"That is what I am myself."
Mrs. Polkington said it was foolish too, but she did notsay so vehemently; she felt that in the Frazer circle, especially at the Palace where she would meet people from everywhere, she might possibly come across some one who had heard of Julia. It was unlikely; still it is a small world, and Polkington an uncommon name. "Why not choose something simple, like 'Gray'?" she suggested.
"Because," Julia answered, "that is what I am not."
But fate had one exceedingly bitter pill for Mrs. Polkington. On the day after Chèrie and her husband sailed for South Africa, it was known in Marbridge that the news of Mr. Harding's engagement was false. The girl gossip had coupled with him was engaged, it is true, and to a Mr. Harding, but to another and entirely different bearer of the name. The real, eligible Mr. Harding called at East Street to explain to Mrs. Polkington how the mistake had arisen, to tell her that he himself had been away in the north for some weeks and so had heard nothing of it. Also to hear—and he had heard nothing of that either—that Chèrie was married and gone.
The news of Mr. Harding's freedom and his call, and what she fancied it might have implied, did not reach Chèrie till after her arrival in Africa. It did not tend to soothe the first weeks of married life, nor to make easier the rigorous, but no doubt wholesome, breaking-in process to which her husband wisely subjected her.
Rawson-Clew was very busy that autumn, so busy that the events which had taken place in Holland were rather blotted out of his mind; he had not exactly forgotten them, only among the press of other things he did not often think about them and they soon came to take their proper unimportant place among his recollections. Julia he thought of occasionally, but less and less in connection with the foolish holiday, more in connection with some chance saying or doing. Things recalled her, a passage in a book, a sentiment she would have shared, an opinion she would have combated. Or perhaps it was that some one he met set him thinking of her shrewd swift judgments; some scene in which he played a part that made him imagine her an amused spectator of its unconscious absurdity. He had turned her thyme flowers out of his pocket; he had no sentiment about them or her, but he did not forget her; their acquaintance had, to a certain extent, been a thing of mind, and in mind it seemed he occasionally came in contact with her still. Also there is no doubt she must have been one of those virile people who take hold, for though one could sometimes overlook her presence, in absence one did not forget.
Of herself and her doings he never heard; at first he had half thought he might have some communicationfrom Mr. Gillat, but as the autumn went on and he heard nothing, he came to the conclusion that she really must have arranged something satisfactorily and there was an end to the whole affair. He settled down to his own concerns and became very thoroughly absorbed in them, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. For women he never had much taste, and now, being busy and preoccupied, he got into the way of scanning them more critically than ever when he did happen to come across them. Not comparing them with any ideal standard, but just finding them uninteresting, whether they were the cultivated, well-bred girls of the country, or the smart young matrons and wide-awake maidens of the town.
That autumn the young Rawson-Clew, Captain Polkington's acquaintance, came into a fortune and took a wife. The latter was, perhaps, on the whole, a wise proceeding, for, though the wife in question would undoubtedly help him in the rapid and inevitable spending of the fortune, she was likely also to enable him to get more for his money than if he were spending alone. Rawson-Clew was not introduced to this lady till the winter, then, one evening, he met her at a friend's "at home."
She was very pretty, small and fair and plump, with childish blue eyes, and an anything but childish mind behind them. She had dainty little feet, as well shaped as any he had ever seen, and she was perfectly dressed, her gown a diaphanous creation of melting colours and floating softness, which suggested more than it revealed of her person, like a nymph's drapery. She was the centre of attraction and talked and laughed a great deal, the latter in little tinkles like a child of five, the former from the top of her throat with the faintest lisp and in the strange jargon that was the slang of the moment. She knew no more of Florentine art or Wagner or Egyptologythan Julia did, and cared even less. She set out to be intelligently ignorant—to be anything else was called "middle-class" in her set—and she achieved her end, although she could do some things extremely well—play bridge, gamble in stocks and shares and anything else, and arrange lights and colours with the skill of an artist when a suitable setting for her pretty self was concerned. She had all the charms of womanly weakness without any old-fashioned and grandmotherly narrowness; she was quite free and emancipated in mind and manners, no man had to modify his language for her; she preferred a double meaning to a single one, and arisquestory to a plain one. She had an excellent taste in dinners, a critical one in liqueurs, and a catholic one in men.
She was most gracious to Rawson-Clew when he was introduced, breaking up her court and dismissing her admirers solely to accommodate him. The instant she saw him, before she heard who he was, she picked him out as the game best worthy of her prowess, and she lost no time in addressing herself to the chase with the skill and determination of a Diana—though that perhaps is hardly a good comparison, enthusiasm for the chase being about the only quality she shared with the maiden huntress.
Rawson-Clew did not show signs of succumbing at once to her charms; she hardly expected that he would, for she gave him credit for knowing his own value and was not displeased thereby; where is the pleasure of sport if the quarry be captured at the outset? But if he did not succumb he did all that was otherwise expected of him, standing in attendance on her and sitting by her when he was invited to the settee she had chosen in a quiet corner. So well, indeed, did he comport himself that by the time they parted she felt fairly satisfied with her progress.
Perhaps she would have been less satisfied if she had heard something he said soon after. A man he knew left the house at the same time he did and persuaded him to come to the club. On the way the little lady came in for some discussion; the other man chiefly gave his opinion though he once asked Rawson-Clew what he thought of his young cousin's wife.
"As a wife?" he answered; "I should not think of her. If I wanted, as I certainly do not, the privilege of paying that kind of woman's bills, I should not bother to marry her."
The other man laughed, but if he quarrelled with anything in the answer, it appeared to be the taste rather than the judgment. He maintained that the lady was charming; Rawson-Clew merely said—
"Think so?" and did not even trouble to defend his opinion.
At the club he found a box that had come for him by parcels post. A wooden one with the address printed on a card and nailed to the lid, which was screwed down. It did not look particularly interesting; he told one of the club servants to unscrew it for him. When he came to examine the contents he found, first a lot of damp packing, and then a wide-necked stoppered bottle, two-thirds full of white powder. It bore a label printed neatly like the address—
"Herr Van de Greutz's Explosive.
"Formula as he said it...."
For a moment Rawson-Clew held the bottle, staring at it in blank astonishment; so tense was his attitude that it caught the other man's attention.
"Hullo!" he said, "some one sent you an infernal machine?"
Rawson-Clew roused himself. "No," he answered shortly.
He put the bottle back in the box after he had felt in the packing and found nothing, then he fastened it up with more care than was perhaps necessary. He looked at the address on the lid, but it told him nothing more than it had at first; neither that nor the name of the post-office from which it was sent gave any clue to the sender. And yet he felt as if Julia were at his elbow with that mute sympathy in her eyes which had been there when they talked of failure in the wood on the Dunes.
