The Good Comrade Part 8

"Yes," he answered, suddenly reminded of the fact. Then seeing she did not resume her seat on the steps, he ventured diffidently, "Will you come too?"

She a.s.sented, and they started together in silence, Joost thinking her homesick, not knowing quite what to say. When they came to the first of the dark buildings they went in, and he swung the lantern round so that their shadows danced fantastically. Then he tried various doors, and glanced up the wall-ladder to the square opening which led to the floor above. There was no need to examine the place minutely, it was all quiet and dark; if there had been any one about they would certainly have heard, and if there had been anything smouldering--a danger more to be feared, seeing that the men smoked everywhere--it could have been smelt in the dry air.

"I like these barns," Julia said, looking round: "they are so big and quiet and orderly, somehow so respectable."

"Respectable!" he repeated, as if he did not approve of the word. "Is that what you like? The respectable?"

"Yes, in its place; and its place is here."

"You think us respectable?"

"Well, are you not? I think you are the most respectable people in the world."

She led the way through to the next barn as she spoke. "You are going here, too, I suppose?" she said.

"I will just look round," he answered.

They went on together until they came to the last barn of all; while they paused there a moment they heard a rustling and movement in the dark, far corner. Joost started violently, then he said, "It is a rat, you must not be afraid; it will not run this way."

"I am not afraid," Julia said with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Do you think I am afraid of rats?"

"Girls often are."

"Well, I am not," and it was clear from her manner that she spoke the truth.

"Would you be afraid to come out here alone?" he asked curiously.

"No," she said; "any night that you like I will come here alone, go through the barns and fasten the doors."

"I do not believe there are many girls who would do that," he said; he was thinking of Denah and Anna.

Julia told him there were plenty who would. As they came back, stopping to fasten each door after them, he remarked, "I think girls are usually brought up with too much protection; I mean girls of our cla.s.s, they are too much s.h.i.+elded; one has them for the house only; if they were flowers I would call them stove-plants."

Julia laughed. "You believe in the emanc.i.p.ation of women then?" she said; "you would rather a woman could take care of herself, and not be afraid, than be womanly?"

"No," he answered; "I would like them to be both, as you are."

They had come outside now; she was standing in the misty moon-light, while he stayed to fasten the last door.

"I?" she said; "you seem to think me a paragon--clever, brave, womanly. Do you know what I really am? I am bad; by a long way the wickedest person you have known."

But he did not believe her, which was perhaps not altogether surprising.

CHAPTER VI

DEBTOR AND CREDITOR

Violet Polkington was married, and, as a consequence, the financial affairs of the family were in a state that can only be described as wonderful. They were intricately involved, of course, and there was no chance of their being clear again for a year at least; but, also, there was no chance of them being found out, appearances were better than ever.

Mr. Frazer had been given a small living, whether by the deserved kindness of fortune, or by reason of his own efforts, or the Polkingtons, is not known. Anyhow he had it, and he and Violet were married in June with all necessary _eclat_. Local papers described the event in glowing terms, appreciative friends said it was the prettiest wedding in years, and in due time Cherie wrote and told Julia about it. The Captain also wrote; his point of view was rather different, but his letter filled up gaps in Cherie's information, and Julia's own past experience filled up the remaining gaps in both.

The letters came on Tuesday, as Julia expected, a little before dinner time; she was still reading them when Mijnheer and his son came in from the office. Joost smiled sympathetically when he saw she had them, glad on her account; and she, almost unconsciously, crumpled together the sheets that lay on the table beside her, as if she were afraid they would betray their contents to him.

"You have good news from home?" said Mijnheer; "your parents are well?"

"Quite well, thank you," Julia answered. She had just come to the place in her father's letter where he regretted that such very light refreshments were the fas.h.i.+on at wedding receptions. "It is, of course, as your mother says, less expensive, but at such a time who would spare expense--if it were the fas.h.i.+on? I a.s.sure you I had literally nothing to eat at the time, or afterwards; your mother thinking it advisable as soon as we were alone, to put away the cakes for future visitors. At such a time, when a man's feelings are nearly touched, he needs support; I did not have it, and I cannot say that I have felt myself since."

Julia read to the end of the letter; Mijnheer had by this time taken up a paper, but Joost watched her as she folded the sheets. He did not speak, it seemed he would not intrude upon her; there was something dog-like in this sympathy with what was not understood. She felt vaguely uncomfortable by reason of it, and spoke to break the spell.

"Everything went off very well," she said.

The words were for him alone, since Mijnheer was now reading, and also knew nothing of the subject. The smile brightened on his face. "Did it?" he answered. "I am very glad. They must have missed you much, and thought often of you."

Julia nodded. Cherie had said. "I must say I think it is a pity you were not here; it is important to have some one with a head in the background; mother and I had to be the fore, so of course we could not do it; if you had been here several things would have gone better, and some waste have been saved."

This remark Julia did not communicate to Joost; she put the letter in her pocket, and went to fetch the dinner. After dinner she was to go on an errand for Mevrouw. It would take a long time, all the evening in fact, for it was to an old relative who lived in a village about three miles from the town. Walking was the only way of getting to the place, except twice a week when a little cargo boat went down the ca.n.a.l, and took some hours about it. This was neither the day nor the time for the boat, Julia would have to walk; but, as she a.s.sured Mevrouw, she much preferred it. Accordingly, as soon as dinner was finished, she was given a great many messages, mostly of a condoling nature, for the old lady was ill in bed, some strengthening soup, and a little bottle of the peach-brandy. With these things packed in a substantial marketing basket, she started.

