The Good Comrade Part 25

Polkington raised a quieting hand; she did not wish to offend her brother.

He was not offended; he only spoke his mind rather plainly to them all, which, though it did no harm, did little good either; they were too old in their sins to profit by that now. After some more unpleasant talk all round, the family conclave broke up; Mr. Frazer came home, and every one went to bed.

Mr. Ponsonby had Julia's tiny room; there was nowhere else for him, seeing Violet and her husband had the one she and her youngest sister shared in their maiden days. Julia had to content herself with the drawing-room sofa; it was a very uncomfortable sofa, and the blankets kept slipping off so she did not sleep a great deal; but that did not matter much; she had the more time to think things over. Dawn found her sitting at the table wrapped in her blanket, writing by the light of one of the piano candles; she glanced up as the first cold light struggled in, and her face was very grave, it looked old, too, and tired, with the weariness which accompanies renunciation, quite as often as does peace or a sense of beat.i.tude. She looked at the paper before her, a completely worked-out table of expenditure, a sort of statement of ways and means--the means being 50 a year. It could be done; she knew that during the night when the plan took shape in her mind; she had proved it to herself more than half-an-hour ago by figures--but there was no margin. It could only be done by renouncing that upon which she had set her heart; she could not work out the scheme and pay the debt of honour to Rawson-Clew. The legacy had at first seemed a heaven-sent gift for that purpose, but now, like the blue daffodil, it seemed that it could not be used to pay the debt.

That was not to be paid by a heaven-sent gift any more than by a devil-helped theft; slow, honest work and patient saving might pay it in years, but nothing else it seemed. She put her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her locked hands looking down at the unanswerable figures, but they still told her the same hard truth.

"I might save it in time; I could do without this--and this," she told herself. It is so easy to do without oneself when one's mind is set on some purpose, but one has no right to expect others to do without, too--the whole thing would be no good if the others had to; she knew that. No, the debt could not be paid this way; she had no right to do it; it was her own fancy, her hobby, perhaps. No one demanded that it should be paid; law did not compel it; Rawson-Clew did not expect it; her father considered that it no longer existed; it was to please herself and herself alone that she would pay it, and her pleasure must wait.

Possibly she did not reason quite all this; she only knew that she could not do what she had set her heart on doing with the first of Aunt Jane's money, and the renunciation cost her much, and gave her no satisfaction at all. But the matter once decided, she put it at the back of her mind, and by breakfast time she was her usual self; to tell the truth, she was looking forward to a skirmish with Uncle William, and that cheered her.

After breakfast she led Mr. Ponsonby to the drawing-room, and he came not altogether unprepared for objections; he had half feared them last night.

"Uncle William," she said. "I have been thinking over your plan, and I don't think I quite like it."

"I dare say not," her uncle answered; "I can believe it; but that's neither here nor there, as I said last night, beggars can't be choosers."

Julia did not, as Violet had, resent this; she was the one member of the family who was not a beggar, and she knew perfectly well she could be a chooser. She sat down. "Perhaps I had better say just what I mean," she said pleasantly; "I am not going to do it."

"Not going to?" Mr. Ponsonby repeated indignantly. "Don't talk nonsense; you have got to, there's nothing else open to you; I'm not going to keep you all, feed, clothe and house you, and pay your debts into the bargain!"

"No," said Julia; "no, naturally not; I did not think of that."

"What did you think of, then?" her uncle demanded; he remembered that she had the nominal disposal of her own money, and though her objections were ridiculous, even impertinent in the family circ.u.mstances, they might be awkward. "What do you object to? I suppose you don't like the idea of paying debts; none of you seem to."

"No," Julia answered; "it isn't that; of course the debts must be paid in the way you say, it is the only way."

"I am glad you think so," the banker said sarcastically; "though I may as well tell you, young lady, that it would still be done even without your approval. What is it you don't like, spending your money for other people?"

Julia smiled a little. "We may as well call it that," she said; "I don't like the boarding-house investment."

"What do you like? Seeing your parents go to the poorhouse? That's what will happen."

"No, they can come and live with me. I have got a large cottage, a garden, a field, and 50 a year. If we keep pigs and poultry, and grow things in the garden we can live in the cottage on the 50 a year till the debts are all paid off; after that, of course, we should have enough to be pretty comfortable. We need not keep a servant there, or regard appearances or humbug--it would be very cheap."

"And nasty," her uncle added. He was not impressed with the wisdom of this scheme; indeed he did not seriously contemplate it as possible.

