Book: The Good Comrade

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




They were; two of them were purposely spinning it out, the third was
only a happy chorus. Julia was in no hurry to face the questions about
the explosive which she feared must come when Johnny's restraining
presence was removed. She knew, as soon as she was sure Rawson-Clew's
coming was design and not accident, that he must have suspected her;
he had come to talk about it and he would do so as soon as he got the
chance, so she put it off. And he was quite willing to wait too; he
was enjoying the present moment with a curious light-hearted enjoyment
much younger than his years. And he was enjoying the future moment,
too, in anticipation, albeit he was a little shy of it--he did not
quite know how he was to close with the garrison in the citadel even
though he might have taken all the outposts.

But at last tea was done and the table cleared and all the things
taken to the outer kitchen to be washed. Julia decreed that she and
Johnny were to do that, then unthinkingly she sent her assistant for a
tea-cloth. Rawson-Clew was standing by the doorway when Johnny passed;
he followed him out.

"Mr. Gillat, your plants want watering," he said, quietly but
decisively.

"They do, they do," Johnny agreed; "I will have to do them by and by."

"Do them now, it is getting late."

"It is," Mr. Gillat admitted; "we were late with tea, but there's the
drying of the cups."

"I will do that."

Johnny hesitated; Julia's wish was his law, still there seemed no harm
in the exchange; anyhow, without quite knowing how it happened, he
soon afterwards found himself in the garden among the water cans.

Rawson-Clew went back to the outer kitchen. Julia looked round as she
heard his step, and seeing that he was alone, recognised the
manoeuvre and the arrival of the inevitable hour.

"Well," she said, coming to the point in a business-like way now that
it was unavoidable; "what is it you want?"

"I want to know several things," he said, shutting the door.
"Principally why you called your daffodil 'The Good Comrade?'"

"The daffodil!" she repeated in frank amazement; she was completely
surprised, and for once she did not attempt to hide it.

"Yes," Rawson-Clew said; "why did you call it 'The Good Comrade?'"

Julia began to recover herself and also her natural caution. This was
not the question she expected, but the rogue in her made her wary even
of the seemingly simple and safe. "I called it after three friends,"
she said, "who were good comrades to me--you, Johnny and Joost Van
Heigen. Why do you ask?"

"Because I wondered if it was a case of telepathy; I also named
something 'The Good Comrade.'"

"You?" she said. "What did you name? Was it a dog?"

"No, a bottle--small, wide-necked, stopper fastened with a piece of
torn handkerchief, about two-thirds full of a white powder!"

Julia had begun washing the cups; she did her best to betray no sign,
and really she did it very well; her eyelids flickered a little and
her breath came rather quickly, nothing more.

"Why did you name it?" she asked. "It is rather odd to do so, isn't
it?"

"I named it after the person who gave it to me."

Julia's breath came a little quicker; she forgot to remark that the
same reason had helped her in naming her flower; she was busy asking
herself if he meant her by the good comrade.

"Perhaps I did not exactly name my bottle," he went on to say, "but it
stood for the person to me. It was a sort of physical manifestation--rather
a grotesque one, perhaps--of a spiritual presence which had not really left
me since a certain sunny morning last year."

"That is very interesting," Julia managed to say; her native caution
had not misled her; the innocently beginning talk had taken a devious
way to the expected end.

"It was interesting," Rawson-Clew said, "but not quite satisfying, at
least not to the natural man. He is not content with a manifestation
any more than with a spiritual presence; he wants a corporal fact."

Julia looked up; the talk was taking an unforseen turn that she did
not quite follow, so she looked up. And then she read something in his
face that set her heart beating, that made her afraid, less perhaps of
him than of herself, and the thrill that ran like fire through her
body.

"I don't quite understand," she said, and dropped a cup.

It was meant to fall on the flagged floor and break; it would create a
diversion, and picking up the pieces would give her time to get used
to the suffocating heart-beats. She had enough of the Polkington
self-mastery left to think of the manoeuvre and its advisability,
but not enough to carry it out properly; the cup fell on the
doubled-up tea-cloth that lay at her feet and was not broken at all.
Nevertheless the incident and her own contempt for her failure
steadied her a little.

