NARCISSUS TRIANDRUS STRIATUM, THE GOOD COMRADE
The winter wore away; a very long winter, and a very cold one to those
at the cottage who were used to the mild west country. But at last
spring came; late and with bitter winds and showers of sleet, but none
the less wonderful, especially as one had to look to see the tentative
signs of its coming. March in Marbridge used to mean violets and
daffodils, tender green shoots and balmy middays. March here means
days of pale clean light and great sweeping wind which chased grey
clouds across a steely sky, and stirred the lust for fight and freedom
in men's minds and set them longing to be up and away and at battle
with the world or the elements. This restlessness, which those who
have lost it call divine, took possession of Julia that springtime,
and a dissatisfaction with the simple life and its narrow limits beset
her. Surely, she found herself asking, this was not the end of all
things--this cottage to be the limit of her life and ambitions; her
work to grow cabbages and eat them, to keep her father in the paths of
temperance and sobriety, and to make Johnny's closing days happy? The
March winds spoke vaguely of other things; they whispered of the life
she had put from her; the big, wide, moving, thinking, feeling life
which would have been living indeed. Worse, they whispered of the man
who had offered it to her, the man whom her heart told her she would
have made friend and comrade if only circumstances had allowed him to
make her wife. But she thrust these thoughts from her; she had no
choice, she never had a choice; now less if possible than before,
there was no heart-aching decision to make. The work she had taken up
could not be put down; she must go on even if voices stronger and more
real than these wind ones called her out.
One day the crocuses which Mijnheer had sent came into flower; Julia
thought she had never seen anything so beautiful as the little purple
and golden cups, partly because they had been sent in kindness of
heart, partly, no doubt, because she had grown them herself, and she
had never grown a flower which had its root in the inarticulate joy of
all things at the first flowering of dead brown earth and monotonous
lifeless days. The next event in her calendar, and Johnny's, was the
blooming of the fruit trees. She had seen hillside orchards in the
west country break into a foam of flower--a sight perhaps as beautiful
as any England has to show. But, to her mind, it did not compare with
the sparse white bloom which lay like a first hoar frost on her
crooked trees and showed cold and delicate against the pale blue sky.
After that, nearly every day, there was something fresh and
interesting for Mr. Gillat and Julia, so that the March wind was
forgotten, except in the ill-effect on Captain Polkington with whom it
had disagreed a good deal, both in health and temper.
That spring, as indeed every spring, there was a flower show in London
at the Temple Gardens. The things exhibited were principally bulb
flowers, ixias, iris, narcissus and the like; the event was
interesting to growers, both professional and amateur. Joost Van
Heigen came over from Holland to attend; he was sent by his father in
a purely business capacity, but of course he was expected, and himself
expected, to enjoy it, too; there would be many novelties exhibited
and many beautiful flowers in which he would feel the sober
appreciative pleasure of the connoisseur. He came to England some days
before the show; he had, besides attending that, to see some important
customers on business, also one or two English growers.
Now, certain districts of Norfolk are very well suited to the
cultivation of bulbs, so it is not surprising that Joost's business
took him there. And, seeing that he had a Bradshaw and a good map, and
had, moreover, six months ago addressed Julia's box of bulbs to her
nearest railway town, it is not surprising that he found the
whereabouts of the town of Halgrave. It was on Saturday night when he
found it on the map; he was sitting in the coffee-room of a temperance
hotel at the time. He had done business for the day, and, seeing that
the English do not care about working on Sundays, he would probably
have to-morrow as well as to-night free. Julia's town was close--a
short railway journey, then a walk to Halgrave, and then one would be
at her home--it would be a pleasant way of spending the morning of a
spring Sunday. He thought about it a little; he had no invitation to
go and see Julia, and he did not like going anywhere without an
invitation or an express reason. She might not want to see him, or it
might put out her domestic arrangements if he came; he knew domestic
arrangements were subject to such disturbances. He hesitated some
time, though it must be admitted that the fact that he had asked her
to marry him and been refused did not come much into his
consideration. He had not altered his mind about that proposal, and he
did not imagine she had altered hers; his devotion and her
indifference were definite settled facts which would remain as long as
either of them remained, but there was nothing embarrassing in them
to him. At last he decided that he would go, and it was the blue
daffodil which decided him.
