Book: The Good Comrade

U >> Una L. Silberrad >> The Good Comrade




Rawson-Clew knew exactly the kind of woman she had described for the
deck--he met them often; charming creatures, far as the poles asunder
from the girl who spoke of them; he liked them--in moderation, and in
their place, much as his forebears of fifty years ago had liked
theirs, the delicate, sensitive creatures of that era. He had never
regarded Julia in that light; he found her certainly more entertaining
as a companion, though also very far short of the standard as a woman
and an ornament.

"The people in the engine-room," he observed, "would certainly be more
useful in an emergency; still, life is not made up entirely of
emergencies."

"No," Julia answered; "and in between times such people are better not
on show--I know that; that is why I do not care for the drawing-room
side of things, I don't know enough to shine in them."

"Do you think it is a matter of knowledge?" he asked, "or inclination?
If it comes to knowledge I should say you had a rather remarkable
stock of an unusual sort, and at first hand. That may not be what is
required for a complete drawing-room success, though I am not sure
that it is not more interesting--say for an excursion--than a flitting
glance at the subjects you mention, and about eighteen or twenty more
that you did not."

Julia looked up, half pleased, doubtful as to whether or not to
interpret this as a compliment; she never knew quite how much he meant
of what he said; his manner was exactly the same, whether he was in
fun or in earnest. But if she thought of asking him now she was
prevented, for at that moment Mr. Gillat's watch slipped out of her
belt into her lap, and she saw the time.

"How late is it!" she exclaimed. "We ought to have started
half-an-hour ago; it will take me two hours, and more, to get home
from here, even if I go by the tram in the town."

She rose as she spoke, and he rose more slowly.

"Shall I take your flowers for you?" he asked. "They seem rather
inclined to tumble about; don't you think they would be safer in my
pocket? As you say you are going to dry them, it won't matter crushing
them."

She gave them to him, and he put the sweet-smelling bunch into his
pocket, then they started for the edge of the wood.

"It is much colder," Julia said; "and the sun is all gone; I suppose
the clouds have been coming gradually, but I did not notice before. If
it is going to rain, we shall get decidedly wet before we get back."

"I am afraid so," he agreed; "you have no coat."

She told him that did not matter, she did not mind getting wet, and
she spoke with a cheerful buoyancy that carried conviction.

When they reached the outskirts of the wood, however, they saw there
was not much chance of rain, but a much worse evil threatened. All the
distance on the seaward side was blotted out, a fine white mist shut
out the curving land in that direction. It was blowing up towards
them, rolling down the little hills in billowy puffs, and lying
filmy, yet dense, in the hollows, moved by a wind unfelt here.

"A sea fog," Julia said; "I wonder how far it is coming."

Rawson-Clew wondered too; he thought, as she did, that there was every
chance of its coming far and fast, but it did not seem necessary to
either of them to say anything so unpleasantly and obviously probable.

They set out homewards as fast as they could; it was a long way to the
place where they had climbed up, unfortunately all across open
country, entirely without roads or definite paths, and the drifting
sea fog was coming up fast, bound, it would seem, the same way. Soon
it was upon them; they felt its advance in the chill that, like cold
fingers, laid hold on everything; it came quite silently up from
behind, without noticeable wind, eerily creeping up and enfolding
everything, putting a white winding-sheet not about the earth only,
but the very air also. The cotton blouse that Julia wore became limp
and wet as if it had been dipped in water; she could see the fog
condensing in beads on her companion's coat almost like hoar frost; it
lay on every low-growing rose bush and bramble that they stepped upon,
a curious transformer of all near objects, a complete obliterator of
all more distant ones.

They pushed on as quickly as might be, climbing little hills,
descending into hollows; stumbling among rabbit holes, threading their
way through thickets; apparently finding something amusing in the
patriarchal colonies of rabbit burrows that tripped them up, and
stopping to argue, though hardly in earnest, as to whether they had
passed that way or not, when some white-barked tree, or other
landmark, loomed suddenly out of the thickening mist. Once it seemed
the fog was going to lift; Julia thought she saw the outline of a
distant hill, but either it was closed in again directly, or else she
mistook a thicker fold of cloud for a more solid object, for it was
lost almost before she pointed it out.