Rawson-Clew picked up the cup. "Do you not understand," he said. "It
is quite simple; I have put it to you before, too--not in the same
words, but it comes to the same--the plain terms used then were--will
you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

Julia's heart seemed to stop for a second, then it went on heavily as
before, but she only asked, "Did you not get my letter, the one I
wrote in Holland about that?"

"The one when you told me of your arrangements? By the way you did not
mention that you were going to Van de Greutz's for the explosive, yes,
I got that, but it was scarcely an answer."

"I explained that it meant 'no.'"

"In a postscript; you cannot answer a proposal of marriage in a
postscript."

There really does not seem sufficient ground to justify this
statement, still she did not combat it. "Can't I?" she said. "Then I
will answer it now--no. It was good of you to offer, generous and
honourable, but, of course, I should not accept. I mean, I could not
even if there had been any need, and, as you see, there was not a
particle of need then, still less now."

"No need, no," he answered, and there was a new note in his voice;
"it is not a case of necessity or anything of the sort. Put all that
nonsense of justice and honour and gratitude out of the question, you
know that it does not come in. I own it did weigh somewhat then, but
now--now I want the good comrade; I don't deserve her, or a tithe of
what she has done for me, but I can't do without her--herself, the
corporal fact--don't you know that?"

"No," Julia said; somehow it was all she could say.

"You don't know it? Then I'll tell you." But he did not for she
prevented him.

"Please don't," she said. "You cannot really want me because you do
not really know me. Oh, no, you do not!"

"I think I do; I know enough to begin with; the rest of the ignorance
you can remedy at your leisure."

"My leisure is now," she said; "I will tell you several things, I will
tell you how I got the explosive. I went as a cook and stole like a
thief--you could have got it as easily as I if you would have stooped
as readily as I did. You admire that? Perhaps so, now, but you would
not if you had seen it being done. That is the sort of thing I do, and
I will tell you the sort of thing I like. The day I came home from
Holland I did what I liked--as soon as I reached London I went to
Johnny Gillat, my dear old friend, who I love better than any one else
in the world, and we had a supper of steak and onions in a back
bedroom, and we enjoyed it--you see what my tastes are? Afterwards I
heard how father had taken to drink and mother had got into debt--you
see what a nice family we are?"

But here Rawson-Clew stopped her. "I knew something like this before,"
he said; "the details are nothing; I do not see what it has to do with
the matter."

"It ought to have a lot," she answered. "But even if you do know it
and a good deal more and realise it too, which is a different thing,
there is still the other side. I don't know you, I don't even know
your name."

Then he remembered that he must have signed that offer of marriage, as
he signed all letters, and so left himself merely "H. F. Rawson-Clew"
to her.

"You see," she was saying, "it is a mistake for people who don't know
each other very well to marry, they would always be getting unpleasant
surprises afterwards. Besides, it would be so uncomfortable; it must
be pretty bad to live at close quarters with some one you were--who
you didn't know very well, with whom you minded about things."

She had touched on something that did matter now, that might matter
very much indeed; Rawson-Clew realised it, and realised with a start
of pain, that there might be a great gulf between him and the good
comrade after all. Her quick intuitions and perceptions had bridged it
over and led him to forget that he was a man of years and experience
while she was a girl, a young, shy, half-wild thing, veiled, and
fearing to draw the veil for his experienced eyes.

"Tell me," he said, facing her and looking very grave and old, "is
that how you feel about me?"

She fidgeted the tea-cloth with her foot, but being a Polkington, she
was able to answer something. "We belong to different lots of people,"
she said, examining the shape the thing had taken on the floor; "I
have got my life here, working in my garden and so on; and you have
got yours a long way off among greater things."

"You have not answered me," he said. "Tell me--am I the man you
described?"

He turned her so that she could look at him, the thing she dared not
do. His touch was light, almost momentary, but it was too much, it
thrilled through her wildly, irresistibly, and she drew back fearing
to do anything else.

"Don't!" she said, and her voice was sharp with the anger of pain.

He stepped back a pace. "Thank you," he said; "I am answered."

Captain Polkington had been dozing; there really was nothing else to
do; but suddenly he was aroused; there was a sound below; the motor
moving at last. Yes, it was going, really going; he went to the window
and, taking care not to be seen, watched the car go down the sandy
road. After that he went down-stairs, and finding Johnny, who had
finished his watering, persuaded him to come for a stroll on the
heath. They took a basket to bring home anything they might find, and
shouted news of their intention to Julia, who did not answer, then set
out.

