Book: The Good Comrade

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




The German had half risen; perhaps he thought of coming to help pick
up the pieces of broken cups that were scattered between the cupboard
and the chair. But he did not do so, for Herr Van de Greutz went on to
speak of his unstable compound.

"I treated it with--" he said, and, seeing this was something very
daring, the other's attention was caught.

Julia picked up the pieces alone, and carried them out on the tray,
and on the tray also she carried a bottle wrapped into a duster. It
was a wide-necked stoppered bottle, two-thirds full of white powder;
very much like the one she had brought in, but also very much like the
one that stood five from the end on the second shelf of the cupboard.

Soon after that she went up to her room, and took the bottle with her.
Then, when she had set it in a place of safety, and securely locked
the door, she broke into a silent laugh of delighted amusement. She
pictured to herself Herr Van de Greutz's face when, in company with
some other chemist, he found the ground rice, while his cook with the
"ass-hoofs" carried the explosive to her native land.

"What a thief I should make," was her own opinion of herself. "I
believe I could do as well as Grimm's 'Master Thief,' who stole the
parson and clerk." She took up the bottle and shook a little of the
contents into her hand; she had not the least idea how it was set off,
whether a blow, a fall, or heat would reveal its dangerous
characteristics. For a little she looked at it with curiosity and
satisfaction. But gradually the satisfaction faded; the excitement of
the chase was over, and the prize, now it was won, did not seem a
great thing. She set the bottle down rather distastefully, and turned
away.

"He could not have got the stuff," she told herself defiantly--"he"
was Rawson-Clew--but the next moment, with the justice she dealt
herself, she admitted, "Because he would not get it this way; he is
not rogue enough; while as for me--I am a born rogue."

She pushed open the window and looked out, although it was quite dark,
and the air pervaded with a cold, rank smell of wet vegetation. She
was thinking of the other piece of roguery which she had meant to
commit, and yet had not. She had the bulb, in spite of that; it was
safe among her clothes--hers by a free gift, hers absolutely, yet as
unable to be sold as the lock of a dead mother's hair. The debt of
honour could not be paid by that. From her heart she wished she had
not got the daffodil; she put it in the same category with Mr.
Gillat's watch, as one of the things which made her ashamed of herself
and of her life, even of this last act, and the very skill that had
made it easy.

She took up the bottle again, and for a moment considered whether she
should give it back to Herr Van de Greutz--not personally, that would
hardly be safe; but she could post it from England after she left his
service. But she did not do so; Rawson-Clew stood in the way; it was
for him she had taken it, and her purpose in him still stood. He
wanted the explosive, it would be to his credit and honour to have it;
the government service to which he belonged would think highly of him
if he had it--if he received it anonymously, so that he could not tell
from whence it came, and they could not divide the credit of getting
it between him and another. He wanted it, and he had been good to her.
He had been kind when she was in trouble; he had not believed her when
she had called herself dishonest; he had treated her as an equal, in
spite of the affair at Marbridge, and he had asked her to marry him
when he thought she was compromised by the holiday in the Dunes. For a
moment her mind strayed from the point at issue, to that offer of
marriage. She remembered the exact wording of the letter as if she had
but just received it, and it pleased her afresh. She did not regret
that she had refused him; nothing else had been possible. She did not
want to marry him; albeit, when they had sat together under his coat,
she had not shrunk from contact with him as she had shrunk from Joost
when he had tried to take her hand--that was certainly strange. But
she was quite sure she did not want to marry him; now she came to
think about it, she could imagine that, were she a girl of his own
class, with the looks, training and knowledge that belonged, she might
have found him precisely the man she would have wanted to marry.

She went to a drawer and took out an old handkerchief. She was not a
girl of that sort--deep down she felt inarticulately the old primitive
consciousness of inferiority and superiority, at once jealous and
contemptuous; marrying him and living always on his plane were alike
impossible to her, but she could give him the explosive. There was not
one girl among all those others who could have got it and given it to
him!

She tore a piece from the handkerchief, and fastened it over the
stopper of the bottle; then she got out a hat trimmed with bows of
wide ribbon, and sewed the bottle into the centre bow. It presented
rather a bulgy appearance, but by a little pulling of the other
trimming it was hardly noticeable, and really nothing is too peculiar
to be worn on the head. After that she went to bed.

