THE HEIRESS
There was a fog on the river and while the tide was low no craft
moved; but with its rising there came a stir of life, the mist that
crept low on the brown water became articulate with syren voices and
the thud of screws and the wash of water churned by belated boats. The
steamers called eerily, out of the distance a heart-broken cry like no
other thing on earth, suddenly near at hand a hoot terrific; but
nothing was to be seen except rarely when out of the yellow
impenetrableness a hull rose abruptly, a vague dark mass almost within
touching distance. Julia stood on deck and listened while the little
Dutch boat crept up; she found something fascinating in this strange,
shrouded river, haunted, like a stream of the nether world, with
lamentable bodiless voices. The fog had delayed them, of course; the
afternoon was now far advanced; they had been compelled to wait some
long time while the tide was down, and even now that it was coming up,
they could go but slowly. The last through train to Marbridge would
have left Paddington before the Tower Stairs were reached; but Julia
did not mind that; she would go to Mr. Gillat; she could get a room at
the house where he lodged for one night; she was glad at the thought
of seeing Johnny again. Johnny, who knew the worst and loved and
trusted still.
Gradually the fog lifted, not clearing right away, but enough for the
last of the sunset to show smoky, rose in a wonderful tawny sky. All
the russet-brown water kindled, each ripple edge catching a gleam of
yellow, except to the eastward, where, by some trick of light, the
main stream looked like a pool of dull silver, all pale and cold and
holy. The wharves and factories on the banks revealed themselves,
heavy black outlines, pinnacled with chimneys like some far-off spired
city. All the craft that filled the river became clear too, those that
lay still waiting repairs or cargo or the flood of the incoming tide,
and those that moved--the black Norwegian timber boats, the dirty
tramp steamers from far-off seas, the smooth grey-hulled liners, the
long strings of loaded barges, that followed one another up the great
waterway like camels in a desert caravan. Julia stood on deck and
watched it all, and to her there seemed a certain sombre beauty and a
something that moved her, though she could not tell why, with a
curious baseless pride of race. And while she watched, the twilight
fell, and the colours turned to purple and grey, and the lights
twinkled out in the shipping and along the shore--hundreds and
hundreds of lights; and gradually, like the murmur of the sea in a
shell, the roar of the city grew on the ear, till at last the little
boat reached the Stairs, where the old grey fortress looks down on the
new grey bridge, and the restless river below.
A waterman put Julia ashore, after courtesies from the Custom House
officers, and a porter took her and her belongings to Mark Lane
station, from whence it was not difficult to get approximately near
Berwick Street.
Mr. Gillat was not expecting visitors; he had no reason to imagine any
one would come to see him; he did not imagine that the rings at the
front bell could concern him; even when he heard steps coming
up-stairs he only thought it was another lodger. It was not till
Julia opened the door of the back room he now occupied that he had the
least idea any one had come to see him.
"Julia!" he exclaimed, when he saw her standing on the threshold.
"Dear, dear, dear me!"
"Yes," Julia said, "it really is I. I'm back again, you see;" and she
came in and shut the door.
"Bless my soul!" Johnny said; "bless my soul! You're home again!"
"On my way home; I can't get to Marbridge to-night very comfortably,
and I wanted to see you, so here I am. I have arranged with your
landlady to let me have a room."
Mr. Gillat appeared quite overcome with joy and surprise, and it
seemed to Julia, nervousness too. He led her to a chair; "Won't you
sit down?" he said, placing it so that it commanded a view of the
window and nothing else.
Julia sat down; she did not need to look at the room; she had already
mastered most of its details. When she first came in she had seen that
it was small and poor--a back bedroom, nothing more; an iron bed, not
too tidy, stood in one corner, a washstand, with dirty water in the
basin, in another. There was a painted chest of drawers opposite the
window; one leg was missing, its place being supplied by a pile of old
school-books; the top was adorned with a piece of newspaper in lieu of
a cover, and one of the drawers stood partly open; no human efforts
could get it shut, so Mr. Gillat's wardrobe was exposed to the public
gaze--if the public happened to look that way. Julia did not; nor did
she look towards the fire-place, where a very large towel-horse with a
very small towel upon it acted as a stove ornament--plain proof that
fires were unknown there. She looked across Mr. Gillat's cheap lamp
to the window and the vista of chimney pots, which were very well in
view, for the blind refused to come down and only draped the upper
half of the window in a drooping fashion.
