The Good Comrade Part 39

Polkington to her daughter, who was expecting her first baby shortly.

It was this expected event which prevented the young rector from asking Julia to stay with him and Violet until such time as she and her mother could settle somewhere together. It was this same event which prevented Mrs. Polkington from remaining at White's Cottage and sharing Julia's solitude until their plans were settled. All this was explained to Julia in the best Polkington manner and she seemed quite satisfied with the explanation. Mr. Ponsonby had to be perforce; there seemed no alternative; all the same he was not quite pleased. It was all sensible enough, of course, only as he saw Julia standing at the gate in the November afternoon, he did not quite like it.

"Look here," he said shortly, "you shut up this place here, send Mr.

Gillat to his friends, or his rooms, or wherever he came from, and come to me. You can come and make your home with me, and welcome, till things are settled; there's plenty of room."

This was a good deal for Mr. Ponsonby to say, considering what an annoyance the Polkington family had been to him, how--not without wisdom--he had set his face against letting them into his house for more than twenty-four hours at a stretch, and how much this particular member had thwarted and exasperated him at their last meeting. Julia recognised this and recognised also the kindness of the brusque suggestion. She thanked him warmly for the offer though she refused it, a.s.suring him that she and Johnny would be all right at the cottage.

"We do not find it lonely," she said; "we are quite happy here, happier than anywhere else, I think."

The banker grunted, not convinced; Mr. Frazer shook hands with Julia and said he hoped it would not be long before he saw her; Mrs.

Polkington reiterated the remark, kissing her the while; then they drove away and Julia went into the house. She went into the back kitchen; Mr. Gillat was not there; the dishes were all put away and the place was quite tidy. Julia went through to the front kitchen; there she saw Johnny; he was kneeling by the Captain's old chair, his arms thrown across the seat, his silly pink face buried in them, his rounded shoulders shaking with sobs.

Johnny loved as a dog loves, without reason, without thought of return; not for wisdom, worth or deserts, just because he did love and, having once loved, loved always; forgiving everything, expecting nothing--foolish, faithful, true. So he loved his friend, so he mourned him now, be-blubbering the seat of the shabby chair which spoke so eloquently to him of the irritable, exacting presence now gone for ever.

"Johnny," Julia said softly; "Johnny dear."

She put a hand on the round shoulders and somehow slipped herself into the shabby chair.

"Johnny," she said, "let us sit by the fire awhile and not talk of anything at all."

So they sat together till twilight fell.

The next day there came another to Julia, one who knew nothing of what had befallen in these last days. It was almost twilight when he came; Johnny had gone out to collect fir-cones; Julia sent him, partly because their stock was low and partly because she thought it would do him good. She did not expect him back much before five o'clock; it would be dark by then certainly, but not very dark for the day was clear, with a touch of frost in the air; one of those days when the last of the sunset burns low down in the sky long after the stars are out. It was not much after four o'clock when Julia heard something approaching, certainly not Johnny nor anything connected with him, for it was the throb of a motor coming fast. Only once before since she had been at the cottage had she heard that sound on the lonely road, on the day when Rawson-Clew came. It could not be him now, she was sure of that. He might have received the money this morning certainly, but he would not come because of that, rather he would keep away; there was no reason why he should come. She told herself it was impossible, and then went to the door to see, puzzled in her own mind what she should say if the impossible had happened and it was he.

The throbbing had ceased by now; there was the click of the gate even as she opened the door, and he--it was he and no other--was coming up the little brick path in the twilight. His face was curiously clear in the light which lingered low down; and when she saw it and the look it wore, all plans of what she should say fled, and the feeling came upon her which was like that which came when she crouched behind the chopping-block and he barred the way. It seemed as if he had been pursuing and she escaping and eluding for a long time, but now--he was coming up the path and she was standing in the doorway with the pale light strong on her face and nowhere to fly to and no way of escape.

"Why did you not tell me before?" he said without any greeting at all, and he spoke as if he had right and authority. "Why did you let this thing weigh on you for two years and never say a word of it to me?"