* * * * *

There was trouble in Herr Van de Greutz's kitchen the next day; the
young cook, who had behaved so admirably before, did what old Marthe
called "showing the cloven hoof." She was impertinent, she was idle;
she broke dishes, she wasted eggs, and she lighted a roaring fire in
the big stove, in spite of the strict economy of fuel which was one of
the first rules of the household. Finally she announced that she must
have a day's holiday. Marthe refused point blank, whereupon the cook
said she should take it, and a dispute ensued; Marthe called her
several names, and reminded her of the fact that she had no character,
and that she had confessed to being obliged to leave the Van Heigens
in haste. Julia retorted that that fact was known to the housekeeper
when she engaged her, and was the reason of the starvation wage
offered. Marthe then inquired what enormity it was that she had
committed at the Van Heigens', and intimated that it must be
disgraceful indeed for a person, pretending to be a lady-help, to be
thankful to accept the situation of cook. Julia's answer was scarcely
polite, and very well calculated to rouse the old woman further, and,
at the same time, she opened the door and skilfully worked herself and
her antagonist into the passage, and some way up it, raising her voice
so as to incite the other to raise hers. The result was that soon the
noise reached Herr Van de Greutz.

Out he came in a great rage, ordering them about their business, and
abusing them roundly. Marthe hurried back to the kitchen, effectually
silenced, but Julia remained; she had not got her dismissal yet, and
it was imperative she should get it, for there was no telling when the
ground rice would be discovered. But she soon got what she wanted;
after a very little more inciting, Herr Van de Greutz ordered her out
of his house a great deal more peremptorily than she had been ordered
out of the Van Heigens'. She was to go at once; she was to pack her
things and go, and Marthe was to see that she took nothing but what
was her own; she was the most untrustworthy and incompetent pig that
the devil ever sent to spoil good food, and steal silver spoons.

To this Julia replied by asking for her wages. At first Van de Greutz
refused; but Julia, with some effrontery, considering the
circumstances, declined to go without them, so eventually he thought
better of it and paid her. After that she and Marthe went up-stairs,
and she packed and Marthe looked on, closely scrutinising everything.
When all was done, and she herself dressed, she walked out of the
house, with the formula fastened inside her cuff, and the explosive
balanced on her head. And the old man who did the rough work about the
place came with her, wheeling her luggage on a barrow as far as the
gate. Here he shot it out, and left her to wait till she might hail
some passing cart, and so get herself conveyed to the town.




CHAPTER XIII

THE HEIRESS


There was a fog on the river and while the tide was low no craft
moved; but with its rising there came a stir of life, the mist that
crept low on the brown water became articulate with syren voices and
the thud of screws and the wash of water churned by belated boats. The
steamers called eerily, out of the distance a heart-broken cry like no
other thing on earth, suddenly near at hand a hoot terrific; but
nothing was to be seen except rarely when out of the yellow
impenetrableness a hull rose abruptly, a vague dark mass almost within
touching distance. Julia stood on deck and listened while the little
Dutch boat crept up; she found something fascinating in this strange,
shrouded river, haunted, like a stream of the nether world, with
lamentable bodiless voices. The fog had delayed them, of course; the
afternoon was now far advanced; they had been compelled to wait some
long time while the tide was down, and even now that it was coming up,
they could go but slowly. The last through train to Marbridge would
have left Paddington before the Tower Stairs were reached; but Julia
did not mind that; she would go to Mr. Gillat; she could get a room at
the house where he lodged for one night; she was glad at the thought
of seeing Johnny again. Johnny, who knew the worst and loved and
trusted still.

