The Good Comrade Part 7

"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.

She turned her back on the green distance. "Shall we not go back to where the music is playing?" she said.

They went, walking with their arms entwined as other girls were doing, Julia between the broad, white-skinned sisters, like a rapier between cushions. The two younger girls ran on in front. "There is Mevrouw,"

they cried. "She is calling us. The carriage is ready, too; oh, do you think it is already time to go?"

It seemed as if it really was the case. Vrouw Snieder stood clapping her hands and beckoning to them, and the coachman appeared impatient to be off. With reluctance, and many times repeated regrets, they collected their wraps and baskets, and got into the carriage.

"Good-bye, beautiful wood, good-bye!" Denah said, leaning far out as they started. "Oh, if one could but remain here till the moon rose!"

"It would be very damp," her mother observed. "The dew would fall."

To which incontestable remark Denah made no reply.

The return journey was much like the drive there, with one exception; they pa.s.sed one object of interest they had not seen before. It was when they were nearing the outskirts of the town that Anna exclaimed, "An Englishman! Look, look, Miss Julia, a compatriot of yours!"

The season was full early for tourists, and at no time did the place attract many. Englishmen who came now probably came on business which was unlikely to bring them out to these quiet, flat fields. But Anna and Denah, who joined her in a much more demonstrative look-out than Marbridge would have considered well-bred, were insistent on the nationality.

"He walks like an Englishman," Anna said, "as if all the world belonged to him."

"And looks like one," Denah added; "he has no moustache, and wears a gla.s.s in his eye, look, Miss Julia."

Julia looked, then drew back rather quickly. They were right, it was an Englishman; it was of all men Rawson-Clew.

What was he doing here? By what extraordinary chance he came to be in this unlikely place she could not think. She was very glad that Mevrouw felt the air chilly, and so had had the leather flaps pulled over part of the open sides of the carriage; this and the eager sisters screened her so well that it was unlikely he could see her.

"Is he not an Englishman?" Anna asked.

"Yes," she answered; "one could not mistake him for anything else."

"I wonder if he recognised you as a country-woman," Anna speculated; and Julia said she did not consider herself typically English in appearance.

The sisters talked for the rest of the way of the Englishman; of his air and bearing, and the fact, of which they declared themselves convinced, that he was a person of distinction.

But it was not till the drive was over, and the party had separated, that Denah was able to say what was burning on her tongue. They had left the clerk's children at their house, said good-bye to Vrouw Van Heigen and Julia, and were within their own home at last; the girls went up to their bedroom, and Denah carefully fastened the door, then she said mysteriously, "Miss Julia knows that Englishman."

Anna jumped at the intelligence, and still more at the tone. "Did she tell you?" she asked.

"No," Denah replied with some scorn; "she would not tell any one, she wishes it concealed; she thinks it is so, but I saw it."

The tone and manner suggested many things, but Anna was a terribly matter-of-fact person, to whom suggestions were nothing. "Why should she wish it concealed?" she inquired.

"I do not know why," Denah answered; "that remains to be seen. As for how I know it, I saw it in her face; when she looked at him her lips became set, and her eyes--she looked--" She hesitated for a word, and dropped to the homely, "She looked as if she would bite with annoyance that he should be here. The expression was gone in a moment; she spoke with an ease and naturalness that was astonishing, even disgusting; but it had been there. I do not trust her."

The last was said with great seriousness, and for a little Anna was impressed. But not for long, she could not accept such evidence as this; in her opinion it was "fancy."

"You read too many romances," she said; "your head is full of such things. I do not believe Miss Julia knew the Englishman, she would not have hidden from us her knowledge if she did; it is not so easy to hide one's feelings in the flash of an eye, besides there was no reason. Also"--this as an afterthought--"he was a man of good family; you could see at a glance that he was of the aristocracy, while she is a paid companion to Vrouw Van Heigen; she could never before have met him."

Denah, however, was not convinced; she only repeated darkly, "I mistrust her."

Julia, in the meantime, was busy with her household duties, talking over the excursion the while with Mevrouw, and helping to detail it to Mijnheer. At last the table was ready for supper and the coffee made.

Mevrouw sat with her crochet, and Mijnheer opposite her with his paper. It wanted more than a quarter of an hour to supper time, Julia had been too quick; still it did not matter, the coffee would not hurt standing on the spirit-stove; it stood there half the day. She had all this time to spare, but she did not fetch her crochet work; she went outside to the veranda.

