"Yes," Van de Greutz answered shortly, resenting the interruption, "and go to the devil. As I was saying, it is very unstable."
This was to the German, and did not concern Julia; she took the tray of cups and went. But near the door there was an iron tripod lying on the floor; she caught her foot in it, stumbled and fell headlong, dropping tray and cups with a great clatter.
There was a general exclamation of annoyance and anger from Van de Greutz, of surprise and commiseration from the German, and of something that might have been fright or pain from Julia.
"You clumsy fool!" Van de Greutz cried. "Get out of here, and don't let me see your face, or hear your trampling ass-hoofs again! Do you hear me, I won't have you in here again!"
The German was more sympathetic. "Have you hurt yourself?" he asked.
"No, Mijnheer, nothing," Julia answered; "only a little—my knees and elbows." Had she been playing Othello, though she might not have blacked herself all over, it is certain she would have carried the black a long way below high water mark. This was no painless stage stumble, but one with real bruises and a real thud.
The German had half risen; perhaps he thought ofcoming to help pick up the pieces of broken cups that were scattered between the cupboard and the chair. But he did not do so, for Herr Van de Greutz went on to speak of his unstable compound.
"I treated it with—" he said, and, seeing this was something very daring, the other's attention was caught.
Julia picked up the pieces alone, and carried them out on the tray, and on the tray also she carried a bottle wrapped into a duster. It was a wide-necked stoppered bottle, two-thirds full of white powder; very much like the one she had brought in, but also very much like the one that stood five from the end on the second shelf of the cupboard.
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 amusement. 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 "ass-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 hermind 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 class, 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 trimming 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 clovenhoof." 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 passage, 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 circumstances, 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 passing cart, and so get herself conveyed to the town.
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 mass 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, butenough 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 shore—hundreds and hundreds of lights; and gradually, like the murmur of the sea in a shell, 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 ashore, 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 onlythought 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'scheap 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 trimmings 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 circumstances 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 coldafter your journey; you look quite pale and pinched," he said; "seasickness does leave one feeling chilly."
Julia repented of that unnecessary trimming 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 assured 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 quantity.
"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 circumstances. "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."
Julia could not repress an inclination to smile, not only at the neat way in which her mother had checkmated her, but also at the thought of that lady's face when Mr. Gillat presented himself at Marbridge, just as she was congratulating herself on being rid of the Captain.
"What happened?" she asked. "Did mother send you back to town again?"
"She did not send me," Mr. Gillat answered; "but, of course, I had to go, as she said; there was your father all alone here; it would be very dull for him; I couldn'tleave him. Besides, he is not—not a strong man, it would be better—she would feel more easy if she thought he had his old friend with him, to see he didn't get into—you know."
"I know," Julia answered; "mother told you all this, then she paid your fare back again."
"Not paid my fare," Mr. Gillat corrected; "a lady could not offer to do such a thing; do you think I would ever have allowed it? I couldn't you know."
Julia's lips set straight; she had something of a man's contempt for small meannesses, and it is possible her judgment on this economy of her mother's was harder than any she had for the unjustifiable extravagances at which she guessed. She did not say anything of it to Mr. Gillat, she was too ashamed; not that he saw it in that light; he didn't think he had been in any way badly used, he never did.
"Well," she said, "then you came back to town and looked after father to the best of your abilities? I suppose you could not do much good?"
Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair again for a little. "You see," he said hesitatingly, "it was very dull for him; of course he wanted amusement."
"And of course he had it, though he could not afford it, and you paid?"
"Not to any great extent; oh, dear no, not to any great extent."
"No, because you had not got 'any great extent' to spend; what you had, limited the amount, I suppose, nothing else."
Mr. Gillat ignored this. "Your father," he said, rather uneasily, looking at her and then away again, "your father never had a very strong head, he—you know—he—"
"Has taken to drink?" Julia asked baldly. "As well as gambling he drinks now?"
