Mrs. Polkington said it was foolish too, but she did not say 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 Cherie 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 Cherie 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 Cherie 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.
CHAPTER XV
THE GOOD COMRADE
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 communication from 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 Egyptology than 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 a _risque_ story 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 blinds down, 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 wanted to 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.