Now, in the present state of their development, motors are not things
on which a man can always rely. More especially is this the case when
any one like Mr. Gillat has had anything to do with them. The obliging
Johnny, had arranged the inside of Rawson-Clew's car, covering up what
he thought might be hurt by the sun and blowing sand while it stood at
the roadside, and taking into the house when he went in to tea,
anything that could be stolen if--as was quite out of the
question--one came that way with a mind to steal. Johnny had brought
back most of the things and replaced them before Rawson-Clew started,
but not quite all. When the car had got a little distance down the
road it, with a perversity worthy of a reasonable being, developed a
need for the forgotten item. Rawson-Clew searched for it, could not
find it, discovered that he could not get on without it, and,
thinking if not saying something not very complimentary about Mr.
Gillat, walked back to the cottage.

He supposed he would find Johnny in the garden, but he did not; he and
the Captain were some way out on the heath now, and, fortunately for
the latter's peace, neither saw any one approach the cottage.
Rawson-Clew looked round the garden and finding no one decided, rather
reluctantly, that he must go to the house. He did not want to meet
Julia again; he thought it rather unlikely that she should still be in
the kitchen, but there was a chance of it, so he approached with a
view to reconnoitering before presenting himself. The outer kitchen,
which partook rather of the nature of a wash-house, had a large
unglazed window; when he drew near to this he heard a noise from
within. It sounded like some one sobbing, not quiet sobs, but slow
deep spasmodic ones like the last remains of a tempest of tears which
has not spent itself but only been imperfectly suppressed by sheer
will. Rawson-Clew paused though possibly he had no business to do so.

"Oh, why," one wailed from within, "why is not father dead? If he were
dead--if only he had been dead!"

The unglazed window was large and rather high up, but Rawson-Clew was
a man of fair height; he was also usually considered an honourable
one, but when he heard the voice, saying something which was plainly
only meant for the hearing of Omnipotence, he did not go away. He put
his hands on the flintwork of the window-sill and in a moment found
himself in the twilight of the unceiled kitchen.

Julia was crouching in a corner, her elbows on the old chopping-block,
her face hidden on her tightly-clenched hands, while she struggled
angrily with the shaking sobs. For a moment she struggled, then
mastered herself somehow and looked up, perhaps because she meant to
rise and set about her work. She had been crying hard and tears do not
improve the average face, certainly they did not hers; and she had
been trying hard to stop, cramming a screwed-up handkerchief into her
eyes and that did not improve matters either. One would have said her
face could have expressed nothing but the extremity of unbecoming woe,
yet when she caught sight of Rawson-Clew standing just under the
window it changed extraordinarily and to anger.

"Go away!" she said; "go away! Do you hear?"

Rawson-Clew did not go away; he came nearer and Julia drew further
into the corner, ensconsing herself behind the chopping-block, and
looking about as inviting of approach as a trapped rat.

"Julia," he said.

"Go away!" was her only answer.

"Why did you send me away?"

"Because I wanted you gone."

"Because Captain Polkington is not dead? Is that it?"

"You are a dishonourable eavesdropper! No, it wasn't that."

He sat down on the chopping-block barricading her corner so that she
could not get out without stepping over him. "Do you know it strikes
me that you are not strictly honest either, at least not strictly
truthful just now."

Julia tugged at her skirt; the chopping-block was on the hem and he on it
so that she could not get free. "Will you please go," she said, with a
catch in her breath. That is the worst of these half-suppressed, unspent
storms of tears, they have such a tendency to return and break out again
inconveniently.

"If it were not for Captain Polkington would you have sent me away?"
he asked.

"Y--e--s," she answered, fighting with her tears. "Oh, go! Please,
please go!"

She crumpled herself into a small miserable heap and he leaned over
the block and drew her into his arms.

For a moment she struggled, burrowing her head into his coat; there
was a good deal of burrowing and not much struggling. "No, you
wouldn't," he said to her hair, "you would have married me."

"I might have said I would, but I shouldn't really have done it," she
contended without looking up. "I shouldn't when it came to the point.
You had better let me go, I am spoiling your coat, my face is all
wet--and I don't know where my handkerchief is."