Johnny stood against the chest of drawers, striving vainly to push the
refractory drawer shut, although he knew by experience it was quite
impossible. She could see him without turning her head; he was
shabbier than ever; even his tie--his one extravagance used to be gay
ties--was shabby, and his shoes would hardly keep on his feet. His
round pink face was still round and pink; he did not look exactly
older, though his grizzled little moustache was greyer, only somehow
more puzzled and hurt by the ways of fate. Julia knew that that was
the way he would age; experience would never teach him anything,
although, as she suddenly realised, it had been trying lately.
She turned away from the window; "I have left my luggage at the
station," she said; "I got out what I wanted in the waiting-room and
brought it along in a parcel. I think I'll take it to my room now, if
you don't mind, and wash my face and get rid of my hat--it is very
heavy. I shan't be long."
She rose as she spoke, and Johnny bustled to open the door for her,
too much a gentleman, in spite of all, to show he was glad to have her
go and give him a chance to clear up. At the door she paused.
"You need not order supper, Johnny," she said; "I've seen about that."
Johnny stopped, his face a shade pinker. "Oh, but," he protested, "you
shouldn't do that; you mustn't do that. I'll tell Mrs. Horn we won't
have it; I'll make it all right with her; I was just going out to get
a--a pork pie for myself."
It is to be feared this statement was no more veracious than Julia's,
and certainly it was not nearly so well made; it would not have
deceived a far less astute person than she, while hers would have
deceived a far more astute person than he.
"A pork pie?" Julia said. "You have no business to eat such things in
the evening at your time of life. I tell you I have settled supper; we
had much better have what I have got. I could not bring you a present
home from Holland; I left in a hurry, so I have bought supper instead.
It is my present to you--and myself--I have selected just what I
thought I could eat best; one has fancies, you know, after one has
been seasick."
It would require an ingeniously bad sailor to be seasick while a Dutch
cargo boat crept up the Thames in a fog, but Julia never spared the
trimmings when she did do any lying. Johnny was quite satisfied and
let her go to take off her hat--and the precious explosive which she
still carried in it.
While she was gone he tidied the room to the best of his ability. He
regretted that he had nowhere better to ask her; if he had the
sitting-room he occupied when Rawson-Clew came in September, he would
have felt quite grand. But that was a thing of the past, so he made
the best of circumstances and went to the reckless extravagance of
sixpenny worth of fire. When Julia came in, the towel-horse had been
removed from the fender, and a fire was sputtering awkwardly in the
grate, while Mr. Gillat, proud as a school-boy who has planned a
surprise treat, was trying to coax the smoke up the damp chimney.
"Johnny!" Julia exclaimed, "what extravagance! It's quite a warm
night, too!"
Johnny smiled delightedly. "I thought you'd be cold after your
journey; you look quite pale and pinched," he said; "seasickness does
leave one feeling chilly."
Julia repented of that unnecessary trimming of hers. "It is nice to
have a fire," she said, striving not to cough at the choking smoke; "I
don't need it a bit, but I don't know anything I should have enjoyed
more; why, I haven't seen a real fire since I left England!"
She broke off to take the tongs from Mr. Gillat, who, in his efforts
to improve the draught, had managed to shut the register. She opened
it again, and in a little had the fire burning nicely. Johnny looked
on and admired, and at her suggestion opened the window to let out the
smoke. After that she managed to persuade the blind down, and, what is
more, mended it so that it would go up again; then Mr. Gillat cleared
the dressing-table and pulled it out into the middle of the room, and
by that time supper was ready--fried steak and onions and bottled
beer, with jam puffs and strong black coffee to follow--not exactly
the things for one lately suffering from seasickness, but Julia tried
them all except the bottled beer and seemed none the worse for it. And
as for Johnny, if you had searched London over you could have found
nothing more to his taste. He was a little troubled at the thought of
what Julia must have spent, but she assured him she had her wages, so
he was content. Seldom was one happier than Mr. Gillat at that supper,
or afterwards, when the table was cleared and they drew up to the
fire. They sat one each side of the fender on cane-seated chairs, the
coffee on the hob, and Johnny smoking a Dutch cigar of Julia's
providing. One can buy them at the railway stations in Holland, and
she had scarcely more pleasure in giving them to Johnny than she had
in smuggling home more than the permitted quantity.
"Now tell me about things," Julia said.
Johnny's face fell a little. During supper they had talked about her
affairs and experiences, none of the unpleasant ones; she was
determined not to have the supper spoiled by anything. Now, however,
she felt that the time had come to hear the other side of things.
