Book: The Good Comrade

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"Well, you see," Johnny answered slowly, "there aren't any steps to
take. They don't want to find her; she is quite well and happy, no
doubt, and she will come back when she is ready. Mrs. Polkington--do
you know Mrs. Polkington? A wonderful woman! She is very busy just
now, she is shining. Miss Cherie is quite a belle. They really have
not--have not accommodation for Julia; it is not, of course, that they
don't want her--they have not exactly room for her."

"But surely they want to know where she is?" Rawson-Clew persisted.

"No, they don't," Johnny told him. "They know she is all right; she
told them so, and told them she did not want to be found. They are
satisfied--" He broke off, feeling that the visitor was more
astonished than admiring of such a state of affairs. "Family emotions
and sentiments, you know," he explained in defence of this family,
"are not every one's strong point; the social, or the religious, or--"
(he waved his hand comprehendingly) "or the national may stand first,
and why not?"

"Are you satisfied?" Rawson-Clew asked briefly.

"I'd sooner be able to see her," Johnny admitted. "I'm fond of her;
yes, she's been very kind and good; I miss seeing her. But, of course,
she has her way to make in the world."

"But are you satisfied that she should make it thus? That she should
leave the Dutch family she was with and disappear, leaving no
address?"

"Sir," Johnny said with dignity, "I am quite satisfied, and if any one
says that he is not, I would be pleased to talk to him."

But the dignity left Mr. Gillat's manner as quickly as it came; before
Rawson-Clew could say anything, he was apologising. "You must forgive
me," he said; "I am very fond of that little girl; and I thought--but
I had no business to think; I'm an old fool, to think you meant--"

"I only meant," Rawson-Clew said, speaking with unconscious
gentleness, "that I was afraid she might be in difficulties. She may
be in trouble about money, or something."

"Oh, no," Johnny said cheerfully; "she has a fine head for money
matters. I have sometimes thought, since she has been gone, that she
has the best head in the family! She's all right--quite right; there's
no need to be uneasy about her. I'll show you the letter she wrote
me."

He opened a shabby pocket-book, and took out a letter. "There, you
read that," he said.

Rawson-Clew read, and at the end was little wiser. Julia said she had
left one situation (reason not even suggested), and had got another.
That she did not wish to give her new address, or to hear from Mr.
Gillat, or her family, at this new place, as it might spoil her
arrangements. Rawson-Clew recognised the last word as a favourite of
Julia's; with her it was elastic, and could mean anything, from a
piece of lace arranged to fill up the neck of a dress, to a complex
and far-reaching scheme arranged to bring about some desired end. What
it meant in the present instance was not indicated, but clearly she
did not wish for interference, and, with some wisdom, took the surest
way to prevent it by making it well-nigh impossible. She had left one
means of communication, however, though apparently that was for Johnny
only. "If you and father get into any very great muddle," she wrote,
"you must let me know. Put an advertisement--one word, 'Johnny,' will
do--in a paper; I shall understand, and, if I can, I will try to do
something." A paper was suggested; it was a cheap weekly. Rawson-Clew
remembered to have seen it once in the small Dutch town that summer,
so it was to be got there. Unfortunately, as he also remembered, it
was to be got in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and Paris and Berlin too.

He folded the letter, and returned it to Mr. Gillat. "Thank you," he
said; "evidently, as you say, she does not wish to be found, and it
would seem she has got some sort of employment, although I am afraid
it cannot be of an easy or pleasant sort."

He did not explain the reason he had for thinking so, and Mr. Gillat
never thought of asking. Soon after he went away.

Clearly there was nothing to be done. Julia did not mean to have his
help and protection; and, with a decision and completeness which, now
he came to think of it, did not altogether surprise him, she has taken
care to avoid them. That absurd refusal of hers was, after all, a
reprieve, although until now he had not looked upon it in that light.
No doubt it was a good thing affairs had turned out as they had; the
marriage would have been in many ways disadvantageous. Yet he
certainly would have insisted on it, and taken trouble to do so, if
she had not put it altogether out of his power. All the same, he did
not feel as gratified as he ought, perhaps because the arrogance of
man is not pleased to have woman arbitrator of his fate, and the
instinct of gentleman is not satisfied to have her bear his burden,
perhaps for some other less clear reason. He really did not know
himself, and did not try to think; there seemed little object in doing
so, seeing that incident was closed.

