Book: The Good Comrade

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




"That is nothing," he said, "if you love."

"It is everything," she answered, "if two people do not talk the same
language, soul language, I mean."

"They will learn it if they love--but you do not? Is it that, tell me.
Ah, yes, you do, a little, little bit! Only a little, so that you
hardly know it, but it is enough--if you have the least to give that
would do; I would do all the rest; I would love you; I would stand
between you and the whole world; in time it would come, in time you
would care!"

He had come close to her now; in his eagerness he pressed against her,
and, earnestness overcoming diffidence, he almost ventured to take her
hand in his. She felt herself inwardly shrink from him with the
repulsion that young wild animals feel at times for mere contact. But
outwardly she did not betray it; pity for him kept nature under
control.

"I cannot," she said very gently; "I can never care."

Then he knew that he had his answer, and there was no appeal; he drew
back a pace, and because he never said one word of regret, or
reproach, or pleading, her heart smote her.

"I am so sorry!" she said; "I am so sorry. Oh, why is everything so
hard! Joost, dear Joost, you must not mind; I am not half good enough
for you; I'm not, indeed. Please forget me and--let me go."

And with that she turned and fled into the house.

The maidservant in the kitchen was minding the pots; it still wanted
some while to dinner time; she did not expect the English miss would
come yet, probably not till it was necessary to dish up. The letter,
of course, would have occupied her some time; she had gone out
probably to meet the writer--the maid never for a moment doubted him
to be the sharer of yesterday's escapade. She heard Julia come in, and
judged the meeting to have been a pleasant one, as it had taken time.
She had gone up-stairs now, doubtless to pack her things; that would
occupy her till almost dinner time.

It did, for she did not begin directly, but sat on her bed instead,
doing nothing for a time. But when she did begin, she went to work
methodically, folding garments with care and packing them neatly; her
heart ached for Joost and for the tangle things were in, but that did
not prevent her attending to details when she once set to work. At
last she had everything done, even her hat and coat ready to put on
when dinner should be over. Then, after a final glance round to see
that she had left nothing but the charred fragments of Rawson-Clew's
letter, she went down-stairs and got the dinner ready.

She did not take her meal with the family, but again had it in the
little room. She brought the dishes to and fro from the kitchen,
however, so she passed close to Joost once or twice and saw his grave
face and serious blue eyes, as she had seen them every day since her
first coming. And when she looked at him, and saw him, his appearance,
his small mannerisms, himself in fact, a voice inside her cried down
the aching pity, saying, "I could not do it, I could not do it!" But
when she was alone in the little room with the door shut between, the
pity grew strong again till it almost welled up in tears. Poor Joost!
Poor humble, earnest, unselfish Joost! That he should care so, that he
should have set his hopes on her, his star--a will-o'-wisp of devious
ways! That he should ache for this unworthy cause, and for it shut his
eyes to the homely happiness which might have been his!

She rose quickly and went up-stairs to get her hat and jacket. Soon
after, the carriage, which she had extravagantly ordered, came, and
she called the servant to help her down with her luggage. They got it
down the narrow staircase between them and into the hall; Julia
glanced back at the white marble kitchen for the last time, and at the
dim little sitting-room. Vrouw Van Heigen was there, very much
absorbed in crochet; but she had left the door ajar so that she might
know when Julia went, and that must have occupied a prominent place in
her mind, for she made a mistake at every other stitch.

"Good-bye, Mevrouw," Julia said.

Vrouw Van Heigen grunted; she remembered what was due to herself and
propriety.

"And, oh," Julia looked back to say as she remembered it, "don't
forget that last lot of peach-brandy we made, it was not properly tied
down; you ought to look at the covers some time this week."

"Ah, yes," said the old lady, forgetting propriety, "thank you, thank
you, I'll see to it; it will never do to have that go; such fine
peaches too."

Then Julia went out and got into the carriage. Mijnheer was in his
office; he did not think it quite right to come to see her start
either; all the same he came to the door to tell the driver to be
careful not to go on the grass. Joost came also and looked over his
father's shoulder, and Julia, who had been amused at Vrouw Van Heigen,
suddenly forgot this little amusement again.

Joost left his father. "I will tell the man," he said. "I will go
after him too and shut the gate; it grows late for it to be open."