"I suppose father has been to town?" she remarked; she knew only too
well that nothing else could account for Mr. Gillat's reduced
circumstances. "When did he go?"
"He has not been gone much more than a week," Johnny said; "think of
that now! If he'd stayed only a fortnight more he'd have been here
to-night; it is a pity!"
"I don't think it is at all," Julia said frankly; "the pity is he ever
came."
Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair. "Well, well," he said, "your
mother wished it; she knows what she is about; she is a wonderful
woman, a wonderful woman. I did what you told me, I really did."
Julia was sure of that, but she was also sure now that he had not been
a match for her mother.
"I went down to Marbridge a week before your father was supposed to be
coming to town; I warned him very likely I should have to go away,
just as you said--and the very day I went to Marbridge he came to
town, the very day--a week earlier than was talked of."
Julia could not repress an inclination to smile, not only at the neat
way in which her mother had checkmated her, but also at the thought of
that lady's face when Mr. Gillat presented himself at Marbridge, just
as she was congratulating herself on being rid of the Captain.
"What happened?" she asked. "Did mother send you back to town again?"
"She did not send me," Mr. Gillat answered; "but, of course, I had to
go, as she said; there was your father all alone here; it would be
very dull for him; I couldn't leave him. Besides, he is not--not a
strong man, it would be better--she would feel more easy if she
thought he had his old friend with him, to see he didn't get into--you
know."
"I know," Julia answered; "mother told you all this, then she paid
your fare back again."
"Not paid my fare," Mr. Gillat corrected; "a lady could not offer to
do such a thing; do you think I would ever have allowed it? I couldn't
you know."
Julia's lips set straight; she had something of a man's contempt for
small meannesses, and it is possible her judgment on this economy of
her mother's was harder than any she had for the unjustifiable
extravagances at which she guessed. She did not say anything of it to
Mr. Gillat, she was too ashamed; not that he saw it in that light; he
didn't think he had been in any way badly used, he never did.
"Well," she said, "then you came back to town and looked after father
to the best of your abilities? I suppose you could not do much good?"
Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair again for a little. "You see,"
he said hesitatingly, "it was very dull for him; of course he wanted
amusement."
"And of course he had it, though he could not afford it, and you
paid?"
"Not to any great extent; oh, dear no, not to any great extent."
"No, because you had not got 'any great extent' to spend; what you
had, limited the amount, I suppose, nothing else."
Mr. Gillat ignored this. "Your father," he said, rather uneasily,
looking at her and then away again, "your father never had a very
strong head, he--you know--he--"
"Has taken to drink?" Julia asked baldly. "As well as gambling he
drinks now?"
"Oh, no," Johnny said quickly, "not exactly, that is--he does take
more than he used, more than is good for him sometimes; not much is
good for him, you know--he does take more, it is no good pretending he
does not. But it was very dull for him; it did not suit him being
here, I think; he used to get so low in spirits, what with his losses
and feeling he was not wanted at home. He thinks a great deal of your
mother, and he could not but feel that she does not think much of him
to send him away like that; it hurt him, although, as he said to me
more than once, no doubt he deserved it. It preyed on his mind; he
seemed to want something to cheer him."
Julia nodded; she could understand the effect well enough, though the
causes at work might not be quite clear. To her young judgment it
seemed a little strange that her father should have never realised
what a cumberer of the ground he was to his wife until she banished
him "for his health." But so it evidently was, and after all she could
believe it; like some others he had "made such a sinner of his
conscience," that he could believe, not only his own lie, but the
legends woven about him. They had all pretended things, he and they
also; his position, too, had come gradually, he had got to accept it
without thinking before it was an established fact. But now the truth
had been brought home to him--more or less--and he was miserable, and,
according to the custom of his sort, set to making bad worse as soon
as ever he discovered it.
"Why did he go home last week?" she aroused herself to ask.
"He thought it his duty," was Johnny's surprising answer. "No, Mrs.
Polkington did not send for him, she did not know he was coming; he
decided for himself, he felt it would be better."
Mr. Gillat rambled on vaguely, but Julia was not slow to guess that
the principal reason was to be found in the state of Johnny's
finances. She questioned him as to when he had moved into the back
room, and, finding it to be not long before her father's departure,
guessed that discomfort, like the husks of the prodigal son, had
awakened the thing dignified by the name of duty.
For a little she sat in silence, thinking matters over. Johnny smoked
hard at the stump of his cigar, mended the fire and fidgeted, looking
sideways at her.
