The Good Comrade Part 18

She finished the preparations for dinner, got her pots and pans all nicely simmering and her oven at the right heat; then, giving some necessary directions, she left the servant to watch the cooking and went up to her own room. There she at once proceeded to answer the letter--

"DEAR MR. RAWSON-CLEW, (she wrote),

"I am as glad as anything that you have done it; I never for a moment thought of it myself, though I ought, for it is just like you; thank you ever so much.

"Please don't bother about me, I am all right and have arranged capitally."

Here she turned over his letter to see how he had signed himself and, seeing, signed in imitation--

"Yours very sincerely,

"JULIA POLKINGTON."

"I wonder what his name is?" she speculated; "H. F.--H.--Henry, Horace--I shouldn't think he had a name people called him by."

She read her own letter through, and as she was folding it stopped; it occurred to her that he might think courtesy demanded a formal refusal of his proposal. It was, of course, quite unnecessary; the refusal went without saying; she would no more have dreamed of accepting his quixotic offer than he would have dreamed of avoiding the necessity of making it; the one was as much a _sine qua non_ to her as the other was to him. From which it would appear that in some ways at least their notions of honour were not so many miles apart.

She flattened her letter again; perhaps he would think the definite word more polite, so she added a postscript--

"Of course this means no. I am sorry we can't go on with the excursion, but we can't, you know. The holiday is over; this is 'to-morrow,' so good-bye."

After that she fastened the envelope, and a while later went out to post it. As she went up the drive she caught sight of Joost some distance away in the gardens; his face was not towards her, and she congratulated herself that he had not seen her. However, the congratulations were premature; when she came back from the post she found him standing just inside the gate waiting for her, obviously waiting. At least it was obvious to her; she had caught people herself before now, and so recognised that she was caught too plainly to uselessly attempt getting away.

"Do you want to hear what happened yesterday?" she asked, with an effrontery she did not feel. "I expect Denah has told you all, perhaps a little more than all, still, enough of it was true."

"I want to speak to you," he said, and parted the high bushes that bordered the left of the drive.

Julia reluctantly enough, but feeling that she owed him what explanation was possible, went through. Behind the bushes there was a small enclosed s.p.a.ce used for growing choice bulbs; it was empty now, the sandy soil quite bare and dry; but it was very retired, being surrounded by an eight foot hedge with only one opening besides the way by which they had come in through the looser-growing bushes. Julia made her way down to the opening; with her practical eye for such things, she recognised that it would be the best way of escape, just as the loose-growing bushes offered the likeliest point of attack.

This, of course, did not matter to her, she being in the case of "he who is down," but it might matter a good deal to Joost if his father looked through the bushes, and he would never know how to take care of himself.

"Well?" she said, when she had taken up this discreet position. But as he did not seem ready she went on, "I really don't think there is anything to say; I did wrong yesterday, not quite as much wrong as your mother and Denah think, still wrong--what my own people would have disapproved, at least if it were found out; that's the biggest crime on their list--and what I knew your people would condemn utterly. I am afraid I have no excuse to offer; I knew what I was doing, and I did it with my eyes open. I did not see any harm in it myself but I knew other people would, so I meant to say nothing. I had deceived your parents before, and I meant to keep on doing it. You know I had walked with that man lots of times before yesterday; all the time your mother thought me so good to visit your cousin I really enjoyed doing it because I walked with him."

"Do you love him?" The question was asked low and almost jerkily.

"Love him?" Julia said in surprise; "no, of course not. That is where the difference comes in, I believe; you all seem to think there is nothing but love and love-making and kissing and cuddling. I have just liked talking to him and I suppose he liked talking to me, as you might some friend, or Denah some girl she knew. We never thought about love and all that; we couldn't, you know; he belongs to a different lot from what I do. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," he answered, and there was a vibrant note in his voice which was new to her. "I understand that it is you who are right and we who are wrong--you who know good and evil and can choose, we who suspect and think and hint, believing ill when there is none.