The carriage had already started, and he had to hurry after it; even
then he did not catch it up till it was past the bend of the drive.
Then the man saw him and pulled up, though it is doubtful if he got
any order or, indeed, any word. Julia had been looking back, but from
the other side; and because she had been looking back and remembering
much happiness and simplicity here, she was so grieved for one at
least who dwelt here that her eyes were full of tears.

Joost saw them when, on the stopping of the carriage, she turned. "Do
not weep," he said; "you must not weep for me."

"I am so sorry," she said; "so dreadfully sorry!"

"But you must not be," he told her; "there is no need."

"There is every need; you have been so kind to me, so good; you have
almost taught me--though you don't know it--some goodness too, and in
return I have brought you nothing but sadness."

"Ah, yes, sadness," he said; "but gladness too, and the gladness is
more than the sadness. Would you not sooner know the fine even though
you cannot attain to it, than be content with the little all your
life? I would, and it is that which you have given me. It is I who
give nothing--"

He hesitated as if for a moment at a loss, and she had no words to
fill in the pause.

"Will you take this?" he said, half thrusting something forward. "It
is, perhaps, not much to some, but I would like you to have it; it
seems fitting; I think I owe it to you, and you to it."

"Oh, yes, yes," she murmured, hardly hearing and not grasping the last
words; there was something choking in her throat; it was this strange,
humble, disinterested love, so new to her, which brought it there and
prevented her from understanding.

She stretched out her hands, and he put something into them; then he
stepped back, and the carriage drove on. It was not till the gateway
was passed that she realised what it was she held--a small bag made
of the greyish-brown paper used on a bulb farm; inside, a single bulb;
and outside, written, according to the invariable custom of growers--

"Narcissus Triandrus Azureum Vrouw Van Heigen."




CHAPTER XI

A REPRIEVE


Rawson-Clew was reading a letter. It was breakfast time; the letter
had missed the afternoon post yesterday, which was what the writer
would have wished, and so was not delivered at the hotel till the
morning. It was short, from the beginning--"I am so glad you have done
it," to the end of the postscript--"this is to-morrow, so good-bye."
There was not much to read; yet he looked at it for some time. Did
ever man receive such a refusal to an offer of marriage? It was almost
absurd, and perhaps hardly flattering, yet somehow characteristic of
the writer; Rawson-Clew recognised that now, though it had surprised
him none the less. What was to be done next? See the girl, he
supposed, and hear what she proposed to do; she wrote that she had
arranged "capitally," but she did not say what. He was quite certain
she was not going to remain with the Van Heigens; if by some
extraordinary accident she had been able to bring that about, she
would certainly have told him so triumphantly. He could not think of
anything "capital" she could have arranged; he was persuaded, either
that she only said it to reassure him, or else, if she believed it, it
was in her ignorance of the extent of the damage done yesterday. He
must go and see her, hear what she had planned, and what further
trouble she was thinking to get herself into, and prevent it in the
only way possible; and there was only one way, there was absolutely
no other solution of the difficulty; she must marry him, and there was
an end of it. He glanced at her refusal again, and liked it in spite
of its absurdity; after all, perhaps it would have been better if he
had been frank too; one could afford to dispense with the delicate
conventions that he associated with women in dealing with this girl.
He wished he had gone to her and spoken freely, as man to man, saying
plainly that since they had together been indiscreet, they must
together take the consequence, and make the best of it--and really the
best might be very good.

Soon after he had finished breakfast he set out for the Van Heigens'
house. But as yet, though he had some comprehension of Julia, he had
not fully realised the promptness of action which necessity had taught
her. When he reached the Van Heigens' she had been gone some sixteen
hours.

It was Vrouw Van Heigen who told him; she was in the veranda when he
arrived, and so, perforce, saw him and answered his inquiries. It was
evident, at the outset, that neither his appearance nor name conveyed
anything to her; she had not seen him the day of the excursion, and
Denah's description, purposely complicated by a cross description of
Julia's, had conveyed nothing, and his name had never transpired. He
saw he was unknown, and recognised Julia's loyal screening of him, not
with any satisfaction; evidently it was part of her creed to stand
between a man (father or otherwise) and the consequence of his acts.
That was an additional reason for finding her and explaining that he,
unlike Captain Polkington, was not used to anything of the sort.

