Part 34 (1/2)

CAPTAIN POLKINGTON

Captain Polkington was watching a pan of jam. It was the middle of the day and warm; too warm to be at work out of doors, as Johnny was, at least so the Captain thought. He also thought it too warm to watch jam in the back kitchen and that occupation, though it was the cooler of the two, had the further disadvantage of being beneath his dignity.

The dignity was suffering a good deal; was it right, he asked himself, that he, the man of the house, should have the menial task of watching jam while Julia talked business with some one in the parlour? He did not know what business this person had come on; he had seen him arrive a few minutes back, had even heard his name--Mr. Alexander Cross--but that was all he knew about him; Julia had taken him into the parlour and shut the door. Naturally her father felt it and was annoyed.

There was a door leading into the parlour from the front kitchen. It was fast closed but the Captain, leaving the jam to attend to itself, went and looked at it. While he was standing there he heard three words spoken on the other side by the visitor; they were--”your new daffodil.”

So that was the business this man had come on! He was trying to buy Julia's ugly streaked flower. The Captain's weak mouth set straight; he felt very strongly about the daffodil and his daughter's refusal to sell it. He knew she might have done so; she had had a good many letters about it since it was exhibited in London. She said little about the offers they contained, but he knew she refused them all; he had taxed her with it and argued the question to no purpose. Now, to-day, it seemed there was a man so anxious to buy the thing that he had actually come to see her; and she, of course, would refuse again.

The Captain sat down in the easy-chair; he was overcome by the thought of Julia's contrary stupidity.

The chair was near the door, but he would have scouted the idea that he was listening; he was a man of honour, and why should he wish to hear Julia refuse good money? Also it was impossible to hear all that was said unless the speakers were close to the door. Apparently they must have been near for no sooner had he sat down than he heard the man say, ”Haven't I had the pleasure of seeing you somewhere before, Miss Snooks? Your face seems familiar though I can't exactly locate it.”

”We met at Marbridge,” Julia answered; ”at a dance, a year and a half ago.”

”At Marbridge? Oh, of course! Funny I shouldn't have remembered when I heard your name the other day!”

Captain Polkington did not think it at all funny; he did not know who Mr. Cross might be, n.o.body important he judged by his voice and manner--hostesses at Marbridge often had to import extra nondescript men for their dances. But whoever he was, if he had been there once he might go there again and carry with him the tale of Julia's doings and home and other things detrimental to the Polkington pride. The Captain listened to hear one of the two in the other room refer to the change of name which had prevented an earlier recognition. But neither did; she saw no reason for it, and he had forgotten her original name if he ever knew it.

”I remember all about you now,” he was saying; ”you danced with me several times and asked me about the Van Heigens' blue daffodil”--he paused as if a new idea had occurred to him. ”You were not in the line then, I suppose?” he asked.

”No, I knew nothing about flower growing or selling,” she answered.

”What you told me of the value of the blue daffodil was a revelation to me.”

He laughed a little. ”But one you'll try to profit by,” he said.

The Captain moved in his chair. He could have groaned aloud at the words, which represented precisely what Julia would not do.

Unfortunately his movement had much the same effect as his groan would have done, some one on the other side of the door moved too, and in the opposite direction. It must have been Julia, her father was sure of it; it was like her to do it; she must have gone almost to the window; he could not make out what was said. The man was no doubt trying to buy the bulb; a stray word here and there indicated that, but it was impossible to hear what offer was made. It was equally impossible to hear what Julia said; her father only caught the inflection of her voice, but he was sure she was refusing.

In disgust and anger he rose and, having pulled the jam to the side of the fire, went into the garden. There he took the hoe and started irritably to work on a bed near the front door; it was some relief to his feelings to scratch the ground since he could not scratch anything else.

In a little while Cross came out. ”Well, if you won't, you won't,” he was saying as Julia opened the door. ”I think you are making a mistake; in fact, if you weren't a lady I should say you were acting rather like a fool; but, of course, you must please yourself. If you think better of it you can always write to me. Just name the price, a reasonable price, that's all you need do. We understand one another, and we can do business without any fuss--you have my address?”

He gave her a card as he spoke, although she a.s.sured him she should not want it; then he took his leave.

She watched him go, tearing up the card when he had set off down the road. Captain Polkington watched her.

”What did he want?” he asked, remembering that he was not supposed to know.

”The bulb,” she answered.

”And you would not sell it?”

”No.”

She had come from the doorstep now to pull up some weeds he had overlooked.

”I can't understand you, Julia,” he said resting on his hoe, and speaking as much in sorrow as in anger. ”You seem to have so little sense of honour--women so seldom have--but I should have thought that you would have had a lesson on the necessity, the obligation of paying debts. When you come to think of the efforts we are making to pay those debts, how I am straining every nerve, giving almost the whole of my income, doing without everything but the barest necessaries, without some things that are necessaries in my state of health, what your mother is doing, how she has given up her home, her husband, to live almost on charity in her son-in-law's house. When you think of all that, I say, and of what your sisters have done, it does seem strange that you should grudge this bulb, simply and solely because it was given you by some people for whom you care nothing.”

Julia agreed; she never saw the purpose of contradicting when conviction was out of the question. ”It does seem strange,” she said; ”but there is one comfort, the worst of the debts will be cleared off by the end of the year. Uncle William knows that and has arranged for it in his own mind; I really think it would be almost a pity to disturb the business plans of any one so exact.”