would have shown a great lack of breeding on Mr. Frazer's part had he
suggested anything different."

Violet agreed, though she did not seem exactly convinced, and Julia
created a diversion by saying--

"Twelve is rather an awkward time. A quarter of an hour with father,
five minutes--no, ten--with you, half an hour with Violet, altogether
brings it very near lunch time."

"Mr. Frazer will, of course, lunch with us to-morrow," Mrs. Polkington
said, as if stray guests to lunch were the most usual and convenient
thing in the world. The Polkingtons kept up a good many of their
farces in private life; most of them found it easier, as well as
pleasanter, to do so. "The cold beef," Mrs. Polkington said, mentally
reviewing her larder, "can be hashed; that and a small boned loin of
mutton will do, he would naturally expect to be treated as one of the
family; fortunately the apple tart has not been cut--with a little
cream--"

"I thought we were to have the tart to-night," Julia interrupted,
thinking of Johnny Gillat, who was coming to spend the evening with
her father.

Mrs. Polkington thought of him too, but she did not change her mind on
this account. "We can't, then," she said, and turned to the discussion
of other matters. She had carried these as far as the probable date of
marriage, and the preferment the young man might easily expect, when
the little servant came up to announce Mr. Gillat.

Mrs. Polkington did not express impatience. "Is he in the
dining-room?" she said. "I hope you lighted the heater, Mary."

Mary said she had, and Mrs. Polkington returned to her interesting
subject, only pausing to remark, "How tiresome that your father is not
back yet!"

For a little none of the three girls moved, then Julia rose.

"Are you going down to Mr. Gillat?" her mother asked. "There really is
no necessity; he is perfectly happy with the paper."

Perhaps he was, though the paper was a half-penny morning one; he did
not make extravagant demands on fate, or anything else; nevertheless,
Julia went down.

The Polkingtons' house was furnished on an ascending scale, which
found its zenith in the drawing-room, but deteriorated again very
rapidly afterwards. The dining-room, being midway between the kitchen
and the drawing-room, was only a middling-looking apartment. They did
not often have a fire there; a paraffin lamp stove stood in the
fire-place, leering with its red eye as if it took a wicked
satisfaction in its own smell. Before the fire-place, re-reading the
already-known newspaper by the light of one gas jet, sat Johnny
Gillat. Poor old Johnny, with his round, pink face, whereon a grizzled
little moustache looked as much out of place as on a twelve-year-old
school-boy. There was something of the school-boy in his look and in
his deprecating manner, especially to Mrs. Polkington; he had always
been a little deprecating to her even when he had first known her, a
bride, while he himself was the wealthy bachelor friend of her
husband. He was still a bachelor, and still her husband's friend, but
the wealth had gone long ago. He had now only just enough to keep him,
fortunately so secured that he could not touch the principal. It was
a mercy he had it, for there was no known work at which he could have
earned sixpence, unless perhaps it was road scraping under a not too
exacting District Council. He was a harmless enough person, but when
he took it into his head to leave his lodgings in town for others,
equally cheap and nasty, at Marbridge, Mrs. Polkington felt fate was
hard upon her. It was like having two Captain Polkingtons, of a
different sort, but equally unsuitable for public use, in the place.
In self defence she had been obliged to make definite rules for Mr.
Gillat's coming and going about the house, and still more definite
rules as to the rooms in which he might be found. The dining-room was
allowed him, and there he was when Julia came.

He looked up as she entered, and smiled; he regarded her as almost as
much his friend as her father; a composite creature, and a necessary
connection between the superior and inferior halves of the household.

"Father not in, I hear," he said.

"No," Julia answered. "What a smell there is!"

Mr. Gillat allowed it. "There's something gone wrong with Bouquet," he
said, thoughtfully regarding the stove.

The "Bouquet Heater" was the name under which it was patented; it did
not seem quite honest to speak of it as a heater, so perhaps "Bouquet"
was the better name.

Julia went to it. "I should think there is," she said, and turned it
up, and turn it down, and altered the wicks, until she had improved
matters a little.

"I'm afraid your father's having larks," Johnny said, watching her.