"Don't worry about it," he ventured at last; "things'll look up, they
will; when he's back at Marbridge with your mother he'll be all right.
She always had a great influence over him, she had, indeed."
Julia said "Yes." But he did not feel there was much enthusiasm in the
monosyllable, so he cast about in his mind for something to cheer her
and thus remembered a very important matter.
"What an old fool I am!" he exclaimed. "There's something I ought to
have told you the moment you came in, and I've clean forgotten it
until now; it's good news, too! There is a lawyer wants to see you."
"What about?" Julia asked; she did not seem to naturally associate a
lawyer with good news.
"A legacy," Johnny answered triumphantly.
Julia was much astonished; she could not imagine from whence it came,
but before she asked she made the business-like inquiry, "How much?"
"Not a great deal, I'm afraid," Mr. Gillat was obliged to say; "still,
a little's a help, you know; it may be a great help; you remember your
father's Aunt Jane?"
Julia did, or rather she remembered the name. Great-aunt Jane was one
of the relations the Polkingtons did not use; she was not rich enough
or obliging enough to give any help, nor grand enough for
conversational purposes. She never figured in Mrs. Polkington's talk
except vaguely as "one of my husband's people in Norfolk;" this when
she was explaining that the Captain came of East Anglian stock on his
mother's side. Jane was only a step-aunt to the Captain; his mother
had married above her family, her half-sister Jane had married a
little beneath--a small farmer, in fact, whose farming had got smaller
still before he died, which was long ago. Great-aunt Jane could not
have much to leave any one, but, as Mr. Gillat said, anything was
better than nothing; the real surprise was why it should have been
left to Julia.
She asked Johnny about it, but he could not tell her much; he really
knew very little except that there was something, and that the lawyer
wanted her address and was annoyed when her relations could not give
it. Indeed, even went so far as to think they would not, and that it
would be his duty to take steps unless she was forthcoming soon.
"I had better go to his office to-morrow," Julia said; "I suppose you
know where it is?"
Mr. Gillat did, and they arranged how they would go to-morrow, Johnny,
who was to wait outside, solely for the pleasure and excitement of the
expedition. After that they talked about the legacy and its probable
amount for some time.
"I suppose no other benefactor came inquiring for me while I was
away?" Julia said, after she had, to please Johnny and not her
practical self, built several air castles with the legacy.
"No," Mr. Gillat said regretfully, "I'm afraid not; no one else asked
for you. At least, some one did; a Mr. Rawson-Clew came here for your
address."
"Did he though?" Julia asked; "Did he, indeed? What did he want it
for?"
"Well, I don't know," Johnny was obliged to say; "I don't know that he
gave any reason exactly; he said he had met you in Holland. I thought
he was a friend of yours, he seemed to know a good deal about you."
"He was a friend," Julia said; "that was quite right. And so he came
for my address. When was this?"
Johnny gave the approximate date, and Julia asked: "Why did he come to
you?"
Mr. Gillat did not quite know unless it was because he had failed
elsewhere. "But he really came to see your father," he said.
"Did he see him?" Julia inquired.
"No, he was out. To tell the truth, I don't believe your father ever
knew he came," Johnny confessed; "I meant to tell him, of course, but
he was late home that day, and when he came he was--was--well, you
know, he couldn't--it didn't seem--"
"Yes," said Julia, coming to the rescue, "he was drunk and could not
understand, and afterwards you forgot it; it does not matter; indeed,
it is better so; I am glad of it."
Mr. Gillat was fumbling in his shabby letter-case; he took out a card;
it bore Rawson-Clew's name and address of a London club.
"He gave me this," he said, "and told me to let him know if I heard
from you, if you were in any trouble, or anything--if I thought you
were."
Julia held out her hand. "You had better give it to me," she said;
"I'll let him know all that is necessary. Thank you;" and she put the
card away.
Soon after she went to her room, for it was growing late. But she did
not hurry over undressing; indeed, when she sat down to take off her
stockings, she paused with one in her hand, thinking of Rawson-Clew.
So he had tried to find out where she was; he did not then accept her
answer as final; he was bent on seeing that she came to no harm
through him--honourable, certainly, and like him. He had come to
Berwick Street and nearly seen her father--drunk; quite seen Mr.
Gillat, in the first floor sitting-room certainly, but no doubt shabby
and not very wise as usual. She was not ashamed; though for a moment
she had been glad he had missed her father; now she told herself it
did not matter either way. He knew what she was and what her people
were; what did it matter if he realised it a little more? They were
not of his sort, it was no good pretending for a moment that they
were. His sort! She laughed silently at the thought. The girls of his
sort eating steak and onions in a back bedroom with Johnny Gillat!