It was almost dark by this time, as dark as it ever got on these nights; the air was still and warm. She opened the gla.s.s door and went out and sat down on the step. There was a smell of water in the air, not unpleasant, but quite un-English, and mixed with it a faint smell of flowers, the late blooming bulbs have little scent on the whole; it was more the heavy dew than the flowers themselves which one could smell. It was very quiet out here; the town, at no time noisy, was some distance away--so quiet that Julia could hear the ticking of Mr.

Gillat's large watch in her belt. She pushed it further down; she did not want to hear it.

She propped her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands. She wished she had not seen Rawson-Clew that day; she wished she was not here, she wished there was no such thing as a blue daffodil; she was vaguely angry and dissatisfied, but not willing to face things. It was unlikely that the man had seen her, unlikely that she would see him again; but he was incongruous in this simple life, and he brought forcibly home the incongruity of herself and her errand. She had come for the blue daffodil, it was no good pretending she had not; she told herself angrily, as she had told herself when she had first looked at Johnny's yellow-faced watch, that she was going to get it in some way that was justifiable. Only it was not so easy to believe that now she knew more about it and the Van Heigens. But she must have it, that was the argument she fell back on, the necessity was so great that she was justified (the Polkingtons had always found necessity a justification for doing things that could be anyhow made to square with their position).

She wished she had not been for the excursion to-day, that she lived less really in their simple, sincere life. She wished from her heart that the Van Heigens had been different sort of people--almost any other sort, then she would not have had these tiresome feelings--Johnny and Johnny's watch, Joost Van Heigen--there was something about them all that was hatefully embarra.s.sing. No self-respecting thief robbed a child; even the most apathetic conscience revolted at such an idea. No gentleman worthy of the name attacked an unarmed man, the preparedness of the parties made all the difference between murder and fair fight. Of course, in the abstract, stealing was stealing under all conditions, and killing killing, and both open to condemnation; but in the concrete, in fact, the equality of the two persons made all the difference, at least to honour.

Julia moved uneasily and looked, without seeing, across the dark garden. The monotonous sound of voices floated out indistinctly; the old pair in the sitting-room were talking in the lamplight, Mevrouw going over once again the little incidents of the day. Joost was in the drawing-room at the other end of the house; he had been playing some of his favourite composer; he had stopped now, and was doubtless sorting his music and putting it away, each piece four-square and absolutely neat. Day by day, and year by year, they lived this quiet life, with a drive for a rare holiday treat, and the discovery of a new flower as the goal of all hope and ambition. Things did not happen to them, bad things that needed doubtful remedies; they had never had to scratch for their living, and show one face outwards and another in. They, none of them, ever wanted to do things; they had not the courage. How much of virtue was lack of courage and a desire not to be remarkable?

Julia asked herself the question defiantly, and did not hear Joost come out of the house. He was carrying a lantern, and was going to make his nightly round of the barns. She did not hear his step, and so started when she saw the light swing across the ground at her feet.

He was quite as startled to see her as she was to see him, but his greeting was a very usual question in Holland, "Will you not catch cold?"

She shook her head, and he asked, "What are you doing? Thinking?

Weaving in your head all that you have seen and heard to-day?"

"No," she answered; "I was thinking about courage."

"Courage?" he repeated, puzzled.

"Yes, it is very different in different places; some people are afraid to tell the truth, so they lie; and some are afraid to be dishonest, so they are honest; I believe it depends partly on fashion."

Joost set down the lantern in sheer surprise. "Such things cannot depend on fashion," he said severely.

"I am not so sure," Julia answered; "lots of things you would not expect depend on it. I know people who sometimes go without the food they want so that they can buy expensive cakes to show off when their acquaintances come to tea--that's silly, isn't it? Then I know other people who blush if a pair of breeches, or something equally inoffensive, are mentioned; that seems equally silly. One lot of people is ashamed to be seen eating bread-and-cheese suppers, another lot is ashamed to be seen walking off the side-walk, and with no gloves on. One would hardly expect in, yet I almost believe these silly little things somehow make a difference to what the people think right and wrong."

Joost regarded her doubtfully, though he could only see the outline of her face. "Are you making fun?" he asked. "I do not know when you are making fun; I think you must be now. Are you speaking of us?"

"I never felt less like making fun in my life," Julia answered ignoring the last question. Something in her tone struck Joost as sad, and he forgot his question in sympathy.

"I am sorry," he said; "you are unhappy, and I have intruded upon you; will you forgive me? You are thinking of your home, no doubt; you have not had a letter from England for a long time."

Julia wished he did not notice so many things. "I did not expect a letter," she said; "my eldest sister was married last week, there would be no time to write to me till everything was over; most likely I shall hear to-morrow."

"Is your sister married?" he asked; "and you were not able to be present?"

"It is too far to go home from here," Julia said; then asked, "Were you going to the barns?"