Through the town she went with that easy step and indifference to the presence of other people that Denah so criticised, faster and faster her spirits rising. Once or twice she looked in at the low windows that stood open on the shady side of the street; there she saw the heads of families smoking their after-dinner pipes, while their wives and daughters sat crocheting and watching the pa.s.sersby. There were chairs with crimson velvet seats in most of the rooms, and funny little cabinet, or side-board things of bright red mahogany, with modern Delft vases, very blue indeed, upon them. And always there was a certain snugness, perhaps even smugness, about the rooms. At least, so it seemed to her as she looked in, almost insolently pleased to be outside, to be free and alone.

In time she came to the outskirts of the town, the ca.n.a.l lay on her right, and on her left, flat green fields, cut up by innumerable ditches, and set with frequent windmills, all black and white, and mostly used for maintaining the water level. There were people busy in the fields, but to Julia they only gave the idea of ants, and did not intrude upon her mind in the least. It was all very quiet and green around, and quiet and blue above, except for the larks singing rapturously. Certainly it was very good to be away from the Van Heigens, away from the ceaseless little reiteration of Mevrouw's talk, from the minute, punctilious conventions, from Joost's quiet gaze, from the proximity of the hateful, necessary blue daffodil. With a violent rebound Julia shook off the feeling that had been growing on her of late, and was once more possibly reckless, but certainly free, and no longer under the spell of her surroundings. Her young blood coursed quickly, her eyes shone, the basket she carried grew light; she might have sung as she went had not Nature, in withholding the ability, also kindly withheld the inclination.

Soon after leaving the town, a side road cut into the main one; a waggon was lumbering down it at no great pace, but just before the branch road joined the main one the driver cracked his whip loudly, so that his team of young horses started forward suddenly. Too suddenly for the comprehension of some children who were playing in the road; for a second or more they looked at the approaching waggon, then, when the necessity dawned upon them, they ran for safety, one one way, one another, and the third, a baby boy, like a chicken, half across the way to the right, then, after a scurry in the middle, back again to the left, under the horses' feet.

Julia shouted to him, but in the excitement of the moment she spoke English, and not Dutch, though it hardly mattered, for the little boy was far too frightened to understand anything. It certainly would have fared badly with him had she not followed up her cry by darting into the road, seizing him by the shoulder, and flinging him with considerable force against the green wayside bank. She was only just in time; as it was, the foremost horse struck her shoulder and sent her rolling into the dust.

For an instant she lay there, perilously near the big grinding wheels; an almost imperceptible s.p.a.ce, yet somehow long enough for her to decide quite calmly that it was impossible to scramble to her feet in time, so she had better draw her legs up and trust to the wheels missing her. Then suddenly the wheels stopped, and some one who had seized the horses' heads addressed the waggoner with the English idiom that is perhaps most widely known.

Julia heard "d.a.m.ned fool" in quite unemotional English, and almost simultaneously the guttural shrieks of two peasant women who approached. She picked herself up, then moving two paces to the side, stopped to put her hat straight with a calmness she did not quite feel. There was a volley of exclamations from the peasant women, and "Are you hurt?" the man who had stopped the horses asked her, speaking now in Dutch, though with an English accent.

"No," she answered, winking back the water which had come into her eyes with the force of the blow, and she turned her back on him so that he should not see her do it.

"My good women," she said shortly to the peasants who, with upraised hands and many gestures, stared at her, "there is nothing the matter, there is no reason why you should stand there and look at me; I a.s.sure you no one has been hurt, and no one is going to be; you had much better go on your way, as I shall do. Good-afternoon."

She walked a few paces down the road, not in the direction she intended to go certainly, but she was too shaken for the moment to notice which way she took, and was only actuated by a desire to get away and put an end to a scene. The movement and the words were not without effect; the two women, a good deal astonished, obeyed automatically, and, picking up the burdens they had set down, trudged on their way, not realising for some time how much offended they were at the curt behaviour of the "mad English." The children by this time had ceased staring and returned to their play; the waggoner, muttering some surly words, drove on. Julia sat on the bank by the roadside, and tried to brush the dust from her dress. The Englishman, after making some parting remarks to the waggoner, this time in Dutch, though still in the quiet, drawling voice which was much at variance with the language, had gone to pick up the basket. She wished she had thanked him for his timely a.s.sistance when she first scrambled to her feet, and gone on at once, then she could have done this necessary sitting down when he was out of sight, and come back for the stupid basket when she remembered it. But now she would have to thank him formally, and perhaps explain things, and say expressly that she was not hurt, and this while she was shaken and dusty. Mercifully he was English, and so would not expect much; she looked at his back with satisfaction. He was scarcely as tall as many Hollanders, but very differently built. To Julia, looking at him rather stupidly, his proportions, like his clothes, appeared very nearly perfect after those she had been used to seeing lately. When he turned and she saw for the first time his face, she was not very much surprised, though really it was surprising that Rawson-Clew should still be hereabouts.

Their eyes met in mutual recognition. Afterwards she wondered why she did not pretend to be Dutch, it ought to have been possible; he had only seen her once before, and her knowledge of the language was much better than his. And even if he had not been deceived, he would have been bound to acquiesce to her pretence, had she persisted in it. But she did not think of it before their mutual recognition had made it too late.

"I hope you are not hurt," he said, as he crossed the road with the basket.

"No," she answered, "thanks to you--"

But he, evidently sharing her dislike for a fuss, was even more anxious than she not to dwell on that, and dismissed the subject quickly. He began to wipe the bottom of the basket, from which soup was dripping, talking the while of the carelessness of continental drivers and the silliness of children of all nations, perhaps to give her time to recover.

She agreed with him, and then repeated her thanks.

He again set them aside. "It's nothing," he said; "I am glad to have had the opportunity, especially since it also gives me the opportunity of offering you some apology for an unfortunate misunderstanding which arose when last I saw you. You must feel that it needs an apology."