"Oh, no," Johnny said quickly, "not exactly, that is—he does take more than he used, more than is good for him sometimes; not much is good for him, you know—he does take more, it is no good pretending he does not. But it was very dull for him; it did not suit him being here, I think; he used to get so low in spirits, what with his losses and feeling he was not wanted at home. He thinks a great deal of your mother, and he could not but feel that she does not think much of him to send him away like that; it hurt him, although, as he said to me more than once, no doubt he deserved it. It preyed on his mind; he seemed to want something to cheer him."
Julia nodded; she could understand the effect well enough, though the causes at work might not be quite clear. To her young judgment it seemed a little strange that her father should have never realised what a cumberer of the ground he was to his wife until she banished him "for his health." But so it evidently was, and after all she could believe it; like some others he had "made such a sinner of his conscience," that he could believe, not only his own lie, but the legends woven about him. They had all pretended things, he and they also; his position, too, had come gradually, he had got to accept it without thinking before it was an established fact. But now the truth had been brought home to him—more or less—and he was miserable, and, according to the custom of his sort, set to making bad worse as soon as ever he discovered it.
"Why did he go home last week?" she aroused herself to ask.
"He thought it his duty," was Johnny's surprising answer. "No, Mrs. Polkington did not send for him, shedid not know he was coming; he decided for himself, he felt it would be better."
Mr. Gillat rambled on vaguely, but Julia was not slow to guess that the principal reason was to be found in the state of Johnny's finances. She questioned him as to when he had moved into the back room, and, finding it to be not long before her father's departure, guessed that discomfort, like the husks of the prodigal son, had awakened the thing dignified by the name of duty.
For a little she sat in silence, thinking matters over. Johnny smoked hard at the stump of his cigar, mended the fire and fidgeted, looking sideways at her.
"Don't worry about it," he ventured at last; "things'll look up, they will; when he's back at Marbridge with your mother he'll be all right. She always had a great influence over him, she had, indeed."
Julia said "Yes." But he did not feel there was much enthusiasm in the monosyllable, so he cast about in his mind for something to cheer her and thus remembered a very important matter.
"What an old fool I am!" he exclaimed. "There's something I ought to have told you the moment you came in, and I've clean forgotten it until now; it's good news, too! There is a lawyer wants to see you."
"What about?" Julia asked; she did not seem to naturally associate a lawyer with good news.
"A legacy," Johnny answered triumphantly.
Julia was much astonished; she could not imagine from whence it came, but before she asked she made the business-like inquiry, "How much?"
"Not a great deal, I'm afraid," Mr. Gillat was obliged to say; "still, a little's a help, you know; it may be a great help; you remember your father's Aunt Jane?"
Julia did, or rather she remembered the name. Great-aunt Jane was one of the relations the Polkingtons did not use; she was not rich enough or obliging enough to give any help, nor grand enough for conversational purposes. She never figured in Mrs. Polkington's talk except vaguely as "one of my husband's people in Norfolk;" this when she was explaining that the Captain came of East Anglian stock on his mother's side. Jane was only a step-aunt to the Captain; his mother had married above her family, her half-sister Jane had married a little beneath—a small farmer, in fact, whose farming had got smaller still before he died, which was long ago. Great-aunt Jane could not have much to leave any one, but, as Mr. Gillat said, anything was better than nothing; the real surprise was why it should have been left to Julia.
She asked Johnny about it, but he could not tell her much; he really knew very little except that there was something, and that the lawyer wanted her address and was annoyed when her relations could not give it. Indeed, even went so far as to think they would not, and that it would be his duty to take steps unless she was forthcoming soon.
"I had better go to his office to-morrow," Julia said; "I suppose you know where it is?"
Mr. Gillat did, and they arranged how they would go to-morrow, Johnny, who was to wait outside, solely for the pleasure and excitement of the expedition. After that they talked about the legacy and its probable amount for some time.
"I suppose no other benefactor came inquiring for me while I was away?" Julia said, after she had, to please Johnny and not her practical self, built several air castles with the legacy.