He rose, and taking the box, went towards the door; the other man watched him curiously. "One would think you had found a ghost in your box," he said.
"I'm not sure that I have not," Rawson-Clew looked back to answer; "the ghost of a good comrade."
Then he went home.
When he was alone in his chambers and secure from interruption, he opened the box again and took out all the packing, carefully sorting it. But he found nothing, no scrap of paper, no clue of any sort; he took off the linen rag that fastened in the bottle stopper, but that betrayed nothing either; and yet he thought of Julia.
She was the only person who could know about the explosive. It had never been actually spoken of last summer, but the chances were she knew. She was the only person who could have known or who could have got it. It was like her, so like that he was as sure as if her name were in the box that she was the sender. How she had got the stuff he could not think, he knew the difficulties in the way; but she had done it somehow, and now she had sent it to him, without name for fear of embarrassing him, without clue, with no desire for thanks—loyal, generous,able little comrade! He looked up again; he felt as if she were bodily present; the whole thing, astounding as he had found it at first, was somehow so characteristic of her. And because of her presence he suddenly wished he had not been to that evening's entertainment and sat close by his cousin's wife and heard the things she said, and answered the things she looked. He felt as if he were not clean, as if he had no right to entertain even the ghost of the good comrade.
Rawson-Clew was not self-conscious; it never occurred to him to think if he appeared ridiculous, whether he was alone or in company. He took off his dress coat and flung it aside with a feeling of disgust; its sleeve had brushed that woman's bare arm; he could almost fancy that a suggestion of the scent she used clung to it. He put it out of sight and fetched some other garment before he came back to the thing which had recalled Julia. And yet the girl was no lily-child with the dew of dawn upon her; he did not for one instant think she was; probably, had she been, she would not have been the good comrade. The facts of life were not strange to her, she knew them, good and bad; was not above laughing at what was funny even if it was somewhat coarse, but she had no taste for lascivious wallowing no matter under what name disguised. A man could be at home with her, he could speak the truth to her; but he would not make a point of taking her into the society of that woman, any more than he would invite a friend to look at the sink, unless there was some purpose to serve.
Rawson-Clew took up the bottle and looked at it, and looked at the address card on the lid, all over again; and there grew in his mind the conviction that he been a remarkable and particular fool. Not because he had taken that holiday on the Dunes, nor yet because he had failed to get the explosive and Julia had succeeded—he believed that a man might have average intelligence and yet fail there, for he thought she had more than average. But because he had failed to recognise a fact that had been existent all the time—the need he had for the good comrade. Why had he a better liking for his work than of old? Because it was such as she would have liked, could have done well, every now and then he fancied her there. Why did he find new pleasure in the hours he spent reading Renaissance Italian, old memoirs, the ripe wisdom of the late Tudors and early Stuarts? Because he found her in the pages, saw her laugh sometimes, heard her contradict at others; felt her, invisible and not always recognised, at his elbow.
He looked round; why should not the presence be fact instead of fancy? He would go to Mr. Gillat and find her whereabouts; if Julia was in England, as she probably was, seeing that the box was posted in London, the old man would know where she was. He would go to Berwick Street—he looked at the clock—no, not now; it was too late, or rather too early; he would have to wait till the morning was a good deal older.
Unfortunately the carrying out of the plan did not prove very successful. Berwick Street he found, and No. 31 he found, but not Mr. Gillat; he was gone and had left no address. Mrs. Horn did not seem troubled by the omission; he had paid everything before he went away, and he practically never had any letters to be sent on; why, she asked, should she bother after his address?
Rawson-Clew could not tell her why she should, nor did he give any reason why he himself should. He went away and, reversing the order of his previous search, went to Marbridge.
But failure awaited him there, too. When he came to the Polkingtons' house he found it empty, the blindsdown, the steps uncleaned, and bills announcing that it was to let in the windows. He stood and looked at it in the grey afternoon, and for a moment he was conscious of a feeling of desolation and disappointment which was almost absurd. He turned away and began to make inquiries about the family. He soon learnt all that was commonly known. They had been gone from East Street some little time now; they must have left before the box containing the explosive was posted. Julia had sent it to Aunt Jane's lawyer, before she set out for the cottage, asking him to dispatch it at a given date, and he had fulfilled her request, thinking it a wedding present and the date specified one near the impending ceremony. This, of course, Rawson-Clew did not find out; he found out several things about the Polkingtons though, their debts and difficulties, their sale and the break up of the family. He also found out that the youngest Miss Polkington was married and the second, and now only remaining one, had come home before the break up. As to where the family were now, that was not quite so clear; Mrs. Polkington was with one of her married daughters; her address was easily obtainable and apparently considered all that any one could require, and quite sufficient to cover the rest of the family. Captain Polkington—nobody thought much about him—when they did, it was generally concluded he was with his wife. As for Julia, she must have got a situation of some sort—unless, which was unlikely, she was with her parents. Rawson-Clew took Mrs. Polkington's address—it was all he could get—and determined to write to her.
It did occur to him to write to Julia at her sister's house and request that his letter was forwarded; but he did not do so; he was not at all sure she would answer; he wantedto see her face to face this time. He wrote to Mrs. Polkington and asked her for Julia's address, introducing himself as a friend met in Holland, and explaining his reason, vaguely to be connected with that time.
When Mrs. Polkington received the letter she thought it over a little; then she showed it to Violet, and they discussed it together. At the outset they made a mistake; they only knew of one person of the name of Rawson-Clew—the Captain's young acquaintance; he had certainly gone away from Marbridge last spring and so in point of time could have met Julia in Holland, only it was not likely that he had, or that he had become friendly with her. At least so Violet said; Mrs. Polkington, who knew what remarkable things herself and family could do in the way of getting to know people, was inclined to think differently. On one point, however, they were agreed; it would be very unpleasant to have to tell one in the position of Mr. Rawson-Clew about Julia's present proceedings. Giving the address would be giving the information, or something like it—one would have to explain—"Miss Julia Snooks, White's Cottage, near Halgrave."
"We can't do that," Violet said with decision.
"I might say I would forward a letter, perhaps?" Mrs. Polkington suggested.
But Violet did not think that would do either. "Julia would answer it," she said; "and that would be quite as bad; you know, she is not in the least ashamed of herself."
Mrs. Polkington did know it. "I believe you are right," she said, with the air of one convinced against her will; "Julia has voluntarily cut herself adrift from her own class; it would be unpleasant and embarrassing for her as well as for other people to force her into any connection with it again; I don't think any purpose can be served by reopening an acquaintance with Mr. Rawson-Clew, we did not know him at Marbridge"—she never forgot that his circle there did not think her good enough to know. "I cannot imagine that it would be advantageous for Julia to write to him or hear from him under the present circumstances. He comes of a Norfolk family, too (Mrs. Polkington always knew about people's families even when she did not know them personally; it was the sort of information that interested her); I don't know what part of the county his people belong to, very likely nowhere near Julia; but supposing it were near enough for him to know from the address what kind of a place Julia was in, it really might be so awkward; we ought to be very careful for dear Richard's sake, especially seeing his connection with the Palace. I really think it would be wiser as you say, to be on the safe side."
