Part 39 (1/2)

Polkington to her daughter, who was expecting her first baby shortly.

It was this expected event which prevented the young rector from asking Julia to stay with him and Violet until such time as she and her mother could settle somewhere together. It was this same event which prevented Mrs. Polkington from remaining at White's Cottage and sharing Julia's solitude until their plans were settled. All this was explained to Julia in the best Polkington manner and she seemed quite satisfied with the explanation. Mr. Ponsonby had to be perforce; there seemed no alternative; all the same he was not quite pleased. It was all sensible enough, of course, only as he saw Julia standing at the gate in the November afternoon, he did not quite like it.

”Look here,” he said shortly, ”you shut up this place here, send Mr.

Gillat to his friends, or his rooms, or wherever he came from, and come to me. You can come and make your home with me, and welcome, till things are settled; there's plenty of room.”

This was a good deal for Mr. Ponsonby to say, considering what an annoyance the Polkington family had been to him, how--not without wisdom--he had set his face against letting them into his house for more than twenty-four hours at a stretch, and how much this particular member had thwarted and exasperated him at their last meeting. Julia recognised this and recognised also the kindness of the brusque suggestion. She thanked him warmly for the offer though she refused it, a.s.suring him that she and Johnny would be all right at the cottage.

”We do not find it lonely,” she said; ”we are quite happy here, happier than anywhere else, I think.”

The banker grunted, not convinced; Mr. Frazer shook hands with Julia and said he hoped it would not be long before he saw her; Mrs.

Polkington reiterated the remark, kissing her the while; then they drove away and Julia went into the house. She went into the back kitchen; Mr. Gillat was not there; the dishes were all put away and the place was quite tidy. Julia went through to the front kitchen; there she saw Johnny; he was kneeling by the Captain's old chair, his arms thrown across the seat, his silly pink face buried in them, his rounded shoulders shaking with sobs.

Johnny loved as a dog loves, without reason, without thought of return; not for wisdom, worth or deserts, just because he did love and, having once loved, loved always; forgiving everything, expecting nothing--foolish, faithful, true. So he loved his friend, so he mourned him now, be-blubbering the seat of the shabby chair which spoke so eloquently to him of the irritable, exacting presence now gone for ever.

”Johnny,” Julia said softly; ”Johnny dear.”

She put a hand on the round shoulders and somehow slipped herself into the shabby chair.

”Johnny,” she said, ”let us sit by the fire awhile and not talk of anything at all.”

So they sat together till twilight fell.

The next day there came another to Julia, one who knew nothing of what had befallen in these last days. It was almost twilight when he came; Johnny had gone out to collect fir-cones; Julia sent him, partly because their stock was low and partly because she thought it would do him good. She did not expect him back much before five o'clock; it would be dark by then certainly, but not very dark for the day was clear, with a touch of frost in the air; one of those days when the last of the sunset burns low down in the sky long after the stars are out. It was not much after four o'clock when Julia heard something approaching, certainly not Johnny nor anything connected with him, for it was the throb of a motor coming fast. Only once before since she had been at the cottage had she heard that sound on the lonely road, on the day when Rawson-Clew came. It could not be him now, she was sure of that. He might have received the money this morning certainly, but he would not come because of that, rather he would keep away; there was no reason why he should come. She told herself it was impossible, and then went to the door to see, puzzled in her own mind what she should say if the impossible had happened and it was he.

The throbbing had ceased by now; there was the click of the gate even as she opened the door, and he--it was he and no other--was coming up the little brick path in the twilight. His face was curiously clear in the light which lingered low down; and when she saw it and the look it wore, all plans of what she should say fled, and the feeling came upon her which was like that which came when she crouched behind the chopping-block and he barred the way. It seemed as if he had been pursuing and she escaping and eluding for a long time, but now--he was coming up the path and she was standing in the doorway with the pale light strong on her face and nowhere to fly to and no way of escape.

”Why did you not tell me before?” he said without any greeting at all, and he spoke as if he had right and authority. ”Why did you let this thing weigh on you for two years and never say a word of it to me?”

”I was ashamed,” she answered with truth. Then the spirit which still inhabits some women, making them willing to be won by capture, prompted her to struggle against the capitulation she was ready to make. ”There was nothing to speak of to you or any one else,” she said, with an effort at her old a.s.surance, and she led the way in as she spoke. ”I never meant to speak of it at all, I meant just to pay the debt as from father, and not myself appear in it. I did not do it that way, I know; I could not; I did not get the money till yesterday and--and”--the a.s.surance faded away pathetically--”that was too late.”

Rawson-Clew looked down, and for the first time noticed her mourning dress, and realising what it meant, remembered that convention demanded that a man, whose claim depends on another's death, should not push it as soon as the funeral is over. However he did not go away, the pathos of Julia's voice kept him.

”Late or early would have made little difference,” he said; ”it is just the same now as if it had been early. Do you think I should not have known who sent the money at whatever time and in whatever circ.u.mstances it was paid? Do you think I know two people who would pay a debt, which can hardly be said to exist, in such a way?”

But Julia was not comforted. ”It is too late,” she re-repeated; ”too late for any satisfaction. I thought I would prove that we were honest and honourable by paying it; I wanted to show father--that I--that our standard was the same as yours, and I have not.”

”No,” he answered, ”you have not and you never will; your standard is not the same as mine; mine is the honour of an accepted convention, and yours is the honour of a personal truth, a personal experience, the honour of the soul.”

But she shook her head. ”It is not really,” she said; ”and father--”

”As to your father,” he interrupted gently, ”do you not think that sometimes the potter's thumb slips in the making of a vessel?”

She looked up with a feeling of grat.i.tude. ”Yes,” she said; ”yes, that is it, if only we could realise it--poor father. It was partly our fault, too, mother's, all of ours--and he is dead now.”

”I know. Let him rest in peace; we are concerned no more with his doings or misdoings; our concern, yours and mine is with the living.”

She did not answer; a piece of wood had fallen from the fire and lay blazing and spluttering on the hearth; she stooped to pick it up and he watched her.