"No," Mr. Gillat said regretfully, "I'm afraid not; noone else asked for you. At least, some one did; a Mr. Rawson-Clew came here for your address."
"Did he though?" Julia asked; "Did he, indeed? What did he want it for?"
"Well, I don't know," Johnny was obliged to say; "I don't know that he gave any reason exactly; he said he had met you in Holland. I thought he was a friend of yours, he seemed to know a good deal about you."
"He was a friend," Julia said; "that was quite right. And so he came for my address. When was this?"
Johnny gave the approximate date, and Julia asked: "Why did he come to you?"
Mr. Gillat did not quite know unless it was because he had failed elsewhere. "But he really came to see your father," he said.
"Did he see him?" Julia inquired.
"No, he was out. To tell the truth, I don't believe your father ever knew he came," Johnny confessed; "I meant to tell him, of course, but he was late home that day, and when he came he was—was—well, you know, he couldn't—it didn't seem—"
"Yes," said Julia, coming to the rescue, "he was drunk and could not understand, and afterwards you forgot it; it does not matter; indeed, it is better so; I am glad of it."
Mr. Gillat was fumbling in his shabby letter-case; he took out a card; it bore Rawson-Clew's name and address of a London club.
"He gave me this," he said, "and told me to let him know if I heard from you, if you were in any trouble, or anything—if I thought you were."
Julia held out her hand. "You had better give it to me," she said; "I'll let him know all that is necessary. Thank you;" and she put the card away.
Soon after she went to her room, for it was growing late. But she did not hurry over undressing; indeed, when she sat down to take off her stockings, she paused with one in her hand, thinking of Rawson-Clew. So he had tried to find out where she was; he did not then accept her answer as final; he was bent on seeing that she came to no harm through him—honourable, certainly, and like him. He had come to Berwick Street and nearly seen her father—drunk; quite seen Mr. Gillat, in the first floor sitting-room certainly, but no doubt shabby and not very wise as usual. She was not ashamed; though for a moment she had been glad he had missed her father; now she told herself it did not matter either way. He knew what she was and what her people were; what did it matter if he realised it a little more? They were not of his sort, it was no good pretending for a moment that they were. His sort! She laughed silently at the thought. The girls of his sort eating steak and onions in a back bedroom with Johnny Gillat! Caring for Johnny as she cared, liking to sit with him in the pokey little room while he smoked Dutch cigars; not doing it out of kindness of heart and charity, but finding personal pleasure in it and a sense of home-coming! If Rawson-Clew had come that evening while they were at supper, or while she cured the smoky fire or mended the blind, or while they sipped black coffee out of earthenware breakfast-cups and talked of her father's delinquencies! It would not have mattered; he knew she was of the stoke-hole—she had told him so—and not like the accomplished girls whom he usually met—who could not have got him the explosive!
She dropped her stocking to take the wide-necked bottle in her hands, deciding now how best to send it. It must go by post, in a good-sized wooden box, tightly packed, with a great deal of damp straw and wool; itought to be safe that way. She would send it to the club address, it was fortunate she had it; but not yet, not until her own plans were clearer. It was just possible he might suspect her; it was hardly likely, but it was always as well to provide against remote contingencies, for if he tried and succeeded in verifying the suspicion everything would be spoiled. He had made sensible efforts to find her before, he might make equally sensible and more successful ones again, unless she left a way of escape clear for herself. Accordingly, so she determined, the explosive should not go yet, thought it had better be packed ready. She would get a box and packing to-morrow; to-night she could only copy the formula. She did this, printing it carefully on a strip of paper which she put on the bottle and coated with wax from her candle. She knew Herr Van de Greutz waxed labels sometimes to preserve them from the damp, so she felt sure the formula would be safe however wet she might make the packing.
The next day she went to the lawyer's office and heard all about the legacy and what she must do to prove her own identity and claim it. Mr. Gillat waited outside, pacing up and down the street, striving so hard to look casual that he aroused the suspicions of a not too acute policeman. The official was reassured, however, when Julia came out of the office and carried Johnny away to hear about the legacy.