"It's rather a pity if he is," Julia answered; "he has got to see some
one on business to-morrow."

"Who?"

"Mr. Frazer, a clergyman who wants to marry Violet."

Mr. Gillat sat upright. "Dear, dear!" he exclaimed. "No? Really?" and
when Julia had given him an outline of the circumstances, he added
softly, "A wonderful woman! I always had a great respect for your
mother." From which it is clear he thought Mrs. Polkington was to be
congratulated. "And when is it to be?" he asked.

"Violet says a year's time; they could not afford to marry sooner and
do it properly, but it will have to be sooner all the same."

"A year is not a very long time," Mr. Gillat observed; "they go fast,
years; one almost loses count of them, they go so fast."

"I dare say," Julia answered, "but Violet will have to get married
without waiting for the year to pass. We can't afford a long
engagement."

Mr. Gillat looked mildly surprised and troubled; he always did when
scarcity of money was brought home to him, but Julia regarded it quite
calmly.

"The sooner Violet is married," she said, "the sooner we can reduce
some of the expenses; we are living beyond our income now--not a great
deal, perhaps, still a bit; Violet's going would save enough, I
believe; we could catch up then. That is one reason, but the chief is
that a long engagement is expensive; you see, we should have to have
meals different, and fires different, and all manner of extras if Mr.
Frazer came in and out constantly. We should have to live altogether
in a more expensive style; we might manage it for three months, or six
if we were driven to it, but for a year--it is out of the question."

"But," Mr. Gillat protested, "if they can't afford it? You said he
could not; he is a curate."

"He must get a living, or a chaplaincy, or something; or rather, I
expect we must get it for him. Oh, no, we have no Church influence,
and we don't know any bishops; but one can always rake up influence,
and get to know people, if one is not too particular how."

Mr. Gillat looked at her uneasily; every now and then there flitted
through his mind a suspicion that Julia was clever too, as clever
perhaps as her mother, and though not, like her, a moral and social
pillar standing in the high first estate from which he and the Captain
had fallen. Julia had never been that, never aspired to it; she was no
success at all; content to come and sit in the dining-room with him
and Bouquet; she could not really be clever, or else she would have
achieved something for herself, and scorned to consort with failures.
He smiled benignly as he remembered this, observing, "I dare say
something will be done--I hope it may; your mother's a wonderful
woman, a wonderful--"

He broke off to listen; Julia listened too, then she rose to her feet.
"That's father," she said, and went to let him in.

Mr. Gillat followed her to the door. "Ah--h'm," he said, as he saw the
Captain coming in slowly, with a face of despairing melancholy and a
drooping step.

"Come down-stairs, father," Julia said. "Come along, Johnny."

They followed her meekly to the basement, where there was a gloomy
little room behind the kitchen reserved for the Captain's special use.
A paraffin stove stood in the fire-place also, own brother to the one
in the dining-room; Julia stooped to light it, while her father sank
into a chair.

"Gillat," he said in a voice of hopelessness, "I am a ruined man."

"No?" Mr. Gillat answered sympathetically, but without surprise. "Dear
me!" He carefully put down the hat and stick he had brought with him,
the one on the edge of the table, the other against it, both so badly
balanced that they fell to the ground.

"You shouldn't do it, you know," he said, with mild reproof; "you
really shouldn't."

"Do it!" the Captain cried. "Do what?"

Julia looked up from the floor where she knelt trimming the
stove-lamp. "Have five whiskeys and sodas," she said, examining her
father judicially.

He did not deny the charge; Julia's observation was not to be avoided.

"And what is five?" he demanded with dignity.

"Three too many for you," she answered.

"Do you mean to insinuate that I am intoxicated?" he asked. "Johnny,"
he turned pathetically to his friend, "my own daughter insinuates that
I am intoxicated."

"No," Julia said, "I don't; I say it does not agree with you, and it
doesn't--you know you ought not to take more than two glasses."

"Is that your opinion, Gillat?" Captain Polkington asked. "Is that
what you meant? That I--I should confine myself to two glasses of
whiskey and water?"

