Book: The Good Comrade

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




After dinner the father and son went to sit on the veranda, and
Mevrouw helped Julia take the dishes into the white marble kitchen and
the glasses into the little off-room. Later, Julia came to sit on the
veranda, too--it was somewhat stuffy being all closed in with glass
windows. There they drank pale tea, the pot kept simmering on a
spirit-stove, and read the foreign papers which had just come. Mevrouw
did not read, she made tea and did crochet work, a strip like Vrouw
Snieder's, only yellow instead of red. Julia, it is to be feared, did
not try to master the pattern so kindly set right by Denah; she could
not resist the breath from the outside world which the papers brought.

At six o'clock Mijnheer and his son went back to the office, and
Julia, having washed the tea-cups, joined Mevrouw in the sitting-room.
It was never very light in that room, for the walls were covered with
a crimson flock paper and the woodwork was black; while the windows,
which looked on the canal, were always shaded till dark. They sat here
at work on the morning gown, till supper time. Mijnheer sometimes came
in an hour before supper, as early as half-past eight; Joost had
usually too much to do to come in before half-past nine. After supper,
when the things were cleared away, they had prayers; Mijnheer read a
chapter from the Bible, and they sat round the table and listened, and
afterwards he said, "Now we will pray," and they sat a while in
silence. Julia sat, too, her keen, observing eyes cast down and a
curious stillness about her. After that every one went to bed; Julia
and the maidservant had two little rooms right up in the eaves of the
house; the family slept on the floor below. Julia was glad of this,
though it was possible to imagine her room would be very hot in summer
and very cold in winter. But she was glad to be well above the
sleeping house, and to be able to look from her window across the wide
country, over the dark bulb gardens--laid out like a Chinese puzzle
with their eight-foot hedges--to the lights of the town on the one
hand, and, better still, to the dim curve of the Dunes on the other.
It is to be feared she sometimes spent a longer time at her window
than was wise, seeing the early hour at which she had to rise; but no
one was troubled by it, for she was careful to take off her shoes
first thing; the rooms were unceiled, and it was necessary to tread
lightly if one would not disturb people below.

On the day after that of Anna and Denah's visit, Herr Van Heigen
offered to show Julia the bulb barns. It was a Saturday, and so after
dinner, the workmen having all gone home, there was no one about and
she could ascend the steep barn ladders without any suffering in her
modesty. At least that was what Mijnheer thought; Julia, her modesty
being of a very serviceable order, may have given the matter less
consideration, but she accepted the offer.

The barns were very large and high, many of them three storeys and
each storey lofty. The light inside was dim, a sort of dun colour, and
the air very dry and full of a strange, not unpleasant smell.
Everything was as clean as clean could be; no litter, no dirt, the
floor nicely swept, the shelves that ran all round and rose, tier upon
tier, in an enormous stand that occupied the whole centre of the
place, all perfectly orderly. On the shelves the bulbs lay, every one
smooth and clean and dry, sorted according to kind and quality;
Mijnheer knew them all; he could, like a book-lover with his books,
put his hand upon any that he wished in the dark. It seemed to Julia
that there were hundreds upon hundreds of different sorts. Not only
hyacinths and tulips and such well-known ones in endless sizes and
varieties, but little roots with six and seven syllable names she had
never heard before, and big roots, too, and strange cornery roots, a
never-ending quantity.

Mijnheer told her they were not yet all in; many were in the ground
and had still to be lifted. This she knew, for she had seen the dead
tops of some in the little enclosed squares where they grew; from her
bedroom window, too, she saw others still in bloom--a patch, the size
of a tennis-lawn squared, of scarlet ranunculous, little blood-red
rosettes, sheltered by a high close-clipped hedge. And another patch
of iris hispanica, fairy flowers of palest gold and lavender,
quivering at the top of their grey-green stalks like tropical
dragon-flies hovering over a field of growing oats. These it seemed,
and many others, would be brought in by and by, then the great barns
would be really full. Mijnheer took up a root here and there, telling
her something of the history of each; explaining how the narcissus
increased and the tulips grew; showing her hyacinth bulbs cut in
half-breadthways with all the separate severed layers distended by
reason of the growing and swelling of the seeds between.

"Each little seed will be a bulb by and by," he said, "but not yet.
When we cut the root first, we set it in the ground and these begin to
grow and become in time as you see them now. Afterwards they grow
bigger and bigger till their parent can no longer contain them."

"Does it take long for them to grow full size?" Julia asked.

