The Good Comrade Part 2

He forgot that a moment back he had excused the act as a borrowing; Julia did not remind him, she was too much concerned with the facts to trouble about mere turns of speech. They, like words and motives, had not heretofore entered much into her considerations; consequences were what was really important to her--how the bad might be averted, how the good drawn that way, and all used to the best advantage. This point of view, though it leaves a great deal to be desired, has one advantage--those who take it waste no time in lamentation or reproof.

For that reason they are perhaps some of the least unpleasant people to confess to.

Julia wasted no words now; she sat for a brief minute, stunned by the magnitude of the calamity which had deprived them of the largest part of their income for the next three months; then she began to look round in her mind to see what might be done. Captain Polkington offered a few not very coherent explanations and excuses, to which she did not listen, and then relapsed into silence. Johnny sat opposite, rubbing his hands in nervous sympathy, and looking from father to daughter; he took the silence of the one to be as hopeless as that of the other.

"We thought," he ventured at last, tugging at the parcel now firmly wedged in his pocket. "We hoped, that is, we thought perhaps we might raise a trifle, it wouldn't be much help--"

But neither of the others were listening to him, and Captain Polkington interrupted with his own remedy, "We shall have to manage on credit," he said; "we can get credit for this three months."

"We can't," Julia a.s.sured him; "the greater part of that money was to have paid outstanding bills; we can't live on credit, because we haven't got any to live on."

"That's nonsense," her father said; "it can be done with care and economy, and retrenchments."

Julia did not answer, so Johnny took up the words. "Yes, yes," he said, "one can always retrench; it is really marvellous how little one can do with, in fact one is better for it; I feel a different man for having to retrench. Your mother's a wonderful woman"--he stopped, then added doubtfully as he thought of the lost apple tart--"I suppose, though, she would want to make a good appearance just now, with the engagement, Mr. Frazer in and out. It is very unfortunate, very."

By this time he had untied his parcel, and flattening the paper on his knees began to put the contents on the table. There were some field-gla.s.ses, a breast pin, and a few other such things; when he had put them all out he felt in his waistcoat-pocket for his watch.

"They would fetch a trifle," he said, regarding the row a little proudly.

"Those?" Julia asked, puzzled.

"Yes," Mr. Gillat said; "not a great deal, of course, but it would be a help--it might pay the butcher's bill. It's a great thing to have the butcher's bill paid; I've heard my landlady say so; it gives a standing with the other tradespeople, and that's what you want--she often says so."

"You mean you think of selling them for us?" Julia asked, fixing her keen eyes on Johnny, so that he felt very guilty, and as if he ought to excuse himself. But before he could do it she had swept his belongings together. "You won't do anything of the kind," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because we won't have it. Pack them up."

"Oh, but," Johnny protested, "it would be a little help, it would indeed; they would fetch something, the gla.s.ses are good ones, though a bit old-fas.h.i.+oned, and the watch--"

"I don't care, I won't have it," and Julia took the matter into her own hands, and began with a flushed face to re-pack the things herself.

"Is it that you think I can't spare them?" Gillat asked, still bewildered. "I can--what an idea," he laughed. "What do I want with field-gla.s.ses, now? And as to a watch, my time's nothing to me!"

"No, I dare say not," Julia said, but she tied the parcel firmly, then she gave it to him. "Take it away," she said, "and don't try to sell a thing."

She opened the door as she spoke, and he, accepting it as a hint of dismissal, meekly followed her from the room. When they had reached the hall above he ventured on a last protest. "Why may I not sell anything?" he asked.

"Because we have not quite come to that," she said, with a ring of bitterness in her voice: "We have come pretty low, I know, with our dodges and our s.h.i.+fts, but we haven't quite come to depriving you.

Johnny"--and she stretched out a hand to him, a thing which was rare, for no one thought it necessary to shake hands with Mr. Gillat--"it's very good of you to offer; I'm grateful to you; I'm awfully glad you did it; you made me ashamed."

Johnny looked at her perplexed; the note of bitterness in her voice had deepened to something more he was altogether at a loss to understand. But she gave him no opportunity for inquiry, for she opened the street door.

"Good-bye," she said, her usual self again, "and don't you let me catch you selling those things."

"Oh, I say! But how will you manage?" he protested.

"Somehow; I have got several ideas already; I'm better at this sort of game than you are, you know."

And she shut the door upon him; then she went back to Captain Polkington.

"Father," he said, "would you mind telling me if you have borrowed any other money? It would be much simpler if we knew just how we stood."

The Captain seemed to have a painfully clear idea of how he stood.

"Your mother," he remarked, with apparent irrelevance, "is such an unreasonable woman; if she were like you--if she saw things sensibly.

