Book: The Good Comrade

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




Julia did, or rather she remembered the name. Great-aunt Jane was one
of the relations the Polkingtons did not use; she was not rich enough
or obliging enough to give any help, nor grand enough for
conversational purposes. She never figured in Mrs. Polkington's talk
except vaguely as "one of my husband's people in Norfolk;" this when
she was explaining that the Captain came of East Anglian stock on his
mother's side. Jane was only a step-aunt to the Captain; his mother
had married above her family, her half-sister Jane had married a
little beneath--a small farmer, in fact, whose farming had got smaller
still before he died, which was long ago. Great-aunt Jane could not
have much to leave any one, but, as Mr. Gillat said, anything was
better than nothing; the real surprise was why it should have been
left to Julia.

She asked Johnny about it, but he could not tell her much; he really
knew very little except that there was something, and that the lawyer
wanted her address and was annoyed when her relations could not give
it. Indeed, even went so far as to think they would not, and that it
would be his duty to take steps unless she was forthcoming soon.

"I had better go to his office to-morrow," Julia said; "I suppose you
know where it is?"

Mr. Gillat did, and they arranged how they would go to-morrow, Johnny,
who was to wait outside, solely for the pleasure and excitement of the
expedition. After that they talked about the legacy and its probable
amount for some time.

"I suppose no other benefactor came inquiring for me while I was
away?" Julia said, after she had, to please Johnny and not her
practical self, built several air castles with the legacy.

"No," Mr. Gillat said regretfully, "I'm afraid not; no one else asked
for you. At least, some one did; a Mr. Rawson-Clew came here for your
address."

"Did he though?" Julia asked; "Did he, indeed? What did he want it
for?"

"Well, I don't know," Johnny was obliged to say; "I don't know that he
gave any reason exactly; he said he had met you in Holland. I thought
he was a friend of yours, he seemed to know a good deal about you."

"He was a friend," Julia said; "that was quite right. And so he came
for my address. When was this?"

Johnny gave the approximate date, and Julia asked: "Why did he come to
you?"

Mr. Gillat did not quite know unless it was because he had failed
elsewhere. "But he really came to see your father," he said.

"Did he see him?" Julia inquired.

"No, he was out. To tell the truth, I don't believe your father ever
knew he came," Johnny confessed; "I meant to tell him, of course, but
he was late home that day, and when he came he was--was--well, you
know, he couldn't--it didn't seem--"

"Yes," said Julia, coming to the rescue, "he was drunk and could not
understand, and afterwards you forgot it; it does not matter; indeed,
it is better so; I am glad of it."

Mr. Gillat was fumbling in his shabby letter-case; he took out a card;
it bore Rawson-Clew's name and address of a London club.

"He gave me this," he said, "and told me to let him know if I heard
from you, if you were in any trouble, or anything--if I thought you
were."

Julia held out her hand. "You had better give it to me," she said;
"I'll let him know all that is necessary. Thank you;" and she put the
card away.

Soon after she went to her room, for it was growing late. But she did
not hurry over undressing; indeed, when she sat down to take off her
stockings, she paused with one in her hand, thinking of Rawson-Clew.
So he had tried to find out where she was; he did not then accept her
answer as final; he was bent on seeing that she came to no harm
through him--honourable, certainly, and like him. He had come to
Berwick Street and nearly seen her father--drunk; quite seen Mr.
Gillat, in the first floor sitting-room certainly, but no doubt shabby
and not very wise as usual. She was not ashamed; though for a moment
she had been glad he had missed her father; now she told herself it
did not matter either way. He knew what she was and what her people
were; what did it matter if he realised it a little more? They were
not of his sort, it was no good pretending for a moment that they
were. His sort! She laughed silently at the thought. The girls of his
sort eating steak and onions in a back bedroom with Johnny Gillat!
Caring for Johnny as she cared, liking to sit with him in the pokey
little room while he smoked Dutch cigars; not doing it out of kindness
of heart and charity, but finding personal pleasure in it and a sense
of home-coming! If Rawson-Clew had come that evening while they were
at supper, or while she cured the smoky fire or mended the blind, or
while they sipped black coffee out of earthenware breakfast-cups and
talked of her father's delinquencies! It would not have mattered; he
knew she was of the stoke-hole--she had told him so--and not like the
accomplished girls whom he usually met--who could not have got him the
explosive!