"She has gone?" he said, in answer to Vrouw Van Heigen's brief
information. The old lady was decidedly nervous of the impressive
Englishman who had come asking after her disgraced companion; she
moved her fat hands uneasily even before he asked, "Where has she
gone? Perhaps you would be kind enough to give me her address?"

"I cannot," she was obliged to say; "I have not it. I do not know
where she is."

Rawson-Clew stared. "But surely," he said, "you are mistaken? She was
here yesterday."

"Yes, yes; I know. But she is not here now; she went last night in
haste. I will tell you about it. You are a friend? Come in."

Without waiting, she led him into the drawing-room, and there left him
in some haste. The room struck him as familiar; he wondered why, until
he remembered that it must have been Julia's description which made
him so well acquainted with it. It was all just as she described; the
thick, dark-coloured carpet, with the little carefully-bound strips of
the same material laid over it to make paths to the piano, the stove,
and other frequented spots. The highly-polished furniture, upholstered
in black and yellow Utrecht velvet, the priceless Chinese porcelain
brought home by old Dutch merchants, and handed down from mother to
daughter for generations; the antimacassars of crochet work, the
snuff-coloured wall-paper, the wonderful painted tiles framed in ebony
that hung upon it. It was all just as she had said; the very light and
smell seemed familiar, she must somehow have given him an idea of them
too.

Just then Vrouw Van Heigen came back, and her husband with her; she
had been to fetch him, not feeling equal to dealing with the visitor
alone. Mijnheer, by her request, had put on his best coat, but he
still had his spectacles pushed upon his forehead, as they always were
when he was disturbed in the office.

There was a formal greeting--one never dispensed with that in Holland,
then Mijnheer said, "You are, I suppose, a friend of Miss Polkington's
father?"

Rawson-Clew, remembering the winter day at Marbridge, answered, "I am
acquainted with him."

Mijnheer nodded. "Yes, yes," he said; then, "it is very sad, and much
to be regretted. I cannot but give to you, and through you to her
father, very bad news of Miss Polkington. She is not what we thought
her; she has disgraced--"

But here Rawson-Clew interrupted, but in the quiet, leisurely way
which was so incomprehensible to the Hollanders. "My dear sir," he
said, "please spare yourself the trouble of these details; I am the
man with whom Miss Polkington had the misfortune to be lost on the
Dunes."

Vrouw Van Heigen gasped; the gentle, drawling voice, the manner, the
whole air of the speaker overwhelmed her, and shattered all her
previous thoughts of the affair. With Mijnheer it was different; right
was right, and wrong wrong to him, no matter who the persons concerned
might be.

"Then, sir," he said, growing somewhat red, "I am glad indeed that I
cannot tell you where she is."

Rawson-Clew looked up with faint admiration, righteous indignation, or
at all events the open expression of it, was a discourtesy practically
extinct with the people among whom he usually lived. He felt respect
for the old bulb grower who would be guilty of it.

"I am sorry you should think so badly of me," he said; "I can only
assure you that it is without reason. You do not believe me? I suppose
it is quite useless for me to say that my sole motive in seeking Miss
Polkington is a desire to prevent her from coming to any harm?"

"She will, I should think, come to less harm without you than with
you," Mijnheer retorted; and Rawson-Clew, seeing as plainly as Julia
had yesterday, the impossibility of making the position clear, did not
attempt it.

"I hope you may be right," he said, "but I am afraid she will be in
difficulties. She had little money, and no friends in Holland, and
was, I have reason to believe, on such terms with her family that it
would not suit her to return to England."

"Ah, but she must have gone to England!" Vrouw Van Heigen cried. "She
went away in a carriage as one does when one goes to the station to
start on a journey."

"She received letters from her family," Mijnheer said sturdily, "not
frequently, but occasionally; there was not, I think, any quarrel or
disagreement. She must certainly have set out to return home last
night. If not, and if she had nowhere to go, why should she leave as
she did yesterday? We did not say 'go!' we were content that she
should remain several days, until her arrangements could be made."

"She might not have cared for that," Rawson-Clew suggested; "if you
insinuated to her the sort of things you did to me; women do not like
that, as a rule, you know."