For something over two hours they walked and stumbled, and went up
small ascents and came down small declines; then suddenly they came
upon the white-barked tree again. It was the same one that they had
seen more than an hour and a half ago; Rawson-Clew recognised it by a
peculiar warty growth where the branches forked; they had now
approached it from the other side, but clearly it was the same one,
and they had come round in a circle.

He stopped and pointed it out to her. "I am afraid," he said, "we had
better do what is recommended when the clouds come down on the
mountains."

"And that is?" Julia asked.

"Sit down and wait till they shift."

She could not but see the advisability of this, also she was very
tired, the going for these two hours had not been easy, and it had
come at the end of a long day. She would not admit, even to herself,
that she was tired, but she was, so she agreed to the waiting; after
all, it was impossible to pretend longer that they were going to get
home easily, and were not really hopelessly astray.

"We will go a little way in among the trees," Rawson-Clew said; "it is
more sheltered, and we shall be able to find the way quite as easily
from one place as another when the fog lifts."

They found as sheltered a spot as they could, and sat down under a big
tree; as they did so his hand came in contact with Julia's wet sleeve
and cold arm. "How cold you are!" he said. "You have nothing on."

"Oh, yes, I have," she assured him. "I did not avail myself of your
permission this morning."

He took off his coat and put it round her.

But she threw it off again. "That won't do at all," she said; "now you
have nothing on, and that is much more improper; women may sit in
their shirt sleeves, men may not."

"Don't be absurd!" he said authoritatively; "you are to keep that on,"
and he wrapped it about her with a decision that brought home to her
her youth and smallness.

"You are shutting all the damp in," she protested, shifting her point
of attack, "and that is very unwholesome. I shan't get warm; I haven't
any warmth to start with; you are wasting what you have got to no
purpose."

But he did not waste it, for eventually it was arranged that they sat
close together under the tree, with the coat put as far as it would go
over both of them. Rawson-Clew was not given to thinking how things
looked, he did what he thought necessary, or advisable, without taking
any thought of that kind; so it did not occur to him how this
arrangement might look to an unprejudiced observer, had there been any
such. But Julia, with her faculty for seeing herself as others saw
her, was much, though silently, amused as she thought of the Van
Heigens. Poor, kind folks, they were doubtless already wondering what
could have become of her; if they could only have seen her sitting
thus, with an unknown man, what would their Dutch propriety have said?

"Do you suppose this fog will be in the town?" Rawson-Clew said, after
a time.

"No," she answered, "I should think not; from what I have heard, I
think it is very unlikely."

"Then the Van Heigens won't know what has become of you?"

"Not a bit in the world; they don't even know where I was going
to-day. I did not tell them; I am afraid they will be rather uneasy
about me, but perhaps not so very much, they know by this time I can
take care of myself; besides, I shall be home before bed-time, if the
fog lifts."

Rawson-Clew agreed, and they talked of other things. Julia held the
opinion that when an evil has to be endured, not cured, there is no
good in discussing it over and over again; she had a considerable gift
for making the best of other things besides opportunities.

But the fog did not lift soon; it did not grow denser, but it did not
grow less; it just lay soft and chilly, casting a white pall of
silence on all things, closing day before its time, and making it
impossible to say when evening ended and night began. Gradually the
two who waited for its lifting fell into silence, and Julia, tired
out, at last dropped asleep, her head tilted back against the
tree-trunk, her shoulder pressed close against Rawson-Clew under the
shelter of his coat.

He did not move, he was afraid of waking her; he sat watching, waiting
in the eerie white stillness, until at last the space before him
altered, and gradually between the trees he saw the faint outline of a
hill, dark against the dark sky. Slowly the white mist rolled from it,
a billowy, ghostly thing, that left a black, vague world, only dimly
seen. He looked at the sleeping girl, then at the hill; the fog was
clearing, there was no doubt about that; soon it would be quite gone,
but it would be a very dark night, the stars would hardly show, and
the moon was now long down. He was not at all sure of being able to
find his way across this undulating country, so entirely devoid of
prominent features, in a very dark night. Rather he was nearly sure
that he could not do it; and though he had a by no means low opinion
of Julia's abilities, he did not think that she could either. Also,
with a sense of dramatic fitness equal to that of the girl's he
thought their arrival in the town would be rather ill-timed if they
started now. It would be wiser to wait till after it was light, though
dawn was not so very early now, the summer being far advanced. So he
decided, and Julia slept peacefully on, her head dropping lower and
lower, till finally it reached his shoulder. But he did not move; he
left it resting there, and waited, thinking of nothing perhaps, or
anything; or perhaps of that unknown quantity, the natural man, which
has a way of stirring sometimes even in the most civilised, at night
time. So he sat and watched for the dawn.