"It takes five years to grow the finest hyacinth bulbs," Mijnheer
answered, "but inferior ones are more quick. And when the bulb is
grown, there is one bloom--fine, magnificent, a truss of
flowers--after that it deteriorates, it is, one may say, over. Ah, but
it is magnificent while it is there! There is no flower like the
hyacinth; had I my way, I would grow nothing else, but people will not
have them now. They must have novelties. 'Give us narcissus,' they
say; 'they are so graceful'--I do not see the grace--'Or iris'--well,
some are fine, I allow, but they do not last in bloom as do hyacinths.
The mourn iris of Persia is very beautiful; we have not one flowering
yet, but we shall have by and by. I will show you then; you will think
it very handsome. When it blooms I go to it in the morning and dust
the sand from the petals. I feel that I can reverence that flower; it
is most beautiful."

"Is it very scarce?" Julia asked.

"Somewhat," Mijnheer answered; "but we have things that are more so,
we have many novelties so called. Ah, but we have one novelty that is
a true one, it is a wonder, it has no price, it is priceless!" He drew
a deep breath of almost awed pride. "It is the greatest rarity that
has ever been reared in Holland, a miracle, in fact--a blue daffodil!"

Julia refrained from mentioning that she had heard of the rarity
before; she leaned against the centre stand and listened while the old
man grew eloquent, with the eloquence of the connoisseur, not the
tradesman, over his treasure. There was no need for her to say much,
only to put a question here and there, or make a sympathetic comment;
with little or no effort she learned a good deal about the wonderful
bulb. It seemed that it really had been grown in the Van Heigens'
gardens, and not imported from Asia, as Mr. Cross thought. There were
six roots by this time; not so many as had been hoped and expected, it
did not increase well, and was evidently going to be difficult to
grow.

"Would you like to know the name which it will immortalise?" the old
man asked at last. "It is called Narcissus Triandrus Azurem Vrouw Van
Heigen."

"You named it in honour of Mevrouw, I suppose?" Julia said.

"I did not; Joost did."

"Mijnheer Joost?" she repeated.

"Yes," the father answered. "It is his, not mine; to him belongs the
honour. It is he who has produced this marvel. How? That is a secret;
perhaps even I could not tell you if I would; Nature is wonderful in
her ways; we can only help her, we cannot create. Yes, yes, it is
Joost who has done this. He seemed to you a retiring youth? Yet he is
the most envied and most honoured man of our profession. I would
sooner--there are many men in Holland who would sooner--have produced
this flower than have a thousand pounds. And he is my son--you may
well believe that I am proud."

And Mijnheer beamed with satisfaction in his son and his blue
daffodil. But Julia leaned against the stand in the dry twilight,
saying nothing. Money, it appeared, was not then the measure of all
things; neither intrinsically, as with Mr. Alexander Cross, nor for
what it represented in comfort and position, as with her own family,
did it rank with these bulb growers. They, these people whom her
mother would have called market gardeners, tradespeople, it seemed,
loved and reverenced their work; they thought about it and for it,
were proud of it and valued distinction in it, and nothing else. The
blue daffodil was no valuable commercial asset, it was an honour and
glory, an unparalleled floral distinction--no wonder Cross could not
buy or exploit it. In a jump Julia comprehended the situation more
fully than that astute business man ever could; but at the same time
she felt a little bitter amusement--it was this, this treasured
wonder, that she thought to obtain.

The next day, Sunday, Julia went to church with Mijnheer and Joost;
Mevrouw did not find herself well enough for church, but she insisted
that Julia should not stay at home on her account. Accordingly the
girl accompanied father and son to the Groote Kerk and listened to
the rather dull service there. For the most part she sat with her eyes
demurely cast down, though once or twice she looked round the old
barn-like place, and wondered if there were any frescoes under the
whitewash of the walls and whence came the faint, all pervading smell,
like a phantom of incense long forgotten. When service was over and
they came out into the sunny street, Mijnheer announced that he was
going to see a friend. Julia, of course, must hurry home to set the
table for the mid-day coffee drinking, and afterwards prepare for
dinner. Joost was going back, likewise, and to her it was so natural a
thing they should go together that she never thought about it. It did
not, however, seem so to him, and after walking a few paces in
embarrassment, he said--

"You would perhaps prefer I did not walk with you?"

"Oh, no," she answered, in some surprise; "I shall be pleased, if you
are going the same way, that is."