He had never heard what Julia had done with the bulb he had given her.
It was only reasonable to think she had sold it, seeing it was for the
sake of money she had wanted it, but no whisper of any such thing had
reached him or his father. He longed to know about it, to hear the
name of the man who had his treasure; for whom, in all probability, it
was blooming now. It was some connoisseur he was nearly certain; Julia
would not have sold it to another grower. He had not lain any such
condition on her, but she would not have done that; she knew too well
what it meant to him; he never doubted her in that matter, his faith
was of too simple a kind. Still he determined to go and see her,
partly that he might hear the name of the man who bought the blue
daffodil, partly because he wanted to and remembered that Julia, in
the old days, did not seem of the kind to be upset by unexpected
visitors and similar small domestic accidents.
It was a hot-dinner Sunday at the cottage. These occurred alternately;
on the in between Sundays Julia, supported by Johnny and the Captain,
went to church. On those sacred to hot dinners she stayed at home and
did the cooking, the Captain staying with her. Mr. Gillat used to also
in the winter, but lately, during the spring, he had been induced to
teach in the Sunday school, and now went every Sunday to the village,
first to teach and afterwards to conduct his class to church.
It was Mr. Stevens, the Rector of Halgrave, who had made this
surprising suggestion to Mr. Gillat. He, good man, had in the course
of time been to see his parishioners at the remote cottage, grinding
along the deep sandy road on his heavy old tricycle; but it was not
during the visit that he thought of Johnny as a teacher; it was when
he made further acquaintance with him at Halgrave. Johnny was the
member of the party who went most often to the village shop; he liked
the expedition, it gave him a feeling of importance; he also liked
gossiping with the woman who kept the shop, and he dearly loved
meeting the village children. On one of these occasions, when Johnny
was engaged in making peace between two little girls--little girls
were his specialty--the rector met him and it was then it occurred to
him that Mr. Gillat might help in the school. It was not much of an
honour, the school was in rather a bad way just now, and boasted no
other teachers than the rector and a raspy-tempered girl of sixteen,
but Johnny was much flattered. He thought he ought to refuse; he was
quite sure he could not teach; the idea of his doing so was certainly
new and strange; he was also sure he was not virtuous enough. But in
the end he was persuaded to try; Julia told him that he might hear the
catechism with an open book, choose the Bible tales he was surest of,
to read and explain, and have his class of little girls to tea very
often. So it came about that Mr. Gillat set out Sunday after Sunday to
school, and if his reading and expounding of the Scriptures was less
in accord with modern light than the traditions that held in the
childhood of the nation, no one minded; the children at Halgrave were
not painfully sharp, and they soon got to love Mr. Gillat with a
friendly lemon-droppish love which was not critical.
Captain Polkington did not approve of the Sunday-school teaching,
especially on those days when he had to clean the knives. The Sunday
when Joost Van Heigen came was one of these. The Captain watched Mr.
Gillat's preparations with a disgusted face; at last he remarked, "I
wonder if you think you do any good by this nonsense?"
Johnny, who had got as far as the doorstep, stopped and considered
rather as if the idea had just occurred to him.
"There must be teachers," he said at length, looking round at the open
landscape; "and there aren't many about."
"You are a fine teacher!" the Captain sneered.
Mr. Gillat rubbed his finger along the edge of the Bible he carried.
"I was wild," he confessed; "yes, I was, I don't think--but then the
rector said--and Julia--"
His meaning was rather obscure, but possibly the Captain followed it
although he did cut him short by saying, "I should never have expected
it of you; if any one had told me that you, one of us, would take to
this sort of thing, I would not have believed it. I mean, if they had
told me in the old days, before things were changed and broken up,
when we were still alive and things moved at a pace--when a man knew
if he were alive or dead and whether it was night or morning."
"Yes, yes," Johnny said, but not altogether as if he regretted the
passing of those golden days; "things were different then; we didn't
think of it then."
"Teaching in the Sunday school?" the Captain asked. "Not quite! And if
we had, we shouldn't have thought of coming to it even when we had got
old and foolish."