The next day he went north, and by accident travelled part of the way
with a lady of his acquaintance. She was young, not more than five or
six and twenty, nice looking too, and very well dressed. She had a lot
of small impediments with her--a cloak, a dressing-bag, sunshade,
umbrella, golf clubs--some one, no doubt, would come and clear her
when the destination was reached; in the mean time, she and her
belongings were an eminently feminine presence. She talked pleasantly
of what had happened since they last met; she had been to Baireuth
that summer, she told him, and spoke intelligently of the music, the
technique and the beauty of it, and what it stood for. She was
surprised to hear he had got no further than Holland, and more
surprised still that he had not even seen Rembrandt's masterpiece
while he was there. Her voice was smooth and even, a little loud,
perhaps, from her spending much time out of doors, not in the least
given to those subtle changes of tone which express what is not said;
but as she never wanted to express any such things, that did not
matter.

She did not bore him with too much conversation; she had papers with
her--some three or four, and she glanced at them between whiles.
Afterwards she commented on their contents--the political situation,
the war (there is always a war somewhere), the cricket news, the new
books; touching lightly, but intelligently, on each topic in turn.

Rawson-Clew listened and answered, polite and mildly interested. It
was some time since he had heard this agreeable kind of conversation,
and since he had come in contact with this agreeable kind of person.
He ought to have appreciated it more, as men appreciate the charm of
drawing-rooms who have long been banished from them. He came to the
conclusion that he must be growing old, not to prefer the society of a
pretty, agreeable and well-dressed woman to an empty railway carriage.

The girl had two fine carnations in her coat; the stalks were rather
long, and so had got bruised. She regretted this, and Rawson-Clew
offered to cut them for her. He began to feel for a knife in likely
and unlikely pockets, and it was then that he first noticed a faint,
sweet smell; dry, not strong at all, more a memory than a scent. He
did not recognise what it was, nor from where it came, but it reminded
him of something, he could not think what.

He puzzled over it as he cut the flower stalks, then all at once he
laid hold on the edge of a recollection--a pair of dark eyes, in which
mirthful, mocking lights flickered, as the sun splashes flicker on the
ground under trees--a voice, many-noted as a violin, that grew softest
when it was going to strike hardest, that expressed a hundred things
unsaid.

He looked across at the owner of the carnations, and wondered by what
perversity of fate it was decreed that any one who could buy such good
boots, should have such ill-shaped feet to put into them; and why, if
fate so handicapped her, why she should exhibit them by crossing her
knees. He also wondered what possessed her to wear that hat; every
other well-dressed girl had a variation of the style that year, it was
the correctest of the correct for fashion, but he did not take note of
that. Men are rather blockheaded on the subject of fashion, and seldom
see the charm in the innately unbecoming and unsuitable, no matter
what decrees it.

He looked back to the empty opposite corner, and, though until that
moment he had not really thought of Julia since he left Mr. Gillat
yesterday, he put her there in imagination now. He did not want her
there, he did not want her anywhere (there are some wines which a man
does not want, that still rather spoil his taste for others). She
would not have made the mistake of wearing such a hat; her clothes
were not new, they were distinctly shabby sometimes, but they were
well assorted. As to the boots--he remembered the day he tied her
shoe--he could imagine the man she married, if he were very young and
very foolish, of course, finding a certain pleasure in taking her
arched foot, when it was pink and bare, in the hollow of his hand. If
she were in that corner now, the quiet, twinkling smile would
certainly be on her face as she listened to the talk of books, and
men, and places, and things. He did not picture her joining even when
they spoke of things she knew, and places she had been to--he
remembered he had once heard her speak of a town which had been
spoken of this afternoon. She had somehow grasped the whole life of
the place, and laid it bare to him in a few words--the light-hearted
gaiety and the sordid misery, the black superstition and the towering
history which overhung it, and the cheerful commonplace which, like
the street cries and the gutter streams, ran through it all--the whole
flavour of the thing. The girl opposite had been to the place too; she
told him of the historic spots she had visited; she knew a deal more
about them than Julia did. She spoke of the quaint pottery to be
bought there--it had not struck Julia as quaint, any more than it did
its buyers and sellers. And she referred to the sayings and opinions
of a great pose writer, who had expressed all he knew and felt and
thought about it, and more besides. Julia, apparently, had not read
him--what reading she had done seemed to be more in the direction of
_Gil Blas_, and Dean Swift, and other kindred things in different
languages.

