"Yes, yes," Johnny said, "of course; you will have your own estate to retire to; quite an heiress—your mother will be pleased."

Julia could well imagine what skilful use her mother could make of the legacy; it would figure beautifully in conversation; no doubt Johnny was really thinking of this also, though he did not know it, for actually the thing would not commend itself to Mrs. Polkington so highly as a lump sum of money would have done.

"Why do you think Great-aunt Jane let it to me?" Julia asked. "Because I went out to work! It seems that father and we three girls are the nearest relations she had, and though we knew nothing about her, she made inquiries about us from time to time. When she heard I had gone abroad as companion or lady-help, she said she should leave all she had to me because I was the only one who even tried to do any honest work. You know that is not really strictly fair, because I did not altogether go with the idea of doing honest work; although, certainly, when I got there I did it."

Johnny did not quite follow this last, but it did not matter, the only thing that concerned him—or Julia much, either—was the fact that she was the possessor of L50 a year, a cottage, a garden, and a field. Johnny revelled in the idea and talked of what she was going to do right up to the time that he saw her into the train at Paddington. The only thing that put an end to his talking was the guard requesting him to stand away from the carriage door and Julia admonished him to leave go of the handle before the engine started. Julia herself did not talk so much of what she would do because she did not know; she felt, until she got home and saw how things were there, it was no good even to plan how and when to spend. Five pounds she did spend; it was really her saving accumulated by economy in Holland, but she reckoned it as drawn from her estate. Johnny found it in an envelope when he returned to the back bedroom, and with it a note to say that it was in part payment of Captain Polkington's debts, for which, of course, his family were responsible; "and if you make a fuss about it," the letter concluded, dropping the business-like style, "I shall trim 'Bouquet' to stink next time you come to Marbridge, and not come and sit with you."

I think Johnny sat down and wept over that letter; but then he was rather a silly old man and he had not had a good meal, except last night's steak and onions, for a fortnight.



CHAPTER XIV

THE END OF THE CAMPAIGN

The great Polkington campaign was over and it had failed. Mrs. Polkington and Cherie cheered each other with assurances of a contrary nature as long as they could, but for all that it had really failed and they knew it. There had been some small successes by the way; they had received a little recognition in superior places, and a few, a very few, invitations of a superior order at the cost, of course, of refusing and so offending some old friends and acquaintances. It might perhaps have been possible to achieve the position at which Mrs. Polkington aimed in the course of time, or a very long time; society in the country moves slowly, and she could not afford to wait indefinitely; her financial ability was not equal to it. Moreover, there came into her affairs, not exactly a crash, but something so unpleasantly like a full stop that she and Cherie could not fail to perceive it. This occurred on the day when they heard of Mr. Harding's engagement. Mr. Harding was the eligible bachelor addition to county society whose advent had materially assisted in giving definite form to Mrs. Polkington's ambition. He had helped to feed it, too, during the late summer and early autumn, for he had been friendly, though Cherie was forced to admit that his attentions to her had not been very marked. But now the news was abroad that he was engaged to a girl in his own circle; one whose mother had not yet extended any greater recognition to Mrs. Polkington than an invitation to a Primrose League Fete.

This news was abroad in the middle of October, and there was a certain amount of unholy satisfaction in Marbridge. Some of the old friends and acquaintances who Mrs. Polkington had offended, recognised the Christian duty of forgiveness, and called upon her—to see how she bore up. The Grayson girls, whose dance Cherie had refused at the beginning of the month, came to see her. But they put off their call a day to suit some theatrical rehearsal; by which means they lost the entertainment they promised themselves, for by the time they did come Cherie was ready for them and, with appropriate shyness, let it be known that she herself was engaged to Mr. Brendon Smith.

At this piece of information the girls looked at one another, and neither of them could think of anything smart to say. Afterwards they told each other and their friends that it was "quick work," and "like those Polkingtons." But at the time they could only offer suitable congratulations to Cherie, who received them and carried off the situation with a charming mingling of assurance and graciousness, which was worthy of her mother.

But the Graysons were right in saying it was quick work; late one afternoon Cherie heard of Mr. Harding's engagement; during the evening she and her mother recognised their failure; in the night she saw that Mr. Brendon Smith was her one chance of dignified withdrawal, and before the next evening she had promised to marry him.

There were some people in Marbridge who pitied Mr. Smith (only the Polkingtons put in the Brendon), but he did not need much pity, for the good reason that he knew very well what he was doing and how it was that his proposals came to be accepted. He was fond of Cherie, and appreciated both her beauty and her several valuable qualities; but he had no illusions about her or her family, and he knew, when he made it, that his proposal would be accepted to cover a retreat. He was not at all a humble and diffident individual, but he did not mind being taken on these terms; he even saw some advantage in it in dealing with the Polkingtons. If there was any mistake in the matter it was Cherie when she said "Yes" to his suggestion, "Don't you think you'd better marry me?" She probably did not know how completely she was getting herself a master.

It was not a grand engagement; Mrs. Polkington could not pretend that her son-in-law elect had aristocratic or influential connections; she said so frankly—and her frankness, which was overstrained, was one of her most engaging characteristics.

"It is no use pretending that I should not have been more pleased if he had been better connected," she said to those old friends and acquaintances whose Christianity led them to call. "I share your opinion, dear Mrs. ——" (the name varied according to circumstances) "about the value of birth; but one can't have everything; he is a most able man, and really charming. It is such a good thing that he is so much older than Cherie; I always felt she needed an older man to guide and care for her—he is positively devoted to her; you know, the devotion of a man of that age is such a different thing from a boy's affection."

After that the visitor could not reasonably do anything but inquire if Mr. Smith was going to throw up the South African post which all the town knew he was about to take before his engagement.

To this Mr. Polkington was obliged to answer, "No, he is going, and going almost directly; that is my one hardship; I have got to lose Cherie at once, for he positively will not go without her. Of course, it would be a thousand pities for him to throw it up, such an opening; so very much better than he would ever have here, but it is hard to lose my child—she seems a child to me still—almost before I have realised that she is grown up. Their passages are taken already; they will be married by license almost directly; there even won't be time to get a trousseau, only the merest necessaries before the luggage has to go."

It must not be thought that the news of Mr. Harding's engagement was the one and only thing which convinced Mrs. Polkington and Cherie that the great campaign had failed; it was the finishing touch, no doubt, in that it had made Cherie feel the necessity of being immediately engaged to some one, but there were other things at work. Captain Polkington had returned from London just five days before they heard the news, and three were quite sufficient to show his wife and daughter that he was considerably the worse for his stay in town. Bills too, had been coming in of late; not inoffensive, negligible bills such as they were very well used to, but threatening insistent bills, one even accompanied by a lawyer's letter. Then, to crown all, Captain Polkington had a fit of virtue and repentance on the second day after his return. It was not of long duration, and was, no doubt, partly physical, and not unconnected with the effects of his decline from the paths of temperance. But while it lasted, he read some of the bills and talked about the way ruin stared him in the face and the need there was for retrenchment, turning over a new leaf, facing facts and kindred things. Also, which was more important, he wrote to his wife's banker brother—he who had been instrumental in getting the papers sent in years ago. To this influential person he said a good deal about the state of the family finances, the need there was for clearing matters up and starting on a better basis, and his own determination to face things fairly and set to work in earnest. What kind of work was not mentioned; apparently that had nothing to do with the Captain's resolution; there was one thing, however, that was mentioned definitely—the need for the banker brother's advice—and pecuniary assistance. The answer to this letter was received on the same day as the news of Mr. Harding's engagement. It came in the evening, later than the news, and it was addressed to Mrs. Polkington, not the Captain; it assisted her in recognising that the end of the campaign had arrived. It said several unpleasant things, and it said them plainly; not the most pleasant to the reader was the announcement that the writer would himself come to Marbridge to look into matters one day that week or the next. Under these circumstances it is not perhaps so surprising that Cherie found it advisable to accept Mr. Brendon Smith's offer of marriage, and Mrs. Polkington found the impossibility of getting a trousseau in time no very great disadvantage.