Johnny looked uncomfortable and unhappy; then a bright idea occurred
to him. "There wasn't a Sunday school there," he said. "You remember
the hill station?"
Just then Julia called from the house, "Father, I believe we might
have a dish of turnip tops if you would get them. Johnny, you will be
late if you don't start soon."
Johnny promptly started, and the Captain, less promptly, sauntered
away to find a basket for the turnip tops, muttering the while
something about people whose religion took the form of going out and
leaving others to do the work.
But by the time Joost Van Heigen arrived, the Captain was quite
amiable again. He had had a quiet morning with nothing to do after the
turnip tops were brought in and the knives cleaned, and Johnny had had
a long tiring walk home from church in a hot sun and a high wind,
which Captain Polkington felt to be a just dispensation of Providence
to reward those who stopped at home and cleaned knives. Joost arrived
not long after Mr. Gillat; Julia heard the gate click as she was
taking the meat from before the fire.
"Who is that, Johnny?" she asked.
Johnny, who had just come down-stairs after taking off his Sunday
coat, looked out of the window.
"I don't know," he said; "a young man."
Julia, having deposited the joint on the dish, went to the kitchen
door. "Put the meat where it will keep hot," she said to Johnny; "I
expect it's some one who thinks the last people live here still;
fortunately there is enough dinner."
She pushed open the unlatched door and saw the visitor going round to
the front. "Joost!" she exclaimed. "Why, Joost, is it really you?"
She ran down the garden path after him and he, turning just before he
reached the front door, stopped.
"Good-morning, miss," he said solemnly, removing his hat with a sweep.
"I hope I see you well. I do not inconvenience you--you are perhaps
engaged?"
"Come in," Julia answered; "I am glad to see you!"
There was no mistaking the sincerity of her tone; Joost's solemn face
relaxed a little. "You are not occupied?" he said; "I do not disturb
you?"
"Yes, occupied in dishing up the dinner," Julia said, "which is just
the best of all times for you to have come. Johnny!" she called;
"Johnny, Joost is here."
Mr. Gillat, who had been carefully placing the dish where the cinders
would fall into it, came to the door.
"This is Mr. Gillat, a very old friend of mine," Julia explained, and
Joost bowed deeply, offering his hand and saying, "I hope that you are
well, sir."
Whereupon Mr. Gillat impressed, imitated him as nearly as he could,
and Julia looked away.
They had dinner in the kitchen on Sundays as well as week days, they
made no difference to-day. Joost looked round him once or twice; he
had never seen a place like this. It was the front kitchen; the
cooking and most of the house-work was done in the back one, a big
barn-like place with doors in all corners. The front one was half a
kitchen and half a sitting-room, warm-coloured, with red-tiled floor
and low ceiling, heavily cross-beamed and hung with herbs and a couple
of hams, in great contrast to the whiteness of the kitchen at the bulb
farm. There were brass and copper pots and pans such as he knew, but
they reflected an open fire, a dirty extravagance unknown to Mevrouw.
Joost glanced at the fire, and it is to be feared that he was at heart
a traitor to his native customs. Then he looked at the open window
where the sunshine streamed in--as was never permitted in Holland--and
he wondered if it really spoilt things very much, and, being a
florist, thought it certainly would spoil the tulips in the mug that
stood on the wide sill.
During dinner they spoke English for the sake of the Captain and Mr.
Gillat; Joost spoke well, if slowly, with a careful and accurate
precision. He also observed much, both of outside things, as the fact
that Johnny and the Captain cleared the table while Julia sat still,
contrary to Dutch custom. And also of things less on the surface--as
that Julia was head of the household and that Captain Polkington was
not the impressive and authoritative person Mijnheer seemed to think.
Concerning this last fact he made no remark when, on his return home,
he described the ways and customs of Julia's cottage to his parents.
The description served Mevrouw at least, as representative of all
English households ever afterwards.
When dinner was done and everything cleared up, or rather Julia's
part, she took Joost into the garden.
"Now," she said in Dutch, "let us come out and talk and look at
things."