So she kept on that side, which, being, interpreted meant leaving Rawson-Clew's information much where it was before. She wrote very nicely, somewhat involved, not at all baldly; but reduced to plain terms her letter came to this—she was not going to tell Julia's address or anything about her.
So Rawson-Clew read it, and very angry he was. And the worst of all was that on the same night that he received this letter, he also received orders to go at once to Constantinople. He had no time for anything and no choice but to go and leave the search. But during his journey across Europe an idea came to him with the suddenness of an inspiration. He knew what Julia had done—she had "retired," even as she had said she hoped to on the first day they walked together. She had retired somewhere from shams and hypocrisy, from society and her family; possibly even she had adopted the corduroy and onions part of the ambition; if so, that would explain her mother's refusal, based on some kind of pride, to give her address. She had retired, and she had taken Johnny Gillat with her, and her own people had washed their hands of her! He knew now what to look for when he should come back. He might not be back for two months or even three, but when he did come he would be able to find Julia and talk to her about the explosive—and other things.
It may be here said that the wonderful explosive did not do what was expected of it, either in England or Holland, for it was found to decompose on keeping. It did everything else that was boasted of it, but no one succeeded in keeping it more than fifteen months, an irremediate defect in an explosive for military purposes. This, of course, was not discovered at first, and the honour and glory of obtaining the specimen was considerable, if only there had been some one to take it. Rawson-Clew did not consider himself the person.
Julia was collecting fir-cones. All around her the land lay brown and still; dead heather, and sometimes dead bracken, a shade paler, and, more rarely, gorse bushes, nearly brown, too, in their sober winter dress. It was almost flat, a wonderful illimitable place, very remote, very silent, unbroken except for occasional pine-trees. These were not scattered but grew in clumps, miles apart, though looking near in this place of distances, and also in a belt not more than five or six trees wide, winding mile after mile like a black band over the plain. Julia stood on the edge of this belt now, gathering the dropped cones and putting them into a sack. The afternoon was advanced and already it was beginning to grow dark among the trees, but she determined not to go till she had got all she could carry. It was the first time she had been to collect cones; she had sent her father once and Mr. Gillat once. They had taken longer and gathered less than she, but it was not on that account that she had gone herself to-day. Rather it was because she wanted to go to the dark belt of trees which she saw every day from her window, and because she wanted to go right out into the wide open land and see what it looked like and feel what it felt like. And when she got there she found it, like the Dunes, all she had expected and more.
At last she had her sack full, and, shouldering it, carried it off on her back, which, seeing the comfort of thearrangement, must be the way Nature intended weights to be carried. Clear of the shadow of the trees it was lighter; the grey sky held the light long; twilight seemed to creep up from the ground rather than fall from above, as if darkness were an earth-born thing that gained slowly, and, for a time, only upon the brighter gift of Heaven. It was quieter, too, out here, for under the pines, though the weather was still, there was a breathing moan as if the trees sighed incessantly in their sleep. But out here in the brown land it was very quiet; the air light and dry and keen, with the flavour of the not distant sea mingled with the smell of the pines and the dead ferns—a thing to stir the pulse and revive the memory of the divine inheritance and the old belief that man is but a little lower than the angels, related to the infinite and god-like.
White's Cottage stood where the heath-land ceased and the sand began. There was much sand; tradition said it had gradually overwhelmed a village that lay beyond; indeed, that White's Cottage was the last and most distant house of the lost place. Be that as it may, it certainly was very solitary, rather far from the village of Halgrave, with no road leading to it except the track that came from Halgrave and stopped at the cottage gate—there was nowhere to go beyond.
Dusk had almost deepened to darkness when Julia reached the house; it gleamed curiously in the half light, for it was built of flints, for the most part grey, but with a paler one here and there catching the light. She put her sack of cones in one of the several sheds which were built on the sides of the cottage, and which, being of the same flint material, made it look larger than it was. Then she went into the kitchen.
Johnny Gillat was there before her; he had been busy in the garden all the afternoon, but, with the help of thefield-glasses which he had not been allowed to sell, he had descried her coming across the open land. As soon as he was sure of her, and while she was still a good way off, he hurried away his tools into the house to get ready. He wanted it all to look to her as it had to him on the day when he came back from cone-getting—the fire blazing, the tea ready, the kitchen snug and neat; very unlike the dining-room at Marbridge with the one gas jet burning and "Bouquet" alight. Of course Johnny did not quite succeed; he never did in matters small or great, but he did his best. The dinner things, which Captain Polkington was to have washed, were not done, and still about. They had to be put in the back kitchen, and Johnny, who had no idea of saving labour, took so long carrying them away, that he hardly had time to set the tea. He had meant to make some toast, but there was no time for that; the first piece of bread had no more than begun to get warm when he heard Julia's step outside. But the fire was blazing nicely, and that was the chief thing; even though the putting on of the kettle had been forgotten. When Julia came in and saw the fire and crooked tablecloth and hastily-arranged cups, and Johnny's beaming face, she exclaimed, "How cubby it looks! Why, you have got the tea all ready, and"—sniffing the air—"I believe you are making toast; that is nice!"
Mr. Gillat beamed; then he caught sight of the kettle standing on the hearth, and his face fell.
But Julia put it on the fire. "It will give you good time to finish the toast while it boils," she said; "toast ought not to be hurried, you know; yours will be just right."
It was not; it was rather smoky when it came to be eaten, the fire not being very suitable; but that did not matter; Julia declared it perfect. This was the onlyform of hypocrisy she practised in the simple life; possibly, if she thought of the will more than the deed, it was really not such great hypocrisy. At all events she practised it; she did not think truth so beautiful that frail daily life must be the better for its undiluted and uncompromising application to all poor little tender efforts.