When Julia came home it wanted but a short time to Cherie's wedding. A great deal seemed to have happened since she went away, not only to her family, but, and that was less obviously correct, to herself. She stood in the drawing-room on the morning after her return and looked round her and felt that somehow she had travelled a long way from her old point of view. The room was very untidy; it had not been used, and so, in accordance with the Polkington custom, not been set tidy for two days; dust lay thick on everything; there were dead leaves in the vases, cigarette ash on the table, no coals on the half-laid fire. In the merciless morning light Julia saw all the deficiencies; the way things were set best side foremost, though, to her, the worst side contrived still to show; the display there was everywhere, the trumpery silver ornaments, all tarnished for want of rubbing, and of no more intrinsic value and beauty than the tinfoil off champagne bottles; the cracked pieces of china—rummage sale relics, she called them—set forth in a glass-doored cabinet, as if they were heirlooms. Mrs. Polkington had a romance about several of them that made them seem like heirlooms to her friends and almost to herself. The whole, as Julia looked around, struck her as shoddy and vulgar in its unreality.

"I'm not coming back to it, no, I'm not," she said, half aloud; "the corduroy and onions would be a great deal better."

Cherie passed the open door at that minute and half heard her. "What did you say?" she asked.

Julia looked round. "Nothing," she answered, "only that I am not coming back to this sort of life."

"To Marbridge?" Cherie asked, "or to the house? If it is the house you mean, you need not trouble about that; there isn't much chance of your being able to go on living here; you will have to move into something less expensive. I am sure Uncle William will insist on it. There is more room than you will want here after I am gone, and as for appearance and society, there won't be much object in keeping that up."

Julia laughed. "You don't think I am a sufficiently marketable commodity to be worth much outlay?" she said. "You are quite right; besides, it is just that which I mean; I have come to the conclusion that I don't admire the way we live here."

"So have I," Cherie answered; "no one in their senses would; but it was the best we could do in the circumstances and before you grumble at it you had better be sure you don't get something worse."

Julia did not think she should do that, and Cherie seeing it went on, "Oh, of course you have got L50 a year, I know, but you can't live on that; besides, I expect Uncle William will want you to do something else with it."

"I shall do what I please," Julia replied, and Cherie never doubted it; she would have done no less herself had she been the fortunate legatee, Uncle William or twenty Uncle Williams notwithstanding.

This important relative had not been to Marbridge yet, in spite of what he wrote to his sister; he had not been able to get away. Indeed, he was not able to do so until the day after Cherie's wedding. Mrs. Polkington was in a happy and contented frame of mind; the quiet wedding had gone off quite as well as Violet's grander one—really, a quiet wedding is more effective than a smart one in the dull time of year, and always, of course, less expensive. Cherie had looked lovely in simple dress, and the presents, considering the quietness and haste, were surprisingly numerous and handsome. Mr. Smith was liked and respected by a wide circle. Mrs. Polkington felt satisfied and also very pleased to have Violet, her favourite daughter, with her again. She and Violet were talking over the events of the day with mutual congratulation, when Mr. William Ponsonby was announced.

Fortunately, Violet's husband, Mr. Frazer, had gone to see his old friend the vicar, and more fortunately still, he was persuaded to stay and dine with him. It would have been rather awkward to have had him present at the display of family washing which took place that evening. Mr. Ponsonby did not mince matters; he said, perhaps not altogether without justice, that he had had about enough of the Polkingtons. He also said he wanted the truth, and seeing that his sister had long ago found that about her own concerns so very unattractive that she never dealt with it naked; it did not show beautiful now. In the course of time, however, he got it, or near enough for working purposes. Out came all the bills, and out came the threatening letter and old account books and remembered debts both of times past and present; and when he had got them all, he added them up, showed Mrs. Polkington the total, and asked her what she was going to do.

She said she did not know; privately she felt there was no need for her to consider the question; was it not the one her self-invited brother had come to answer? He did answer it, almost as soon as he asked it.

"You will have to leave this house," he said, "sell what you can of its contents and pay all that is possible of your debts. You won't be able to pay many with that; the rest I shall have to arrange about, I suppose. Oh, not pay; don't think that for a moment; I've paid a deal more than I ought for you long ago. I mean to see the people and arrange that you pay by degrees; you will have to devote most of your income to that for a time. What will you live on in the meanwhile? This legacy—it is you who have got it, isn't it?" he said, turning to Julia; "I thought so. Fortunately the money is not in any way tied up, you can get at the principal. Well, the best thing to be done is to buy a good boarding-house. You could make a boarding-house pay, Caroline," he went on to his sister, "if you tried; your social gifts would be some use there—you will have to try."

Mrs. Polkington looked a little dismayed, and Violet said, "It would be rather degrading, wouldn't it?"

"Not so degrading as being sued at the county court," her uncle returned.

Mrs. Polkington felt there was truth in that, and, accustoming herself to a new idea with her usual rapidity, she even began to see that the alternative offered need not be so very unpleasant. Indeed, when she came to think about it, it might be almost pleasant if the boarding-house were very select; there would be society of a kind, perhaps of a superior kind, even; she need not lose prestige and she could still shine, and without such tremendous effort.

But her reflections were interrupted by the Captain.

"And what part have I in this scheme?" he asked.

His brother-in-law, to whom the question was addressed, considered a moment. "Well, I really don't know," he said at last; "of course you would live in the house."

"A burden on my wife and daughter! Idle, useless, not wanted!"

The banker had no desire to hurt Captain Polkington's feelings, but he saw no reason why he should not hear the truth—that he had long been all these things; idle, useless, unwanted, a burden not only to his wife and daughters, but also to all relations and connections who allowed themselves to be burdened. But the Captain's feelings were hurt; he was surprised and injured, though convinced of little besides the hardness of fate and the fact that his brother-in-law misunderstood him. He turned to his wife for support, and she supported, corroborating both what he said and what her brother did too, though they were diametrically opposed. It looked rather as if the discussion were going to wander off into side issues, but Julia brought it back by inquiring of her uncle—

"What part have I in this scheme?"

"You will help your mother," he answered, "and of course the concern will be nominally yours; that is to say, you will put your money in it, invest it in that instead of railways or whatever it is now in. I shall see that the thing is properly secured."

He glanced at Captain Polkington as he spoke, as if he thought he might have designs upon the money or investment. Julia only said, "I see," but in so soft a voice that she roused Mr. Ponsonby's suspicions. He had dealt a good deal with men and women, and he did not altogether like the amused observing eyes of the legatee, and he distrusted her soft voice of seeming acquiescence.

"It is of no use for you to get any nonsensical ideas," he said, "about what you will do and won't do; this is the only thing you can do; you have got to make a living, and you have got to pay your debts; beggars can't be choosers. The fact is, you have all lived on charity so long that you have got demoralised."

Violet flushed. "Really," she began to say, "though you have helped us once or twice, I don't think you have the right to insult—" but Mrs. Polkington raised a quieting hand; she did not wish to offend her brother.

He was not offended; he only spoke his mind rather plainly to them all, which, though it did no harm, did little good either; they were too old in their sins to profit by that now. After some more unpleasant talk all round, the family conclave broke up; Mr. Frazer came home, and every one went to bed.