"You are talking nonsense," he said; "absurd, childish nonsense; you don't know anything about it; you have no idea what life in a cottage means; the drudgery of cooking and scrubbing and so on; the doing without society and the things you are used to; as for pigs and gardening, why, you don't know how to dig a hole or grow a cabbage!"

But he was not quite right; Julia had learnt something about drudgery in Holland, something about growing things, at least in theory, and so much about doing without the society to which she was used at home that she had absolutely no desire for it left. She made as much of this plan to Mr. Ponsonby as was possible and desirable; enough, at all events, to convince him that she had thought out her plan in every detail and was very bent on it.

"I suppose the utter selfishness of this idea of yours has not struck you," he said at last. "You may think you would like this kind of life, though you wouldn't if you tried it, but how about your mother?"

"She won't like it," Julia admitted; "but then, on the other hand, there is father. I suppose you know he has taken to drink lately and at all times gambled as much as he could. What do you think would become of him in a boarding-house in some fashionable place, with nothing to do, and any amount of opportunity?"

Mr. Ponsonby did not feel able or willing to discuss the Captain's delinquencies with his daughter; his only answer was, "What will become of your mother keeping pigs and poultry and living in an isolated cottage? It would be social extinction for her."

"The boarding-house would be moral extinction for father."

Mr. Ponsonby grew impatient. "I suppose you think," he said irritably, "that you have reduced it to this--the sacrifice of one parent or the other. You have no business to think about such things; but if you had, to which do you owe the most duty? Who has done the most for you?"

"Well," Julia answered slowly, "I'm not sure I am considering duty only; people who don't pay their debts are not always great at duty, you know. Perhaps it is really inclination with me. Father is fonder of me than mother is; I have never been much of a social success.

Mother did not find me such good material to work upon, so naturally she rather dropped me for the ones who were good material. I admire mother the more, but I am sorrier for father, because he can't take care of himself, and has no consolation left; it serves him right, of course, but it must be very uncomfortable all the same. Do you see?"

"No, I don't," her uncle answered shortly; "I am old-fashioned enough to think sons and daughters ought to do their duty to their parents, not a.n.a.lyse them in this way." He forgot that he had in a measure invited this a.n.a.lysis, and Julia did not remind him, although no doubt she was aware of it.

"I should like to do my duty to them both," she said; "and I believe I will do it best by going to the cottage. Father would get to be a great nuisance to mother at the boarding-house after a time, almost as bad as the pigs and poultry at the cottage. Also, if we had the boarding-house, father's moral extinction would be complete, but if we lived at the cottage mother's social one would not; she could go and stay with Violet and other people the worst part of the time, while we were shortest of money. Besides all that, there are two other things; I like the cottage best myself, and I believe it to be the best--I know the sort of living life we should live at a boarding-house--and then there is Johnny Gillat."

Mr. Ponsonby had no recollection of who Johnny Gillat was, and he did not trouble to ask; Julia's other reason was the one he seized upon.

"You like it!" he said; "yes, now we have come to the truth; the person you are considering is yourself; I knew that all along; you need not have troubled to wrap it up in all these grand reasons--consideration for your father, and so on!"

"Oh, but think how much better it sounded!" Julia said, with twinkling eyes.

Mr. Ponsonby did not see the twinkle; he read Julia a lecture on selfishness and ended up by saying, "You are utterly selfish and ingrain lazy, that's what you are; you don't want to do a stroke of honest work for any one."

"Dishonest work is where I shine," Julia told him. "Oh, not scoundrelly dishonesty, company promoting, and so on," (Mr. Ponsonby was on several boards of directors, but he was not a company promoter, still he snorted a little) "I mean real dishonest work; with a little practice I would make such a thief as you do not meet every day in the week."

"I can quite believe it," her uncle retorted grimly; "lazy people generally do take to lying and stealing and, as I say, lazy is what you are. Sooner than work for your living, you go and pig in a cottage, because you think that way you can do nothing all day; lead an idle life."

"Yes," Julia agreed sweetly; "I think that must be my reason--a nice comfortable idle life with the pigs and poultry, and garden, and cooking, and scrubbing, and two incompetent old men. I really think you must be right."

Here it must be recorded, Mr. Ponsonby very nearly lost his temper, and not without justification. Was he not giving time and consideration and (probably) money to help this hopeless family on to its legs again? And was it not more than mortal middle-aged man could bear, not only to be opposed by the only member with any means, but also to be made sly fun of by her? He gave Julia his opinion very sharply, and no doubt she deserved it. But the worst of it was that did not prevent her from exercising the right of the person who is not a beggar to choose.