All the same, as he said this, he could not help thinking Mijnheer
right; Julia must have had somewhere to go. Her dignity and feelings
were not of the order to lose sight of essentials in details, or to
demand unreasonable sacrifice of common sense. She must have had some
destination in view when she left the Van Heigens yesterday, and, as
far as he could see, there was no destination open to her but home.

Mijnheer was firmly of this opinion, although, now that a question
about it had been suggested to him, he wished he had made sure before
the girl left. Of course, her plans and destination were no business
of his--she might even have refused to give information about them on
that account; he had dismissed her in disgrace, what she did next was
not his concern. But in spite of her bad behaviour he had liked her;
and though his notions of propriety, and consequent condemnation of
her, had undergone no change, he was kind-heartedly anxious she should
come to no harm. Her words about some good people making the merely
indiscreet into sinners came back to him, but he would not apply them;
Julia had gone home, he was sure of it, and a good thing too; the
Englishman with the quiet voice and the grand manner could not follow
her there to her detriment. Though, to be sure, it was strange that
such a man as he should want to; he was not the kind of person
Mijnheer had expected the partner in the escapade to be; truly the
English were a strange people, very strange. His wife agreed with him
on that point; they often said so afterwards--in fact, whenever they
thought of the disgraced companion, who was such an excellent cook.

As for Rawson-Clew, he returned to England; there was nothing to keep
him longer in Holland. But as he was still not sure how Julia's
"capital arrangement" was going to be worked out, and was determined
to bear his share of the burden, he decided to go to Marbridge on an
early opportunity.

The opportunity did not occur quite so soon as he expected; several
things intervened, so that he had been home more than a week before he
was able to fulfil his intention. Marbridge lies in the west country,
some considerable distance from London; Rawson-Clew did not reach it
till the afternoon, at an hour devoted by the Polkingtons most
exclusively to things social. It is to be feared, however, that he did
not consider the Polkingtons collectively at all; it was Julia, and
Julia alone, of whom he was thinking when he knocked at the door of
No. 27 East Street.

The door was opened by a different sort of servant from the one who
had opened it to him the last time he came; rather a smart-looking
girl she was, with her answers quite ready.

"Miss Julia Polkington was not at home," she said, and, in answer to
his inquiry when she was expected, informed him that she did not know.

"There is no talk of her coming home, sir," she said; "she is abroad,
I think; she has been gone some time."

"Since when?"

The girl did not know. "In the spring, I think, sir," she said; "she
has not been here all the summer."

Then, it seemed, his first suspicion was correct; Julia had not gone
home; for some reason or another she was not able to return.

"Is Captain Polkington in?" he asked.

He was not; there was no one at home now; but Mrs. Polkington would be
in in about an hour. The maid added the last, feeling sure her
mistress would be sorry to let such a visitor slip.

But Rawson-Clew did not want to see Mrs. Polkington; she, he was
nearly sure, represented the aspiring side of the family, not the one
to whom Julia would turn in straits. The improved look of the house
and the servant suggested that the family was hard at work aspiring
just now, and so less likely than ever to be ready to welcome the
girl, or anxious to give true news of her if they had any to give.
Captain Polkington, who no one could connect with the ascent of the
social ladder, might possibly know something; at all events, there
was a better chance of it, and he certainly could very easily be made
to tell anything he did know.

"When do you expect Captain Polkington home?" he asked.

"Not for a month or more, I believe, sir," was the answer; "he is in
London just now."

Rawson-Clew asked for his address; it occurred to him that Julia might
have gone to her father; it really seemed very probable. He got the
address in full, and went away, but without leaving any name to puzzle
and tantalise Mrs. Polkington. Of course she was puzzled and
tantalised when the maid told her of the visitor. From past
experience, she expected something unpleasant of his coming, even
though the description sounded favourable; but, as she heard no more
of it, she forgot all about him in the course of time.

It was on the next afternoon that Rawson-Clew drove to 31 Berwick
Street. There are several Berwick Streets in London, and, though the
address given was full enough for the postal authorities, the cabman
had some difficulty in finding it, and went wrong before he went
right. It was a dingy street, and not very long; it had an
unimportant, apologetic sort of air, as if it were quite used to being
overlooked. The houses were oldish, and very narrow, so that a good
many were packed into the short length; the pavement was narrow, too,
and so were the windows; they, for the most part, were carefully
draped with curtains of doubtful hue. Some were further guarded from
prying eyes by sort of gridirons, politely called balconies, though,
since the platform had been forgotten, and only the protecting
railings were there hard up against the glass, the name was deceptive.