Mr. Ponsonby had Julia's tiny room; there was nowhere else for him, seeing Violet and her husband had the one she and her youngest sister shared in their maiden days. Julia had to content herself with the drawing-room sofa; it was a very uncomfortable sofa, and the blankets kept slipping off so she did not sleep a great deal; but that did not matter much; she had the more time to think things over. Dawn found her sitting at the table wrapped in her blanket, writing by the light of one of the piano candles; she glanced up as the first cold light struggled in, and her face was very grave, it looked old, too, and tired, with the weariness which accompanies renunciation, quite as often as does peace or a sense of beatitude. She looked at the paper before her, a completely worked-out table of expenditure, a sort of statement of ways and means—the means being L50 a year. It could be done; she knew that during the night when the plan took shape in her mind; she had proved it to herself more than half-an-hour ago by figures—but there was no margin. It could only be done by renouncing that upon which she had set her heart; she could not work out the scheme and pay the debt of honour to Rawson-Clew. The legacy had at first seemed a heaven-sent gift for that purpose, but now, like the blue daffodil, it seemed that it could not be used to pay the debt. That was not to be paid by a heaven-sent gift any more than by a devil-helped theft; slow, honest work and patient saving might pay it in years, but nothing else it seemed. She put her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her locked hands looking down at the unanswerable figures, but they still told her the same hard truth.

"I might save it in time; I could do without this—and this," she told herself. It is so easy to do without oneself when one's mind is set on some purpose, but one has no right to expect others to do without, too—the whole thing would be no good if the others had to; she knew that. No, the debt could not be paid this way; she had no right to do it; it was her own fancy, her hobby, perhaps. No one demanded that it should be paid; law did not compel it; Rawson-Clew did not expect it; her father considered that it no longer existed; it was to please herself and herself alone that she would pay it, and her pleasure must wait.

Possibly she did not reason quite all this; she only knew that she could not do what she had set her heart on doing with the first of Aunt Jane's money, and the renunciation cost her much, and gave her no satisfaction at all. But the matter once decided, she put it at the back of her mind, and by breakfast time she was her usual self; to tell the truth, she was looking forward to a skirmish with Uncle William, and that cheered her.

After breakfast she led Mr. Ponsonby to the drawing-room, and he came not altogether unprepared for objections; he had half feared them last night.

"Uncle William," she said. "I have been thinking over your plan, and I don't think I quite like it."

"I dare say not," her uncle answered; "I can believe it; but that's neither here nor there, as I said last night, beggars can't be choosers."

Julia did not, as Violet had, resent this; she was the one member of the family who was not a beggar, and she knew perfectly well she could be a chooser. She sat down. "Perhaps I had better say just what I mean," she said pleasantly; "I am not going to do it."

"Not going to?" Mr. Ponsonby repeated indignantly. "Don't talk nonsense; you have got to, there's nothing else open to you; I'm not going to keep you all, feed, clothe and house you, and pay your debts into the bargain!"

"No," said Julia; "no, naturally not; I did not think of that."

"What did you think of, then?" her uncle demanded; he remembered that she had the nominal disposal of her own money, and though her objections were ridiculous, even impertinent in the family circumstances, they might be awkward. "What do you object to? I suppose you don't like the idea of paying debts; none of you seem to."

"No," Julia answered; "it isn't that; of course the debts must be paid in the way you say, it is the only way."

"I am glad you think so," the banker said sarcastically; "though I may as well tell you, young lady, that it would still be done even without your approval. What is it you don't like, spending your money for other people?"

Julia smiled a little. "We may as well call it that," she said; "I don't like the boarding-house investment."

"What do you like? Seeing your parents go to the poorhouse? That's what will happen."

"No, they can come and live with me. I have got a large cottage, a garden, a field, and L50 a year. If we keep pigs and poultry, and grow things in the garden we can live in the cottage on the L50 a year till the debts are all paid off; after that, of course, we should have enough to be pretty comfortable. We need not keep a servant there, or regard appearances or humbug—it would be very cheap."

"And nasty," her uncle added. He was not impressed with the wisdom of this scheme; indeed he did not seriously contemplate it as possible. "You are talking nonsense," he said; "absurd, childish nonsense; you don't know anything about it; you have no idea what life in a cottage means; the drudgery of cooking and scrubbing and so on; the doing without society and the things you are used to; as for pigs and gardening, why, you don't know how to dig a hole or grow a cabbage!"

But he was not quite right; Julia had learnt something about drudgery in Holland, something about growing things, at least in theory, and so much about doing without the society to which she was used at home that she had absolutely no desire for it left. She made as much of this plan to Mr. Ponsonby as was possible and desirable; enough, at all events, to convince him that she had thought out her plan in every detail and was very bent on it.

"I suppose the utter selfishness of this idea of yours has not struck you," he said at last. "You may think you would like this kind of life, though you wouldn't if you tried it, but how about your mother?"

"She won't like it," Julia admitted; "but then, on the other hand, there is father. I suppose you know he has taken to drink lately and at all times gambled as much as he could. What do you think would become of him in a boarding-house in some fashionable place, with nothing to do, and any amount of opportunity?"

Mr. Ponsonby did not feel able or willing to discuss the Captain's delinquencies with his daughter; his only answer was, "What will become of your mother keeping pigs and poultry and living in an isolated cottage? It would be social extinction for her."

"The boarding-house would be moral extinction for father."

Mr. Ponsonby grew impatient. "I suppose you think," he said irritably, "that you have reduced it to this—the sacrifice of one parent or the other. You have no business to think about such things; but if you had, to which do you owe the most duty? Who has done the most for you?"

"Well," Julia answered slowly, "I'm not sure I am considering duty only; people who don't pay their debts are not always great at duty, you know. Perhaps it is really inclination with me. Father is fonder of me than mother is; I have never been much of a social success. Mother did not find me such good material to work upon, so naturally she rather dropped me for the ones who were good material. I admire mother the more, but I am sorrier for father, because he can't take care of himself, and has no consolation left; it serves him right, of course, but it must be very uncomfortable all the same. Do you see?"

"No, I don't," her uncle answered shortly; "I am old-fashioned enough to think sons and daughters ought to do their duty to their parents, not analyse them in this way." He forgot that he had in a measure invited this analysis, and Julia did not remind him, although no doubt she was aware of it.

"I should like to do my duty to them both," she said; "and I believe I will do it best by going to the cottage. Father would get to be a great nuisance to mother at the boarding-house after a time, almost as bad as the pigs and poultry at the cottage. Also, if we had the boarding-house, father's moral extinction would be complete, but if we lived at the cottage mother's social one would not; she could go and stay with Violet and other people the worst part of the time, while we were shortest of money. Besides all that, there are two other things; I like the cottage best myself, and I believe it to be the best—I know the sort of living life we should live at a boarding-house—and then there is Johnny Gillat."

Mr. Ponsonby had no recollection of who Johnny Gillat was, and he did not trouble to ask; Julia's other reason was the one he seized upon. "You like it!" he said; "yes, now we have come to the truth; the person you are considering is yourself; I knew that all along; you need not have troubled to wrap it up in all these grand reasons—consideration for your father, and so on!"

"Oh, but think how much better it sounded!" Julia said, with twinkling eyes.

Mr. Ponsonby did not see the twinkle; he read Julia a lecture on selfishness and ended up by saying, "You are utterly selfish and ingrain lazy, that's what you are; you don't want to do a stroke of honest work for any one."

"Dishonest work is where I shine," Julia told him. "Oh, not scoundrelly dishonesty, company promoting, and so on," (Mr. Ponsonby was on several boards of directors, but he was not a company promoter, still he snorted a little) "I mean real dishonest work; with a little practice I would make such a thief as you do not meet every day in the week."

"I can quite believe it," her uncle retorted grimly; "lazy people generally do take to lying and stealing and, as I say, lazy is what you are. Sooner than work for your living, you go and pig in a cottage, because you think that way you can do nothing all day; lead an idle life."

"Yes," Julia agreed sweetly; "I think that must be my reason—a nice comfortable idle life with the pigs and poultry, and garden, and cooking, and scrubbing, and two incompetent old men. I really think you must be right."