"I was ashamed," she answered with truth. Then the spirit which still inhabits some women, making them willing to be won by capture, prompted her to struggle against the capitulation she was ready to make. "There was nothing to speak of to you or any one else," she said, with an effort at her old a.s.surance, and she led the way in as she spoke. "I never meant to speak of it at all, I meant just to pay the debt as from father, and not myself appear in it. I did not do it that way, I know; I could not; I did not get the money till yesterday and--and"--the a.s.surance faded away pathetically--"that was too late."

Rawson-Clew looked down, and for the first time noticed her mourning dress, and realising what it meant, remembered that convention demanded that a man, whose claim depends on another's death, should not push it as soon as the funeral is over. However he did not go away, the pathos of Julia's voice kept him.

"Late or early would have made little difference," he said; "it is just the same now as if it had been early. Do you think I should not have known who sent the money at whatever time and in whatever circ.u.mstances it was paid? Do you think I know two people who would pay a debt, which can hardly be said to exist, in such a way?"

But Julia was not comforted. "It is too late," she re-repeated; "too late for any satisfaction. I thought I would prove that we were honest and honourable by paying it; I wanted to show father--that I--that our standard was the same as yours, and I have not."

"No," he answered, "you have not and you never will; your standard is not the same as mine; mine is the honour of an accepted convention, and yours is the honour of a personal truth, a personal experience, the honour of the soul."

But she shook her head. "It is not really," she said; "and father--"

"As to your father," he interrupted gently, "do you not think that sometimes the potter's thumb slips in the making of a vessel?"

She looked up with a feeling of grat.i.tude. "Yes," she said; "yes, that is it, if only we could realise it--poor father. It was partly our fault, too, mother's, all of ours--and he is dead now."

"I know. Let him rest in peace; we are concerned no more with his doings or misdoings; our concern, yours and mine is with the living."

She did not answer; a piece of wood had fallen from the fire and lay blazing and spluttering on the hearth; she stooped to pick it up and he watched her.

"I know I have no business here now," he said. "Had I known of his death before, I would not have come to-day; I would have waited, but since I have come--Julia--"

She was standing straight now, the wood safely back in the fire; he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him. "Julia, you and I have always dealt openly, without regarding appearances, let us deal so now--since I have come. Won't you let me give you a receipt?"

Julia said afterwards that receipts for the payment of such debts were unnecessary and never given; which was perhaps as well, for the one she received in the dusk was not of a kind recognised at law. Could it afterwards have been produced it would not have proved the payment of money, though at the time it proved several things, princ.i.p.ally the fact that, though friendship and comradeship are fine and excellent things, there are simple primitive pa.s.sions which leap up through them and transfigure them and forget them, and it is these which make man man, and woman woman, and life worth living, and the world worth winning and losing, too, and bring the kingdom of heaven to earth again.

It also proved how exceedingly firmly a man who is in the habit of wearing a single eyegla.s.s must screw it into his eye, for, as Julia remarked with some surprise, the one which interested her did not fall out.

Mr. Gillat came home with his fir-cones at a quarter to five. And when he came he saw that, to him, most fascinating sight--a motor-car, standing empty and quiet by the gate. He looked at it with keen interest, then he looked round the empty landscape for its owner, and not seeing him, wondered if he was in the house. He put away the cones and came to the conclusion that the owner was not there and the car was an abandoned derelict. For which, perhaps, he may be forgiven, for there was no light at the parlour window and no sound of voices that he could hear from the kitchen; even when he opened the door and walked in he did not in the firelight see any one besides Julia at first.

"Julia," he said, bringing in the astonishing news, "there is a motor-car outside!"

"Yes," Julia answered composedly; "but it is going away soon."

"Not very soon," another voice spoke out of the gloom of the chimney corner, and Johnny jumped as he recognised it.

"Dear me!" he said; "dear me! Mr. Rawson-Clew! How do you do? I am pleased to see you."

The motor did not go away very soon; it stayed quite as long, rather longer, in fact, than Mr. Gillat expected. And when it did go, he did not have the pleasure of seeing it start; he somehow got shut in the kitchen while Julia went out to the gate.

