Julia came swiftly up the hall, the instinct of the female to spread frail wings and protect her helpless belongings (old equally as much as young) was strong upon her. The pushed open the dining-room door and walked in.
"Father," she said, "is anything the matter?"
Both men turned, the stranger clearly surprised and annoyed by the interruption, the Captain for a moment thinking of pulling himself together and dismissing his daughter with a lie. But he did not do it; he was too shaken to think quickly, also there was a sense of reinforcement in her presence; this he did not realise; indeed, he realised nothing except that she spoke again before he had collected himself.
"Is it about the money Mr. Rawson-Clew lent you?" she asked.
He nodded, and she turned to the other man, who had risen on her entrance, and now stood with his back to the evil-smelling stove which Mary had lighted as usual in honour of Captain Polkington's visitors.
She measured him swiftly, and no detail escaped her; the well-bred impassive face, where the annoyance caused by her entrance showed only in the rather hard eyes; the straight figure, even the perfection of his tailoring and the style of his boots--she summed it all up with the rapidity of one who has had to depend on her wits before. And her wits were to be depended on, for, in spite of the warmth of her protective anger, she felt his superiority of person, position and ability, and, only too probably, of cause also. She could have laughed at the contrast he presented to her father and herself and the surroundings. It was perhaps for this reason that she asked him maliciously, "Have you come to collect the debt?"
The question went home. "Certainly not," he answered haughtily; "the money--"
But the Captain prevented whatever he was going to say. "He thinks I am an adventurer, a sharper," he bleated, now thoroughly throwing himself on his daughter's protection; "his intention seems to be a warning not to try to get anything more out of his cousin--something of that sort."
Julia paid little attention to her father. "You were going to say,"
she inquired serenely of Rawson-Clew, "something about the money, I think?"
"No," he answered, with cold politeness. "I only meant to suggest that this is perhaps rather an unpleasant subject for a lady."
He moved as if he would open the door for her, but she stood her ground. "It is unpleasant," she said; "for that reason had we not better get it over quickly? You have not come to collect the debt, you have come, then, for what?"
"To make one or two things plain to Captain Polkington. I believe I have succeeded; if so, he will no doubt tell you anything you wish to know. Good afternoon," and he moved to the door on his own account, whereupon Julia's calmness gave way.
"You do think my father an adventurer, then?" she said. "You think him a sharper and your cousin a gull, and you came to warn him that if he tried to get anything more in future it was you with whom he would have to deal. And the money--you were going to say the money was not what you came for because you never expected to see it again? But you are wrong there; you shall see it; it will be repaid, every penny of it."
Rawson-Clew paused till she had finished; then, "I am sorry for any misunderstanding there may have been," he said. "I trust you will trouble yourself no farther in the matter," and he opened the door.
It was not a denial; it was not, so Julia considered, even an apology; to her it seemed more like a polite request to mind her own business, and she went up to her room after he had gone almost unjustly angry, too angry for the time being to think about the rashness of her promise that the debt should be paid.
"He thought us dirt," she said, sitting on the end of her narrow iron bed. Then she smiled rather grimly. "And we are pretty much what he thought us! Father sponged the money, and I decided to myself that the repaying did not much matter. We are, as we looked to him, two grubby little people of doubtful honesty, in a grubby room with Bouquet," and she laughed outright, although she was alone, and the faculty for seeing and deriding herself as others might, had a somewhat bitter flavour. Nevertheless, she was very angry and quite determined to pay the money somehow, so that at least it should appear to this man that he was mistaken.
An hour later she carried Captain Polkington's tea down to him; when tea was in the drawing-room his was always sent to him thus. She found him not depressed at all, on the contrary quite cheerful, and even dignified. He was reading something when she came in, and seeing that she was alone, he handed it to her. It was from Mr. Rawson-Clew she found, a sort of recognition of the discharge of the debt, or at least a formal cancelling of it. It was carefully and conclusively worded, certainly not the unaided work of the young man who had ridden past last night. It was dictated by the other, she was sure of it; possibly even he had himself discharged the debt so as to end the matter. Her eyes blazed as she read; he would not even allow her the satisfaction of giving him the lie--and the misery of straining and pinching to do the impossible. From pride, or from pity, or from both, he had finished the thing there and then, or he thought he had. She tore the paper across and then across again.