Here it must be recorded, Mr. Ponsonby very nearly lost his temper, and not without justification. Was he not giving time and consideration and (probably) money to help this hopeless family on to its legs again? And was it not more than mortal middle-aged man could bear, not only to be opposed by the only member with any means, but also to be made sly fun of by her? He gave Julia his opinion very sharply, and no doubt she deserved it. But the worst of it was that did not prevent her from exercising the right of the person who is not a beggar to choose.

The Polkington family, who were soon afterwards called in to assist at the discussion, sided with Mr. Ponsonby. Violet and Mrs. Polkington with great decision, the Captain more weakly. Eventually he was won over to Julia because her scheme seemed to hold a place for him where he could flatter himself he was wanted. The argument went on and angrily, on the part of some present; Julia was most amiable; but, as the Van Heigens had found, she was an extremely awkward antagonist, the more amiable, the more awkward, even in a weak position, as with them, and in a strong one, as now, she was a great deal worse. Mr. Ponsonby lost the train he meant to catch back to London; he did not do it only for the benefit of his sister, but also because Julia had given battle and he was not going to retire from the field. Violet and Mr. Frazer deliberately postponed the hour of their departure; Violet was determined not to leave things in this condition; Julia's plan, she considered a disgrace to the whole family. Mr. Frazer was asked not to come to the family council; Violet explained to him that they were having trouble with Julia; she would tell him all about it afterwards, but it distressed her mother so much that it would perhaps be kinder if he was not there at the time. Mr. Frazer quite agreed; he shared some of his wife's sentiments about appearances; also he had no wish to be distressed either in mind or tastes.

Violet did tell him about it afterwards; a curtailed and selected version, but one eminently suitable to the purpose. On hearing it he was justly angry with Julia's heartless selfishness in keeping her legacy to herself. He was also shocked at her determination to go and live a farm labourer's life in a farm labourer's cottage. He was truly sorry for Mrs. Polkington, between whom and himself there existed a mutual affection and admiration. He said it was bitterly hard that her one remaining daughter should treat her thus; that it was barbarous, impossible, that a woman of her age, tastes, refinement and gifts should be compelled to lead such a life as was proposed. In fact he could not and would not permit it; he hoped that she would make her home at his rectory; nay, he insisted upon it; both Violet and himself would not take a refusal; she must and should come to them.



Julia smiled her approval; when things were worked up to this end; she would have liked to clap her applause, it was so well done. Mrs. Polkington and Violet were so admirable, they were already almost convinced of all they said; in two days they would believe it quite as much as Mr. Ponsonby did now. She did not in the least mind having to appear as the ungrateful daughter; it fitted in so beautifully with Violet's arrangement. And really the arrangement was very good; the utilitarian feelings of the family did not suffer at wrenches and splits as did more tender ones; no one would object much to an advantageous division. And most advantageous it certainly was; the cottage household would go better without Mrs. Polkington and she would be far happier at the rectory. She would not make any trouble there; rather, she would give her son-in-law cause to be glad of her coming; there would be scope for her there, and she would possibly develop better than she had ever had a chance of doing before.

So everything was decided. The house in East Street was to be given up, and most of its contents sold; as Julia's cottage was furnished already with Aunt Jane's things, she need only take a few extras from the home. The debts were to be paid as far as possible now, and the small income was to be divided; part was to go as pin money to Mrs. Polkington, the main part of the remainder to go to the debts, and a very small modicum to come with the Captain to the cottage.

Julia was quite satisfied, and let it be apparent. This, with her obvious cheerfulness, rather incensed Violet, who regarded the sale of their effects as rather a disgrace, and Julia's plans for the future, as a great one.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she told her younger sister, just before she left Marbridge. "I am positively ashamed to think you belong to us. It will be nice to meet Norfolk people at the Palace or somewhere, who have seen you tending your pigs and doing your washing. It is such an unusual name; I can quite fancy some one being introduced to mother and thinking it odd that her name should be the same as some dirty cottage people."

"Well," Julia suggested, "why not change it? Such a trifle as a name surely need not stand in our way; we have got over worse things than that. Mother can be something else, or I can; mother had better do it; father will forget who he is if I make a change."

"Don't be absurd," Violet said; "I only wish you could change it though; I never want to write to you as Julia Polkington in case some servant were to notice the address; one never knows how these things come out."

"Don't write as that," her sister told her; "address me as 'Julia Snooks' or anything else you like; I am not particular."

Violet did not take this as a serious suggestion; nevertheless, Julia told Mr. Frazer on the platform at Marbridge that she and Violet had been having a christening, and that she was now Julia Snooks. Mr. Ponsonby said it was ridiculous, to which Julia replied—

"That is what I am myself."

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.

So Rawson-Clew read it, and very angry he was. And the worst of all was that on the same night that he received this letter, he also received orders to go at once to Constantinople. He had no time for anything and no choice but to go and leave the search. But during his journey across Europe an idea came to him with the suddenness of an inspiration. He knew what Julia had done—she had "retired," even as she had said she hoped to on the first day they walked together. She had retired somewhere from shams and hypocrisy, from society and her family; possibly even she had adopted the corduroy and onions part of the ambition; if so, that would explain her mother's refusal, based on some kind of pride, to give her address. She had retired, and she had taken Johnny Gillat with her, and her own people had washed their hands of her! He knew now what to look for when he should come back. He might not be back for two months or even three, but when he did come he would be able to find Julia and talk to her about the explosive—and other things.

* * * * *

It may be here said that the wonderful explosive did not do what was expected of it, either in England or Holland, for it was found to decompose on keeping. It did everything else that was boasted of it, but no one succeeded in keeping it more than fifteen months, an irremediate defect in an explosive for military purposes. This, of course, was not discovered at first, and the honour and glory of obtaining the specimen was considerable, if only there had been some one to take it. Rawson-Clew did not consider himself the person.



CHAPTER XVI

THE SIMPLE LIFE

Julia was collecting fir-cones. All around her the land lay brown and still; dead heather, and sometimes dead bracken, a shade paler, and, more rarely, gorse bushes, nearly brown, too, in their sober winter dress. It was almost flat, a wonderful illimitable place, very remote, very silent, unbroken except for occasional pine-trees. These were not scattered but grew in clumps, miles apart, though looking near in this place of distances, and also in a belt not more than five or six trees wide, winding mile after mile like a black band over the plain. Julia stood on the edge of this belt now, gathering the dropped cones and putting them into a sack. The afternoon was advanced and already it was beginning to grow dark among the trees, but she determined not to go till she had got all she could carry. It was the first time she had been to collect cones; she had sent her father once and Mr. Gillat once. They had taken longer and gathered less than she, but it was not on that account that she had gone herself to-day. Rather it was because she wanted to go to the dark belt of trees which she saw every day from her window, and because she wanted to go right out into the wide open land and see what it looked like and feel what it felt like. And when she got there she found it, like the Dunes, all she had expected and more.

At last she had her sack full, and, shouldering it, carried it off on her back, which, seeing the comfort of the arrangement, must be the way Nature intended weights to be carried. Clear of the shadow of the trees it was lighter; the grey sky held the light long; twilight seemed to creep up from the ground rather than fall from above, as if darkness were an earth-born thing that gained slowly, and, for a time, only upon the brighter gift of Heaven. It was quieter, too, out here, for under the pines, though the weather was still, there was a breathing moan as if the trees sighed incessantly in their sleep. But out here in the brown land it was very quiet; the air light and dry and keen, with the flavour of the not distant sea mingled with the smell of the pines and the dead ferns—a thing to stir the pulse and revive the memory of the divine inheritance and the old belief that man is but a little lower than the angels, related to the infinite and god-like.