When she came back she shut the door carefully, then turned to him, and he noticed how her eyes were shining. "Johnny," she said, "I am a selfish beast; I am going to leave you. Not yet, oh, not yet, but one day."

Johnny stared a moment, then said, "Of course, oh, of course, to be sure--to live with your mother, she'll want you. A wonderful woman."

"Not to live with my mother," Julia said emphatically. "Sit down and I will tell you all about it."

And she told, slowly and suitably, fearing that he would hardly understand the wonderful goodness of fate to her. But she need not have been afraid; he took her meaning at once, far quicker than she expected, for he saw no wonder in it, only a very great goodness for the man who had won her, and a great and radiant happiness for himself in the happiness that had come to her. As for his loneliness, he never thought of that, why should he? Of course she would leave him, it was the right and proper thing to do; she would leave him anyhow.

"You couldn't go on living with me here," he said; "I mean, I couldn't go on living with you; it wouldn't be the thing, you know; you must think of that."

Julia caught her breath between tears and laughter, but he went on stoutly: "I shall go back to town, to Mrs. Horn; I shall like it--at least when I get used to it. It is quite time I went back to town; a man ought not to stay too long in the country; he gets rusty."

"You won't go back to town," Julia said; "you will never do that. You will stay here in the cottage, and Mrs. Gray from next door to the shop will come and live here as your housekeeper; I am going to arrange it with her. She will come and she will bring her little grand-daughter and you will keep on living here always."

For a moment Johnny's face beamed; the prospect was exquisite; but he sternly put it from him. "No," he said, "I shouldn't like that; it's kind of you, but--"

"Johnny," Julia interrupted, "you should always speak the truth--you do anything else so badly! I don't mind if you like my plan or not, you will have to put up with it to help me; some one must take care of the cottage."

"But you will want to come yourself," Mr. Gillat protested.

"Never, unless you are here."

In the end Julia had her way. Johnny lived at the cottage, and Mrs.

Gray and her grandchild came to keep house. And Billy, Mrs. Gray's nephew, came to help in the garden and take care of the donkey; in the spring there was a donkey added to the establishment, and a little tub-cart which held four children easily, besides Mr. Gillat. And it is doubtful if, in all the country round, there was a happier man than he who tended Julia's plants in Julia's garden, and drove parties of chattering children along the quiet lanes, and sat on warm summer evenings beside his old friend's grave in Halgrave churchyard. He had forgotten many things, old slights and old pains, and old losses; forgotten, perhaps, most things except love. Foolish Johnny, G.o.d's fool, basking in G.o.d's sunshine.

And Julia and Rawson-Clew were married, very quietly, without any pomp or ostentation at all. And if, on the honeymoon, he did not show her all the places he had thought of on the day when he travelled north with the girl with the carnations, it was because he had not several years at his disposal just then. Afterwards he made up for it as work allowed and time could be found. In the record of their lives there are many days noted down as holidays, even such holidays as that first one spent on the Dunes. In the springtime, when the bulb flowers were in bloom, they went once more to the Dunes and to the little old town where the Van Heigens lived. They were received with much ceremony by Mijnheer and his wife, and entertained at a dinner which lasted from four till half-past six. It is true that afterwards state had to be lain aside, for Julia insisted on helping to wash the priceless Nankeen china while her husband smoked long cigars with Mijnheer on the veranda, but that was all her own fault. Denah came to tea drinking, she and her lately-wed husband, the bashful son of a well-to-do shipowner. She was very smiling and all bustling and greatly pleased with herself and all things, and if she thought poorly of Julia for washing the plates, she thought very well of the glittering rings she had left on the veranda-table and well, too, of her husband, who she recognised as the mysterious "man of good family"

they had seen on the day they drove to the wood. And afterwards when the tea drinking was done and the dew was falling, Julia walked with Joost among his flowers, and heard him speak of his hopes and ambitions, and knew that in his work he had found all the satisfaction that a man may reasonably hope for here.