He fidgeted, becoming more embarrassed. "You are sure you do not
mind?" he said. "It is a little conspicuous for you."

Then she understood, and looked up with twinkling eyes. "I am afraid I
am conspicuous, anyhow," she said.

This was true enough, for her clothes, fitting like an Englishwoman's,
and put on like a Frenchwoman's (the Polkingtons all knew how to
dress), were unlike any others in sight. Her face, too, dark and thin
and keenly alert, was unlike, and her light, easy walk; and if this
was not enough it must be added that she was now walking in the road
because the pavement was so crowded.

Joost stepped off the path to make room for her and she saw by his
face that his mind was not at ease.

"Pray, Mijnheer," she said, in her softest tones, and her voice had
many tones as her companion had not failed to notice, though he was
not aware that the softest was also usually the most mischievous,
"will you not walk the other side of the way? Then you will not be
conspicuous at all."

"I do not mind it," he said, blushing, and Julia decided that his
father's description of him as a retiring youth was really short of
the mark. They walked along together down the quiet, bright streets;
there were many people about, but nobody in a hurry, and all in Sunday
clothes, bent on visiting or decorous pleasure-making. Everywhere was
sunny and everything looked as if it had had its face washed; week
days in the town always looked to Julia like Sundays, and Sundays,
this Sunday in particular, looked like Easter.

In time they came to the trees that bordered the canal; there were old
Spanish houses here, a beautiful purplish red in colour, and with
carving above the doors. Julia looked up at her favourite doorpiece--a
galleon in full sail, a veritable picture in relief, unspoiled by
three hundred years of wind and weather.

"I think this is the most beautiful town I was ever in," she said. Her
companion looked surprised.

"Do you like it?" he asked. "It must be quite unlike what you are used
to, all of it must be."

"It is," she answered, "all of it, as you say--the place, the ways,
the people."

"And you like it? You do not think it--you do not think us what you
call slow, stupid?"

She was a little surprised, it had never occurred to her that he, any
more than the others, would think about her point of view. "No," she
answered, "I admire it all very much, it is sincere, no one appears
other than he is, or aims at being or seeming more. Your house is the
same back and front, and you, none of you have a wrong side, the
whole life is solid right through."

Joost did not quite understand; had she not guessed that to be likely
she would hardly have spoken so frankly. "I fear I do not understand
you," he said; "it is difficult when we do not know each other's
language perfectly."

"We know it very well," Julia answered; "as well as possible. If we
were born in the same place, in the same house, we should not
understand it better."

He still looked puzzled; he was half afraid she was laughing at him.
"You think I am stupid?" he said, gravely.

She denied it, and they walked on a little in silence. They were in
the quieter part of the town now and could talk undisturbed; after a
little he spoke again, musingly.

"Often I wonder what you think of, you have such great, shining eyes,
they eat up everything; they see everything and through everything, I
think. They sweep round the room, or the persons or the place, and
gather all--may I say it?--like some fine net--to me it seems they
draw all things into your brain, and there you weave them and weave
them into thoughts."

Julia swallowed a little exclamation, and by an effort contrived not
to appear as surprised as she was by this too discerning remark. She
was so young that she did not before know that children and child-like
folk sometimes divine by instinct the same conclusions that very
clever people arrive at by much reasoning and observation. She felt
decidedly uncomfortable at this explanation of Joost's frequent
contemplations of herself.

"You seem to think me very clever," she said.

"Of course," he answered simply, "you are clever."

"No, I am not," she returned; "ask your mother; ask Denah Snieder;
they do not think me clever. What can I do, except cook? Oh, yes, and
speak a few foreign language as you can yourself? I cannot paint, or
draw, or sing; I do not understand music; why, when you play Bach, I
wish to go out of the room."

"That is true," he admitted; "I have felt it."

Julia bit her lip; she had never before expressed her opinion of Bach,
and she did not feel in the least gratified that he had found it out
for himself.

"It is absurd to call me clever," she said. "I have little learning
and no accomplishments. I cannot even get on with the crochet work
Denah showed me, and I do not know how to make flowers of paper."

"But why should one make flowers of paper?" he asked, in his serious
way. "They are not at all beautiful."

"Denah makes them beautifully," she answered.

The argument did not seem to carry weight, but Julia advanced no
other; she thought silence the wisest course. They had almost reached
home now; a little before they came to the gate, Joost opened the
subject of herself again. "I think sometimes you must make fun of us;
do you not sometimes in your heart laugh just a little bit?"