But she won't, she'll make a fuss; she will entirely overlook the fact that it is my own money that I have lost."

"I am afraid she will," Julia agreed. "Will you tell me if you lost any one else's money as well?"

"Oh, a trifle," the Captain said; "nothing to speak of yesterday; I have borrowed a little now and again, at cards and so on; a trifling accommodation."

"From whom?"

"Rawson-Clew."

Julia nodded; this was bad, but it might have been worse. Mr.

Rawson-Clew was not a personal friend of the Polkingtons, and he was not a man in an inferior position who might presume upon his loan to the Captain to establish a friendly footing. On the contrary, he was in a superior position, so much so that for a moment Julia was at a loss to understand how he came to accommodate her father. Then she recalled his face--he had been pointed out to her--he looked a good-natured fool; probably he had met the Captain somewhere and been sorry for him, or perhaps he did not like to say "no." In any case he had lent the money and, so Julia fancied, would have to wait a very long time before he saw it again. She dismissed the young man from her mind and fell to working out plans to meet the more pressing difficulties.

The relations would have to help; not with money; they would not do that to a useful extent, but with invitations. Cherie was easily provided for; Aunt Louise had before offered to take her abroad for the winter; Cherie did not in the least want to go; it was likely to be nothing nicer than acting as unpaid companion to a fidgety old lady; but under the present circ.u.mstances she would have to go. For Violet it was not quite so easy; it would look rather odd for her to go visiting among obliging relatives, seeing that she was only just engaged--how things looked was a point the Polkingtons always considered. But it would have to be managed; Julia fancied something might be arranged at Bath, a place which was a cheap fare from Marbridge. Mrs. Polkington would probably go somewhere for part of the time, then there could be some real retrenchments not otherwise possible. Mary might be dismissed; Mr. Gillat even might come to board with them for a little; the outside world need not know he was a guest that paid.

Julia was not satisfied with these plans; they would barely meet the difficulty she knew, even with credit stretched to the uttermost and the household crippled for some time; but she could think of nothing better, and determined to suggest them to Mrs. Polkington. With these thoughts in her mind, she went up-stairs; as she pa.s.sed the drawing-room, she noticed that the blinds had not been pulled down; she went to the window to remedy the omission, and so saw in the street below the young man who, with the debt owing to him, she had lately dismissed from her mind. There was a street lamp directly below the window, and she stood a moment by the curtain looking down. Mr.

Rawson-Clew was riding past, but slowly; it was quite possible to see his face, which did not contradict her former opinion--good-natured but foolish, and possibly weak. He turned in his saddle just below the window to speak to his companion, and she noticed that it was a stranger with him, a man wearing a single eyegla.s.s, ten years older than the other, and of a totally different stamp. Indeed, of a stamp differing from any she had seen at Marbridge, so much so that she wondered how he came to be here, and what he was doing. But this was rather a waste of time, for the next day she knew.

The next day he came down the street again, but this time alone and on foot. He stopped at No. 27, and there asked for Captain Polkington.

Julia, hearing the knock, and the visitor subsequently being ushered into the dining-room, guessed it must be Mr. Gillat, perhaps come with his parcel again; when she saw Mary she asked her.

"No, miss," was the answer; "it's another gentleman to see the master."

"Who?" Julia's mind was alert for fresh difficulties.

"Mr. Rawson-Clew."

"I don't know who he is," Mary went on; "I've never set eyes on him before, but he's a grand sort of gentleman; I hardly liked to put him in the dining-room, only missis's orders was 'Mr. Gillat or any gentleman to see the master there.'"

Which was true enough, and might reasonably have been reckoned a safe order, for no one but Mr. Gillat ever did come to see the Captain.

"I hope I've done right," Mary said.

"Quite right," Julia answered, though she did not feel so sure of it.

The name and the vague description of the visitor somehow suggested to her mind the stranger who had ridden past with young Mr. Rawson-Clew.

She went up-stairs, uneasy as much from intuition as from experience.

In the hall she stood a minute. The dining-room door did not shut too well, the lock was old and worn, and unless it was fastened carefully, it came open; the Captain never managed to fasten it, and now it stood ajar; Julia could hear something of what was said within almost as soon as she reached the top of the kitchen stairs. The visitor spoke quietly, his words were not audible, but the Captain's voice was raised with excitement.

"The money, sir, the money that your cousin lent--accommodation between gentlemen--"

So Julia heard incompletely, and then another disjointed sentence.

"Do you take me for an adventurer, a sharper? I am a soldier, sir, a soldier and a gentleman--at least, I was--I mean I was a soldier, I am a gentleman--"