During tea the great subject of conversation was the hen house. The last occupant of the cottage had kept hens and all the out-buildings were in good repair; however, a recent gale had loosened part of the roof of this one, and Captain Polkington had been mending it. There had not been much to do; the Captain could not do a great deal; his faculties of work—if he ever had any—had atrophied for want of use. Still, he thought he had done a good day's work, and, as a consequence, was important and inclined to be exacting. That is the reason why he had neglected the dinner things; he felt that a man who had done all he had was entitled to some rest and consideration. Julia did not mind in the least; if he was happy and contented, that was all she wished; she never reckoned his help as one of the assets of the household. For that matter, she had not reckoned Mr. Gillat's of much value either, but there she found she was a little mistaken. Johnny was very slow and very laborious and really ingenious in finding a wrong way of doing things even when she thought she had left him no choice, but he was very painstaking and persevering. He would do anything he was told, and he took the greatest pleasure in doing it. Whether it was digging in the garden, or feeding the pigs, or collecting firewood, or setting the table for meals, he was certain to do everything to the best of his ability, and was perfectly happy if she would employ him. There can be no doubt that the coming to White's Cottage began a time of real happiness to Mr. Gillat; possibly the happiest since his wealthy boyhood when he spent lavishly and indiscriminately on anybody and everybody. The Captain was less happy; his satisfaction was of an intermittent order. His discontent did not take the form of wishing to go back to Marbridge or to join his wife, only in feeling oppressed and misunderstood, and wishing occasionally that he had not been born or had been born rich—and of course remained so all his life. He was dissatisfied that evening when the contentment begotten of his work had worn off; he wanted to go to the market town to-morrow. Julia was going to get several necessaries for the household; he considered that he ought to go too, but she would not take him.
"You will have a great deal to carry," he protested.
"Yes," Julia agreed; "but I shall manage it."
"It is not fit for you to go about alone," her father urged.
She forebore to smile, though the novelty, not to say tardiness of the idea amused her; she only said, "It would take you and Johnny too long to walk into the town; we can't afford to spend too long on the way, and we can't afford a cart to take us."
The Captain was not convinced; he never was by any one's logic but his own; perhaps because his own was totally different to all other kinds, including the painful logic of facts. He sighed deeply. "It is a strange, a humiliating condition of things," he observed to Mr. Gillat, "when a father has to ask his daughter's permission to go into town."
Johnny rubbed the side of his chair thoughtfully, then a bright idea occurred to him. "Ah, but," he said, "gentlemen always have to ask ladies' permission before theycan accompany them anywhere—especially when it is the lady of the house."
A wise man might not perhaps have said this last, but Johnny did, and as it happened, it did not much matter; before the Captain could answer, Julia rose from the table and began to clear away.
Sundry household jobs had to be done in the evening; some were always left till then; in these short dark days it was advisable to use the light for work out of doors. At last, however, all was done, and Julia began to arrange for to-morrow. The Captain was sulky and sure that he would have rheumatism and so not be able to go out. His daughter did not seem to be greatly troubled; she told him of some easy work in the house he could do, or if he liked and felt able, he would perhaps go and get more fir-cones; there were plenty, and they saved other fuel. The Captain replied that he was not in the habit of taking orders from his children.
Johnny looked unhappy; he did not like these ruffles to the tranquil life; it always pained him for any one to be dissatisfied, with reason or without it. When Julia turned to him he was even more ready than usual to take orders; he would have done anything she told him from sweeping the copper flue to calling upon the rector, but secretly he hoped she would give him work in the garden.
The garden was of considerable size, and, by some freak of nature, of fairly good soil, though the field and most of the surrounding land was very poor. They had all worked hard in this plot ever since their coming; there was not much more to be done, or at least not much planting, which was what Mr. Gillat liked. However, there had been no sharp frosts yet and Julia, who knew his tastes, thought she could find something to please him.She called him to the back kitchen and between them they brought from there a wooden case, the contents of which she began to sort over to find an occupation suitable to him. The box was getting rather empty now, but there was still something in it, bulbs and seeds and printed directions, and a strange mixed smell of greyish-brown paper and buckwheat husks and the indescribable smell of Dutch barns.
It had come from Holland, from the Van Heigens; it was Mijnheer's present to the disgraced companion who had been so summarily dismissed. When Julia went to the cottage, it occurred to her to write to Mijnheer and tell him where she was, and how she meant to live a harmless horticultural life. She had come to think that perhaps she ought to tell him; she knew how her own words, about the way they were thrusting a sinner down, would stay with him and his wife. They would quite likely grow in the slow mind of the old man until he became uneasy and unhappy about her, and blamed himself for her undoing. At the time that she spoke she wasted the words to so grow and germinate; but now, looking back, she could think differently; after all the Van Heigens had only done what they thought right, and she had done what she knew to be at least open to doubt. And they had not thrust her down; it would take considerably more than that to do anything of the sort; they had allowed her an opportunity which she had used to achieve a great success. And now that it was achieved and she had left it all behind and was settled to the simple life—her vague ambition—her heart went out to the simple folk who had first shown her that it might be good; who had been kind to her when there was nothing to gain, who had made her ashamed.
So she wrote to Mijnheer and told him that she hadfared well, and found another situation in Holland after leaving his service. Also that she had now left it and, having inherited a little property, had come to live in a country cottage with her father. She further said that she meant to imitate the Dutch and do her own house-work and also grow things, vegetables especially, in her garden.
And Mijnheer, when he got the letter, was delighted; so, too, was Mevrouw; Joost said nothing. They read the letter two or three times, showed it to the Snieders (including Denah) and to the Dutch girl who now filled Julia's situation—more or less. They talked over it a great deal and over Julia too; they remembered every detail about her, her good points and her great fall. They were as delighted as they could be to hear that she was well and happy and apparently, good. Mijnheer especially was pleased to hear that she was with her father—he did not know that gentleman—he was sure she would be well looked after with him, and that, so he said, was what she wanted. So, contrary to their theory, but not out of accord with their practice, they forgave the sin for the sake of the sinner, and Mijnheer ordered to be packed, seeds and bulbs and plants for Julia's garden. He selected them himself, flowers as well as vegetables, sorts which he thought most suitable; and he ordered Joost to stick to the bags strips cut out of catalogues where, in stiff Dutch-English, directions are given as to how to grow everything that can be grown. And if Joost put in some sorts not included in his father's list, and failed to tell the good man about it, it was no doubt all owing to his having at one time associated with the dishonest Julia.
The packing and dispatching of the box gave great pleasure to the Van Heigens; but the receiving and unpacking gave even greater pleasure when at last it reached Miss Snooks at White's Cottage. Julia had not told Mijnheer why she was Miss Snooks now and he, after grave consideration, decided that it must be because of the legacy, and in fulfilment of some obscure English law of property. Having so decided, he addressed the case in good faith, and advised her of its departure.
Julia and Mr. Gillat planted the things that came in the box; Julia planted most, but Mr. Gillat enjoyed it even when he was only looking on. There was one bulb she set when he was not there to look on, but it did not come with the others. She chose a spot that best fulfilled the conditions described in the directions for growing daffodils and there, late one afternoon, she planted the bulb that she had brought with her from the Van Heigens. Afterwards she marked the place round and told Johnny and her father there was a choice flower there which was not to be touched.