"Take mine, you will find it somewhere. Tell me, why would you not
have married me when it came to the point? Because your courage failed
you?"

No answer; then, "I can't find that handkerchief."

"You have not tried. Are you afraid to try? Are you afraid of me? Is
that why you would not have married me--you would have been afraid to
live at close quarters with me? Do you still think you don't know me
well enough?"

"I don't know your name."

The answer was ridiculous, but he knew how the ridiculous touched even
tragedies for Julia.

"Hubert Farquhar Rawson-Clew," he said solemnly. "Now--"

But whatever was to have followed was prevented, for at that moment
she looked up, and for some reason, suddenly decided things had gone
far enough, and so freed herself.

"I don't think it matters much what I should have done," she said, "or
why, either. Father is not dead; you ought to know better than to talk
about such a thing; it is bad taste."

"Does that matter in the simple life? I thought when you retired you
were going to dispense with falsity and pretences, and say and do
honestly what you honestly thought, when it did not hurt other
people's feelings."

"So I do," she answered; "that is why, when I thought I was alone just
now, I asked out loud how it was that father was still alive. Since
then I have seen."

"What have you seen?"

"That it is to prevent me from making a great muddle of things. If he
had been dead I dare say I should have married you--I may as well
confess it since you know--and we both should have repented it ever
afterwards. As it is, if I were free to-morrow, I would know better
than to do it."

He did not seem much troubled by the last statement. "We should have
had to talk things over," he said.

"No, talking wouldn't have been any good," she answered; "there is a
great distance between us."

He looked down at the space of red tiles that separated them. "That is
rather remediable," he observed.

"Do you think I am not in earnest?" she said. "I am. There is a real
barrier; besides all these things I have mentioned there is something
else that cuts me off. I have a debt to pay you and until it is paid,
if I were your own cousin, I could not stand on the same platform."

"A debt?" he repeated the word in surprise. His young cousin's loan to
Captain Polkington had slipped his memory, and even if it had not, its
connection with the present would not have occurred to him. Julia had
been there, it is true, when the affair was talked of eighteen months
ago, and he himself had unofficially paid the money to end the matter,
but he never dreamed of connecting either her or himself with it now.
Still less would he have dreamed that she considered herself bound to
pay him what her father had borrowed from another.

"What debt?" he asked, thinking the word must be hyperbolical, and
meant to stand for something quite different, though he could not
imagine what.

"You have forgotten?" she said. "I thought you had; that only shows
the distance more plainly; you have one standard for yourself and
another for me."

"Tell me what it is and let us see if we cannot compound it."

But she shook her head. "It can't be compounded," she said; "you will
know when I pay it."

"And when will that be?"

"Ten years, twenty perhaps, I don't know. I thought once or twice
before I could pay it--with the blue daffodil once, and once when I
first got the cottage and things--I thought, to be sure, I could do
it; it seemed a Heaven-sent way. But"--with a little glint of
self-derision--"Heaven knows better than to send those sort of easy
ways to the Polkingtons; they are ill-conditioned beasts who only
behave when they are properly laden by fate, and not often then. Now
you know all about it, so won't you say good-bye and go?"

"I don't know about it and, what is more, I don't care. I am not going
to let this unknown trifle, this scruple--"

Just then there came the sound of voices outside; Mr. Gillat and
Captain Polkington unwarily coming back before the coast was clear.

"Yes," Johnny was saying, "he came to see me in town, you know--or
rather you, but you were out--"

"He came to see me? He"--there was no mistaking the consternation in
the Captain's tone, nor his meaning either.

Julia and Rawson-Clew looked at one another; both had forgotten the
Captain's existence for a moment; now they were reminded, and though
the reminder seemed incongruous it was perhaps opportune.

"There is father," Julia said.

And he nodded. One cannot make love to a man's daughter almost in his
presence, when the proviso of his death is an essential to any
satisfaction. Rawson-Clew went to the door. "Good-bye," he said, "for
the present."

"Good-bye for always," she answered.