Gradually the fog lifted, not clearing right away, but enough for the
last of the sunset to show smoky, rose in a wonderful tawny sky. All
the russet-brown water kindled, each ripple edge catching a gleam of
yellow, except to the eastward, where, by some trick of light, the
main stream looked like a pool of dull silver, all pale and cold and
holy. The wharves and factories on the banks revealed themselves,
heavy black outlines, pinnacled with chimneys like some far-off spired
city. All the craft that filled the river became clear too, those that
lay still waiting repairs or cargo or the flood of the incoming tide,
and those that moved--the black Norwegian timber boats, the dirty
tramp steamers from far-off seas, the smooth grey-hulled liners, the
long strings of loaded barges, that followed one another up the great
waterway like camels in a desert caravan. Julia stood on deck and
watched it all, and to her there seemed a certain sombre beauty and a
something that moved her, though she could not tell why, with a
curious baseless pride of race. And while she watched, the twilight
fell, and the colours turned to purple and grey, and the lights
twinkled out in the shipping and along the shore--hundreds and
hundreds of lights; and gradually, like the murmur of the sea in a
shell, the roar of the city grew on the ear, till at last the little
boat reached the Stairs, where the old grey fortress looks down on the
new grey bridge, and the restless river below.

A waterman put Julia ashore, after courtesies from the Custom House
officers, and a porter took her and her belongings to Mark Lane
station, from whence it was not difficult to get approximately near
Berwick Street.

Mr. Gillat was not expecting visitors; he had no reason to imagine any
one would come to see him; he did not imagine that the rings at the
front bell could concern him; even when he heard steps coming
up-stairs he only thought it was another lodger. It was not till
Julia opened the door of the back room he now occupied that he had the
least idea any one had come to see him.

"Julia!" he exclaimed, when he saw her standing on the threshold.
"Dear, dear, dear me!"

"Yes," Julia said, "it really is I. I'm back again, you see;" and she
came in and shut the door.

"Bless my soul!" Johnny said; "bless my soul! You're home again!"

"On my way home; I can't get to Marbridge to-night very comfortably,
and I wanted to see you, so here I am. I have arranged with your
landlady to let me have a room."

Mr. Gillat appeared quite overcome with joy and surprise, and it
seemed to Julia, nervousness too. He led her to a chair; "Won't you
sit down?" he said, placing it so that it commanded a view of the
window and nothing else.

Julia sat down; she did not need to look at the room; she had already
mastered most of its details. When she first came in she had seen that
it was small and poor--a back bedroom, nothing more; an iron bed, not
too tidy, stood in one corner, a washstand, with dirty water in the
basin, in another. There was a painted chest of drawers opposite the
window; one leg was missing, its place being supplied by a pile of old
school-books; the top was adorned with a piece of newspaper in lieu of
a cover, and one of the drawers stood partly open; no human efforts
could get it shut, so Mr. Gillat's wardrobe was exposed to the public
gaze--if the public happened to look that way. Julia did not; nor did
she look towards the fire-place, where a very large towel-horse with a
very small towel upon it acted as a stove ornament--plain proof that
fires were unknown there. She looked across Mr. Gillat's cheap lamp
to the window and the vista of chimney pots, which were very well in
view, for the blind refused to come down and only draped the upper
half of the window in a drooping fashion.

Johnny stood against the chest of drawers, striving vainly to push the
refractory drawer shut, although he knew by experience it was quite
impossible. She could see him without turning her head; he was
shabbier than ever; even his tie--his one extravagance used to be gay
ties--was shabby, and his shoes would hardly keep on his feet. His
round pink face was still round and pink; he did not look exactly
older, though his grizzled little moustache was greyer, only somehow
more puzzled and hurt by the ways of fate. Julia knew that that was
the way he would age; experience would never teach him anything,
although, as she suddenly realised, it had been trying lately.

She turned away from the window; "I have left my luggage at the
station," she said; "I got out what I wanted in the waiting-room and
brought it along in a parcel. I think I'll take it to my room now, if
you don't mind, and wash my face and get rid of my hat--it is very
heavy. I shan't be long."

She rose as she spoke, and Johnny bustled to open the door for her,
too much a gentleman, in spite of all, to show he was glad to have her
go and give him a chance to clear up. At the door she paused.

"You need not order supper, Johnny," she said; "I've seen about that."

Johnny stopped, his face a shade pinker. "Oh, but," he protested, "you
shouldn't do that; you mustn't do that. I'll tell Mrs. Horn we won't
have it; I'll make it all right with her; I was just going out to get
a--a pork pie for myself."

It is to be feared this statement was no more veracious than Julia's,
and certainly it was not nearly so well made; it would not have
deceived a far less astute person than she, while hers would have
deceived a far more astute person than he.