"It is more than I thought," she said, before they were half down the street. "Fifty pounds a year, a small house—not much more than a cottage—and a garden and field; that's about what it comes to. The house is not worth much; it is in an unget-at-able part of Norfolk, in the sandy district towards the sea—the man spoke as if I knew where that was, but I don't—and the garden andfield are not fertile. I don't suppose one could let the place, but one could live in it, if one wanted to."
"Yes, yes," Johnny said, "of course; you will have your own estate to retire to; quite an heiress—your mother will be pleased."
Julia could well imagine what skilful use her mother could make of the legacy; it would figure beautifully in conversation; no doubt Johnny was really thinking of this also, though he did not know it, for actually the thing would not commend itself to Mrs. Polkington so highly as a lump sum of money would have done.
"Why do you think Great-aunt Jane let it to me?" Julia asked. "Because I went out to work! It seems that father and we three girls are the nearest relations she had, and though we knew nothing about her, she made inquiries about us from time to time. When she heard I had gone abroad as companion or lady-help, she said she should leave all she had to me because I was the only one who even tried to do any honest work. You know that is not really strictly fair, because I did not altogether go with the idea of doing honest work; although, certainly, when I got there I did it."
Johnny did not quite follow this last, but it did not matter, the only thing that concerned him—or Julia much, either—was the fact that she was the possessor of £50 a year, a cottage, a garden, and a field. Johnny revelled in the idea and talked of what she was going to do right up to the time that he saw her into the train at Paddington. The only thing that put an end to his talking was the guard requesting him to stand away from the carriage door and Julia admonished him to leave go of the handle before the engine started. Julia herself did not talk so much of what she would do because she did not know; she felt, until she got home and saw how things were there,it was no good even to plan how and when to spend. Five pounds she did spend; it was really her saving accumulated by economy in Holland, but she reckoned it as drawn from her estate. Johnny found it in an envelope when he returned to the back bedroom, and with it a note to say that it was in part payment of Captain Polkington's debts, for which, of course, his family were responsible; "and if you make a fuss about it," the letter concluded, dropping the business-like style, "I shall trim 'Bouquet' to stink next time you come to Marbridge, and not come and sit with you."
I think Johnny sat down and wept over that letter; but then he was rather a silly old man and he had not had a good meal, except last night's steak and onions, for a fortnight.
The great Polkington campaign was over and it had failed. Mrs. Polkington and Chèrie cheered each other with assurances of a contrary nature as long as they could, but for all that it had really failed and they knew it. There had been some small successes by the way; they had received a little recognition in superior places, and a few, a very few, invitations of a superior order at the cost, of course, of refusing and so offending some old friends and acquaintances. It might perhaps have been possible to achieve the position at which Mrs. Polkington aimed in the course of time, or a very long time; society in the country moves slowly, and she could not afford to wait indefinitely; her financial ability was not equal to it. Moreover, there came into her affairs, not exactly a crash, but something so unpleasantly like a full stop that she and Chèrie could not fail to perceive it. This occurred on the day when they heard of Mr. Harding's engagement. Mr. Harding was the eligible bachelor addition to county society whose advent had materially assisted in giving definite form to Mrs. Polkington's ambition. He had helped to feed it, too, during the late summer and early autumn, for he had been friendly, though Chèrie was forced to admit that his attentions to her had not been very marked. But now the news was abroad that he was engaged to a girl in his own circle;one whose mother had not yet extended any greater recognition to Mrs. Polkington than an invitation to a Primrose League Fête.
This news was abroad in the middle of October, and there was a certain amount of unholy satisfaction in Marbridge. Some of the old friends and acquaintances who Mrs. Polkington had offended, recognised the Christian duty of forgiveness, and called upon her—to see how she bore up. The Grayson girls, whose dance Chèrie had refused at the beginning of the month, came to see her. But they put off their call a day to suit some theatrical rehearsal; by which means they lost the entertainment they promised themselves, for by the time they did come Chèrie was ready for them and, with appropriate shyness, let it be known that she herself was engaged to Mr. Brendon Smith.