"What are you doing?" Captain Polkington cried, seizing her hands as she would have torn it again. "Don't you know it is valuable? I must keep it; he can't go back on it if he wants to." He took it from her, and began to piece it together. "I can look the world in the face again," he said, admiring the fragments. "I am free, free and cleared; that debt would have hung like a millstone around my neck, but I am free of it; it is cancelled."
"Free!" Julia said with scorn. There are disadvantages in reducing a man to a subordinate position and allowing him no use for his self-respect; it is a virtue that has a tendency to atrophy. Julia recognised this with something like personal shame. "Your debt is discharged," she said gently, "but mine is not; it has been shifted, not cancelled; it lies with me and Mr. Rawson-Clew now, and it shall be paid somehow."
Captain Polkington hardly heeded what she said; he was still smoothing the pieces of paper. "What?" he asked, as he put them away in an envelope, but he did not wait for her answer. "It was very heedless of you to tear it," he said; "but fortunately there is no damage done; it is perfectly valid, all that can be required."
CHAPTER III
NARCISSUS TRIANDRUS AZUREUM
The _elite_ called to congratulate Mrs. Polkington on her daughter's engagement. All manner of pleasant things were said by them and by Mrs. Polkington in an atmosphere of social sunshine. She thought it so nice of them to come so soon, she told them so severally; she knew that they--"you all," "you, at least," "you, my oldest friend,"
according to circumstances--would be pleased to hear about it. She gave sundry little hints of future plans and hopes, among other things mentioned that it really was hard for poor Violet to have to go and cheer an invalid cousin just now.
"And the worst of it is," so Mrs. Polkington said, "she may have to be away some time. There really seems no one else to go, and one could not leave the poor dear alone at this dull time of the year; and, after all, Bath is not very far off; some of Richard's people live there, too. I should not be surprised if the young people contrive to see a good deal of each other in spite of everything. Indeed, had I not thought so, I think I should have insisted on Cherie's going instead of Violet, although she would have had to give up her winter abroad."
Here the visitor usually made polite inquiries about this same winter abroad, and heard of a delightful prospect of several months to be spent in the south of France, unnecessary and unpleasant details all omitted.
"You do agree with me?" Mrs. Polkington would then ask rather anxiously, as if her hearer's opinion was the one that really mattered to her. "You do think it wrong to allow Cherie to refuse this invitation for Violet's sake? I am very glad you think so. I had quite a difficulty in persuading her; but, as I told her, it was not a chance she was likely to have again. So she is going, and Violet will have to spend her winter in Bath. Julia? Oh, Julia was not asked in either case; she will be staying at home with me."
From all of which it is clear that part of Julia's plan was to be adopted. The other part must have found favour, too, for soon it became known that the Polkingtons were without a servant. Mrs.
Polkington made inquiries among her friends, but could not hear of any one suitable; she said it was very tiresome, especially as they had taken advantage of the girl's empty room to invite an old Anglo-Indian friend of her husband's to stay.
Thus was the difficulty tided over, and with so good a face that few in Marbridge had any idea that it existed. Certainly none knew of the pinching and screwing and retrenching which went on indoors at No. 27.
One or two tradesmen could have told of long accounts unpaid, and some relations living at a distance were troubled by appeals for help, a form of begging which, at this date of their history did not hurt the Polkingtons' sensibility much.
Mrs. Polkington suffered in body, if not in mind, during this hard time, though fortunately she was able to be away a month. The Captain suffered a good deal more, which was perhaps only just; and Johnny Gillat suffered with him, which was not just, though that did not seem to occur to him. As for Julia, she minded least of any one, though in some ways she had the most to put up with; but the plan was hers, and consequently she was too interested in its success to trouble about the inevitable discomforts of the working out.
There was one matter which did trouble her, however--the debt to Rawson-Clew. She had no money, and no possibility of raising any; yet it must and should be paid, for her father's name could not otherwise be cleared. She turned over in her own mind how she could earn enough, but there was little hope of that; it seemed rather a large sum for a girl to earn, and any sum was impossible to her; she had no gifts to take to market, no ability for any of the arts, not enough education for teaching, no training for commerce. The only field open to her was that of a nursery-governess or companion; neither was likely to enable her to pay this debt of honour quickly. Once, nearly a year ago, she had had a sort of half-offer of the post of companion. It was while she was staying with a friend; during the visit there had come to the house an old Dutchman of the name of Van Heigen, a business acquaintance of her host. He had stayed nearly a week, and in that time taken a great fancy to her.