The owner of the carnations glanced out of window, and commented on
the scenery, which was here rather fine--Julia would not have done
that; all the same, she would have known just what sort of country
they had passed through all the way, not only when it was fine; she
would have noticed the lie of the land, the style of work done there,
the kind of lives lived there, even, possibly, the likely difficulties
in the way of railway-making and bridge building. She would certainly
have taken account of the faces on the platforms at which they drew
up, so that without effort she could have picked out the porter who
would give the best service; the stranger in need of help, and he who
would offer it; and the guard most likely to be useful if it were
necessary to cheat the company--it was conceivable that cheating
companies might sometimes be necessary in her scheme of things.

[Illustration: "Julia"]

He cut another piece off the carnation stalks, they were still too
long. He did not wish Julia there; he fancied that it was likely she
would not easily find her place among the people he would meet at his
journey's end. But if there were no end--if he were going somewhere
else, east or west, north or south--say a certain old oriental town,
old and wicked as time itself, and full of the mystery and indefinable
charm of age, and iniquity, and transcendent beauty--she would like
that; she would grasp the whole, without attempting to express or
judge it. Or a little far-off Tyrolean village, remote as the
mountains from the life of the world--she would like that; the
discomfort would be nothing to her, the primitiveness, the simplicity,
everything. If he were going to some such place--why, then, there were
worse things than having to take the companion of the holiday too.

He handed back the carnations, and then unthinkingly put his hand into
his coat-pocket. His fingers came in contact with some dry rubbish,
little more than stalks and dust, but still exhaling something of the
fragrance which had been sun distilled on the Dunes. He recognised it
now--Julia's flowers, put there in the wood, and forgotten until now.

"Thanks so much for cutting them," said the girl with the carnations,
smelling them before she fastened them on again. "I really think they
are my favourite flower; the scent is so delicious--quite the nicest
flower of all, don't you think so?"

"I'm not sure," Rawson-Clew said thoughtfully, and when he spoke
thoughtfully he drawled very much, "I'm not sure I don't sometimes
prefer wild thyme."




CHAPTER XII

THE YOUNG COOK


It was about ten o'clock on an October night; everything was intensely
quiet in the big kitchen where Julia stood. It was not a cheerful
place even in the day time, the windows looked north, and were very
high up; the walls and floor were alike of grey stone, which gave it a
prison-like aspect, and also took much scrubbing, as she had reason to
know. It was far too large a place to be warmed by the small stove now
used; Julia sometimes wondered if the big one that stood empty in its
place would have been sufficient to warm it. She glanced at it now,
but without interest; she was very tired, it was almost bed-time, and
she had done, as she had every day since she first joined Herr Van de
Greutz's household, a very good day's work. She had scarcely been
outside the four walls since she first came there on the day after the
holiday on the Dunes. This had been her own choice, for, unlike all
the cooks who had been before her, she had asked for no evenings out.
Marthe, the short-tempered housekeeper, had not troubled herself to
wonder why, she had been only too pleased to accept the arrangement
without comment. Apart from the self-chosen confinement, the life had
been hard enough; the work was hard, the service hard and ill-paid,
and both the other inmates of the house cross-grained, and difficult
to please. These things, however, Julia did not mind; discomfort never
mattered much to her when she had an end in view; in this case, too,
the end should more than repay the worst of her two task-masters.
Which was agreeable, and almost made his unpleasantness desirable, as
providing her intended act with a justification.