At this piece of information the girls looked at one another, and neither of them could think of anything smart to say. Afterwards they told each other and their friends that it was "quick work," and "like those Polkingtons." But at the time they could only offer suitable congratulations to Chèrie, who received them and carried off the situation with a charming mingling of assurance and graciousness, which was worthy of her mother.
But the Graysons were right in saying it was quick work; late one afternoon Chèrie heard of Mr. Harding's engagement; during the evening she and her mother recognised their failure; in the night she saw that Mr. Brendon Smith was her one chance of dignified withdrawal, and before the next evening she had promised to marry him.
There were some people in Marbridge who pitied Mr. Smith (only the Polkingtons put in the Brendon), but he did not need much pity, for the good reason that heknew very well what he was doing and how it was that his proposals came to be accepted. He was fond of Chèrie, and appreciated both her beauty and her several valuable qualities; but he had no illusions about her or her family, and he knew, when he made it, that his proposal would be accepted to cover a retreat. He was not at all a humble and diffident individual, but he did not mind being taken on these terms; he even saw some advantage in it in dealing with the Polkingtons. If there was any mistake in the matter it was Chèrie when she said "Yes" to his suggestion, "Don't you think you'd better marry me?" She probably did not know how completely she was getting herself a master.
It was not a grand engagement; Mrs. Polkington could not pretend that her son-in-law elect had aristocratic or influential connections; she said so frankly—and her frankness, which was overstrained, was one of her most engaging characteristics.
"It is no use pretending that I should not have been more pleased if he had been better connected," she said to those old friends and acquaintances whose Christianity led them to call. "I share your opinion, dear Mrs. ——" (the name varied according to circumstances) "about the value of birth; but one can't have everything; he is a most able man, and really charming. It is such a good thing that he is so much older than Chèrie; I always felt she needed an older man to guide and care for her—he is positively devoted to her; you know, the devotion of a man of that age is such a different thing from a boy's affection."
After that the visitor could not reasonably do anything but inquire if Mr. Smith was going to throw up the South African post which all the town knew he was about to take before his engagement.
To this Mr. Polkington was obliged to answer, "No, he is going, and going almost directly; that is my one hardship; I have got to lose Chèrie at once, for he positively will not go without her. Of course, it would be a thousand pities for him to throw it up, such an opening; so very much better than he would ever have here, but it is hard to lose my child—she seems a child to me still—almost before I have realised that she is grown up. Their passages are taken already; they will be married by license almost directly; there even won't be time to get a trousseau, only the merest necessaries before the luggage has to go."
It must not be thought that the news of Mr. Harding's engagement was the one and only thing which convinced Mrs. Polkington and Chèrie that the great campaign had failed; it was the finishing touch, no doubt, in that it had made Chèrie feel the necessity of being immediately engaged to some one, but there were other things at work. Captain Polkington had returned from London just five days before they heard the news, and three were quite sufficient to show his wife and daughter that he was considerably the worse for his stay in town. Bills too, had been coming in of late; not inoffensive, negligible bills such as they were very well used to, but threatening insistent bills, one even accompanied by a lawyer's letter. Then, to crown all, Captain Polkington had a fit of virtue and repentance on the second day after his return. It was not of long duration, and was, no doubt, partly physical, and not unconnected with the effects of his decline from the paths of temperance. But while it lasted, he read some of the bills and talked about the way ruin stared him in the face and the need there was for retrenchment, turning over a new leaf, facing facts and kindred things. Also, which was more important, he wrote to his wife's bankerbrother—he who had been instrumental in getting the papers sent in years ago. To this influential person he said a good deal about the state of the family finances, the need there was for clearing matters up and starting on a better basis, and his own determination to face things fairly and set to work in earnest. What kind of work was not mentioned; apparently that had nothing to do with the Captain's resolution; there was one thing, however, that was mentioned definitely—the need for the banker brother's advice—and pecuniary assistance. The answer to this letter was received on the same day as the news of Mr. Harding's engagement. It came in the evening, later than the news, and it was addressed to Mrs. Polkington, not the Captain; it assisted her in recognising that the end of the campaign had arrived. It said several unpleasant things, and it said them plainly; not the most pleasant to the reader was the announcement that the writer would himself come to Marbridge to look into matters one day that week or the next. Under these circumstances it is not perhaps so surprising that Chèrie found it advisable to accept Mr. Brendon Smith's offer of marriage, and Mrs. Polkington found the impossibility of getting a trousseau in time no very great disadvantage.