Julia went to the market town as she had arranged. Mr. Gillat worked in the garden; Captain Polkington watched him for a little and then went out, after spending, as he always did, some time getting ready. He took a basket with him; he thought of collecting fir-cones and he objected to the sack, though it held a vast deal more; he felt carrying it to be derogatory to a soldier and a gentleman. It is true he did not get fir-cones that day, but he really meant to when he started.
Julia, in the meantime, did her shopping, and, having loaded herself with as much as she could carry—more than most people could except those Continental maids and mistresses who do their own marketing, she started for home. It was a long walk—a long way to Halgrave and a good bit beyond that to the cottage. She did not expect to reach the village till dusk, but she thought veryprobably she would find her father or Mr. Gillat there; she had suggested that one or both of them should come to meet her and help carry the parcels the rest of the way.
Johnny fell in with the suggestion; she saw him through the twilight before she reached the village. Her father, she concluded, was still sulky at her refusal to have his company earlier and so would not come now.
"I suppose father would not come?" she said, as she and Mr. Gillat walked on after a readjustment of the burden.
"Oh, no," Johnny answered; "it was not that; I'm sure he would have come if he had been in when I started, but he was not back then."
"Not back?" Julia repeated. "Why, where has he gone?"
"Well," Johnny replied slowly, "he said he was going to get fir-cones, but I'm not sure, I didn't see him go across the heath. Still, I dare say he went—he took a basket, so I think he must have gone."
Julia apparently did not find this very conclusive evidence. "There is not anywhere much about here where he can go," she said; much less as if she were stating a fact than as if she were reviewing likely and unlikely places. "There is only the one road, and that goes to Halgrave, and there is nowhere for him there."
"No, oh, no," Johnny said; "there really is nowhere there."
"There is the 'Dog and Pheasant,'" Julia went on meditatively, "but he would not get anything he cared about there."
"No," Mr. Gillat said decidedly; "besides he would not go there, he would not sit in a small country public house and—er—and—sit there—and so on—he would notthink of going to such a place. It is one thing when you are out in the country for a day's fishing or something, to have a glass of ale and a piece of bread and cheese at an inn, but the other is quite different; he wouldn't do that—oh, no. To sit in a little bar and—"
"Booze," Julia concluded for him. "Johnny, you are always a wonder to me; how you have contrived to live so long and yet to keep your belief in man unspotted from the world beats me."
Johnny looked uncomfortable and a little puzzled. "Well, but your father—" he began.
"My father is a man," Julia interrupted, "and I would not undertake to say a man would not do anything—on occasions—or a woman either, for the matter of that. There is a beast in most men, and an archangel in lots, and a snob, and a prig, and a dormant hero, and an embryo poet. There are great possibilities in men; you have to watch and see which is coming out top and back that, and then half the time you are wrong. Of course, at father's age, possibilities are getting over; one or two things have come top and stay there."
Mr. Gillat opened the cottage door and, not answering these distressing generalities, fell back on his one fact. "Look," he said, pointing to an empty peg, "he must have gone after fir-cones; you see the basket has gone; he took it with him; I am sure he would not have taken it to the 'Dog.'"
"I believe their whisky is very bad," Julia said, and seemed to think more of that than the argument of the basket. "I'll give him another hour before I set out to look for him."
She gave him the hour and then, in spite of Mr. Gillat's entreaties to be allowed to go in her place, set out forHalgrave. But she did not have to go all the way, for she met her father coming back. And she early discovered that, if he had not been to the "Dog and Pheasant," he had been somewhere else where he could get whisky. They walked home together, and she made neither comments nor inquiries; she did not consider that evening a suitable time. The Captain was only a little muddled and, as has been before said, a very little alcohol was sufficient to do that; he was quite clear enough to be a good deal relieved by his daughter's behaviour, and even thought that she noticed nothing amiss. Indeed, by the morning, he had himself almost come to think there was nothing to notice.
But alas, for the Captain! He had never learnt to beware of those deceptive people who bide their time and bring into domestic life the diplomatic policy of speaking on suitable occasions only. He came down-stairs that morning very well pleased with himself; he felt that he had vindicated the rights of man yesterday; this conclusion was arrived at by a rather circuitous route, but it was gratifying; it was also gratifying to think that he had been able to enjoy himself without being found out. But Julia soon set him right on this last point; she did not reproach him or, as Mrs. Polkington would have done, point out the disgrace he would bring upon them; she only told him that it must not occur again. She also explained that, while he lived in her house, she had a right to dictate in these matters and, what was more, she was going to do so.
At this the Captain was really hurt; his feeling for dignity was very sensitive, though given to manifesting itself in unusual ways. "Am I to be dependent for the rest of my days?" he asked.
Julia did not answer; she thought it highly probable.
"Am I to be dictated to at every turn?" he went on.
Julia did answer. "No," she said; "I don't think there will be any need for that."
Captain Polkington paid no attention to the answer; he was standing before the kitchen fire, apostrophising things in general rather than asking questions.
"Are my goings out and comings in to be limited by my daughter? Am I to ask her permission before I accept hospitality or make friends?"
"Friends?" said Julia. "Then it was not 'The Dog and Pheasant' you went to, yesterday? I thought not."
"Then you thought wrong," her father retorted incautiously; "I did go there."
"To begin with," Julia suggested; "but you came across some one, and went on—is that it?"
The Captain denied it, but he had not his wife's and daughters' gifts; his lies were always of the cowardly and uninspired kind that seldom serve any purpose. Julia did not believe him, and set to work cross questioning him so that soon she knew what she wanted. It seemed that her surmise was correct; he had met some one at the "Dog and Pheasant"; a veterinary surgeon who had come there to doctor a horse. They had struck up an acquaintance—the Captain had the family gift for that—and the surgeon had asked him to come to his house on the other side of Halgrave.
When the information reached this point Julia said suavely, but with meaning: "Perhaps you had better not go there again."
"I shall certainly go when I choose," Captain Polkington retorted; "I should like to know what is to prevent me and why I should not?"
Julia remembered his dignity. "Shall we say because it is too far?" she suggested.
After that she dismissed the subject; she did not seeany need to pursue it further; her father knew her wishes—commands, perhaps, he called them—all that was left for her to do was to see that he could not help fulfilling them, and that was not to be done by much talking any more than by little. So she made no further comments on his doings and, to change the subject, told him she had bought some whisky in the town yesterday and he had better open the bottle at dinner time.
The Captain stared for a moment, but quickly recovered from his astonishment, though not because he recognised that a little whisky at home was part of a judicious system. He merely thought that his daughter was going to treat him properly after all, and in spite of what had been lately said. This idea was a little modified when he found that, though he drank the whisky, Julia kept the bottle under lock and key.