She drew the coffee pot further on to the stove, and with a splinter
of wood stirred the fire. She had the kitchen to herself, old Marthe
had gone to bed; she liked going to bed early, with a glass of
something hot, and she had soon found that the young cook could be
trusted to finish the work down-stairs. It was her opinion that it is
as well to be comfortable when you can, as blessings are fleeting and
fickle, especially when they are cooks; so she indulged often both in
bed and the glass, notably the glass. She had not been able to go to
bed quite as early as she liked that day, for her master had a
visitor, and there had been some trouble after the dinner. It was
intended to be an hour later than usual to accommodate the visitor,
but the chemist had not mentioned the fact--he seldom troubled about
such trifles, expecting his household to divine his wishes
instinctively, and resenting their failure to do so with indignation
and some abuse. He did so to-day, and Marthe was consequently kept up
later than she had intended, though it was Julia who came in for most
of the reproof, and the trouble too; it was she who took away the
dinner and kept it hot, and presented it afresh when the time came in
as good condition as she could manage. There had to be a second omelet
made; the first would not stand an hour, and so was wasted, to the
indignation of Marthe. The chicken was a trifle dried by waiting,
which called down the wrath of Herr Van de Greutz. Julia had listened
to both of them with a meekness which was beautiful to see, albeit
perhaps a little suspicious in one of her nature.

She glanced up at the clock now, then rose and fetched two thick white
coffee cups, and set them ready on a tray, and sat down again. She
wondered drowsily how long Herr Van de Greutz's visitor would stay. He
was a German, a very great scientist; the chemist looked upon him as a
friend and an equal, a brother in arms; they talked together freely in
the cryptic language of science, and in German, which is the tongue
best fitted to help out the other. Julia heard them when she went to
and from with the dishes at dinner time. She did not understand
chemistry, a fact she much regretted; had she known even half as much
as Rawson-Clew, the desired end would have been much sooner within
reach. It is a very great disadvantage to have only a very vague idea
what it is you want. But she did understand German very well,
consequently part of the chemists' conversation was quite intelligible
to her, though they did not know it. Herr Van de Greutz knew and cared
nothing about her; he was not even aware that she was English, though,
of course, old Marthe was.

If the conversation had touched on the famous explosive at dinner
time, Julia would have known it; she was always on the watch for some
such occurrence. Unfortunately it had not, although, as she saw
plainly, the German was the sort of man with whom Van de Greutz would
discuss such things. She had still another chance of hearing
something; she would soon have to take the coffee into the laboratory;
they might be speaking of it then. She remembered once before Van de
Greutz had spoken of it to a scientific guest at such a time; she had
then heard some unenlightening technical details, which might have
been of some value to a chemist, but were of no use at all to her
ignorance. It was hard to come thus near, and yet be as far off as
ever, but such things are likely to occur when one is in pursuit of
anything, Julia knew that; she was prepared to wait, by and by she
would find out what it was she wanted, and then--

A bell rang peremptorily; she hastily poured the strong black coffee
into the two cups, and put a bottle of Schiedam on the tray. As she
did so she noticed that it was nearly empty, so she fetched another
full one, and added that to the tray. The bell did not ring again,
although getting the second bottle had hindered her, for by this time
the chemists had forgotten they wanted coffee. When she entered the
laboratory, Herr Van de Greutz had just taken a bottle from the lower
part of a cupboard near the door. Second shelf from the floor, five
bottles from the left-hand corner. Julia observed the place with
self-trained accuracy as she passed Herr Van de Greutz with the tray,
which she carried to the table far down the room.

"This is it," Van de Greutz said; "a small quantity only, you see, but
the authorities have a ridiculous objection to one's keeping any large
one of explosive. Of course, I have more, in a stone house in my
garden; it is perhaps safer so, seeing its nature, and the fact that
one is always liable to small accidents in a laboratory."

Julia put down the tray, but upset some of the coffee. Seeing that
excitement had not usually the effect of making her hand unsteady, it
is possible accident had not much to do with it. However, it happened;
she carefully wiped it up, and the two chemists, paying no more
attention to her than if she had been a cat, went on speaking of the
explosive. It was _the_ explosive; their talk told her that before she
had finished the wiping.

"The formula I would give for it?" Van de Greutz was saying; as she
sopped up the last drops, he gave the formula.