"I wasn't thinking of the whiskey," Johnny said apologetically; "it
was the gees."

The Captain groaned, but what he said more Julia did not hear; she
went out into the kitchen to get paraffin. But she had no doubt that
he defended the attacked point to his own satisfaction, as he always
had done--cards, races, and kindred pleasant, if expensive, things,
ever since the days long ago before he sent in his papers.

These same pleasant things had had a good deal to do with the sending
in of the papers; not that they had led the Captain into anything
disgraceful, the compulsion to resign his commission came solely from
relatives, principally those of his wife. It was their opinion that
he worked too little and played too much, and an expensive kind of
play. That he drank too much was not said; of course, the Indian
climate and life tempted to whiskey pegs, and nature had not fitted
him for them in large quantities; still that was never cast up against
him. Enough was, however, to bring things to an end; he resigned,
relations helped to pay his debts, and he came home with the avowed
intention of getting some gentlemanly employment. Of course he never
got any, it wasn't likely, hardly possible; but he had something left
to live upon--a very small private income, a clever wife, and some
useful and conscientious relations.

Somehow the family lived, quite how in the early days no one knew;
Mrs. Polkington never spoke of it at the time, and now, mercifully,
she had forgotten part, but the struggle must have been bitter.
Herself disillusioned, her daughters mere children, her position
insecure, and her husband not yet reduced to submission, and always
prone to slip back into his old ways. But she had won through somehow,
and time had given her the compensations possible to her nature. She
was, by her own untiring efforts, a social factor now, even a social
success; her eldest daughter was engaged to a clergyman of sufficient,
if small, means, and her youngest was almost a beauty. As to the
Captain, he was still there; time had not taken him away, but it had
reduced him; he gave little trouble now even when Johnny Gillat came;
he kept so out of the way that she had almost come to regard him as a
negligible factor--which was a mistake.

Both the Captain and his friend had a great respect for Mrs.
Polkington, though both felt at times that she treated them a little
hardly. The Captain especially felt this, but he put up with it; after
all it is easier to acquiesce than to assert one's rights, and, as
Johnny pointed out, it was on the whole more comfortable, in spite of
horse-hair chairs, down in the basement than up in the drawing-room.
There was no need to make polite conversation down here, and one might
smoke, no matter how cheap the tobacco, and put one's feet up, and
really Bouquet was almost as good as a fire when you once get used to
it.

Johnny was of a contented mind, he even looked contented sitting by
the empty stove when Julia came back with the paraffin; the Captain,
on the other hand, appeared to be very gloomy and unhappy; he sat
silent all the time his daughter was present. As she was leaving the
room Johnny tried to rouse him. "We might have a game," he suggested,
looking towards a pack of cards that stuck out of a half-opened
drawer.

"I have nothing in the world that I can call my own," Captain
Polkington answered, without moving.

Mr. Gillat felt in his own lean pockets surreptitiously. "We might
play for paper," he said.

And as she went up-stairs Julia listened to hear their chairs scroop
on the kamptulikon floor as they drew them to the table; she was
surprised not to hear the sound, but she imagined the game must have
been put off a little so that her father could talk over his troubles.
Which, indeed, was the case, though the magnitude of those troubles
she did not guess.




CHAPTER II

THE DEBT


Violet's engagement was an accepted fact. Mr. Frazer came to see the
Captain, who received him in the dining-room--the combined ingenuity
of the family could not make the down-stairs room presentable. The
interview was short, but satisfactory; so also was the one with Mrs.
Polkington which followed; with Violet it was longer, but, no doubt,
equally satisfactory. Lunch, too, was all that could be desired. Mrs.
Polkington's manners were always gracious, and to-day she had a
charming air of taking Richard into the family--after having shut all
the doors, actual and metaphorical, which led to anything real and
personal. The Captain was rather twittery at lunch, at times inclined
to talk too much, at times heavily silent and always obviously
submissive to his wife. Yesterday's excitement was not enough to
account for this in Julia's opinion. "He has been doing something,"
she decided, and wondered what.