White's Cottage stood where the heath-land ceased and the sand began. There was much sand; tradition said it had gradually overwhelmed a village that lay beyond; indeed, that White's Cottage was the last and most distant house of the lost place. Be that as it may, it certainly was very solitary, rather far from the village of Halgrave, with no road leading to it except the track that came from Halgrave and stopped at the cottage gate—there was nowhere to go beyond.

Dusk had almost deepened to darkness when Julia reached the house; it gleamed curiously in the half light, for it was built of flints, for the most part grey, but with a paler one here and there catching the light. She put her sack of cones in one of the several sheds which were built on the sides of the cottage, and which, being of the same flint material, made it look larger than it was. Then she went into the kitchen.

Johnny Gillat was there before her; he had been busy in the garden all the afternoon, but, with the help of the field-glasses which he had not been allowed to sell, he had descried her coming across the open land. As soon as he was sure of her, and while she was still a good way off, he hurried away his tools into the house to get ready. He wanted it all to look to her as it had to him on the day when he came back from cone-getting—the fire blazing, the tea ready, the kitchen snug and neat; very unlike the dining-room at Marbridge with the one gas jet burning and "Bouquet" alight. Of course Johnny did not quite succeed; he never did in matters small or great, but he did his best. The dinner things, which Captain Polkington was to have washed, were not done, and still about. They had to be put in the back kitchen, and Johnny, who had no idea of saving labour, took so long carrying them away, that he hardly had time to set the tea. He had meant to make some toast, but there was no time for that; the first piece of bread had no more than begun to get warm when he heard Julia's step outside. But the fire was blazing nicely, and that was the chief thing; even though the putting on of the kettle had been forgotten. When Julia came in and saw the fire and crooked tablecloth and hastily-arranged cups, and Johnny's beaming face, she exclaimed, "How cubby it looks! Why, you have got the tea all ready, and"—sniffing the air—"I believe you are making toast; that is nice!"

Mr. Gillat beamed; then he caught sight of the kettle standing on the hearth, and his face fell.

But Julia put it on the fire. "It will give you good time to finish the toast while it boils," she said; "toast ought not to be hurried, you know; yours will be just right."

It was not; it was rather smoky when it came to be eaten, the fire not being very suitable; but that did not matter; Julia declared it perfect. This was the only form of hypocrisy she practised in the simple life; possibly, if she thought of the will more than the deed, it was really not such great hypocrisy. At all events she practised it; she did not think truth so beautiful that frail daily life must be the better for its undiluted and uncompromising application to all poor little tender efforts.

During tea the great subject of conversation was the hen house. The last occupant of the cottage had kept hens and all the out-buildings were in good repair; however, a recent gale had loosened part of the roof of this one, and Captain Polkington had been mending it. There had not been much to do; the Captain could not do a great deal; his faculties of work—if he ever had any—had atrophied for want of use. Still, he thought he had done a good day's work, and, as a consequence, was important and inclined to be exacting. That is the reason why he had neglected the dinner things; he felt that a man who had done all he had was entitled to some rest and consideration. Julia did not mind in the least; if he was happy and contented, that was all she wished; she never reckoned his help as one of the assets of the household. For that matter, she had not reckoned Mr. Gillat's of much value either, but there she found she was a little mistaken. Johnny was very slow and very laborious and really ingenious in finding a wrong way of doing things even when she thought she had left him no choice, but he was very painstaking and persevering. He would do anything he was told, and he took the greatest pleasure in doing it. Whether it was digging in the garden, or feeding the pigs, or collecting firewood, or setting the table for meals, he was certain to do everything to the best of his ability, and was perfectly happy if she would employ him. There can be no doubt that the coming to White's Cottage began a time of real happiness to Mr. Gillat; possibly the happiest since his wealthy boyhood when he spent lavishly and indiscriminately on anybody and everybody. The Captain was less happy; his satisfaction was of an intermittent order. His discontent did not take the form of wishing to go back to Marbridge or to join his wife, only in feeling oppressed and misunderstood, and wishing occasionally that he had not been born or had been born rich—and of course remained so all his life. He was dissatisfied that evening when the contentment begotten of his work had worn off; he wanted to go to the market town to-morrow. Julia was going to get several necessaries for the household; he considered that he ought to go too, but she would not take him.

"You will have a great deal to carry," he protested.

"Yes," Julia agreed; "but I shall manage it."

"It is not fit for you to go about alone," her father urged.

She forebore to smile, though the novelty, not to say tardiness of the idea amused her; she only said, "It would take you and Johnny too long to walk into the town; we can't afford to spend too long on the way, and we can't afford a cart to take us."

The Captain was not convinced; he never was by any one's logic but his own; perhaps because his own was totally different to all other kinds, including the painful logic of facts. He sighed deeply. "It is a strange, a humiliating condition of things," he observed to Mr. Gillat, "when a father has to ask his daughter's permission to go into town."

Johnny rubbed the side of his chair thoughtfully, then a bright idea occurred to him. "Ah, but," he said, "gentlemen always have to ask ladies' permission before they can accompany them anywhere—especially when it is the lady of the house."

A wise man might not perhaps have said this last, but Johnny did, and as it happened, it did not much matter; before the Captain could answer, Julia rose from the table and began to clear away.

Sundry household jobs had to be done in the evening; some were always left till then; in these short dark days it was advisable to use the light for work out of doors. At last, however, all was done, and Julia began to arrange for to-morrow. The Captain was sulky and sure that he would have rheumatism and so not be able to go out. His daughter did not seem to be greatly troubled; she told him of some easy work in the house he could do, or if he liked and felt able, he would perhaps go and get more fir-cones; there were plenty, and they saved other fuel. The Captain replied that he was not in the habit of taking orders from his children.

Johnny looked unhappy; he did not like these ruffles to the tranquil life; it always pained him for any one to be dissatisfied, with reason or without it. When Julia turned to him he was even more ready than usual to take orders; he would have done anything she told him from sweeping the copper flue to calling upon the rector, but secretly he hoped she would give him work in the garden.

The garden was of considerable size, and, by some freak of nature, of fairly good soil, though the field and most of the surrounding land was very poor. They had all worked hard in this plot ever since their coming; there was not much more to be done, or at least not much planting, which was what Mr. Gillat liked. However, there had been no sharp frosts yet and Julia, who knew his tastes, thought she could find something to please him. She called him to the back kitchen and between them they brought from there a wooden case, the contents of which she began to sort over to find an occupation suitable to him. The box was getting rather empty now, but there was still something in it, bulbs and seeds and printed directions, and a strange mixed smell of greyish-brown paper and buckwheat husks and the indescribable smell of Dutch barns.

It had come from Holland, from the Van Heigens; it was Mijnheer's present to the disgraced companion who had been so summarily dismissed. When Julia went to the cottage, it occurred to her to write to Mijnheer and tell him where she was, and how she meant to live a harmless horticultural life. She had come to think that perhaps she ought to tell him; she knew how her own words, about the way they were thrusting a sinner down, would stay with him and his wife. They would quite likely grow in the slow mind of the old man until he became uneasy and unhappy about her, and blamed himself for her undoing. At the time that she spoke she wasted the words to so grow and germinate; but now, looking back, she could think differently; after all the Van Heigens had only done what they thought right, and she had done what she knew to be at least open to doubt. And they had not thrust her down; it would take considerably more than that to do anything of the sort; they had allowed her an opportunity which she had used to achieve a great success. And now that it was achieved and she had left it all behind and was settled to the simple life—her vague ambition—her heart went out to the simple folk who had first shown her that it might be good; who had been kind to her when there was nothing to gain, who had made her ashamed.

So she wrote to Mijnheer and told him that she had fared well, and found another situation in Holland after leaving his service. Also that she had now left it and, having inherited a little property, had come to live in a country cottage with her father. She further said that she meant to imitate the Dutch and do her own house-work and also grow things, vegetables especially, in her garden.