She dropped her stocking to take the wide-necked bottle in her hands,
deciding now how best to send it. It must go by post, in a good-sized
wooden box, tightly packed, with a great deal of damp straw and wool;
it ought to be safe that way. She would send it to the club address,
it was fortunate she had it; but not yet, not until her own plans were
clearer. It was just possible he might suspect her; it was hardly
likely, but it was always as well to provide against remote
contingencies, for if he tried and succeeded in verifying the
suspicion everything would be spoiled. He had made sensible efforts to
find her before, he might make equally sensible and more successful
ones again, unless she left a way of escape clear for herself.
Accordingly, so she determined, the explosive should not go yet,
thought it had better be packed ready. She would get a box and packing
to-morrow; to-night she could only copy the formula. She did this,
printing it carefully on a strip of paper which she put on the bottle
and coated with wax from her candle. She knew Herr Van de Greutz waxed
labels sometimes to preserve them from the damp, so she felt sure the
formula would be safe however wet she might make the packing.

The next day she went to the lawyer's office and heard all about the
legacy and what she must do to prove her own identity and claim it.
Mr. Gillat waited outside, pacing up and down the street, striving so
hard to look casual that he aroused the suspicions of a not too acute
policeman. The official was reassured, however, when Julia came out of
the office and carried Johnny away to hear about the legacy.

"It is more than I thought," she said, before they were half down the
street. "Fifty pounds a year, a small house--not much more than a
cottage--and a garden and field; that's about what it comes to. The
house is not worth much; it is in an unget-at-able part of Norfolk, in
the sandy district towards the sea--the man spoke as if I knew where
that was, but I don't--and the garden and field are not fertile. I
don't suppose one could let the place, but one could live in it, if
one wanted to."

"Yes, yes," Johnny said, "of course; you will have your own estate to
retire to; quite an heiress--your mother will be pleased."

Julia could well imagine what skilful use her mother could make of the
legacy; it would figure beautifully in conversation; no doubt Johnny
was really thinking of this also, though he did not know it, for
actually the thing would not commend itself to Mrs. Polkington so
highly as a lump sum of money would have done.

"Why do you think Great-aunt Jane let it to me?" Julia asked. "Because
I went out to work! It seems that father and we three girls are the
nearest relations she had, and though we knew nothing about her, she
made inquiries about us from time to time. When she heard I had gone
abroad as companion or lady-help, she said she should leave all she
had to me because I was the only one who even tried to do any honest
work. You know that is not really strictly fair, because I did not
altogether go with the idea of doing honest work; although, certainly,
when I got there I did it."

Johnny did not quite follow this last, but it did not matter, the only
thing that concerned him--or Julia much, either--was the fact that she
was the possessor of L50 a year, a cottage, a garden, and a field.
Johnny revelled in the idea and talked of what she was going to do
right up to the time that he saw her into the train at Paddington. The
only thing that put an end to his talking was the guard requesting him
to stand away from the carriage door and Julia admonished him to leave
go of the handle before the engine started. Julia herself did not talk
so much of what she would do because she did not know; she felt, until
she got home and saw how things were there, it was no good even to
plan how and when to spend. Five pounds she did spend; it was really
her saving accumulated by economy in Holland, but she reckoned it as
drawn from her estate. Johnny found it in an envelope when he returned
to the back bedroom, and with it a note to say that it was in part
payment of Captain Polkington's debts, for which, of course, his
family were responsible; "and if you make a fuss about it," the letter
concluded, dropping the business-like style, "I shall trim 'Bouquet'
to stink next time you come to Marbridge, and not come and sit with
you."

I think Johnny sat down and wept over that letter; but then he was
rather a silly old man and he had not had a good meal, except last
night's steak and onions, for a fortnight.