It also seemed that she found a way of enforcing her wishes, or at least preventing frequent transgressions of them, although, of course, she was prepared for occasional mishaps. There really was nothing at the "Dog and Pheasant" that the Captain could put up with even if he had not been always very short of money—absurdly short even of coppers—and Julia saw that he was short. There remained nothing for him but the hospitality of acquaintances, and they did not abound in Halgrave, the only place within reach; also, as he declared, they were a stingy lot. The next time he called upon his new friend, the veterinary surgeon, he was at a loss to understand this; it was unlike his previous experience of the man and most disagreeably surprising; he could not think why it should happen. But then he had not seen Julia set out for Halgrave on the afternoon of the same day that she explained things to him. She had on all her best clothes, even her best boots, in spite of the bad roads.She looked trim and dainty as a Frenchwoman, but there was something about her which suggested business.
There are, no doubt, advantages attached to the simple life. It is decidedly easier to deal with your drawback when you do not have to pretend it has no existence. You can enlist help from outside if you can go boldly to veterinary surgeons and others, and say that whisky is your father's weakness, and would they please oblige and gratify you by not offering him any.
The winter wore away; a very long winter, and a very cold one to those at the cottage who were used to the mild west country. But at last spring came; late and with bitter winds and showers of sleet, but none the less wonderful, especially as one had to look to see the tentative signs of its coming. March in Marbridge used to mean violets and daffodils, tender green shoots and balmy middays. March here means days of pale clean light and great sweeping wind which chased grey clouds across a steely sky, and stirred the lust for fight and freedom in men's minds and set them longing to be up and away and at battle with the world or the elements. This restlessness, which those who have lost it call divine, took possession of Julia that springtime, and a dissatisfaction with the simple life and its narrow limits beset her. Surely, she found herself asking, this was not the end of all things—this cottage to be the limit of her life and ambitions; her work to grow cabbages and eat them, to keep her father in the paths of temperance and sobriety, and to make Johnny's closing days happy? The March winds spoke vaguely of other things; they whispered of the life she had put from her; the big, wide, moving, thinking, feeling life which would have been living indeed. Worse, they whispered of the man who had offered it to her, the man whom her heart told her she would have made friend and comrade if only circumstances had allowed him tomake her wife. But she thrust these thoughts from her; she had no choice, she never had a choice; now less if possible than before, there was no heart-aching decision to make. The work she had taken up could not be put down; she must go on even if voices stronger and more real than these wind ones called her out.
One day the crocuses which Mijnheer had sent came into flower; Julia thought she had never seen anything so beautiful as the little purple and golden cups, partly because they had been sent in kindness of heart, partly, no doubt, because she had grown them herself, and she had never grown a flower which had its root in the inarticulate joy of all things at the first flowering of dead brown earth and monotonous lifeless days. The next event in her calendar, and Johnny's, was the blooming of the fruit trees. She had seen hillside orchards in the west country break into a foam of flower—a sight perhaps as beautiful as any England has to show. But, to her mind, it did not compare with the sparse white bloom which lay like a first hoar frost on her crooked trees and showed cold and delicate against the pale blue sky. After that, nearly every day, there was something fresh and interesting for Mr. Gillat and Julia, so that the March wind was forgotten, except in the ill-effect on Captain Polkington with whom it had disagreed a good deal, both in health and temper.
That spring, as indeed every spring, there was a flower show in London at the Temple Gardens. The things exhibited were principally bulb flowers, ixias, iris, narcissus and the like; the event was interesting to growers, both professional and amateur. Joost Van Heigen came over from Holland to attend; he was sent by his father in a purely business capacity, but of course he was expected, and himself expected, to enjoy it, too; there would bemany novelties exhibited and many beautiful flowers in which he would feel the sober appreciative pleasure of the connoisseur. He came to England some days before the show; he had, besides attending that, to see some important customers on business, also one or two English growers.
Now, certain districts of Norfolk are very well suited to the cultivation of bulbs, so it is not surprising that Joost's business took him there. And, seeing that he had a Bradshaw and a good map, and had, moreover, six months ago addressed Julia's box of bulbs to her nearest railway town, it is not surprising that he found the whereabouts of the town of Halgrave. It was on Saturday night when he found it on the map; he was sitting in the coffee-room of a temperance hotel at the time. He had done business for the day, and, seeing that the English do not care about working on Sundays, he would probably have to-morrow as well as to-night free. Julia's town was close—a short railway journey, then a walk to Halgrave, and then one would be at her home—it would be a pleasant way of spending the morning of a spring Sunday. He thought about it a little; he had no invitation to go and see Julia, and he did not like going anywhere without an invitation or an express reason. She might not want to see him, or it might put out her domestic arrangements if he came; he knew domestic arrangements were subject to such disturbances. He hesitated some time, though it must be admitted that the fact that he had asked her to marry him and been refused did not come much into his consideration. He had not altered his mind about that proposal, and he did not imagine she had altered hers; his devotion and her indifference were definite settled facts which would remain as long as either of them remained, but there was nothing embarrassing in them to him. At last he decided that he would go, and it was the blue daffodil which decided him.
He had never heard what Julia had done with the bulb he had given her. It was only reasonable to think she had sold it, seeing it was for the sake of money she had wanted it, but no whisper of any such thing had reached him or his father. He longed to know about it, to hear the name of the man who had his treasure; for whom, in all probability, it was blooming now. It was some connoisseur he was nearly certain; Julia would not have sold it to another grower. He had not lain any such condition on her, but she would not have done that; she knew too well what it meant to him; he never doubted her in that matter, his faith was of too simple a kind. Still he determined to go and see her, partly that he might hear the name of the man who bought the blue daffodil, partly because he wanted to and remembered that Julia, in the old days, did not seem of the kind to be upset by unexpected visitors and similar small domestic accidents.
It was a hot-dinner Sunday at the cottage. These occurred alternately; on the in between Sundays Julia, supported by Johnny and the Captain, went to church. On those sacred to hot dinners she stayed at home and did the cooking, the Captain staying with her. Mr. Gillat used to also in the winter, but lately, during the spring, he had been induced to teach in the Sunday school, and now went every Sunday to the village, first to teach and afterwards to conduct his class to church.
It was Mr. Stevens, the Rector of Halgrave, who had made this surprising suggestion to Mr. Gillat. He, good man, had in the course of time been to see his parishioners at the remote cottage, grinding along the deep sandy road on his heavy old tricycle; but it was not during the visit that he thought of Johnny as a teacher; it was whenhe made further acquaintance with him at Halgrave. Johnny was the member of the party who went most often to the village shop; he liked the expedition, it gave him a feeling of importance; he also liked gossiping with the woman who kept the shop, and he dearly loved meeting the village children. On one of these occasions, when Johnny was engaged in making peace between two little girls—little girls were his specialty—the rector met him and it was then it occurred to him that Mr. Gillat might help in the school. It was not much of an honour, the school was in rather a bad way just now, and boasted no other teachers than the rector and a raspy-tempered girl of sixteen, but Johnny was much flattered. He thought he ought to refuse; he was quite sure he could not teach; the idea of his doing so was certainly new and strange; he was also sure he was not virtuous enough. But in the end he was persuaded to try; Julia told him that he might hear the catechism with an open book, choose the Bible tales he was surest of, to read and explain, and have his class of little girls to tea very often. So it came about that Mr. Gillat set out Sunday after Sunday to school, and if his reading and expounding of the Scriptures was less in accord with modern light than the traditions that held in the childhood of the nation, no one minded; the children at Halgrave were not painfully sharp, and they soon got to love Mr. Gillat with a friendly lemon-droppish love which was not critical.