"I laugh at everything sometimes," she said; "myself most of all. Do
you never laugh at yourself? I expect not; you are very serious. I
will tell you what it is like: a little goblin comes out of your head
and stands in front of you; the goblin is you, a sort of you; the
other part, the part people know, sits opposite, and the goblin laughs
at it because it sees how ridiculous the other is, how grotesque and
how futile. My goblin came out into my room last night and laughed and
laughed; you would almost have heard him if you had been there."

They had reached the gate now, and as Joost held it open for her to
pass through, she saw that he had blushed to the ears at the lightly
spoken words--if he had been in her room last night; the impropriety
of them to him was evident. For a moment she blushed, too, then she
recovered herself and grew impatient with one so artificial--and yet
so simple, so self-conscious--and yet so unconscious, so desperately
stupid--and yet so uncomfortably clear-sighted.




CHAPTER V

THE EXCURSION


The following Monday was fine and warm, and since the whole previous
week had also been fine and warm, Mevrouw thought they might venture
to make the talked-of excursion. Messages were accordingly sent to the
Snieders, and from the Snieders back again, and after a wonderful
amount of talk and arranging, everything was settled. Dinner was a
little early that day, and a little hurried, though, since the
carriage was not to come till after five o'clock, there was perhaps
not much need for that. However, it is not every day in the week one
makes an excursion, so naturally things cannot be expected to go quite
as usual when such an event occurs.

The carriage came, Mevrouw had been waiting ten minutes, and three
times been to see why Julia was not waiting with her. At the sound of
wheels Julia came out; she had just finished washing the glasses
(which she had been told not to touch, as there was certainly no
time). She was quite ready, but Mevrouw at that moment discovered that
she had the wrong sunshade. Julia fetched the right one and carried it
out for the old lady; also an umbrella with a bow on the handle, a
mackintosh, a shawl, and a large basket. Mijnheer came from the office
with his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and a minute later
Joost also came to say good-bye; even the maidservant came from the
kitchen to see them start.

The carriage drew up; it was a strange-looking vehicle, in shape
something between a hearse and an ark on wheels, but with the greater
part of the sides open to the air. Vrouw Snieder and her two daughters
were already within, with their bow-trimmed umbrellas, sunshades,
mackintoshes, shawls and basket. There was necessarily a good deal of
greeting; Mijnheer and Joost shook hands with all the three ladies,
and inquired after Herr Snieder, and received polite inquiries in
return. Then Denah insisted on getting out, so that Mevrouw should be
better able to get in; also to show that she was athletic and agile,
like an English girl, and thought nothing of getting in and out of a
high carriage. Mevrouw kissed her husband and son, twice each, very
loud, called a good-bye to the servant, and got in. Julia shook hands,
said good-bye, and also got in. Denah watched her, and observed the
shape of her feet and ankles jealously. She glanced sharply at Joost,
but he was not guilty of such indecorum as even thinking about any
girl's legs, so, having said her good-bye, she got in reassured.
Finally they drove away amid wishes for a safe drive and a pleasant
excursion.

Of course there was a little settling to do inside the carriage, the
wraps and baskets to be disposed of, and each person to be assured
that the others had enough room, and just the place they preferred to
any other. By the time that was done they stopped again at the house
of Mijnheer's head clerk; here they were to take up two children,
girls of fourteen and fifteen, who had been invited to come with the
party. The carriage was not kept waiting, the children were out before
it had fairly stopped; they were flaxenly fair girls, wearing little
blue earrings, Sunday hats, and cotton gloves of course--all the party
wore cotton gloves; it was, Julia judged, part of the excursion
outfit.

Now they were really off, driving out beyond the outskirts of the
town; along flat roads where the wheels sank noiselessly into the soft
sand, and the horses' feet clattered on the narrow brick track in the
centre. For a time they followed the canal closely, but soon they left
it, and saw in the distance nothing but its high green banks, with the
brown sails of boats showing above, and looking as if they were a good
deal higher than the carriage road. They passed small fields,
subdivided into yet smaller patches, and all very highly cultivated.
And small black and white houses, and small black and white cows, and
black and white goats, and dogs, and even cats of the same combination
of colour. Everything was rather small, but everywhere very tidy;
nothing out of its place or wasted, and nobody hurrying or idling; all
were busy, with a small bustling business, as unlike aggressive
English idleness as it was unlike the deceptive, leisurely power of
English work.