CHAPTER X

TO-MORROW


It was a bright sunny morning, and, though the third and last day of
the fair, people went to their business as usual. The Dutch are early
risers, and set about their day's work in good time; but even had they
been the reverse, the latest of them would have been about before
Julia and Rawson-Clew reached the outskirts of the town. They had
stopped for breakfast at the first village they came to after leaving
the Dunes, this on the principle of being hung for a sheep rather than
a lamb. It did not seem to matter being a little later considering the
necessarily unreasonable hour of their return; also Julia, with the
instinct of her family for detail; preferred to set herself to rights
so as to present the best appearance possible when she arrived at the
Van Heigens'. It was not natural, of course, that a person should
appear too neat and orderly after a night of adventure, lost on the
Dunes; but the reverse was not becoming. Julia hit the medium between
the two with a nicety which might have cost one not a Polkington some
thought, but to one of them was merely the natural thing.

Together Julia and Rawson-Clew walked to the outskirts of the town.
Their ways parted there--his to the left, hers to the right; it was
the port of which she had thought yesterday, the place of final
separation. He had proposed to go with her to the Van Heigens, so as
to bear testimony to what had befallen, and to assure them that she
was quite safe; but she would not have this, she felt she could manage
very much better without him, his presence would only require a good
deal of extra explanation, none too easy to give. He guessed the
reason of her refusal and saw the wisdom of it, although he felt
annoyed that she had, as he now perceived she must, concealed their
earlier acquaintance. It might have been advisable, seeing Dutch
notions of propriety; but it placed the matter in a rather invidious
light, and also began to bring home to him the fact, which grew very
much more evident before the day was over, that he had distinguished
himself by an act of really remarkable folly.

They had almost reached the town, in fact had passed some small
houses, the dwelling-places of carriage proprietors and washerwomen,
when a girl stepped out of a doorway some distance ahead of them. She
glanced in their direction, then stared.

"There's Denah," Julia said; she did not speak with consternation
though Denah was about the last person she wanted to see just then.
Consternation is a waste of time and energy when you are found out, a
bold face and immediate actions are usually best. Julia waved her hand
in cheerful greeting to the Dutch girl.

But Denah did not return the greeting; instead, after her stare of
astonished recognition, she turned and set off up the road towards
where it joined a more important street with trams, which ran into the
town.

"Hulloah?" Julia said softly, and quick as thought she turned too, and
the hand that had waved to Denah was signaling to a carriage which at
that moment drove out of a stable-yard near. A light had come into her
eyes, a dancing light like the gleam on a sword-blade. There was a
little wee smile about her lips, too, which somehow brought to
Rawson-Clew's mind a man he once knew who had sung softly to himself
all the time he prepared for the brigands who were known to be about
to rush his camp.

"She'll take a tram," Julia said gaily, looking towards the speeding
figure; "she is too careful to waste her money even to spite any one
of whom she is jealous."

The cab drew up, and Julia, not failing to see Denah fulfil her words
at the junction of the street, got in. Rawson-Clew followed her. She
would have prevented him.

"Don't come," she said; "I don't want you. Good-bye."

But he insisted. "I certainly am coming," he said, and ordered the man
to drive on into the town, telling Julia to give the address.

She did so, weighing in her mind the while the chances of
Rawson-Clew's knowledge of Dutch being equal to following all that was
said when three people spoke at once, all of them in a great state of
excitement. She thought it was possible he would not master every
detail, but at the same time she did not wish him to try; it would be
insupportable to have him dragged into this, and in return for his
kindness to her have a dozen vulgar and ridiculous things said and
insinuated.