She lifted the full bottle of Schiedam from the tray, and carried it
away with her--in the hand farthest from the chemist's, certainly, but
with as little concealment as ostentation. Near the door she glanced
at the German, or rather, at what he held, the sample of the
explosive. It was a white powder in a wide-necked, stoppered bottle of
the size Julia herself called "quarter pint." The bottle was not more
than two-thirds full, and had no mark on it at all, except a small
piece of paper stuck to the side, and inscribed with the single letter
"A." This may have been done in accordance with some private system of
Herr Van de Greutz's, or it may have been for the sake of secrecy. The
reason did not matter; the most accurate name would have been no more
informing to Julia, but decidedly more inconvenient.

She went out and shut the door quietly; then she literally fled back
to the kitchen with the Schiedam. Scarcely waiting to set it down, she
seized a slip of kitchen paper, and scribbled on it the string of
letters and figures that Herr Van de Greutz had given as the formula
of his explosive. She did not know what a formula was, nor in what
relation it stood to the chemical body, but from the talks she had
heard between the chemist and his friends, she guessed it to be
something important. Accordingly, when he said the formula, she was as
careful to remember it accurately as she was to remember the place of
the bottle on the shelf. Now she wrote it down just as he spoke it,
and, though perhaps not exactly as he would have written it, still
comprehensible. She pinned the piece of paper in the cuff of her
dress; it would not be found there if, by ill luck, she was caught and
searched later on. Next she went to the kitchen cupboard; there were
several wide-necked stoppered bottles there, doubtless without the
chemist's knowledge, but Marthe found them convenient for holding
spices, and ginger, and such things. She took the one nearest in shape
and size to the one which she had seen in the German's hand; emptied
out the contents, dusted it and put in ground rice till it was
two-thirds full. Then, with the lap-scissors, she trimmed a piece of
paper to the right size, wrote "A" upon it, and stuck it to the side
of the bottle with a dab of treacle--she had nothing else. She was
hastily wiping off the surplus stickiness when the bell rang again.
She finished what she was doing, and shrouded the bottle in a duster,
so that there was another summons before she could set out. She took
the Schiedam with her--of course it was that which was rung for, but
also the bottle in the duster.

She did not hurry. "I'll give him time to put the explosive back," she
thought. It was just possible that it would be set on a bench, perhaps
in an awkward place, but from her knowledge of Van de Greutz's ways
she guessed not. It was also, of course, possible that the cupboard
where it was kept would be locked; in that case, nothing could be done
just now--annoying, but not desperate; ground rice will keep, and,
apparently, explosives too, so she reflected as she opened the
laboratory door. But the cupboard was not locked, and the bottle was
back in its place. Another from the shelf above had been taken out;
the chemists were discussing that as they sat smoking cigars at the
table far down the room, where the coffee cups stood.

"More Schiedam!" Herr Van de Greutz said, throwing the words at Julia
over his shoulder. "Why did you bring an empty bottle?"

"I am sorry, Mijnheer," Julia answered; "there was not much, I know; I
have brought more."

She pushed the door to with her foot as she spoke, and with the hand
not carrying the spirit set down the duster and the bottle it held on
a chair. The German had put his coat over the chair earlier; it stood
in front of the cupboard, a little way from it. With the true rogue's
eye for cover, Julia noted the value of its position, and even
improved it by moving it a little to the left as she knocked against
it in passing.

She brought the Schiedam to the table. "Shall I take the cups,
Mijnheer?" she asked.

"Yes," Van de Greutz answered shortly, resenting the interruption,
"and go to the devil. As I was saying, it is very unstable."

This was to the German, and did not concern Julia; she took the tray
of cups and went. But near the door there was an iron tripod lying on
the floor; she caught her foot in it, stumbled and fell headlong,
dropping tray and cups with a great clatter.

There was a general exclamation of annoyance and anger from Van de
Greutz, of surprise and commiseration from the German, and of
something that might have been fright or pain from Julia.

"You clumsy fool!" Van de Greutz cried. "Get out of here, and don't
let me see your face, or hear your trampling ass-hoofs again! Do you
hear me, I won't have you in here again!"

The German was more sympathetic. "Have you hurt yourself?" he asked.

"No, Mijnheer, nothing," Julia answered; "only a little--my knees and
elbows." Had she been playing Othello, though she might not have
blacked herself all over, it is certain she would have carried the
black a long way below high water mark. This was no painless stage
stumble, but one with real bruises and a real thud.

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