And Mijnheer, when he got the letter, was delighted; so, too, was Mevrouw; Joost said nothing. They read the letter two or three times, showed it to the Snieders (including Denah) and to the Dutch girl who now filled Julia's situation—more or less. They talked over it a great deal and over Julia too; they remembered every detail about her, her good points and her great fall. They were as delighted as they could be to hear that she was well and happy and apparently, good. Mijnheer especially was pleased to hear that she was with her father—he did not know that gentleman—he was sure she would be well looked after with him, and that, so he said, was what she wanted. So, contrary to their theory, but not out of accord with their practice, they forgave the sin for the sake of the sinner, and Mijnheer ordered to be packed, seeds and bulbs and plants for Julia's garden. He selected them himself, flowers as well as vegetables, sorts which he thought most suitable; and he ordered Joost to stick to the bags strips cut out of catalogues where, in stiff Dutch-English, directions are given as to how to grow everything that can be grown. And if Joost put in some sorts not included in his father's list, and failed to tell the good man about it, it was no doubt all owing to his having at one time associated with the dishonest Julia.

The packing and dispatching of the box gave great pleasure to the Van Heigens; but the receiving and unpacking gave even greater pleasure when at last it reached Miss Snooks at White's Cottage. Julia had not told Mijnheer why she was Miss Snooks now and he, after grave consideration, decided that it must be because of the legacy, and in fulfilment of some obscure English law of property. Having so decided, he addressed the case in good faith, and advised her of its departure.

Julia and Mr. Gillat planted the things that came in the box; Julia planted most, but Mr. Gillat enjoyed it even when he was only looking on. There was one bulb she set when he was not there to look on, but it did not come with the others. She chose a spot that best fulfilled the conditions described in the directions for growing daffodils and there, late one afternoon, she planted the bulb that she had brought with her from the Van Heigens. Afterwards she marked the place round and told Johnny and her father there was a choice flower there which was not to be touched.

Julia went to the market town as she had arranged. Mr. Gillat worked in the garden; Captain Polkington watched him for a little and then went out, after spending, as he always did, some time getting ready. He took a basket with him; he thought of collecting fir-cones and he objected to the sack, though it held a vast deal more; he felt carrying it to be derogatory to a soldier and a gentleman. It is true he did not get fir-cones that day, but he really meant to when he started.

Julia, in the meantime, did her shopping, and, having loaded herself with as much as she could carry—more than most people could except those Continental maids and mistresses who do their own marketing, she started for home. It was a long walk—a long way to Halgrave and a good bit beyond that to the cottage. She did not expect to reach the village till dusk, but she thought very probably she would find her father or Mr. Gillat there; she had suggested that one or both of them should come to meet her and help carry the parcels the rest of the way.

Johnny fell in with the suggestion; she saw him through the twilight before she reached the village. Her father, she concluded, was still sulky at her refusal to have his company earlier and so would not come now.

"I suppose father would not come?" she said, as she and Mr. Gillat walked on after a readjustment of the burden.

"Oh, no," Johnny answered; "it was not that; I'm sure he would have come if he had been in when I started, but he was not back then."

"Not back?" Julia repeated. "Why, where has he gone?"

"Well," Johnny replied slowly, "he said he was going to get fir-cones, but I'm not sure, I didn't see him go across the heath. Still, I dare say he went—he took a basket, so I think he must have gone."

Julia apparently did not find this very conclusive evidence. "There is not anywhere much about here where he can go," she said; much less as if she were stating a fact than as if she were reviewing likely and unlikely places. "There is only the one road, and that goes to Halgrave, and there is nowhere for him there."

"No, oh, no," Johnny said; "there really is nowhere there."

"There is the 'Dog and Pheasant,'" Julia went on meditatively, "but he would not get anything he cared about there."

"No," Mr. Gillat said decidedly; "besides he would not go there, he would not sit in a small country public house and—er—and—sit there—and so on—he would not think of going to such a place. It is one thing when you are out in the country for a day's fishing or something, to have a glass of ale and a piece of bread and cheese at an inn, but the other is quite different; he wouldn't do that—oh, no. To sit in a little bar and—"

"Booze," Julia concluded for him. "Johnny, you are always a wonder to me; how you have contrived to live so long and yet to keep your belief in man unspotted from the world beats me."

Johnny looked uncomfortable and a little puzzled. "Well, but your father—" he began.

"My father is a man," Julia interrupted, "and I would not undertake to say a man would not do anything—on occasions—or a woman either, for the matter of that. There is a beast in most men, and an archangel in lots, and a snob, and a prig, and a dormant hero, and an embryo poet. There are great possibilities in men; you have to watch and see which is coming out top and back that, and then half the time you are wrong. Of course, at father's age, possibilities are getting over; one or two things have come top and stay there."

Mr. Gillat opened the cottage door and, not answering these distressing generalities, fell back on his one fact. "Look," he said, pointing to an empty peg, "he must have gone after fir-cones; you see the basket has gone; he took it with him; I am sure he would not have taken it to the 'Dog.'"

"I believe their whisky is very bad," Julia said, and seemed to think more of that than the argument of the basket. "I'll give him another hour before I set out to look for him."

She gave him the hour and then, in spite of Mr. Gillat's entreaties to be allowed to go in her place, set out for Halgrave. But she did not have to go all the way, for she met her father coming back. And she early discovered that, if he had not been to the "Dog and Pheasant," he had been somewhere else where he could get whisky. They walked home together, and she made neither comments nor inquiries; she did not consider that evening a suitable time. The Captain was only a little muddled and, as has been before said, a very little alcohol was sufficient to do that; he was quite clear enough to be a good deal relieved by his daughter's behaviour, and even thought that she noticed nothing amiss. Indeed, by the morning, he had himself almost come to think there was nothing to notice.

But alas, for the Captain! He had never learnt to beware of those deceptive people who bide their time and bring into domestic life the diplomatic policy of speaking on suitable occasions only. He came down-stairs that morning very well pleased with himself; he felt that he had vindicated the rights of man yesterday; this conclusion was arrived at by a rather circuitous route, but it was gratifying; it was also gratifying to think that he had been able to enjoy himself without being found out. But Julia soon set him right on this last point; she did not reproach him or, as Mrs. Polkington would have done, point out the disgrace he would bring upon them; she only told him that it must not occur again. She also explained that, while he lived in her house, she had a right to dictate in these matters and, what was more, she was going to do so.

At this the Captain was really hurt; his feeling for dignity was very sensitive, though given to manifesting itself in unusual ways. "Am I to be dependent for the rest of my days?" he asked.

Julia did not answer; she thought it highly probable.

"Am I to be dictated to at every turn?" he went on.

Julia did answer. "No," she said; "I don't think there will be any need for that."

Captain Polkington paid no attention to the answer; he was standing before the kitchen fire, apostrophising things in general rather than asking questions.

"Are my goings out and comings in to be limited by my daughter? Am I to ask her permission before I accept hospitality or make friends?"

"Friends?" said Julia. "Then it was not 'The Dog and Pheasant' you went to, yesterday? I thought not."

"Then you thought wrong," her father retorted incautiously; "I did go there."

"To begin with," Julia suggested; "but you came across some one, and went on—is that it?"

The Captain denied it, but he had not his wife's and daughters' gifts; his lies were always of the cowardly and uninspired kind that seldom serve any purpose. Julia did not believe him, and set to work cross questioning him so that soon she knew what she wanted. It seemed that her surmise was correct; he had met some one at the "Dog and Pheasant"; a veterinary surgeon who had come there to doctor a horse. They had struck up an acquaintance—the Captain had the family gift for that—and the surgeon had asked him to come to his house on the other side of Halgrave.

When the information reached this point Julia said suavely, but with meaning: "Perhaps you had better not go there again."