When Julia came home it wanted but a short time to Chèrie's wedding. A great deal seemed to have happened since she went away, not only to her family, but, and that was less obviously correct, to herself. She stood in the drawing-room on the morning after her return and looked round her and felt that somehow she had travelled a long way from her old point of view. The room was very untidy; it had not been used, and so, in accordance with the Polkington custom, not been set tidy for two days; dust lay thick on everything; there were dead leaves in the vases, cigarette ash on the table, no coals on thehalf-laid fire. In the merciless morning light Julia saw all the deficiencies; the way things were set best side foremost, though, to her, the worst side contrived still to show; the display there was everywhere, the trumpery silver ornaments, all tarnished for want of rubbing, and of no more intrinsic value and beauty than the tinfoil off champagne bottles; the cracked pieces of china—rummage sale relics, she called them—set forth in a glass-doored cabinet, as if they were heirlooms. Mrs. Polkington had a romance about several of them that made them seem like heirlooms to her friends and almost to herself. The whole, as Julia looked around, struck her as shoddy and vulgar in its unreality.
"I'm not coming back to it, no, I'm not," she said, half aloud; "the corduroy and onions would be a great deal better."
Chèrie passed the open door at that minute and half heard her. "What did you say?" she asked.
Julia looked round. "Nothing," she answered, "only that I am not coming back to this sort of life."
"To Marbridge?" Chèrie asked, "or to the house? If it is the house you mean, you need not trouble about that; there isn't much chance of your being able to go on living here; you will have to move into something less expensive. I am sure Uncle William will insist on it. There is more room than you will want here after I am gone, and as for appearance and society, there won't be much object in keeping that up."
Julia laughed. "You don't think I am a sufficiently marketable commodity to be worth much outlay?" she said. "You are quite right; besides, it is just that which I mean; I have come to the conclusion that I don't admire the way we live here."
"So have I," Chèrie answered; "no one in their senseswould; but it was the best we could do in the circumstances and before you grumble at it you had better be sure you don't get something worse."
Julia did not think she should do that, and Chèrie seeing it went on, "Oh, of course you have got £50 a year, I know, but you can't live on that; besides, I expect Uncle William will want you to do something else with it."
"I shall do what I please," Julia replied, and Chèrie never doubted it; she would have done no less herself had she been the fortunate legatee, Uncle William or twenty Uncle Williams notwithstanding.
This important relative had not been to Marbridge yet, in spite of what he wrote to his sister; he had not been able to get away. Indeed, he was not able to do so until the day after Chèrie's wedding. Mrs. Polkington was in a happy and contented frame of mind; the quiet wedding had gone off quite as well as Violet's grander one—really, a quiet wedding is more effective than a smart one in the dull time of year, and always, of course, less expensive. Chèrie had looked lovely in simple dress, and the presents, considering the quietness and haste, were surprisingly numerous and handsome. Mr. Smith was liked and respected by a wide circle. Mrs. Polkington felt satisfied and also very pleased to have Violet, her favourite daughter, with her again. She and Violet were talking over the events of the day with mutual congratulation, when Mr. William Ponsonby was announced.