She spoke quite calmly, in much the same tone when, on the morning
after the excursion to the Dunes, she had bid him good-bye and tried
to face the consequences alone. She had had so many tumbles with fate
that it seemed she knew how to take them now with an indifferent face.
At least, nearly always, not quite--the wood block still lay before
the corner in which she had crouched the marks on his coat where her
tears had fallen were hardly dry. There was passion and to spare
behind the indifferent face, passion that for once at least had broken
through the self-mastery.

He held out his hand and she put hers into it. "Good-bye," he
repeated; "good-bye for the present, brave little comrade."




CHAPTER XIX

CAPTAIN POLKINGTON


Captain Polkington was watching a pan of jam. It was the middle of the
day and warm; too warm to be at work out of doors, as Johnny was, at
least so the Captain thought. He also thought it too warm to watch jam
in the back kitchen and that occupation, though it was the cooler of
the two, had the further disadvantage of being beneath his dignity.
The dignity was suffering a good deal; was it right, he asked himself,
that he, the man of the house, should have the menial task of watching
jam while Julia talked business with some one in the parlour? He did
not know what business this person had come on; he had seen him arrive
a few minutes back, had even heard his name--Mr. Alexander Cross--but
that was all he knew about him; Julia had taken him into the parlour
and shut the door. Naturally her father felt it and was annoyed.

There was a door leading into the parlour from the front kitchen. It
was fast closed but the Captain, leaving the jam to attend to itself,
went and looked at it. While he was standing there he heard three
words spoken on the other side by the visitor; they were--"your new
daffodil."

So that was the business this man had come on! He was trying to buy
Julia's ugly streaked flower. The Captain's weak mouth set straight;
he felt very strongly about the daffodil and his daughter's refusal
to sell it. He knew she might have done so; she had had a good many
letters about it since it was exhibited in London. She said little
about the offers they contained, but he knew she refused them all; he
had taxed her with it and argued the question to no purpose. Now,
to-day, it seemed there was a man so anxious to buy the thing that he
had actually come to see her; and she, of course, would refuse again.
The Captain sat down in the easy-chair; he was overcome by the thought
of Julia's contrary stupidity.

The chair was near the door, but he would have scouted the idea that
he was listening; he was a man of honour, and why should he wish to
hear Julia refuse good money? Also it was impossible to hear all that
was said unless the speakers were close to the door. Apparently they
must have been near for no sooner had he sat down than he heard the
man say, "Haven't I had the pleasure of seeing you somewhere before,
Miss Snooks? Your face seems familiar though I can't exactly locate
it."

"We met at Marbridge," Julia answered; "at a dance, a year and a half
ago."

"At Marbridge? Oh, of course! Funny I shouldn't have remembered when I
heard your name the other day!"

Captain Polkington did not think it at all funny; he did not know who
Mr. Cross might be, nobody important he judged by his voice and
manner--hostesses at Marbridge often had to import extra nondescript
men for their dances. But whoever he was, if he had been there once he
might go there again and carry with him the tale of Julia's doings and
home and other things detrimental to the Polkington pride. The Captain
listened to hear one of the two in the other room refer to the change
of name which had prevented an earlier recognition. But neither did;
she saw no reason for it, and he had forgotten her original name if he
ever knew it.

"I remember all about you now," he was saying; "you danced with me
several times and asked me about the Van Heigens' blue daffodil"--he
paused as if a new idea had occurred to him. "You were not in the line
then, I suppose?" he asked.

"No, I knew nothing about flower growing or selling," she answered.
"What you told me of the value of the blue daffodil was a revelation
to me."

He laughed a little. "But one you'll try to profit by," he said.

The Captain moved in his chair. He could have groaned aloud at the
words, which represented precisely what Julia would not do.
Unfortunately his movement had much the same effect as his groan would
have done, some one on the other side of the door moved too, and in
the opposite direction. It must have been Julia, her father was sure
of it; it was like her to do it; she must have gone almost to the
window; he could not make out what was said. The man was no doubt
trying to buy the bulb; a stray word here and there indicated that,
but it was impossible to hear what offer was made. It was equally
impossible to hear what Julia said; her father only caught the
inflection of her voice, but he was sure she was refusing.

In disgust and anger he rose and, having pulled the jam to the side of
the fire, went into the garden. There he took the hoe and started
irritably to work on a bed near the front door; it was some relief to
his feelings to scratch the ground since he could not scratch anything
else.

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