Denah and Anna looked out of either side of the carriage, and pointed
out things to Julia and the two little girls. Here it was what they
called a country seat, a sort of castellated variety of overgrown
chalet, surrounded by a wonderful garden of blazing flower-beds and
emerald lawns, all set round with rows and rows of plants in bright
red pots. Or there it was a cemetery, where the peaceful aspect made
Denah sentimental, and the beauty of the trees drew Anna's praise. The
two elder ladies paid less attention to what they passed; they
contented themselves with leaning back and saying how beautiful the
air was, and how refreshing the country. The girls said that as well;
they all agreed six times within the hour that it was a delightful
expedition, and they enjoying it much.

In time they came to the wood. An unpaved road ran through it of
soft, deep sand, which deadened every sound; on either hand the trees
rose, pines and larch and beech principally, with a few large-leafed
shivering poplars here and there. There was no undergrowth, and few
bird songs, only the dim wood aisles stretching away, quiet and green.
Suddenly it seemed to Julia that the world's horizon had been
stretched, the little neatness, the clean, trim brightness, the
bustling, industrious toy world was gone; in its place was the
twilight of the trees, the silence, the repose, the haunting,
indefinable sense of home which is only to be found in these
cathedrals of Nature's making.

"Ah, the wood!" Denah said, with a profound sigh. "The beautiful wood!
Miss Julia, do you not love it?"

Julia did not assent, but Denah went on quite satisfied, "You cannot
love it as I do; I think I am a child of Nature, nothing would please
me more than always to live here."

"You would have to go into the town sometimes," Julia said, "to buy
gloves; the ones you have would not last for ever."

Denah looked a little puzzled by the difficulty; she had not
apparently thought out the details of life in a natural state; but
before she could come to any conclusion one of the little girls cried,
"Music--I hear music!"

All the ladies said "Delicious!" together, and "How beautiful!" and
Denah, content to ignore Nature, added rapturously, "Music in the
wood! Ah, exquisite! two beauties together!"

Julia echoed the remark, though the music was that of a piano-organ.
The horizon had drawn in again, and the prospect narrowed; the silence
was full of noises now, voices and laughter, amidst which the organ
notes did not seem out of place. And near at hand under the trees
there were tables spread and people having tea, enjoying themselves in
a simple-hearted, noisy fashion, in no way suggestive of cathedral
twilight.

The carriage was put up, the tea ordered, and in a little they, too,
were sitting at one of the square tables. Each lady was provided with
a high wooden chair, and a little wooden box footstool. A kettle on a
hot potful of smouldering wood ashes was set on the table; cups and
saucers and goats' milk were also supplied to them, and opaque
beet-root sugar. The food they had brought in their baskets, big new
_broodje_ split in half, buttered and put together again with a
slither of Dutch cheese between. These and, to wind up with, some thin
sweet biscuits carried in a papier-mache box, and handed out singly by
Vrouw Van Heigen, who had brought them as a surprise and a treat.

"Do they have such picnics as this in England?" Anna asked, as she
gathered up the crumbs of her biscuit.

"I have never been to one," Julia answered, and inwardly she thought
of her mother and Violet driving in a wheeled ark to the wood, there
to sit at little wooden tables and stretch their mouths in the public
eye.

"Ah!" said Vrouw Snieder; "then it is all the more of a pleasure and a
novelty to you."

Julia said it was, and soon afterwards they rose from the table to
walk in the wood. The two elder ladies did not get far, and before
long came back to sit on their wooden chairs again. The girls went
some little distance, all keeping together, and being careful not to
wander out of sight and sound of the other picnic parties. Once when
they came to the extreme limit of their walk, Julia half-hesitated.
She looked into the quiet green distance. It would be easy to leave
them, to give them the slip; she could walk at double their pace with
half their exertion, she could lose herself among the trees while
they were wondering why she had gone, and making up their minds to
follow her; and, most important of all, when she came back she could
explain everything quite easily, so that they would not think it in
the least strange--an accident, a missing of the way, anything. Should
she do it--should she? The wild creature that had lived half-smothered
within her for all the twenty years of her life fluttered and stirred.
It had stirred before, rebelling against the shams of the Marbridge
life, as it rebelled against the restrictions of the present; it had
never had scope or found vent; still, for all that it was not dead;
possibly, even, it was growing stronger; it called her now to run
away. But she did not do it; advisability, the Polkingtons' patron
saint, suggested to her that one does not learn to shine in the caged
life by allowing oneself the luxury of occasional escape.

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