Captain Polkington did not approve of the Sunday-school teaching, especially on those days when he had to clean the knives. The Sunday when Joost Van Heigen came was one of these. The Captain watched Mr. Gillat's preparations with a disgusted face; at last he remarked, "I wonder if you think you do any good by this nonsense?"
Johnny, who had got as far as the doorstep, stopped and considered rather as if the idea had just occurred to him.
"There must be teachers," he said at length, looking round at the open landscape; "and there aren't many about."
"You are a fine teacher!" the Captain sneered.
Mr. Gillat rubbed his finger along the edge of the Bible he carried. "I was wild," he confessed; "yes, I was, I don't think—but then the rector said—and Julia—"
His meaning was rather obscure, but possibly the Captain followed it although he did cut him short by saying, "I should never have expected it of you; if any one had told me that you, one of us, would take to this sort of thing, I would not have believed it. I mean, if they had told me in the old days, before things were changed and broken up, when we were still alive and things moved at a pace—when a man knew if he were alive or dead and whether it was night or morning."
"Yes, yes," Johnny said, but not altogether as if he regretted the passing of those golden days; "things were different then; we didn't think of it then."
"Teaching in the Sunday school?" the Captain asked. "Not quite! And if we had, we shouldn't have thought of coming to it even when we had got old and foolish."
Johnny looked uncomfortable and unhappy; then a bright idea occurred to him. "There wasn't a Sunday school there," he said. "You remember the hill station?"
Just then Julia called from the house, "Father, I believe we might have a dish of turnip tops if you would get them. Johnny, you will be late if you don't start soon."
Johnny promptly started, and the Captain, less promptly, sauntered away to find a basket for the turnip tops,muttering the while something about people whose religion took the form of going out and leaving others to do the work.
But by the time Joost Van Heigen arrived, the Captain was quite amiable again. He had had a quiet morning with nothing to do after the turnip tops were brought in and the knives cleaned, and Johnny had had a long tiring walk home from church in a hot sun and a high wind, which Captain Polkington felt to be a just dispensation of Providence to reward those who stopped at home and cleaned knives. Joost arrived not long after Mr. Gillat; Julia heard the gate click as she was taking the meat from before the fire.
"Who is that, Johnny?" she asked.
Johnny, who had just come down-stairs after taking off his Sunday coat, looked out of the window.
"I don't know," he said; "a young man."
Julia, having deposited the joint on the dish, went to the kitchen door. "Put the meat where it will keep hot," she said to Johnny; "I expect it's some one who thinks the last people live here still; fortunately there is enough dinner."
She pushed open the unlatched door and saw the visitor going round to the front. "Joost!" she exclaimed. "Why, Joost, is it really you?"
She ran down the garden path after him and he, turning just before he reached the front door, stopped.
"Good-morning, miss," he said solemnly, removing his hat with a sweep. "I hope I see you well. I do not inconvenience you—you are perhaps engaged?"
"Come in," Julia answered; "I am glad to see you!"
There was no mistaking the sincerity of her tone; Joost's solemn face relaxed a little. "You are not occupied?" he said; "I do not disturb you?"
"Yes, occupied in dishing up the dinner," Julia said, "which is just the best of all times for you to have come. Johnny!" she called; "Johnny, Joost is here."
Mr. Gillat, who had been carefully placing the dish where the cinders would fall into it, came to the door.
"This is Mr. Gillat, a very old friend of mine," Julia explained, and Joost bowed deeply, offering his hand and saying, "I hope that you are well, sir."
Whereupon Mr. Gillat impressed, imitated him as nearly as he could, and Julia looked away.
They had dinner in the kitchen on Sundays as well as week days, they made no difference to-day. Joost looked round him once or twice; he had never seen a place like this. It was the front kitchen; the cooking and most of the house-work was done in the back one, a big barn-like place with doors in all corners. The front one was half a kitchen and half a sitting-room, warm-coloured, with red-tiled floor and low ceiling, heavily cross-beamed and hung with herbs and a couple of hams, in great contrast to the whiteness of the kitchen at the bulb farm. There were brass and copper pots and pans such as he knew, but they reflected an open fire, a dirty extravagance unknown to Mevrouw. Joost glanced at the fire, and it is to be feared that he was at heart a traitor to his native customs. Then he looked at the open window where the sunshine streamed in—as was never permitted in Holland—and he wondered if it really spoilt things very much, and, being a florist, thought it certainly would spoil the tulips in the mug that stood on the wide sill.
During dinner they spoke English for the sake of the Captain and Mr. Gillat; Joost spoke well, if slowly, with a careful and accurate precision. He also observed much, both of outside things, as the fact that Johnny and the Captain cleared the table while Julia sat still, contrary to Dutch custom. And also of things less on the surface—as that Julia was head of the household and that Captain Polkington was not the impressive and authoritative person Mijnheer seemed to think. Concerning this last fact he made no remark when, on his return home, he described the ways and customs of Julia's cottage to his parents. The description served Mevrouw at least, as representative of all English households ever afterwards.
When dinner was done and everything cleared up, or rather Julia's part, she took Joost into the garden.
"Now," she said in Dutch, "let us come out and talk and look at things."
They went out and he began to admire her orderly garden and to tell her why this plant had done well and that one had failed. He did not speak of the blue daffodil, he thought he could better ask about that a little later. She did not speak of it either by name; he and it were so inseparably connected in her mind.
"Come along," she said, when he stopped to look into a tulip to see if its centre was as truly black as it should have been. "Come and see it."
He followed her obediently, but asked what it was he was to see.
"The blue daffodil, of course," she said.
He stopped dead. "You have got it here?" he exclaimed. "You have not sold it?"
"Certainly not."
"But why—why?" he stared at her in amazement. "You wanted money, it was for that you wanted the bulb, to sell; you told me so. Do you not want money now?"
"Oh, yes," Julia said; "but that is an incurable disease hereditary in our family."
"You do want money?" he inquired mystified. "Thisinheritance is small, not enough? Why, then, did you not sell the bulb?"
Julia shrugged her shoulders. "I could not very well," she said.