CHAPTER XIV

THE END OF THE CAMPAIGN


The great Polkington campaign was over and it had failed. Mrs.
Polkington and Cherie cheered each other with assurances of a contrary
nature as long as they could, but for all that it had really failed
and they knew it. There had been some small successes by the way; they
had received a little recognition in superior places, and a few, a
very few, invitations of a superior order at the cost, of course, of
refusing and so offending some old friends and acquaintances. It might
perhaps have been possible to achieve the position at which Mrs.
Polkington aimed in the course of time, or a very long time; society
in the country moves slowly, and she could not afford to wait
indefinitely; her financial ability was not equal to it. Moreover,
there came into her affairs, not exactly a crash, but something so
unpleasantly like a full stop that she and Cherie could not fail to
perceive it. This occurred on the day when they heard of Mr. Harding's
engagement. Mr. Harding was the eligible bachelor addition to county
society whose advent had materially assisted in giving definite form
to Mrs. Polkington's ambition. He had helped to feed it, too, during
the late summer and early autumn, for he had been friendly, though
Cherie was forced to admit that his attentions to her had not been
very marked. But now the news was abroad that he was engaged to a girl
in his own circle; one whose mother had not yet extended any greater
recognition to Mrs. Polkington than an invitation to a Primrose League
Fete.

This news was abroad in the middle of October, and there was a certain
amount of unholy satisfaction in Marbridge. Some of the old friends
and acquaintances who Mrs. Polkington had offended, recognised the
Christian duty of forgiveness, and called upon her--to see how she
bore up. The Grayson girls, whose dance Cherie had refused at the
beginning of the month, came to see her. But they put off their call a
day to suit some theatrical rehearsal; by which means they lost the
entertainment they promised themselves, for by the time they did come
Cherie was ready for them and, with appropriate shyness, let it be
known that she herself was engaged to Mr. Brendon Smith.

At this piece of information the girls looked at one another, and
neither of them could think of anything smart to say. Afterwards they
told each other and their friends that it was "quick work," and "like
those Polkingtons." But at the time they could only offer suitable
congratulations to Cherie, who received them and carried off the
situation with a charming mingling of assurance and graciousness,
which was worthy of her mother.

But the Graysons were right in saying it was quick work; late one
afternoon Cherie heard of Mr. Harding's engagement; during the evening
she and her mother recognised their failure; in the night she saw that
Mr. Brendon Smith was her one chance of dignified withdrawal, and
before the next evening she had promised to marry him.

There were some people in Marbridge who pitied Mr. Smith (only the
Polkingtons put in the Brendon), but he did not need much pity, for
the good reason that he knew very well what he was doing and how it
was that his proposals came to be accepted. He was fond of Cherie, and
appreciated both her beauty and her several valuable qualities; but he
had no illusions about her or her family, and he knew, when he made
it, that his proposal would be accepted to cover a retreat. He was not
at all a humble and diffident individual, but he did not mind being
taken on these terms; he even saw some advantage in it in dealing with
the Polkingtons. If there was any mistake in the matter it was Cherie
when she said "Yes" to his suggestion, "Don't you think you'd better
marry me?" She probably did not know how completely she was getting
herself a master.

It was not a grand engagement; Mrs. Polkington could not pretend that
her son-in-law elect had aristocratic or influential connections; she
said so frankly--and her frankness, which was overstrained, was one of
her most engaging characteristics.

"It is no use pretending that I should not have been more pleased if
he had been better connected," she said to those old friends and
acquaintances whose Christianity led them to call. "I share your
opinion, dear Mrs. ----" (the name varied according to circumstances)
"about the value of birth; but one can't have everything; he is a most
able man, and really charming. It is such a good thing that he is so
much older than Cherie; I always felt she needed an older man to guide
and care for her--he is positively devoted to her; you know, the
devotion of a man of that age is such a different thing from a boy's
affection."

After that the visitor could not reasonably do anything but inquire if
Mr. Smith was going to throw up the South African post which all the
town knew he was about to take before his engagement.

To this Mr. Polkington was obliged to answer, "No, he is going, and
going almost directly; that is my one hardship; I have got to lose
Cherie at once, for he positively will not go without her. Of course,
it would be a thousand pities for him to throw it up, such an opening;
so very much better than he would ever have here, but it is hard to
lose my child--she seems a child to me still--almost before I have
realised that she is grown up. Their passages are taken already; they
will be married by license almost directly; there even won't be time
to get a trousseau, only the merest necessaries before the luggage has
to go."