Caring for Johnny as she cared, liking to sit with him in the pokey
little room while he smoked Dutch cigars; not doing it out of kindness
of heart and charity, but finding personal pleasure in it and a sense
of home-coming! If Rawson-Clew had come that evening while they were
at supper, or while she cured the smoky fire or mended the blind, or
while they sipped black coffee out of earthenware breakfast-cups and
talked of her father's delinquencies! It would not have mattered; he
knew she was of the stoke-hole--she had told him so--and not like the
accomplished girls whom he usually met--who could not have got him the
explosive!
She dropped her stocking to take the wide-necked bottle in her hands,
deciding now how best to send it. It must go by post, in a good-sized
wooden box, tightly packed, with a great deal of damp straw and wool;
it ought to be safe that way. She would send it to the club address,
it was fortunate she had it; but not yet, not until her own plans were
clearer. It was just possible he might suspect her; it was hardly
likely, but it was always as well to provide against remote
contingencies, for if he tried and succeeded in verifying the
suspicion everything would be spoiled. He had made sensible efforts to
find her before, he might make equally sensible and more successful
ones again, unless she left a way of escape clear for herself.
Accordingly, so she determined, the explosive should not go yet,
thought it had better be packed ready. She would get a box and packing
to-morrow; to-night she could only copy the formula. She did this,
printing it carefully on a strip of paper which she put on the bottle
and coated with wax from her candle. She knew Herr Van de Greutz waxed
labels sometimes to preserve them from the damp, so she felt sure the
formula would be safe however wet she might make the packing.
The next day she went to the lawyer's office and heard all about the
legacy and what she must do to prove her own identity and claim it.
Mr. Gillat waited outside, pacing up and down the street, striving so
hard to look casual that he aroused the suspicions of a not too acute
policeman. The official was reassured, however, when Julia came out of
the office and carried Johnny away to hear about the legacy.
"It is more than I thought," she said, before they were half down the
street. "Fifty pounds a year, a small house--not much more than a
cottage--and a garden and field; that's about what it comes to. The
house is not worth much; it is in an unget-at-able part of Norfolk, in
the sandy district towards the sea--the man spoke as if I knew where
that was, but I don't--and the garden and field are not fertile. I
don't suppose one could let the place, but one could live in it, if
one wanted to."
"Yes, yes," Johnny said, "of course; you will have your own estate to
retire to; quite an heiress--your mother will be pleased."
Julia could well imagine what skilful use her mother could make of the
legacy; it would figure beautifully in conversation; no doubt Johnny
was really thinking of this also, though he did not know it, for
actually the thing would not commend itself to Mrs. Polkington so
highly as a lump sum of money would have done.
"Why do you think Great-aunt Jane let it to me?" Julia asked. "Because
I went out to work! It seems that father and we three girls are the
nearest relations she had, and though we knew nothing about her, she
made inquiries about us from time to time. When she heard I had gone
abroad as companion or lady-help, she said she should leave all she
had to me because I was the only one who even tried to do any honest
work. You know that is not really strictly fair, because I did not
altogether go with the idea of doing honest work; although, certainly,
when I got there I did it."
Johnny did not quite follow this last, but it did not matter, the only
thing that concerned him--or Julia much, either--was the fact that she
was the possessor of £50 a year, a cottage, a garden, and a field.
Johnny revelled in the idea and talked of what she was going to do
right up to the time that he saw her into the train at Paddington. The
only thing that put an end to his talking was the guard requesting him
to stand away from the carriage door and Julia admonished him to leave
go of the handle before the engine started. Julia herself did not talk
so much of what she would do because she did not know; she felt, until
she got home and saw how things were there, it was no good even to
plan how and when to spend. Five pounds she did spend; it was really
her saving accumulated by economy in Holland, but she reckoned it as
drawn from her estate. Johnny found it in an envelope when he returned
to the back bedroom, and with it a note to say that it was in part
payment of Captain Polkington's debts, for which, of course, his
family were responsible; "and if you make a fuss about it," the letter
concluded, dropping the business-like style, "I shall trim 'Bouquet'
to stink next time you come to Marbridge, and not come and sit with
you."
I think Johnny sat down and wept over that letter; but then he was
rather a silly old man and he had not had a good meal, except last
night's steak and onions, for a fortnight.