The Good Comrade

by Una L. Silberrad

But "The Good Comrade" did not remain locked away from the light of day. Joost was a sentimentalist, it is true, and the bulb had come from Julia, winged by an appeal from her. But he was also a bulb grower, and he was that before he was anything else and afterwards too, and the daffodil was a marvel of nature, a novelty, a thing beyond words to a connoisseur. The lover asked that the token should be kept hidden from the eyes of men; but the grower cried that the flower should be given to the light of heaven and should grow and bloom according to Nature's plan. For days the lover was uppermost and the old pain back. But in time the bitter-sweet madness died down again and, in the atmosphere which was saturated with the beloved work, the old love, the first and last and soundly abiding one, reasserted itself. The daffodil must bloom, the little brown bulb must go back to the brown earth, the strange flower must unfold itself to the sun and wind and rain.

So he went to his father. "My father," he said, and it is to be feared he had learnt something of guile from the source of his bitter-sweet madness. "My father, I have heard from Miss Julia; she would wish us to have the narcissus 'The Good Comrade.'"

Mijnheer was pleased. "That is as it should be," he said; he had felt strongly about the gift of the bulb in the first instance, but that was an affair over and done with long ago between him and his son. He did not reopen it now, he was only gratified to think there was a likelihood of the daffodil coming back to its birthplace, where it certainly ought to be. "How much does Miss Julia ask for it?" he inquired.

"Nothing," Joost answered; "she does not wish to sell it; she wishes to give it back."

"But, but!" Mijnheer exclaimed, pushing up his spectacles in astonishment; he knew the value of the thing and the offers that must have been made for it; this way was not at all his notion of doing business; also he found it hard to reconcile with the Julia he remembered. He recollected talk he had had with her when she had proved herself an apt pupil in trade and trade dealings, and shown, not only a very good comprehension of such things, but also an eye to the main chance. "This is nonsense," he said; "it is not business."

Joost looked distressed. "I gave her the bulb," he ventured; "she does not want to sell me back my present."

Mijnheer did not recognise any such distinction in business transactions, and for a little it looked as if "The Good Comrade" would be sent wandering again, sacrificed to his old-fashioned notions of integrity. Joost should not have it unless he paid for it, he said so with decision. He himself would buy it if Joost would not, and if she would not sell it to him then neither of them should have it.

And Joost could not, even if he would, explain why and how the paying was so difficult. He used all the arguments he could; indeed, for one of his nature, he spoke with considerable diplomacy.

"Supposing," he said at last, "that it was only a sport, and that next year it reverts and is blue as are the others, the parent bulbs? Miss Julia thinks of that—she would not like to be paid for it now in case of such a thing, will you not at least wait until the spring? She has given nothing for it herself; it is not as if she had sunk money and wants an immediate return."

Mijnheer did not consider that made any difference and he said so, reading his son a lecture on business morality according to his standard, of a very severe order. Joost listened with meekness to the entirely undeserved reproof for meanness and dishonourable views; then the old man announced finally what he should do. He should write to Julia and offer her a smallish sum down in case the bulb proved to be of no great worth, and a promise of a proportional percentage afterwards if it proved valuable. This idea pleased him very well; it satisfied his notions of integrity and fair dealing and also his thrifty soul, which found trying the otherwise unavoidable duty of paying a long price for what had been freely given. From this Joost could not move him, so there was nothing for him to do but write distressfully to Julia and explain and apologise.