Fortunately, Violet's husband, Mr. Frazer, had gone to see his old friend the vicar, and more fortunately still, he was persuaded to stay and dine with him. It would have been rather awkward to have had him present at the display of family washing which took place that evening. Mr. Ponsonby did not mince matters; he said, perhapsnot altogether without justice, that he had had about enough of the Polkingtons. He also said he wanted the truth, and seeing that his sister had long ago found that about her own concerns so very unattractive that she never dealt with it naked; it did not show beautiful now. In the course of time, however, he got it, or near enough for working purposes. Out came all the bills, and out came the threatening letter and old account books and remembered debts both of times past and present; and when he had got them all, he added them up, showed Mrs. Polkington the total, and asked her what she was going to do.
She said she did not know; privately she felt there was no need for her to consider the question; was it not the one her self-invited brother had come to answer? He did answer it, almost as soon as he asked it.
"You will have to leave this house," he said, "sell what you can of its contents and pay all that is possible of your debts. You won't be able to pay many with that; the rest I shall have to arrange about, I suppose. Oh, not pay; don't think that for a moment; I've paid a deal more than I ought for you long ago. I mean to see the people and arrange that you pay by degrees; you will have to devote most of your income to that for a time. What will you live on in the meanwhile? This legacy—it is you who have got it, isn't it?" he said, turning to Julia; "I thought so. Fortunately the money is not in any way tied up, you can get at the principal. Well, the best thing to be done is to buy a good boarding-house. You could make a boarding-house pay, Caroline," he went on to his sister, "if you tried; your social gifts would be some use there—you will have to try."
Mrs. Polkington looked a little dismayed, and Violet said, "It would be rather degrading, wouldn't it?"
"Not so degrading as being sued at the county court," her uncle returned.
Mrs. Polkington felt there was truth in that, and, accustoming herself to a new idea with her usual rapidity, she even began to see that the alternative offered need not be so very unpleasant. Indeed, when she came to think about it, it might be almost pleasant if the boarding-house were very select; there would be society of a kind, perhaps of a superior kind, even; she need not lose prestige and she could still shine, and without such tremendous effort.
But her reflections were interrupted by the Captain.
"And what part have I in this scheme?" he asked.
His brother-in-law, to whom the question was addressed, considered a moment. "Well, I really don't know," he said at last; "of course you would live in the house."
"A burden on my wife and daughter! Idle, useless, not wanted!"
The banker had no desire to hurt Captain Polkington's feelings, but he saw no reason why he should not hear the truth—that he had long been all these things; idle, useless, unwanted, a burden not only to his wife and daughters, but also to all relations and connections who allowed themselves to be burdened. But the Captain's feelings were hurt; he was surprised and injured, though convinced of little besides the hardness of fate and the fact that his brother-in-law misunderstood him. He turned to his wife for support, and she supported, corroborating both what he said and what her brother did too, though they were diametrically opposed. It looked rather as if the discussion were going to wander off into side issues, but Julia brought it back by inquiring of her uncle—
"What part have I in this scheme?"
"You will help your mother," he answered, "and of course the concern will be nominally yours; that is to say, you will put your money in it, invest it in that instead of railways or whatever it is now in. I shall see that the thing is properly secured."
He glanced at Captain Polkington as he spoke, as if he thought he might have designs upon the money or investment. Julia only said, "I see," but in so soft a voice that she roused Mr. Ponsonby's suspicions. He had dealt a good deal with men and women, and he did not altogether like the amused observing eyes of the legatee, and he distrusted her soft voice of seeming acquiescence.
"It is of no use for you to get any nonsensical ideas," he said, "about what you will do and won't do; this is the only thing you can do; you have got to make a living, and you have got to pay your debts; beggars can't be choosers. The fact is, you have all lived on charity so long that you have got demoralised."
Violet flushed. "Really," she began to say, "though you have helped us once or twice, I don't think you have the right to insult—" but Mrs. 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 blanketskept 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 beatitude. 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 didnot 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 herown money, and though her objections were ridiculous, even impertinent in the family circumstances, 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. Motherdid 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 analyse them in this way." He forgot that he had in a measure invited this analysis, 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 afterwardscalled in to assist 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 shouldtreat 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.
"A wonderful woman""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 modicum 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—