In those first bad days after the Captain's leaving the army, the Polkingtons had lived, or perhaps more accurately, drifted about, a good deal abroad. It was then that Julia picked up her only accomplishment, a working knowledge of several languages. She had also acquired one other thing, perhaps not an accomplishment, a rather unusual knowledge of divers men and divers ways. It may have been that these qualities made her more attractive to the old Dutchman than the purely English game-expert daughters of the house. Or it may have been her admirable cooking; the cook was ill during the greater part of her visit, and her offer to help was gladly accepted and duly appreciated. Something, at all events, pleased the old man, so that before he left he asked her, half in fun, if she would come and live with his wife. This lady, it seemed, had bad health, and no daughters; she always had a companion of some sort, and was never satisfied with the one she had. In Holland, as in England, it seemed posts were not easy to fill satisfactorily, for those often in want of employment were also constitutionally inefficient.
At the time Julia had laughingly refused the offer, now she recalled it, and thought seriously about it. It would not be very nice, a mixture of upper servant and lady help; the Van Heigens were bulb growers, old-fashioned people, the lady a thorough _huisvrouw_, nothing more probably. Still that did not matter; such things need not be considered if the end could be attained that way. But unfortunately it did not look very likely; the Van Heigens would pay less to a companion than English people would, not enough to buy clothes; there was practically nothing to be made out of it. Julia was obliged to admit the fact to herself, and reluctantly to dismiss the Dutchman and his offer from her thoughts.
But curiously enough, they were brought to her mind again before long; not later, indeed, than that evening, when she went to a dance at a neighbour's house. At this dance she met a Mr. Alexander Cross. He was not a native of Marbridge, not at all like any of them; it is quite possible that they would have rather looked down upon him; Julia recognised that he barely came up to her mother's standard of a gentleman. He seemed to be a keen business man of the energetic new sort; he also seemed to deal in most things, flowers among them. He told Julia something about that part of his business, for he and it interested her so much that she asked him leading questions. He explained how the beautiful orchid he wore in his coat had decreased in value lately. A few years ago, when there had been but one specimen with just that marking in all the world, the plant had sold for 900; now that it had been multiplied it was worth only 25, nothing practically.
"It was a novelty then," he explained; "some novelties are worth a great deal. There's one I know of now I could do some good business with if I could get hold of it. But I can't; the old fool that's got it won't sell it for any price, and he can't half work it himself.
It's a blue daffodil--Narcissus Triandrus Azureum he calls it; or rather, to give it its full title, Narcissus Triandrus Azureum Vrouw Van Heigen; so called, I believe, in honour of his wife, or his mother."
Julia wondered if the Van Heigen who owned the precious flower was the old Dutchman of her acquaintance. "Is he a bulb grower?" she asked, though without giving any reason for her question.
"Yes," Cross answered, "a Dutch bulb grower; that's why he won't make the profit he might; he comes of generations of growers, and they venerate their bulbs. He has cranky notions of how things ought to be done, and no other way will do for him."
"How did he get a blue daffodil? Do you think it is real? It seems very unusual."
"It is unusual; that's where the value comes in; but it's real fast enough, though I don't believe he grew the first, as he says, in his own garden. It's my opinion that one of his collectors sent him the first bulb; he has collectors all over the world, you know, looking for new things."
"What is he going to do with it?" Julia asked.
"He is multiplying it at present; at first he had only one, now, of course, he has a few more; when he has got enough he will hybridise.
You don't know what that is. Cross-breed with it; use the blue with the old yellow daffodil as parents to new varieties. That's ticklish work; growers can't afford to do it till they have a fair number of the new sort; but, of course, they occasionally get something good that way."
Julia listened, much interested, though, to tell the truth, the money value of the thing fascinated her more than anything else.
"Will he never sell any of his blue bulbs?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, in time," Cross answered; "but not while they are worth anything much to the growers."
"What are they worth? I mean, what would it be worth if there was only one?"
"I don't know; I dare say I could get 400 for the single bulb."
"But if there were more they would not be worth so much? If there were five, what would they be worth?"