They went out and he began to admire her orderly garden and to tell
her why this plant had done well and that one had failed. He did not
speak of the blue daffodil, he thought he could better ask about that
a little later. She did not speak of it either by name; he and it were
so inseparably connected in her mind.
"Come along," she said, when he stopped to look into a tulip to see if
its centre was as truly black as it should have been. "Come and see
it."
He followed her obediently, but asked what it was he was to see.
"The blue daffodil, of course," she said.
He stopped dead. "You have got it here?" he exclaimed. "You have not
sold it?"
"Certainly not."
"But why--why?" he stared at her in amazement. "You wanted money, it
was for that you wanted the bulb, to sell; you told me so. Do you not
want money now?"
"Oh, yes," Julia said; "but that is an incurable disease hereditary in
our family."
"You do want money?" he inquired mystified. "This inheritance is
small, not enough? Why, then, did you not sell the bulb?"
Julia shrugged her shoulders. "I could not very well," she said.
"But why not? You thought to do so at one time; your intention was to
sell it if you had--"
"Stolen it? Yes, that is quite true, and it would not have mattered
then. If I had stolen it I might as well have sold it; one
dishonourable act feels lonely without another; it generally begets
another to keep itself company."
Joost looked at her uncomprehendingly. "But why," he persisted,
clinging to the one thing he did understand, "why did you not sell it?
It was for that I gave it to you, to do with as you pleased; I knew
you would do only what was right and necessary."
Julia could have smiled a little at this last word; it seemed as if
even Joost had learnt to temper right with necessity to suit her
dealings, but she only said, "That was one reason why I could not sell
it. You expected me to do right, so I was obliged to do it; faith
begets righteousness as dishonour begets dishonour."
"I do not quite understand," he began, but she cut him short.
"No," she said; "we always found it difficult to make things quite
plain, it is no use trying now. Come and see the daffodil, you will
understand that, at all events, and better than I do. It is not quite
fully out yet, but very nearly, and--please don't be disappointed--it
is not a real true blue daffodil at all."
She took him to the chosen spot and showed him the plant--a bunch of
long narrow leaves rising from the brown earth, and in the midst of
them a single stalk supporting a partly opened flower. In shape it was
single, like the common wild blossom, only much bigger; but in
colour, not blue as was expected, but streaked in irregular unblended
stripes of pure yellow and pure blue. The marking was as hard and
unshaded as that of the old-fashioned brown and yellow tulips which
children call bulls'-eyes, and the effect, though bizarre, was not at
all pretty. Julia did not think it so, and she did not expect any one
else to either; but Joost, when he saw the streaky flower, gave a
little inarticulate exclamation and, dropping on his knees on the
path, lifted the bell reverently so that he might look into it.
"Ah!" he said softly; "ah, it is beautiful, wonderful!" He looked up,
and Julia, seeing the rapt and humble admiration of his face, forgot
that there was something ludicrous in the sight of a young man
kneeling on a garden path reverently worshipping a striped flower. It
was no abstract admiration of the beautiful, and no cultivated
admiration for the new and strange; it was the love of a man for his
work and appreciation of success in it, even if the success were
another's; also, perhaps, in part, the expression of a deep-seated
national feeling for flowers.
"Is it what you wished?" Julia asked gently, conscious that she was,
as always, a long way off from Joost.
"I did not wish it," he said, "because I did not foresee it. No one
could foresee that it would come, though it always might. It is a
novelty, an accident of nature perhaps, but beautiful, wonderful!"
"Is it a real novelty?" Julia asked. "Just as much as your first blue
daffodil was? Oh, I am glad! Then you have two now."
"I?" Joost said in surprise. "No, not I; this is yours, not mine; you
have grown it."
"That's nothing," Julia returned easily; "you gave me the bulb; it is
really your bulb; I only just put it into the ground, I have had
nothing to do with the novelty."
But if she thought to dispose of the matter in that way she soon found
she was mistaken; there were apparently laws governing bulb growing
which were as inviolable as any governing hereditary titles. The man
who bloomed the bulb was the man who had produced the novelty--if
novelty it was; he could no more make over his rights to another than
a duke could his coronet. In vain Julia protested that it was by the
merest chance that Joost had hit on this particular sort to give her,
that it was only an accident which had prevented him from blooming it
himself. He said that did not matter at all, and when she failed to be
convinced, added that possibly, had he kept the bulb, the result might
not have proved the same; her soil and treatment were doubtless both
different.
