The Good Comrade

by Una L. Silberrad

"You will have to keep a watch on father," Julia said. "He won't do much while I am watching; he will wait till he is alone with you. Don't try to prevent him; that is no good; just watch and tell me."

Mr. Gillat said he would, though he did not like the job, and certainly was ill-fitted for it. Julia knew that, but knew also that to discover anything she must depend a good deal upon him, unless she could by searching light upon the store of spirit which she could not help thinking her father had in or near the house. She determined to make a systematic search; but before she did so she found time to open Mijnheer's letter.

It was rather a long letter and very neat. It set forth in formal Dutch the old man's ideas concerning the daffodil bulb and his offer regarding it. It should be kept, he said, if it was paid for, not otherwise. Something now, she was to name her terms, while it was still uncertain whether its flower would be blue or streaked or even common yellow—more later, in accordance with the flowering and the profits likely to arise.

So Julia read and sat staring. An offer for "The Good Comrade." Money from the people to whom it had always practically belonged in her estimation. She could not take it from them, it was impossible; the thing was virtually their own! But if she did not. She re-read Joost's letter with its protestations, and Mijnheer's with its offer—if she did not, the little brown bulb would be sent back to her. Mijnheer, now that he knew of its coming, would insist on its return unless it were paid for; and Joost, she knew very well, would not deceive his father and keep it secretly, or defy his father and keep it openly; the money or the bulb she must have. And the bulb she could not, would not have again; so the money, unearned, distasteful, having a not too pleasant savour, must be hers. At last, in this way, without her contrivance, against her will, there had come a way to pay the debt of honour!

She sat down and wrote to Mijnheer and named her price. Thirty pounds she asked for, no more in the future, no less now; that was the only price she could take for "The Good Comrade," it was the sum Rawson-Clew had paid to his cousin two years ago.

Johnny posted the letter that afternoon while Julia began her search for her father's hidden whisky.

All the afternoon Captain Polkington sat in the easy-chair, watching her contemptuously when she was in sight and moving uneasily when she was not. He did not think she would find anything, at least not at once, though he was afraid she would if she kept on long enough and he left his treasure in its present hiding-place. It would not last so much longer—he dared not contemplate the time when it should all be gone; it was characteristic of him that he was easily able to avoid doing so. The principal thought in his mind was a determination that it should not be found while any remained. That could not and should not happen; the last little which he had carefully hoarded, which he had stinted and deprived himself to save—to have that taken away, to be robbed of that—the tears gathered in his eyes at the pathos of the thought.

But the whisky was not found that day, and the Captain, who slept but badly at this time, lay awake long in the night planning how and when he could move it to a place of safety further away from the house. He would have gone down then and there, in spite of the fact that it was a blustering night of wind and rain and he not fitted to go out in such weather, but he was afraid of Julia. She was certain to hear and follow; she had almost an animal's alertness when once she was on the trail of anything. So he lay and planned and waited, hoping that a chance would come during the next day.

It did not. Julia was at home all day and, as she had foreseen, he made no move while she was about. But the following morning she had to go to Halgrave about the killing of a pig; Johnny was hardly equal to making the necessary arrangements and certainly could not do so good as she. Accordingly, she went herself, not very reluctantly, for she was nearly certain her father would make an effort to get at his whisky, if he had any, as soon as her back was turned, and so give Johnny a chance of finding out about it. Of course it was quite likely that Johnny, being Johnny, would miss the chance, but he might not, and even if he did they would not be much worse off than before. So she thought as she started, leaving the Captain, who was still in bed, with a very vague idea as to when she would be back.

He was a good deal annoyed by this vagueness; it meant he would have to hurry, a thing he hated and did very badly; and, perhaps, entirely without reason, too, for she might be three hours gone; though, equally of course, only two, or perhaps—she was capable of anything unpleasant and unexpected—only one. He began to dress as quickly as he could; but, owing to long habit of doing it as slowly as he could so as to postpone more arduous tasks, that was not very fast. He wished he had known sooner that Julia was going to Halgrave, he would have begun getting up before this; he would even have got to breakfast if only she had let him know; so he fumed to himself as he shuffled about, dropping things with his shaking fingers. At last he was dressed and came down-stairs to find Johnny, pink and apologetic as he used to be in the Marbridge days, laboriously doing odd jobs which did not need doing.