Mrs. Polkington and her daughters all went out that afternoon; Julia,
however, returned at about dusk. As the others had no intention of
coming back so soon, there was no drawing-room tea; a much simpler
meal was spread in the dining-room. Julia and her father had only just
sat down to it when they heard Johnny Gillat's knock at the front
door, followed a minute afterwards by Mr. Gillat himself; but when he
saw that the Captain was not alone, he stopped on the threshold;
Julia's presence, contrary to custom, seemed to discompose him. He,
then, was in her father's secret, whatever it might be; she guessed as
much when she saw his perturbed pink face. However, she did not say
anything, only invited Mr. Gillat to have some tea.

Johnny sat down, and put a small and rather badly tied parcel beside
him; next minute he picked it up again, and began surreptitiously to
put it into first one pocket and then another. It was rather a tight
fit, and in his efforts to do it unobtrusively, he made some
disturbance, but no one remarked on it; Captain Polkington because he
was too despondent, Julia because it did not seem worth while.
Conversation languished; Julia did what she could, but her father
answered in monosyllables, and Mr. Gillat said, "Very true," or "Ah,
yes, yes," eating slice after slice of thick bread and butter, and
filling his mouth very full as if to cork it up and so prevent his
having to answer awkward questions.

At last Captain Polkington rose; "Gillat," he said, "if you have
finished, we may as well go down-stairs."

Johnny set down his half-finished cup of tea with alacrity, and with
alacrity followed the Captain. But Julia followed too; Johnny turned
uneasily as he heard her step behind him on the dark stairs;
doubtless, so he told himself, she was going to the kitchen. She was
not, however; on the contrary, she showed every sign of accompanying
them to the little room behind.

"Do you want anything, Julia?" her father asked, turning about in the
doorway; "I'm busy to-night--I wish you would go away."

The sentence began with dignity, but ended with querulousness. But
Julia was not affected; she came into the room. "I want to talk to
you," she said, closing the door. "You had much better tell me about
it, you will be found out, you know; mother would have guessed there
was something wrong to-day if she had not been so busy with Mr.
Frazer."

"Found out in what?" the Captain demanded; "I should like to know of
what you accuse me--you, my own daughter--this is much, indeed."

He paced the hearthrug with outraged dignity, but Julia only drew one
of the horse-hair chairs to the table. "You would do better to tell
me," she said; "I might be able to help you--Johnny, won't you sit
down?"

Johnny took the cane deck-chair, sitting down nervously and so near
the edge that the old chair creaked ominously. Captain Polkington
paced the rug once or twice more, then he sat down opposite, giving up
all pretence of dignity.

"It is money, of course," Julia went on; "I suppose you lost at the
races yesterday--how much?"

The Captain did not answer, he seemed overwhelmed by his troubles.
"How much?" Julia repeated, turning to Mr. Gillat.

"It was rather much," that gentleman answered apologetically.

Julia looked puzzled. "How could he have much to lose?" she asked.
"You couldn't, you know," bending her brows as she looked at her
father--"unless you borrowed--did you borrow?"

"Yes, yes," he said, rather eagerly; "I borrowed--that was it; of
course I was going to pay back--I am going to pay back."

"From whom did you borrow?" Another pause, and the question again,
then the Captain explained confusedly: "The cheque--it came a day
early--I merely meant to make use of it for the day--"

"The cheque!" Julia repeated, with dawning comprehension. "The cheque
from Slade & Slade that mother was speaking of this morning. Our
cheque, the money we have to live on for the next three months?"

"My cheque," her father said, with one last effort at dignity; "made
out to me--my income that I have a perfect right to spend as I like; I
used my own money for my own purposes."

He forgot that a moment back he had excused the act as a borrowing;
Julia did not remind him, she was too much concerned with the facts to
trouble about mere turns of speech. They, like words and motives, had
not heretofore entered much into her considerations; consequences were
what was really important to her--how the bad might be averted, how
the good drawn that way, and all used to the best advantage. This
point of view, though it leaves a great deal to be desired, has one
advantage--those who take it waste no time in lamentation or reproof.
For that reason they are perhaps some of the least unpleasant people
to confess to.

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