The Good Comrade Part 22

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 amus.e.m.e.nt. 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 "a.s.s-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 cla.s.s, 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 pa.s.sage, 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.sing 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 ma.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e--hundreds and hundreds of lights; and gradually, like the murmur of the sea in a sh.e.l.l, 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs 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 circ.u.mstances 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 a.s.sured 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 quant.i.ty.

"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 circ.u.mstances. "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."