Rather than send you away, we should ask your forgiveness!"

"You should do nothing of the kind," Julia said decidedly, beginning to take alarm. "I may not have been wrong in quite the way your parents think, but I was wrong all the same. I am not good, believe me; I am not as you are. Look at me, I am bad inwardly, and really I am what you would condemn and despise."

She was standing in the afternoon sunlight, dark, slim, alert, intensely alive, full of a twisty varied knowledge, a creature of another world. She felt that he must know and recognise the gulf between if only he would look fairly at her.

He did look fairly, but he recognised only what was in his own mind.

"You are to me a beacon--" he began.

But she, realising at last that Denah's jealousy was not after all without foundations, cut him short.

"I am not a beacon," she said, "before you take me for a guiding light you had better hear something about me. Do you know why I came here? I will tell you--it was to get your blue daffodil!"

He stared at her speechless, and she found it bad to see the surprise and almost uncomprehending pain which came into his face, as into the face of a child unjustly smitten. But she went on resolutely: "I heard of it in England, that it was worth a lot of money--and I wanted money--so I came here; I meant to get a bulb and sell it."

"You meant to?" he said slowly; "but you haven't--you couldn't?"

"I could, six times over if I liked."

"But you have not."

"No. I was a fool, and you were--Oh, I can't explain; you would never understand, and it does not matter. The thing that matters is that I came here to get your blue daffodil."

"You must have needed money very greatly," he said in a puzzled, pitying voice.

"I did, I wanted it desperately, but that does not matter either--I came here to steal; I go away because I am found out to have deceived and to have behaved improperly--I want you to understand that."

"I do not understand," he answered; "I understand nothing but that you are you, and--and I love you."

"You don't!" she cried in sharp protest. "You do not, and you cannot!

You think you love what you think I am. But I am not that; it is all quite different; when you, know, when you realise, you will see it."

"I realise now," he answered; "it is still the light, only sometimes dim."

"Dim!" she repeated, "it has gone out!"

"And if it has, what then? If you are all you say you are, and all they say you are, and many worse things besides, what then? It makes no difference."

He spoke with the curious quietness with which he always spoke of what he was quite sure. But she drew back against the hedge, clasping her hands together, her calmness all gone. "Oh, what have I done! What have I done!" she said, overcome with pity and remorse.

He drew a step nearer, misinterpreting the emotion. "I will take care of you," he said. "Will you not let me take care of you?"

She looked up, and though her eyes were full of tears he might have read his answer there, in her recovered calmness, in the very gentleness of her manner. "You cannot," she said sadly; "you couldn't possibly do it. Don't you see that it is impossible? Your parents, the people--"

"That is of no importance," he answered; "my parents would very soon see you in your true light, and for the rest--what does it matter? If you will marry me I--"

"But Joost, I can't! Don't you feel yourself that I can't? We are not only of two nations--that is nothing--but we are almost of two races; we are night and day, oil and water, black and white. It would never do; we should be on the outskirts of each other's lives, you would never know mine, and though I might know yours, I could never really enter in."

"That is nothing," he said, "if you love."

"It is everything," she answered, "if two people do not talk the same language, soul language, I mean."

"They will learn it if they love--but you do not? Is it that, tell me.

Ah, yes, you do, a little, little bit! Only a little, so that you hardly know it, but it is enough--if you have the least to give that would do; I would do all the rest; I would love you; I would stand between you and the whole world; in time it would come, in time you would care!"

He had come close to her now; in his eagerness he pressed against her, and, earnestness overcoming diffidence, he almost ventured to take her hand in his. She felt herself inwardly shrink from him with the repulsion that young wild animals feel at times for mere contact. But outwardly she did not betray it; pity for him kept nature under control.

"I cannot," she said very gently; "I can never care."

Then he knew that he had his answer, and there was no appeal; he drew back a pace, and because he never said one word of regret, or reproach, or pleading, her heart smote her.