"Look here," she said, "there is not any need for you to come, I can
do better without you, I can indeed. I have got to explain things, of
course, but, as I told you before, I have had some practice at dodging
and explaining. I shall reach the Van Heigens' before Denah, so I
shall get the first hearing, that's all I want, I can explain
beautifully."

"You cannot explain me away," Rawson-Clew answered. "I know I was not
to have figured in the original account, that is obvious, but it is
equally obvious that I must figure in this one. I prefer to give it
myself."

"Oh, but that won't do at all!" Julia said. "Please leave it to me, it
would be nothing to me, I am used to tight places, and it would be an
insufferable annoyance to you. I really don't want you to suffer for
your kindness to me--you have no idea what absurd and ridiculous
things they will say."

Rawson-Clew had been polishing his eyeglass, he put it back in his eye
before he spoke. "My dear child," he said; "in spite of the sheltered
life with which you credit me, I assure you I have a very clear idea
of the kind of things they will say."

"Then for goodness sake, leave it to me," Julia said, losing her
temper; "I can do it a great deal better than you can; I'm not honest,
and you are, and that's a handicap."

"In these cases," Rawson-Clew answered imperturbably, "honesty
requires the consideration of the lady first and truth afterwards--a
long way after. Let me know what you want told and I will tell
it--with evidence--I suppose you are equal to evidence?"

Julia laughed, but without much mirth. "I do wish you would not come,"
she said.

But he did, and they drove together through the town, past the bulb
gardens, to the wooden house with the dark-tiled roof. There
Rawson-Clew paid the coachman and dismissed the carriage while Julia
rang the bell.

In time the servant came to the door. "Ach!" she cried at the sight of
Julia, and, "G-r-r-r!" and other exclamations, uttered very gutturally
and with upraised hands. She was a country girl from some remote
district, and she spoke a very unintelligible patois; at least
Rawson-Clew found it so, his companion, apparently, was used to it.

Julia listened to the exclamations, and apparently to congratulations
on her safe return, said in a friendly manner that she had a terrible
adventure, and then asked where Mevrouw was.

Mevrouw was out, and Mijnheer was out too; a torrent more information
followed, but Julia did not pay much attention to it, she turned to
Rawson-Clew with the smile on her lips with which she laughed at
herself.

"Denah saved her money and won her move," she said; "it serves me
right. I under-rated her--this is what always comes of under-rating
the enemy."

"Do you mean she knew where these people are?" Rawson-Clew asked.

"That is about it, she knew and I did not."

"What are you going to do?"

"Wait till they come back, there is nothing else."

He moved as if he thought to follow her into the house, but she did
not approve of that. "You cannot wait with me," she said; "it is one
thing to bring me home, quite another to wait with me here."

He, however, thought differently, but he did not argue the point.
"Thank you," he said, "I prefer to wait; I consider I am conducting
this now, not you."

He was a little annoyed by her ridiculous persistence, but she looked
at him with the dancing lights coming back in her eyes. "Oh, well, if
you prefer to wait," she said, "but I'm afraid you must do it alone."
And before he realised what she was doing, she had run off, down the
path, across an empty flower-bed and among some brushes behind.

In considerable anger he turned to follow her, but he pulled himself
up; there was very little use in that and no need for it either; he
was sure she was far too skilful a tactician to imperil an affair by
unwise flight; this was a blind merely--unless, of course, she thought
of setting out to find these Dutch people, wherever they might be. He
asked the staring servant where her master and mistress were; it took
time for him to make out her answers, but at last he did. Mijnheer was
at a place (or house) with a name he had never before heard, and would
have been puzzled to say now from this one hearing. It was a distant
bulb farm, and Mijnheer had gone there on business; the fact that
Julia had not returned home naturally did not keep the good man from
his work. These details Rawson-Clew did not know; the name only was
given to him, and that conveyed nothing. Joost, he was told, was
somewhere in the bulb gardens, where, seemed unknown; Mevrouw was at
the house of the notary. Who the notary was, and where he lived, and
why she had gone there were alike as obscure to this inquirer as was
Julia's probable destination. He felt that she might have set out to
find any one of these three people, or she might be lying in wait,
like a foolish child, till he had gone. He went down the drive;
outside the gate he saw some idlers who had been there when he drove
in a little while back; he asked them if any one answering to the
girl's description had come out. They told him "ja," and they also
told him which direction she had taken; it was the way that led to the
market, not the residential part of the town.