"A pork pie?" Julia said. "You have no business to eat such things in
the evening at your time of life. I tell you I have settled supper; we
had much better have what I have got. I could not bring you a present
home from Holland; I left in a hurry, so I have bought supper instead.
It is my present to you--and myself--I have selected just what I
thought I could eat best; one has fancies, you know, after one has
been seasick."

It would require an ingeniously bad sailor to be seasick while a Dutch
cargo boat crept up the Thames in a fog, but Julia never spared the
trimmings when she did do any lying. Johnny was quite satisfied and
let her go to take off her hat--and the precious explosive which she
still carried in it.

While she was gone he tidied the room to the best of his ability. He
regretted that he had nowhere better to ask her; if he had the
sitting-room he occupied when Rawson-Clew came in September, he would
have felt quite grand. But that was a thing of the past, so he made
the best of circumstances and went to the reckless extravagance of
sixpenny worth of fire. When Julia came in, the towel-horse had been
removed from the fender, and a fire was sputtering awkwardly in the
grate, while Mr. Gillat, proud as a school-boy who has planned a
surprise treat, was trying to coax the smoke up the damp chimney.

"Johnny!" Julia exclaimed, "what extravagance! It's quite a warm
night, too!"

Johnny smiled delightedly. "I thought you'd be cold after your
journey; you look quite pale and pinched," he said; "seasickness does
leave one feeling chilly."

Julia repented of that unnecessary trimming of hers. "It is nice to
have a fire," she said, striving not to cough at the choking smoke; "I
don't need it a bit, but I don't know anything I should have enjoyed
more; why, I haven't seen a real fire since I left England!"

She broke off to take the tongs from Mr. Gillat, who, in his efforts
to improve the draught, had managed to shut the register. She opened
it again, and in a little had the fire burning nicely. Johnny looked
on and admired, and at her suggestion opened the window to let out the
smoke. After that she managed to persuade the blind down, and, what is
more, mended it so that it would go up again; then Mr. Gillat cleared
the dressing-table and pulled it out into the middle of the room, and
by that time supper was ready--fried steak and onions and bottled
beer, with jam puffs and strong black coffee to follow--not exactly
the things for one lately suffering from seasickness, but Julia tried
them all except the bottled beer and seemed none the worse for it. And
as for Johnny, if you had searched London over you could have found
nothing more to his taste. He was a little troubled at the thought of
what Julia must have spent, but she assured him she had her wages, so
he was content. Seldom was one happier than Mr. Gillat at that supper,
or afterwards, when the table was cleared and they drew up to the
fire. They sat one each side of the fender on cane-seated chairs, the
coffee on the hob, and Johnny smoking a Dutch cigar of Julia's
providing. One can buy them at the railway stations in Holland, and
she had scarcely more pleasure in giving them to Johnny than she had
in smuggling home more than the permitted quantity.

"Now tell me about things," Julia said.

Johnny's face fell a little. During supper they had talked about her
affairs and experiences, none of the unpleasant ones; she was
determined not to have the supper spoiled by anything. Now, however,
she felt that the time had come to hear the other side of things.

"I suppose father has been to town?" she remarked; she knew only too
well that nothing else could account for Mr. Gillat's reduced
circumstances. "When did he go?"

"He has not been gone much more than a week," Johnny said; "think of
that now! If he'd stayed only a fortnight more he'd have been here
to-night; it is a pity!"

"I don't think it is at all," Julia said frankly; "the pity is he ever
came."

Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair. "Well, well," he said, "your
mother wished it; she knows what she is about; she is a wonderful
woman, a wonderful woman. I did what you told me, I really did."

Julia was sure of that, but she was also sure now that he had not been
a match for her mother.

"I went down to Marbridge a week before your father was supposed to be
coming to town; I warned him very likely I should have to go away,
just as you said--and the very day I went to Marbridge he came to
town, the very day--a week earlier than was talked of."

Julia could not repress an inclination to smile, not only at the neat
way in which her mother had checkmated her, but also at the thought of
that lady's face when Mr. Gillat presented himself at Marbridge, just
as she was congratulating herself on being rid of the Captain.

"What happened?" she asked. "Did mother send you back to town again?"