The Polkington family, who were soon afterwards called in to a.s.sist at the discussion, sided with Mr. Ponsonby. Violet and Mrs. Polkington with great decision, the Captain more weakly. Eventually he was won over to Julia because her scheme seemed to hold a place for him where he could flatter himself he was wanted. The argument went on and angrily, on the part of some present; Julia was most amiable; but, as the Van Heigens had found, she was an extremely awkward antagonist, the more amiable, the more awkward, even in a weak position, as with them, and in a strong one, as now, she was a great deal worse. Mr.

Ponsonby lost the train he meant to catch back to London; he did not do it only for the benefit of his sister, but also because Julia had given battle and he was not going to retire from the field. Violet and Mr. Frazer deliberately postponed the hour of their departure; Violet was determined not to leave things in this condition; Julia's plan, she considered a disgrace to the whole family. Mr. Frazer was asked not to come to the family council; Violet explained to him that they were having trouble with Julia; she would tell him all about it afterwards, but it distressed her mother so much that it would perhaps be kinder if he was not there at the time. Mr. Frazer quite agreed; he shared some of his wife's sentiments about appearances; also he had no wish to be distressed either in mind or tastes.

Violet did tell him about it afterwards; a curtailed and selected version, but one eminently suitable to the purpose. On hearing it he was justly angry with Julia's heartless selfishness in keeping her legacy to herself. He was also shocked at her determination to go and live a farm labourer's life in a farm labourer's cottage. He was truly sorry for Mrs. Polkington, between whom and himself there existed a mutual affection and admiration. He said it was bitterly hard that her one remaining daughter should treat her thus; that it was barbarous, impossible, that a woman of her age, tastes, refinement and gifts should be compelled to lead such a life as was proposed. In fact he could not and would not permit it; he hoped that she would make her home at his rectory; nay, he insisted upon it; both Violet and himself would not take a refusal; she must and should come to them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A wonderful woman"]

Julia smiled her approval; when things were worked up to this end; she would have liked to clap her applause, it was so well done. Mrs.

Polkington and Violet were so admirable, they were already almost convinced of all they said; in two days they would believe it quite as much as Mr. Ponsonby did now. She did not in the least mind having to appear as the ungrateful daughter; it fitted in so beautifully with Violet's arrangement. And really the arrangement was very good; the utilitarian feelings of the family did not suffer at wrenches and splits as did more tender ones; no one would object much to an advantageous division. And most advantageous it certainly was; the cottage household would go better without Mrs. Polkington and she would be far happier at the rectory. She would not make any trouble there; rather, she would give her son-in-law cause to be glad of her coming; there would be scope for her there, and she would possibly develop better than she had ever had a chance of doing before.

So everything was decided. The house in East Street was to be given up, and most of its contents sold; as Julia's cottage was furnished already with Aunt Jane's things, she need only take a few extras from the home. The debts were to be paid as far as possible now, and the small income was to be divided; part was to go as pin money to Mrs.

Polkington, the main part of the remainder to go to the debts, and a very small modic.u.m to come with the Captain to the cottage.

Julia was quite satisfied, and let it be apparent. This, with her obvious cheerfulness, rather incensed Violet, who regarded the sale of their effects as rather a disgrace, and Julia's plans for the future, as a great one.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she told her younger sister, just before she left Marbridge. "I am positively ashamed to think you belong to us. It will be nice to meet Norfolk people at the Palace or somewhere, who have seen you tending your pigs and doing your washing.

It is such an unusual name; I can quite fancy some one being introduced to mother and thinking it odd that her name should be the same as some dirty cottage people."

"Well," Julia suggested, "why not change it? Such a trifle as a name surely need not stand in our way; we have got over worse things than that. Mother can be something else, or I can; mother had better do it; father will forget who he is if I make a change."

"Don't be absurd," Violet said; "I only wish you could change it though; I never want to write to you as Julia Polkington in case some servant were to notice the address; one never knows how these things come out."

"Don't write as that," her sister told her; "address me as 'Julia Snooks' or anything else you like; I am not particular."

Violet did not take this as a serious suggestion; nevertheless, Julia told Mr. Frazer on the platform at Marbridge that she and Violet had been having a christening, and that she was now Julia Snooks. Mr.

Ponsonby said it was ridiculous, to which Julia replied--

"That is what I am myself."