Part 27 (1/2)

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 G.o.d-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-gla.s.ses 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 ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sets 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 wis.h.i.+ng to go back to Marbridge or to join his wife, only in feeling oppressed and misunderstood, and wis.h.i.+ng 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'