It must not be thought that the news of Mr. Harding's engagement was
the one and only thing which convinced Mrs. Polkington and Cherie that
the great campaign had failed; it was the finishing touch, no doubt,
in that it had made Cherie feel the necessity of being immediately
engaged to some one, but there were other things at work. Captain
Polkington had returned from London just five days before they heard
the news, and three were quite sufficient to show his wife and
daughter that he was considerably the worse for his stay in town.
Bills too, had been coming in of late; not inoffensive, negligible
bills such as they were very well used to, but threatening insistent
bills, one even accompanied by a lawyer's letter. Then, to crown all,
Captain Polkington had a fit of virtue and repentance on the second
day after his return. It was not of long duration, and was, no doubt,
partly physical, and not unconnected with the effects of his decline
from the paths of temperance. But while it lasted, he read some of the
bills and talked about the way ruin stared him in the face and the
need there was for retrenchment, turning over a new leaf, facing facts
and kindred things. Also, which was more important, he wrote to his
wife's banker brother--he who had been instrumental in getting the
papers sent in years ago. To this influential person he said a good
deal about the state of the family finances, the need there was for
clearing matters up and starting on a better basis, and his own
determination to face things fairly and set to work in earnest. What
kind of work was not mentioned; apparently that had nothing to do with
the Captain's resolution; there was one thing, however, that was
mentioned definitely--the need for the banker brother's advice--and
pecuniary assistance. The answer to this letter was received on the
same day as the news of Mr. Harding's engagement. It came in the
evening, later than the news, and it was addressed to Mrs. Polkington,
not the Captain; it assisted her in recognising that the end of the
campaign had arrived. It said several unpleasant things, and it said
them plainly; not the most pleasant to the reader was the announcement
that the writer would himself come to Marbridge to look into matters
one day that week or the next. Under these circumstances it is not
perhaps so surprising that Cherie found it advisable to accept Mr.
Brendon Smith's offer of marriage, and Mrs. Polkington found the
impossibility of getting a trousseau in time no very great
disadvantage.

When Julia came home it wanted but a short time to Cherie's wedding. A
great deal seemed to have happened since she went away, not only to
her family, but, and that was less obviously correct, to herself. She
stood in the drawing-room on the morning after her return and looked
round her and felt that somehow she had travelled a long way from her
old point of view. The room was very untidy; it had not been used, and
so, in accordance with the Polkington custom, not been set tidy for
two days; dust lay thick on everything; there were dead leaves in the
vases, cigarette ash on the table, no coals on the half-laid fire. In
the merciless morning light Julia saw all the deficiencies; the way
things were set best side foremost, though, to her, the worst side
contrived still to show; the display there was everywhere, the
trumpery silver ornaments, all tarnished for want of rubbing, and of
no more intrinsic value and beauty than the tinfoil off champagne
bottles; the cracked pieces of china--rummage sale relics, she called
them--set forth in a glass-doored cabinet, as if they were heirlooms.
Mrs. Polkington had a romance about several of them that made them
seem like heirlooms to her friends and almost to herself. The whole,
as Julia looked around, struck her as shoddy and vulgar in its
unreality.

"I'm not coming back to it, no, I'm not," she said, half aloud; "the
corduroy and onions would be a great deal better."

Cherie passed the open door at that minute and half heard her. "What
did you say?" she asked.

Julia looked round. "Nothing," she answered, "only that I am not
coming back to this sort of life."

"To Marbridge?" Cherie asked, "or to the house? If it is the house you
mean, you need not trouble about that; there isn't much chance of your
being able to go on living here; you will have to move into something
less expensive. I am sure Uncle William will insist on it. There is
more room than you will want here after I am gone, and as for
appearance and society, there won't be much object in keeping that
up."

Julia laughed. "You don't think I am a sufficiently marketable
commodity to be worth much outlay?" she said. "You are quite right;
besides, it is just that which I mean; I have come to the conclusion
that I don't admire the way we live here."

"So have I," Cherie answered; "no one in their senses would; but it
was the best we could do in the circumstances and before you grumble
at it you had better be sure you don't get something worse."