Julia laughed at the idea, saying she knew nothing about soil and
treatment. But she made no impression on Joost and apparently did not
alter the case; the laws of the bulb growers were not only like those
of the "Medes and Persians which alter not," but also refused to be
bent or evaded even by a Polkington.
"It is yours," Joost said, as he took a last look at the flower before
he rose from his knees; "the great honour is yours, and I am glad of
it."
There was something in his tone which reminded Julia of that talk they
had had in the little enclosed place on the last day she was at the
bulb farm. She hastily submitted so as to avoid the too personal.
"What am I to do with the honour?" she asked. "I do not know, that is
one reason why it is absurd for me to have it."
"You must name your flower," he told her; "and then you must exhibit
it. Fortunately you are in time for the show in London."
"But I can't go to London," Julia said; "it is out of the question for
me to leave home even if I could afford the fare, which I cannot."
Joost answered there was no need; he could arrange everything for her.
"I can take the daffodil to London with me," he said. "It must be
lifted--you have a flower pot, then it must be tied with care, and it
will travel quite safely."
"But," Julia objected; "if it is exhibited with my name, and you say
my name as the grower must appear, your father will hear of it and
then he will know that you gave me a bulb--it cannot be exhibited. I
do not care about a certificate of merit or whatever one gets."
"It must be exhibited," Joost said; "as to my father, he knows
already, I have told him; that does not stand in the way."
To this Julia had nothing to say; perhaps in her heart she was a
little ashamed because she had suspected him of the half honesty of
only telling what was necessary when it was necessary, that she
herself was likely to have practised in his case.
"Now you must call your flower a name," he said, "as I called mine
Vrouw Van Heigen."
"I will call it after you," Julia said.
But Joost would not have that. "That will not do; the blue daffodil is
already a Van Heigen; there cannot be another, it will make
confusion."
"Well, I'll call it the honest man, then; that will be you."
Joost did not like that either; he thought it very unsuitable. "Why
not name it after"--he began; he had meant to say "your father," but
recalling that gentleman, he changed it to--"some one of whom you are
fond."
[Illustration: "'Now you must call your flower a name,' he said"]
Julia hesitated. "I like the honest man," she said; "but as you say
it is not suitable, the blue daffodil is really the honest one, this
is too mixed--I shall call it after Johnny; I am fond of him."
But Joost was romantic; it was only natural with the extreme and
almost childish simplicity of his nature there should be some romance,
and there was nothing to satisfy that sentiment in Mr. Gillat.
"Johnny?" he said; "yes, but it is not very pretty; it does not
suggest a beautiful flower. Why not call it after the heroine of some
book or a friend or comrade? Perhaps"--Joost was only human--"he with
whom you went walking on the Dunes."
"Him?" Julia said. "I never thought of that. He was a friend
certainly, and a good comrade; he tried hard to get me out of that
scrape; he would have stood by me if I had let him--the same as you
did--you were both comrades to me then. I tell you what, shall I call
it 'The Good Comrade?' Then it would be after you both and Johnny too;
Johnny would certainly stand by me through thick and thin, share his
last crust with me, or father, give me the whole of it. Yes, we will
call the daffodil 'The Good Comrade,' and it shall have three
godfathers."
With this Joost was satisfied, even though he had to share what honour
there was with two others. Mr. Gillat, of course, when he was told,
was much pleased; he even found he was now able to admire the
wonderful flower, though before, he had agreed with Julia's opinion of
it. To Captain Polkington not much was said about it.
"Johnny," Julia said, as they stood watching Joost pot the bulb, "you
are not to tell father how valuable this is. He will find out quite
soon enough; people are sure to bother me to sell it after it has been
exhibited, and I am not going to."
"No," Johnny said; "of course not, naturally not."
So Captain Polkington had no idea why Joost carried away a carefully
tied-up flower pot when he left the cottage that afternoon. He only
thought the young man must have a most remarkable enthusiasm for
flowers to so burden himself on a long walk.