He was no better off for this information; there seemed nothing to be
done. It would have been little short of absurd, if, indeed, it had
not been seriously compromising to Julia, for him to present himself
at the house of the notary--when he could find it--and tell Vrouw Van
Heigen he had brought Julia home and she was afraid to appear with
him. Either he and she must act together and appear together, or else
he must, as she desired and now made necessary, keep out of it
altogether. Considerably annoyed with the girl, but at the same time
uneasy about her, he went to his hotel.

As the morning wore on, the annoyance lessened and the uneasiness
grew. After all he was not sure that Julia had thrown away much by
refusing to have the support of his company; had they two been there
waiting for the Van Heigens' return, or had they set out together to
find them, he was not sure his presence would have been any help in
the face of the jealous Dutch girl's accusations. A jealous woman,
even an ordinarily foolish one, is a very dangerous thing when she is
attacking a fancied rival with a chance of encompassing her overthrow.
Denah would have got her tale told, her case proven, indignation
aroused and sympathy with her before the Van Heigens even saw Julia.
He wondered what she would do alone and wished he knew how she fared;
he thought over the explanations possible and the various ways out
that might suggest themselves to a fertile brain. They were not many,
and they were not good; the simple truth would probably be best, and
that would be so exceedingly compromising under the circumstances that
the Van Heigens were hardly likely to find it palatable. Indeed, he
began to see that, even if they two could have presented themselves,
as they had first intended, to the anxious family before Denah
arrived, it was very doubtful if the matter could have been
satisfactorily cleared up to a suspicious and prudish Dutch mind. The
girl was only a companion, a person of no importance, easy to replace;
and, no matter how the fact might be explained, it still remained that
she had been out all night with an unknown man; one, who, if he were
known, would show to be of a position to make the proceeding more
compromising still.

At this point Rawson-Clew got up and walked to the window. It was
then that it struck him that he had, in these his mature years,
committed an act of stupendous folly, the like of which his youth had
never known.

But the girl, what would become of the girl? In England, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, she would have been dismissed; in
Holland that one last hope did not exist. She would be dismissed with
her character considerably damaged and her chance of getting another
situation entirely gone. What would she do? She had told him yesterday
she could not leave, but was obliged to stay on at the Van Heigens';
although she had failed in the first object of her coming, and so had
no motive for remaining, she had nowhere else to go. Perhaps she had
quarrelled with her relatives; perhaps they could not afford to keep
her--they were poor enough he knew. She had once said her eldest
sister had lately married the nephew of a bishop; he remembered that,
and he also remembered that, after his unfortunate visit to Captain
Polkington, he had heard they were people with some good connections.
But that did not mean that they could afford to help this girl, or
would be delighted to receive her home under the present conditions.
Rather it indicated that their position was too precarious for them to
be able to do it. They would be bitterly hard on her--these aspiring
people of gentle birth and doubtful shifts, clinging to society by the
skin of their teeth, were the hardest of all. The girl could not go
back to them; she could not get anything to do in Holland, or
elsewhere--in Heaven's name what could she do?

He asked himself the question with his hands in his pockets and his
eyes on the street. But the answer did not seem forthcoming.

There was no good blinking the matter; the fact was obvious; the girl
was hopelessly and utterly compromised; and he, aided certainly by
untoward circumstances--for the sardonic interference of which, in
such circumstances, a man of sense usually allows--he had done it.
They had had their "holiday," without taking thought for the morrow,
in the way approved by boys and dogs and creatures without experience.
And here was to-morrow, knocking at the door and demanding the
price--as experience showed that it usually did. The question was, who
was going to pay, he or she? She had taken it upon herself as a matter
of course; it seemed natural to her that the burden should be the
woman's, but it did not seem so to him; among his people it was the
man who was expected, and who himself expected, to pay. When he had
grasped the situation fully and saw how she must inevitably stand he
also saw at the same time and equally plainly, that he must marry her;
nothing else was possible.

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