Julia did not think she should do that, and Cherie seeing it went on,
"Oh, of course you have got L50 a year, I know, but you can't live on
that; besides, I expect Uncle William will want you to do something
else with it."

"I shall do what I please," Julia replied, and Cherie never doubted
it; she would have done no less herself had she been the fortunate
legatee, Uncle William or twenty Uncle Williams notwithstanding.

This important relative had not been to Marbridge yet, in spite of
what he wrote to his sister; he had not been able to get away. Indeed,
he was not able to do so until the day after Cherie's wedding. Mrs.
Polkington was in a happy and contented frame of mind; the quiet
wedding had gone off quite as well as Violet's grander one--really, a
quiet wedding is more effective than a smart one in the dull time of
year, and always, of course, less expensive. Cherie had looked lovely
in simple dress, and the presents, considering the quietness and
haste, were surprisingly numerous and handsome. Mr. Smith was liked
and respected by a wide circle. Mrs. Polkington felt satisfied and
also very pleased to have Violet, her favourite daughter, with her
again. She and Violet were talking over the events of the day with
mutual congratulation, when Mr. William Ponsonby was announced.

Fortunately, Violet's husband, Mr. Frazer, had gone to see his old
friend the vicar, and more fortunately still, he was persuaded to stay
and dine with him. It would have been rather awkward to have had him
present at the display of family washing which took place that
evening. Mr. Ponsonby did not mince matters; he said, perhaps not
altogether without justice, that he had had about enough of the
Polkingtons. He also said he wanted the truth, and seeing that his
sister had long ago found that about her own concerns so very
unattractive that she never dealt with it naked; it did not show
beautiful now. In the course of time, however, he got it, or near
enough for working purposes. Out came all the bills, and out came the
threatening letter and old account books and remembered debts both of
times past and present; and when he had got them all, he added them
up, showed Mrs. Polkington the total, and asked her what she was going
to do.

She said she did not know; privately she felt there was no need for
her to consider the question; was it not the one her self-invited
brother had come to answer? He did answer it, almost as soon as he
asked it.

"You will have to leave this house," he said, "sell what you can of
its contents and pay all that is possible of your debts. You won't be
able to pay many with that; the rest I shall have to arrange about, I
suppose. Oh, not pay; don't think that for a moment; I've paid a deal
more than I ought for you long ago. I mean to see the people and
arrange that you pay by degrees; you will have to devote most of your
income to that for a time. What will you live on in the meanwhile?
This legacy--it is you who have got it, isn't it?" he said, turning to
Julia; "I thought so. Fortunately the money is not in any way tied up,
you can get at the principal. Well, the best thing to be done is to
buy a good boarding-house. You could make a boarding-house pay,
Caroline," he went on to his sister, "if you tried; your social gifts
would be some use there--you will have to try."

Mrs. Polkington looked a little dismayed, and Violet said, "It would
be rather degrading, wouldn't it?"

"Not so degrading as being sued at the county court," her uncle
returned.

Mrs. Polkington felt there was truth in that, and, accustoming herself
to a new idea with her usual rapidity, she even began to see that the
alternative offered need not be so very unpleasant. Indeed, when she
came to think about it, it might be almost pleasant if the
boarding-house were very select; there would be society of a kind,
perhaps of a superior kind, even; she need not lose prestige and she
could still shine, and without such tremendous effort.

But her reflections were interrupted by the Captain.

"And what part have I in this scheme?" he asked.

His brother-in-law, to whom the question was addressed, considered a
moment. "Well, I really don't know," he said at last; "of course you
would live in the house."

"A burden on my wife and daughter! Idle, useless, not wanted!"

The banker had no desire to hurt Captain Polkington's feelings, but he
saw no reason why he should not hear the truth--that he had long been
all these things; idle, useless, unwanted, a burden not only to his
wife and daughters, but also to all relations and connections who
allowed themselves to be burdened. But the Captain's feelings were
hurt; he was surprised and injured, though convinced of little besides
the hardness of fate and the fact that his brother-in-law
misunderstood him. He turned to his wife for support, and she
supported, corroborating both what he said and what her brother did
too, though they were diametrically opposed. It looked rather as if
the discussion were going to wander off into side issues, but Julia
brought it back by inquiring of her uncle--

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