"But why not? You thought to do so at one time; your intention was to sell it if you had—"
"Stolen it? Yes, that is quite true, and it would not have mattered then. If I had stolen it I might as well have sold it; one dishonourable act feels lonely without another; it generally begets another to keep itself company."
Joost looked at her uncomprehendingly. "But why," he persisted, clinging to the one thing he did understand, "why did you not sell it? It was for that I gave it to you, to do with as you pleased; I knew you would do only what was right and necessary."
Julia could have smiled a little at this last word; it seemed as if even Joost had learnt to temper right with necessity to suit her dealings, but she only said, "That was one reason why I could not sell it. You expected me to do right, so I was obliged to do it; faith begets righteousness as dishonour begets dishonour."
"I do not quite understand," he began, but she cut him short.
"No," she said; "we always found it difficult to make things quite plain, it is no use trying now. Come and see the daffodil, you will understand that, at all events, and better than I do. It is not quite fully out yet, but very nearly, and—please don't be disappointed—it is not a real true blue daffodil at all."
She took him to the chosen spot and showed him the plant—a bunch of long narrow leaves rising from the brown earth, and in the midst of them a single stalk supporting a partly opened flower. In shape it was single,like the common wild blossom, only much bigger; but in colour, not blue as was expected, but streaked in irregular unblended stripes of pure yellow and pure blue. The marking was as hard and unshaded as that of the old-fashioned brown and yellow tulips which children call bulls'-eyes, and the effect, though bizarre, was not at all pretty. Julia did not think it so, and she did not expect any one else to either; but Joost, when he saw the streaky flower, gave a little inarticulate exclamation and, dropping on his knees on the path, lifted the bell reverently so that he might look into it.
"Ah!" he said softly; "ah, it is beautiful, wonderful!" He looked up, and Julia, seeing the rapt and humble admiration of his face, forgot that there was something ludicrous in the sight of a young man kneeling on a garden path reverently worshipping a striped flower. It was no abstract admiration of the beautiful, and no cultivated admiration for the new and strange; it was the love of a man for his work and appreciation of success in it, even if the success were another's; also, perhaps, in part, the expression of a deep-seated national feeling for flowers.
"Is it what you wished?" Julia asked gently, conscious that she was, as always, a long way off from Joost.
"I did not wish it," he said, "because I did not foresee it. No one could foresee that it would come, though it always might. It is a novelty, an accident of nature perhaps, but beautiful, wonderful!"
"Is it a real novelty?" Julia asked. "Just as much as your first blue daffodil was? Oh, I am glad! Then you have two now."
"I?" Joost said in surprise. "No, not I; this is yours, not mine; you have grown it."
"That's nothing," Julia returned easily; "you gave methe bulb; it is really your bulb; I only just put it into the ground, I have had nothing to do with the novelty."
But if she thought to dispose of the matter in that way she soon found she was mistaken; there were apparently laws governing bulb growing which were as inviolable as any governing hereditary titles. The man who bloomed the bulb was the man who had produced the novelty—if novelty it was; he could no more make over his rights to another than a duke could his coronet. In vain Julia protested that it was by the merest chance that Joost had hit on this particular sort to give her, that it was only an accident which had prevented him from blooming it himself. He said that did not matter at all, and when she failed to be convinced, added that possibly, had he kept the bulb, the result might not have proved the same; her soil and treatment were doubtless both different.
Julia laughed at the idea, saying she knew nothing about soil and treatment. But she made no impression on Joost and apparently did not alter the case; the laws of the bulb growers were not only like those of the "Medes and Persians which alter not," but also refused to be bent or evaded even by a Polkington.
"It is yours," Joost said, as he took a last look at the flower before he rose from his knees; "the great honour is yours, and I am glad of it."
There was something in his tone which reminded Julia of that talk they had had in the little enclosed place on the last day she was at the bulb farm. She hastily submitted so as to avoid the too personal. "What am I to do with the honour?" she asked. "I do not know, that is one reason why it is absurd for me to have it."
"You must name your flower," he told her; "and then you must exhibit it. Fortunately you are in time for the show in London."
"But I can't go to London," Julia said; "it is out of the question for me to leave home even if I could afford the fare, which I cannot."
Joost answered there was no need; he could arrange everything for her. "I can take the daffodil to London with me," he said. "It must be lifted—you have a flower pot, then it must be tied with care, and it will travel quite safely."
"But," Julia objected; "if it is exhibited with my name, and you say my name as the grower must appear, your father will hear of it and then he will know that you gave me a bulb—it cannot be exhibited. I do not care about a certificate of merit or whatever one gets."
"It must be exhibited," Joost said; "as to my father, he knows already, I have told him; that does not stand in the way."
To this Julia had nothing to say; perhaps in her heart she was a little ashamed because she had suspected him of the half honesty of only telling what was necessary when it was necessary, that she herself was likely to have practised in his case.
"Now you must call your flower a name," he said, "as I called mine Vrouw Van Heigen."
"'Now you must call your flower a name,' he said""'Now you must call your flower a name,' he said"
"I will call it after you," Julia said.
But Joost would not have that. "That will not do; the blue daffodil is already a Van Heigen; there cannot be another, it will make confusion."
"Well, I'll call it the honest man, then; that will be you."
Joost did not like that either; he thought it very unsuitable. "Why not name it after"—he began; he had meant to say "your father," but recalling that gentleman, he changed it to—"some one of whom you are fond."
Julia hesitated. "I like the honest man," she said;"but as you say it is not suitable, the blue daffodil is really the honest one, this is too mixed—I shall call it after Johnny; I am fond of him."
But Joost was romantic; it was only natural with the extreme and almost childish simplicity of his nature there should be some romance, and there was nothing to satisfy that sentiment in Mr. Gillat. "Johnny?" he said; "yes, but it is not very pretty; it does not suggest a beautiful flower. Why not call it after the heroine of some book or a friend or comrade? Perhaps"—Joost was only human—"he with whom you went walking on the Dunes."
"Him?" Julia said. "I never thought of that. He was a friend certainly, and a good comrade; he tried hard to get me out of that scrape; he would have stood by me if I had let him—the same as you did—you were both comrades to me then. I tell you what, shall I call it 'The Good Comrade?' Then it would be after you both and Johnny too; Johnny would certainly stand by me through thick and thin, share his last crust with me, or father, give me the whole of it. Yes, we will call the daffodil 'The Good Comrade,' and it shall have three godfathers."
With this Joost was satisfied, even though he had to share what honour there was with two others. Mr. Gillat, of course, when he was told, was much pleased; he even found he was now able to admire the wonderful flower, though before, he had agreed with Julia's opinion of it. To Captain Polkington not much was said about it.
"Johnny," Julia said, as they stood watching Joost pot the bulb, "you are not to tell father how valuable this is. He will find out quite soon enough; people are sure to bother me to sell it after it has been exhibited, and I am not going to."