"She did not send me," Mr. Gillat answered; "but, of course, I had to
go, as she said; there was your father all alone here; it would be
very dull for him; I couldn't leave him. Besides, he is not--not a
strong man, it would be better--she would feel more easy if she
thought he had his old friend with him, to see he didn't get into--you
know."

"I know," Julia answered; "mother told you all this, then she paid
your fare back again."

"Not paid my fare," Mr. Gillat corrected; "a lady could not offer to
do such a thing; do you think I would ever have allowed it? I couldn't
you know."

Julia's lips set straight; she had something of a man's contempt for
small meannesses, and it is possible her judgment on this economy of
her mother's was harder than any she had for the unjustifiable
extravagances at which she guessed. She did not say anything of it to
Mr. Gillat, she was too ashamed; not that he saw it in that light; he
didn't think he had been in any way badly used, he never did.

"Well," she said, "then you came back to town and looked after father
to the best of your abilities? I suppose you could not do much good?"

Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair again for a little. "You see,"
he said hesitatingly, "it was very dull for him; of course he wanted
amusement."

"And of course he had it, though he could not afford it, and you
paid?"

"Not to any great extent; oh, dear no, not to any great extent."

"No, because you had not got 'any great extent' to spend; what you
had, limited the amount, I suppose, nothing else."

Mr. Gillat ignored this. "Your father," he said, rather uneasily,
looking at her and then away again, "your father never had a very
strong head, he--you know--he--"

"Has taken to drink?" Julia asked baldly. "As well as gambling he
drinks now?"

"Oh, no," Johnny said quickly, "not exactly, that is--he does take
more than he used, more than is good for him sometimes; not much is
good for him, you know--he does take more, it is no good pretending he
does not. But it was very dull for him; it did not suit him being
here, I think; he used to get so low in spirits, what with his losses
and feeling he was not wanted at home. He thinks a great deal of your
mother, and he could not but feel that she does not think much of him
to send him away like that; it hurt him, although, as he said to me
more than once, no doubt he deserved it. It preyed on his mind; he
seemed to want something to cheer him."

Julia nodded; she could understand the effect well enough, though the
causes at work might not be quite clear. To her young judgment it
seemed a little strange that her father should have never realised
what a cumberer of the ground he was to his wife until she banished
him "for his health." But so it evidently was, and after all she could
believe it; like some others he had "made such a sinner of his
conscience," that he could believe, not only his own lie, but the
legends woven about him. They had all pretended things, he and they
also; his position, too, had come gradually, he had got to accept it
without thinking before it was an established fact. But now the truth
had been brought home to him--more or less--and he was miserable, and,
according to the custom of his sort, set to making bad worse as soon
as ever he discovered it.

"Why did he go home last week?" she aroused herself to ask.

"He thought it his duty," was Johnny's surprising answer. "No, Mrs.
Polkington did not send for him, she did not know he was coming; he
decided for himself, he felt it would be better."

Mr. Gillat rambled on vaguely, but Julia was not slow to guess that
the principal reason was to be found in the state of Johnny's
finances. She questioned him as to when he had moved into the back
room, and, finding it to be not long before her father's departure,
guessed that discomfort, like the husks of the prodigal son, had
awakened the thing dignified by the name of duty.

For a little she sat in silence, thinking matters over. Johnny smoked
hard at the stump of his cigar, mended the fire and fidgeted, looking
sideways at her.

"Don't worry about it," he ventured at last; "things'll look up, they
will; when he's back at Marbridge with your mother he'll be all right.
She always had a great influence over him, she had, indeed."

Julia said "Yes." But he did not feel there was much enthusiasm in the
monosyllable, so he cast about in his mind for something to cheer her
and thus remembered a very important matter.

"What an old fool I am!" he exclaimed. "There's something I ought to
have told you the moment you came in, and I've clean forgotten it
until now; it's good news, too! There is a lawyer wants to see you."

"What about?" Julia asked; she did not seem to naturally associate a
lawyer with good news.

"A legacy," Johnny answered triumphantly.

Julia was much astonished; she could not imagine from whence it came,
but before she asked she made the business-like inquiry, "How much?"

"Not a great deal, I'm afraid," Mr. Gillat was obliged to say; "still,
a little's a help, you know; it may be a great help; you remember your
father's Aunt Jane?"

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