"I shall certainly go when I choose," Captain Polkington retorted; "I should like to know what is to prevent me and why I should not?"

Julia remembered his dignity. "Shall we say because it is too far?" she suggested.

After that she dismissed the subject; she did not see any need to pursue it further; her father knew her wishes—commands, perhaps, he called them—all that was left for her to do was to see that he could not help fulfilling them, and that was not to be done by much talking any more than by little. So she made no further comments on his doings and, to change the subject, told him she had bought some whisky in the town yesterday and he had better open the bottle at dinner time.

The Captain stared for a moment, but quickly recovered from his astonishment, though not because he recognised that a little whisky at home was part of a judicious system. He merely thought that his daughter was going to treat him properly after all, and in spite of what had been lately said. This idea was a little modified when he found that, though he drank the whisky, Julia kept the bottle under lock and key.

It also seemed that she found a way of enforcing her wishes, or at least preventing frequent transgressions of them, although, of course, she was prepared for occasional mishaps. There really was nothing at the "Dog and Pheasant" that the Captain could put up with even if he had not been always very short of money—absurdly short even of coppers—and Julia saw that he was short. There remained nothing for him but the hospitality of acquaintances, and they did not abound in Halgrave, the only place within reach; also, as he declared, they were a stingy lot. The next time he called upon his new friend, the veterinary surgeon, he was at a loss to understand this; it was unlike his previous experience of the man and most disagreeably surprising; he could not think why it should happen. But then he had not seen Julia set out for Halgrave on the afternoon of the same day that she explained things to him. She had on all her best clothes, even her best boots, in spite of the bad roads. She looked trim and dainty as a Frenchwoman, but there was something about her which suggested business.

There are, no doubt, advantages attached to the simple life. It is decidedly easier to deal with your drawback when you do not have to pretend it has no existence. You can enlist help from outside if you can go boldly to veterinary surgeons and others, and say that whisky is your father's weakness, and would they please oblige and gratify you by not offering him any.



CHAPTER XVII

NARCISSUS TRIANDRUS STRIATUM, THE GOOD COMRADE

The winter wore away; a very long winter, and a very cold one to those at the cottage who were used to the mild west country. But at last spring came; late and with bitter winds and showers of sleet, but none the less wonderful, especially as one had to look to see the tentative signs of its coming. March in Marbridge used to mean violets and daffodils, tender green shoots and balmy middays. March here means days of pale clean light and great sweeping wind which chased grey clouds across a steely sky, and stirred the lust for fight and freedom in men's minds and set them longing to be up and away and at battle with the world or the elements. This restlessness, which those who have lost it call divine, took possession of Julia that springtime, and a dissatisfaction with the simple life and its narrow limits beset her. Surely, she found herself asking, this was not the end of all things—this cottage to be the limit of her life and ambitions; her work to grow cabbages and eat them, to keep her father in the paths of temperance and sobriety, and to make Johnny's closing days happy? The March winds spoke vaguely of other things; they whispered of the life she had put from her; the big, wide, moving, thinking, feeling life which would have been living indeed. Worse, they whispered of the man who had offered it to her, the man whom her heart told her she would have made friend and comrade if only circumstances had allowed him to make her wife. But she thrust these thoughts from her; she had no choice, she never had a choice; now less if possible than before, there was no heart-aching decision to make. The work she had taken up could not be put down; she must go on even if voices stronger and more real than these wind ones called her out.

One day the crocuses which Mijnheer had sent came into flower; Julia thought she had never seen anything so beautiful as the little purple and golden cups, partly because they had been sent in kindness of heart, partly, no doubt, because she had grown them herself, and she had never grown a flower which had its root in the inarticulate joy of all things at the first flowering of dead brown earth and monotonous lifeless days. The next event in her calendar, and Johnny's, was the blooming of the fruit trees. She had seen hillside orchards in the west country break into a foam of flower—a sight perhaps as beautiful as any England has to show. But, to her mind, it did not compare with the sparse white bloom which lay like a first hoar frost on her crooked trees and showed cold and delicate against the pale blue sky. After that, nearly every day, there was something fresh and interesting for Mr. Gillat and Julia, so that the March wind was forgotten, except in the ill-effect on Captain Polkington with whom it had disagreed a good deal, both in health and temper.

That spring, as indeed every spring, there was a flower show in London at the Temple Gardens. The things exhibited were principally bulb flowers, ixias, iris, narcissus and the like; the event was interesting to growers, both professional and amateur. Joost Van Heigen came over from Holland to attend; he was sent by his father in a purely business capacity, but of course he was expected, and himself expected, to enjoy it, too; there would be many novelties exhibited and many beautiful flowers in which he would feel the sober appreciative pleasure of the connoisseur. He came to England some days before the show; he had, besides attending that, to see some important customers on business, also one or two English growers.

Now, certain districts of Norfolk are very well suited to the cultivation of bulbs, so it is not surprising that Joost's business took him there. And, seeing that he had a Bradshaw and a good map, and had, moreover, six months ago addressed Julia's box of bulbs to her nearest railway town, it is not surprising that he found the whereabouts of the town of Halgrave. It was on Saturday night when he found it on the map; he was sitting in the coffee-room of a temperance hotel at the time. He had done business for the day, and, seeing that the English do not care about working on Sundays, he would probably have to-morrow as well as to-night free. Julia's town was close—a short railway journey, then a walk to Halgrave, and then one would be at her home—it would be a pleasant way of spending the morning of a spring Sunday. He thought about it a little; he had no invitation to go and see Julia, and he did not like going anywhere without an invitation or an express reason. She might not want to see him, or it might put out her domestic arrangements if he came; he knew domestic arrangements were subject to such disturbances. He hesitated some time, though it must be admitted that the fact that he had asked her to marry him and been refused did not come much into his consideration. He had not altered his mind about that proposal, and he did not imagine she had altered hers; his devotion and her indifference were definite settled facts which would remain as long as either of them remained, but there was nothing embarrassing in them to him. At last he decided that he would go, and it was the blue daffodil which decided him.

He had never heard what Julia had done with the bulb he had given her. It was only reasonable to think she had sold it, seeing it was for the sake of money she had wanted it, but no whisper of any such thing had reached him or his father. He longed to know about it, to hear the name of the man who had his treasure; for whom, in all probability, it was blooming now. It was some connoisseur he was nearly certain; Julia would not have sold it to another grower. He had not lain any such condition on her, but she would not have done that; she knew too well what it meant to him; he never doubted her in that matter, his faith was of too simple a kind. Still he determined to go and see her, partly that he might hear the name of the man who bought the blue daffodil, partly because he wanted to and remembered that Julia, in the old days, did not seem of the kind to be upset by unexpected visitors and similar small domestic accidents.

It was a hot-dinner Sunday at the cottage. These occurred alternately; on the in between Sundays Julia, supported by Johnny and the Captain, went to church. On those sacred to hot dinners she stayed at home and did the cooking, the Captain staying with her. Mr. Gillat used to also in the winter, but lately, during the spring, he had been induced to teach in the Sunday school, and now went every Sunday to the village, first to teach and afterwards to conduct his class to church.