* * * * *
And in due time the wonderful streaked daffodil, "Narcissus Triandrus
Striatum, The Good Comrade," grown by Miss Snooks of White's Cottage,
Halgrave, was exhibited at the Temple Show. And bulb growers,
professional and amateur, waxed enthusiastic over it. And the general
public who went to the show, admired it or not, as their taste and
education allowed them. And among the general public who went, was a
Miss Lillian Farham, a girl who, last September, had travelled north
with carnations in her coat and Rawson-Clew in a corner of the railway
carriage. Miss Farham was an enthusiastic gardener, and having means
and leisure and a real taste for it, she had some notable successes in
the garden of her beautiful home; and when she was in town she never
missed an opportunity of attending a good show, seeing something new,
and learning what she could. She was naturally much interested in the
new streaked daffodil; so much so, that she spoke of it afterwards,
not only to those people who shared her taste, but also to at least
one who did not.
Rawson-Clew was back in London. He had not been back long, but already
he had begun the preliminaries of a search for Mr. Gillat. He decided
that it would be easier to find him than Julia, who might possibly
have changed her name to oblige her family, and who certainly would be
better able to hide herself, if she had a mind to, than Mr. Gillat. He
had not as yet been able to devote many days to the search, and had
got no further than preliminaries; still he could already see that it
was not going to be easy and might possibly be long. He did not go to
the show of spring flowers; he did not feel the least interest in it,
but when by chance he met Lillian Farham she spoke of it to him and
also of the new daffodil.
"It was grown at Halgrave, too," she said; "that is not so very far
from your part of Norfolk, is it?"
"Fifteen or twenty miles," Rawson-Clew answered.
"Is it so much as that?" she said; "I thought it was nearer; of
course, then, you can't tell me anything about the grower."
He could not; it is probable even if the place had been much nearer,
he still could not, seeing that it was some years since he had been to
"his part of Norfolk." However, he gave polite attention to Miss
Farham, who went on to describe the wonderful flower of mixed yellow
and blue.
"Blue?" Rawson-Clew's interest became more real; he had once heard of
blue in connection with a daffodil. It was one evening on a long flat
Dutch road--the evening he had tied Julia's shoe. She had spoken of
it, she had begun to say, when he stopped the confession that he
thought she would afterwards regret, that she could not take the blue
daffodil.
"What is the name?" he asked; he meant of the grower in Norfolk,
though he would have been puzzled to say why he asked.
Miss Farham, however, mistook his meaning and thought he was asking
about the flower. "'The Good Comrade,'" she said, and fortunately she
did not see his surprise. "Rather quaint, is it not?" she went on.
"Easier to remember, too, than some obscure grand duchess, or the name
of the grower or his wife after whom new flowers are usually called.
The blue daffodil, you know, is called after one of the grower's
relatives--Vrouw Van Heigen."
Rawson-Clew said "Yes," though he did not know it before. It struck
him as interesting now; the Van Heigens had a blue daffodil then, and
Julia went to them for some purpose besides earning a pittance as
companion. She had not taken a blue daffodil; she said so; she also
said at another time she had failed in the object of her coming and
that failure and success would have been alike discreditable. Poor
Julia! And now here was some one in Norfolk exhibiting a daffodil of
mixed blue and yellow called, by a strange coincidence, "The Good
Comrade." Of course, it was only a coincidence and yet, when reason is
not helping as much as it ought, one is inclined to take notice of
signs and coincidences.
"What is the name of the grower of this new flower?" Rawson-Clew
asked.
Miss Farham told him.
"Snooks," he repeated thoughtfully; she imagined he was trying to
remember if he had heard the name before. He was not; he was wondering
if any one ever really started in life with such a name; if, rather,
it did not sound more like the pseudonym of one who was indifferent to
public credence, and possibly public opinion.
Rawson-Clew was not able to tell Miss Farham anything about the grower
of the streaked daffodil; he was obliged to own that he had never
heard of her before. But he made it his business to find out what he
could in the shortest possible time; this he did not mention to Miss
Farham. What he discovered did not amount to much, very little in
fact, but such as it was, it was enough to bring him to Halgrave.