The hansom came slowly down the street, the driver scanning the
frequent doors for 31. He overlooked it by reason of the fact that the
number had been rubbed off, but finally located it by discovering most
of the numbers above and below. Rawson-Clew got out and rang. In
course of time--rather a long time--the door was opened to him by the
landlady--that same landlady who had confided to Mr. Gillat the
desirability of having a good standing with the butcher.

"Cap'ain Polkington?" she said, in answer to Rawson-Clew's inquiry. "I
don't know whether he's in or not; you'd better go up and see; one of
'em's there, anyhow."

She stood back against the wall, and Rawson-Clew came in.

"Up-stairs," she said; "second door you come to."

With that she went down to the kitchen regions; she was no respecter
of persons, and she thanked God she had plenty of her own business to
mind, and never troubled herself poking into other people's.
Consequently, though she might wonder what a man of Rawson-Clew's
appearance should want with her lodgers, she did not let it interfere
with her work, or take the edge off her tongue in the heated argument
she held with the milkman, who came directly after.

Rawson-Clew found his way up the stairs; they were steep, and had
rather the appearance of having been omitted in the original plan of
the house, and squeezed in as an afterthought, when it was found
really impossible to do without. There was no window to give light to
them, or air either; hence, no doubt, the antiquity of the flavour of
cabbage and fried bacon with hung about them. But Rawson-Clew, when he
ascended, found the second door without trouble; there was not room to
get lost. He knocked; he half expected to hear Julia's voice; it
seemed to him probable that she was the person referred to as "one of
them." But it was a man who bade him enter, and, unless his memory
played him false, not Captain Polkington.

It was not the Captain, it was Johnny Gillat. He was reading the
newspaper--Captain Polkington had it in the morning, he in the
afternoon; he wore, or attempted to (they fell off rather often), very
old slippers indeed, and a coat of surprising shabbiness which he
reserved for home use. For a moment he stared at his visitor in
astonishment, and Rawson-Clew apologised for his intrusion. "I was
looking for Captain Polkington," he said. "I was told he was probably
here."

"Ah!" Mr. Gillat exclaimed, his face lighting into a smile. "Of
course, of course! Captain Polkington's out just now, but he'll be in
soon. Come in, won't you; come in and wait for him."

He hospitably dragged forward the shabby easy-chair. "Try that, won't
you?" he said. "It's really comfortable--not that one, that's a little
weak in the legs; it ought to be put away; it's deceptive to people
who don't know it."

He pushed the offending chair against the wall, his slippers flapping
on his feet, so that he thought it less noticeable to surreptitiously
kick them off. "My name's Gillat," he went on. "Captain Polkington is
an old friend of mine."

"Mr. Gillat?" Rawson-Clew said. He remembered the name, and something
Julia had said about the bearer of it. It was he who had given her the
big gold watch she wore, and he of whom she had seemed fond, in a
half-protecting, half-patient way, that was rather inexplicable--at
least it was till he saw Mr. Gillat.

"Perhaps," Rawson-Clew said, "you can tell me what I want to know--it
is about Miss Julia Polkington. I met her in Holland during the
summer."

He may have thought of giving some idea of intimacy, or of explaining
his interest; but, if so, he changed his mind; anything of the kind
was perfectly unnecessary to Mr. Gillat, who did not dream of
questioning his reason.

"Ah, yes," he said; "Julia is in Holland; she has been there a long
time."

"Is she there still?" Rawson-Clew asked. "Can you give me her
address?"

"Well," Johnny said regretfully, "not exactly. But she is abroad
somewhere," the last with an increase of cheerfulness, as if to
indicate that this was something, at all events.

"You don't know where she is?" Rawson-Clew inquired. "Does her father?
I suppose he does--some one must."

"No," Johnny said. "No; I'm afraid not. Certainly her father does not,
nor her mother--none of us know; but, as you say, somebody must
know--the people she is with, for instance."

Rawson-Clew grew a little impatient. "Do you mean," he said, "that her
family are content to know nothing of her whereabouts? Have they taken
no steps to find her?"

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