It was Mr. Stevens, the Rector of Halgrave, who had made this surprising suggestion to Mr. Gillat. He, good man, had in the course of time been to see his parishioners at the remote cottage, grinding along the deep sandy road on his heavy old tricycle; but it was not during the visit that he thought of Johnny as a teacher; it was when he made further acquaintance with him at Halgrave. Johnny was the member of the party who went most often to the village shop; he liked the expedition, it gave him a feeling of importance; he also liked gossiping with the woman who kept the shop, and he dearly loved meeting the village children. On one of these occasions, when Johnny was engaged in making peace between two little girls—little girls were his specialty—the rector met him and it was then it occurred to him that Mr. Gillat might help in the school. It was not much of an honour, the school was in rather a bad way just now, and boasted no other teachers than the rector and a raspy-tempered girl of sixteen, but Johnny was much flattered. He thought he ought to refuse; he was quite sure he could not teach; the idea of his doing so was certainly new and strange; he was also sure he was not virtuous enough. But in the end he was persuaded to try; Julia told him that he might hear the catechism with an open book, choose the Bible tales he was surest of, to read and explain, and have his class of little girls to tea very often. So it came about that Mr. Gillat set out Sunday after Sunday to school, and if his reading and expounding of the Scriptures was less in accord with modern light than the traditions that held in the childhood of the nation, no one minded; the children at Halgrave were not painfully sharp, and they soon got to love Mr. Gillat with a friendly lemon-droppish love which was not critical.

Captain Polkington did not approve of the Sunday-school teaching, especially on those days when he had to clean the knives. The Sunday when Joost Van Heigen came was one of these. The Captain watched Mr. Gillat's preparations with a disgusted face; at last he remarked, "I wonder if you think you do any good by this nonsense?"

Johnny, who had got as far as the doorstep, stopped and considered rather as if the idea had just occurred to him.

"There must be teachers," he said at length, looking round at the open landscape; "and there aren't many about."

"You are a fine teacher!" the Captain sneered.

Mr. Gillat rubbed his finger along the edge of the Bible he carried. "I was wild," he confessed; "yes, I was, I don't think—but then the rector said—and Julia—"

His meaning was rather obscure, but possibly the Captain followed it although he did cut him short by saying, "I should never have expected it of you; if any one had told me that you, one of us, would take to this sort of thing, I would not have believed it. I mean, if they had told me in the old days, before things were changed and broken up, when we were still alive and things moved at a pace—when a man knew if he were alive or dead and whether it was night or morning."

"Yes, yes," Johnny said, but not altogether as if he regretted the passing of those golden days; "things were different then; we didn't think of it then."

"Teaching in the Sunday school?" the Captain asked. "Not quite! And if we had, we shouldn't have thought of coming to it even when we had got old and foolish."

Johnny looked uncomfortable and unhappy; then a bright idea occurred to him. "There wasn't a Sunday school there," he said. "You remember the hill station?"

Just then Julia called from the house, "Father, I believe we might have a dish of turnip tops if you would get them. Johnny, you will be late if you don't start soon."

Johnny promptly started, and the Captain, less promptly, sauntered away to find a basket for the turnip tops, muttering the while something about people whose religion took the form of going out and leaving others to do the work.

But by the time Joost Van Heigen arrived, the Captain was quite amiable again. He had had a quiet morning with nothing to do after the turnip tops were brought in and the knives cleaned, and Johnny had had a long tiring walk home from church in a hot sun and a high wind, which Captain Polkington felt to be a just dispensation of Providence to reward those who stopped at home and cleaned knives. Joost arrived not long after Mr. Gillat; Julia heard the gate click as she was taking the meat from before the fire.

"Who is that, Johnny?" she asked.

Johnny, who had just come down-stairs after taking off his Sunday coat, looked out of the window.

"I don't know," he said; "a young man."

Julia, having deposited the joint on the dish, went to the kitchen door. "Put the meat where it will keep hot," she said to Johnny; "I expect it's some one who thinks the last people live here still; fortunately there is enough dinner."

She pushed open the unlatched door and saw the visitor going round to the front. "Joost!" she exclaimed. "Why, Joost, is it really you?"

She ran down the garden path after him and he, turning just before he reached the front door, stopped.

"Good-morning, miss," he said solemnly, removing his hat with a sweep. "I hope I see you well. I do not inconvenience you—you are perhaps engaged?"

"Come in," Julia answered; "I am glad to see you!"

There was no mistaking the sincerity of her tone; Joost's solemn face relaxed a little. "You are not occupied?" he said; "I do not disturb you?"

"Yes, occupied in dishing up the dinner," Julia said, "which is just the best of all times for you to have come. Johnny!" she called; "Johnny, Joost is here."

Mr. Gillat, who had been carefully placing the dish where the cinders would fall into it, came to the door.

"This is Mr. Gillat, a very old friend of mine," Julia explained, and Joost bowed deeply, offering his hand and saying, "I hope that you are well, sir."

Whereupon Mr. Gillat impressed, imitated him as nearly as he could, and Julia looked away.

They had dinner in the kitchen on Sundays as well as week days, they made no difference to-day. Joost looked round him once or twice; he had never seen a place like this. It was the front kitchen; the cooking and most of the house-work was done in the back one, a big barn-like place with doors in all corners. The front one was half a kitchen and half a sitting-room, warm-coloured, with red-tiled floor and low ceiling, heavily cross-beamed and hung with herbs and a couple of hams, in great contrast to the whiteness of the kitchen at the bulb farm. There were brass and copper pots and pans such as he knew, but they reflected an open fire, a dirty extravagance unknown to Mevrouw. Joost glanced at the fire, and it is to be feared that he was at heart a traitor to his native customs. Then he looked at the open window where the sunshine streamed in—as was never permitted in Holland—and he wondered if it really spoilt things very much, and, being a florist, thought it certainly would spoil the tulips in the mug that stood on the wide sill.

During dinner they spoke English for the sake of the Captain and Mr. Gillat; Joost spoke well, if slowly, with a careful and accurate precision. He also observed much, both of outside things, as the fact that Johnny and the Captain cleared the table while Julia sat still, contrary to Dutch custom. And also of things less on the surface—as that Julia was head of the household and that Captain Polkington was not the impressive and authoritative person Mijnheer seemed to think. Concerning this last fact he made no remark when, on his return home, he described the ways and customs of Julia's cottage to his parents. The description served Mevrouw at least, as representative of all English households ever afterwards.

When dinner was done and everything cleared up, or rather Julia's part, she took Joost into the garden.

"Now," she said in Dutch, "let us come out and talk and look at things."

They went out and he began to admire her orderly garden and to tell her why this plant had done well and that one had failed. He did not speak of the blue daffodil, he thought he could better ask about that a little later. She did not speak of it either by name; he and it were so inseparably connected in her mind.

"Come along," she said, when he stopped to look into a tulip to see if its centre was as truly black as it should have been. "Come and see it."

He followed her obediently, but asked what it was he was to see.

"The blue daffodil, of course," she said.

He stopped dead. "You have got it here?" he exclaimed. "You have not sold it?"

"Certainly not."

"But why—why?" he stared at her in amazement. "You wanted money, it was for that you wanted the bulb, to sell; you told me so. Do you not want money now?"

"Oh, yes," Julia said; "but that is an incurable disease hereditary in our family."

"You do want money?" he inquired mystified. "This inheritance is small, not enough? Why, then, did you not sell the bulb?"

Julia shrugged her shoulders. "I could not very well," she said.

"But why not? You thought to do so at one time; your intention was to sell it if you had—"

"Stolen it? Yes, that is quite true, and it would not have mattered then. If I had stolen it I might as well have sold it; one dishonourable act feels lonely without another; it generally begets another to keep itself company."

Joost looked at her uncomprehendingly. "But why," he persisted, clinging to the one thing he did understand, "why did you not sell it? It was for that I gave it to you, to do with as you pleased; I knew you would do only what was right and necessary."

Julia could have smiled a little at this last word; it seemed as if even Joost had learnt to temper right with necessity to suit her dealings, but she only said, "That was one reason why I could not sell it. You expected me to do right, so I was obliged to do it; faith begets righteousness as dishonour begets dishonour."

"I do not quite understand," he began, but she cut him short.

"No," she said; "we always found it difficult to make things quite plain, it is no use trying now. Come and see the daffodil, you will understand that, at all events, and better than I do. It is not quite fully out yet, but very nearly, and—please don't be disappointed—it is not a real true blue daffodil at all."