THE LINE OF LEAST RESISTANCE
Julia was at work in the kitchen; it was ten o'clock on a November
morning and she was busy; Captain Polkington had had breakfast
up-stairs, he often did now, and it delayed the morning's work. Mr.
Gillat brought in two letters which the postman had left; both were
for Julia, but she had not time to read them now, so she put them down
on the table; they would keep; she did not feel greatly interested to
know what was inside them. Things did not interest her as they used;
in some imperceptible way she had aged; some of the elasticity and
youth was gone, perhaps because hope was gone. It had been dying all
the summer, ever since the day when she crouched behind the
chopping-block; but gently and gradually, as the year dies, with some
beauties unknown in early days and little recurrent spurts of hope and
youth, like the flowers that bloom into winter's lap. But it was dead
now; there had come to her, as it were, a sudden frost, and, as
befalls in the years, too, the late blooming flowers, the coloured
leaves, the last beautiful clinging remnants of life withered all at
once and fell away. It was unreasonable, perhaps, that the Captain's
theft of the daffodil and what arose from it should have had this
result; but then it was possibly unreasonable that hope and youth
should have had any autumn at all and not died right off when she said
"No" and meant it that afternoon in the early summer. But then the
mind of man--and woman--is unreasonable.
It was nearly half-an-hour later when Julia picked up the letters;
both were from Holland; one, she fancied, was from Mijnheer, one from
his son. She opened the latter first; she rather wondered what Joost
could have to write about; he had acknowledged the receipt of the
daffodil bulb long ago. The matter was soon explained; the letter was
as formal and precise as ever, but the emotion that dictated it, the
distress and regret, was quite clear to Julia in spite of the primness
of expression. Clear, too, to her were the conflicting feelings that
lay behind the lover's contrition for what he feared was abuse of his
mistress's trust, and the grower's desire that the treasured token
should be resolved into, what it was, a wonderful bulb, a triumph of
the horticulturist. Julia smiled a little sadly as she read; not that
she regretted the existence of the grower with the lover; she was glad
to see it and to know that it was triumphing. But the whole affair
seemed so far off, so unimportant, so almost childish. She did not
care who knew he had the daffodil, or whether it bloomed or rotted. In
these days, when her self-apportioned burden was beginning to press
heavily upon her shoulders, such things did not seem to matter. She
had a sense almost of disloyalty in feeling how little it mattered to
her when it appeared to be so much to this loyal friend.
Captain Polkington had of late had several sudden attacks of a
faintness which more often than not amounted to unconsciousness.
"Heart," the doctor had said when he was summoned after the first one;
he had not regarded them as very dangerous, that is to say not likely
to prove fatal at any moment if properly treated at the time. He had
given instructions as to suitable treatment, emphasising the fact
that the patient ought never to be long out of ear-shot of some one,
as the attacks required immediate remedy. He forbade excitement and
much exertion, orders easy to fulfil in this case, and also stimulants
of all sorts, an order not quite so easy. Captain Polkington was much
displeased about this last; he said it plainly showed the doctor a
fool who did not know his business; stimulant, as every one knew,
being the first necessity for a weak heart. Julia pointed out that
that must vary with the constitution, nature and disease; she also
recalled the fact that alcohol never had suited her father. He was
naturally not convinced by her logic, and so was decidedly sulky; even
in time, by dint of dwelling upon the subject, came to regard the
treatment as a conspiracy to annoy him. Julia regretted this but did
not think it mattered very much, seeing that she had the keys; but
then she did not know of that purchase made in the town. The Captain,
rebelling against the doctor's order, hugged himself as he thought of
it and of the comparatively sparing use he had made of it so far--for
fear of being found out. There was no need of him to die by inches
while he had that store of life and comfort; so he told himself, and
secretly made use of it, with anything but good result. Julia, marking
the disimprovement in his health, thought it was the natural course
and saved him all work, carrying out the doctor's instructions more
carefully than ever. The hidden whisky remained unknown to her, for
although in the larger affairs of duplicity and diplomacy she easily
outmatched her father, in matters requiring small cunning he was much
nearer her equal. In this one he showed almost preternatural skill;
his whole heart was in it, and his wits, where it was concerned, were
sharpened above the average; he clung to his secret as a man clings to
his one chance of life, made only the more pertinacious by the
contrary advice he had received. But on that November morning, after
Julia had brought her father round by the proper remedies, she began
to have suspicions. They were not founded on anything definite; she
could not imagine how he should have got stimulant, and his condition
hardly justified her in suspecting it, yet she did. And Captain
Polkington knew by experience that that was enough to prove
unpleasant; it did not matter much at which end Julia got hold of his
affairs, she had a knack of arriving at the middle before he was at
all ready for her. He resented what she said to him that morning very
much indeed. He denied everything and defended himself well; although
he was in fear all the time that some unwary word or unwise denial
should betray him to his cross-examiner who, being herself no mean
expert in the double-dealing arts, could frequently learn as much from
a lie as from the truth. In the end, what between anxiety and
annoyance, he lost control of his temper and from peevish irritability
broke out suddenly into a fit of weak ungovernable rage. Julia was
obliged at once to desist, seeing with regret that she had
transgressed one of the doctor's rules and excited the patient very
much indeed.
She left him to recover control of himself and went to look for Mr.
Gillat.
"Johnny," she said, when she found him. "I believe father has got
whisky. I don't know where, but I shall have to find out; you must
help me."
Johnny professed his willingness, looking puzzled and unhappy; he
looked so at times, again now, for even he had begun to discern a
shadow coming on the life which for a year had been so happy to him.
"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.
There was not a detective lost in Mr. Gillat, he had not the making of
a sleuth-hound in him; or even a watch-dog, except, perhaps, of that
well-meaning kind which gets itself perennially kicked for incessant
and incurable tail wagging at inopportune times. The half-hour which
followed Captain Polkington's coming down-stairs was a trying one. The
Captain went to the back door to look out; Mr. Gillat followed him,
though scarcely like his shadow; he was not inconspicuous, and neither
he nor his motive were easy to overlook. The Captain said something
approbious about the weather and the high wind and occasional
heavy swishes of rain; then he went to the sitting-room which lay
behind the kitchen, and near to the front door. Johnny followed him,
and the Captain faced round on him, irritably demanding what the devil
he wanted.
"To--to see if the register is shut," Mr. Gillat said, beaming at his
own deep diplomacy and the brilliancy of the idea which had come to
him--rather tardily, it is true, still in time to pass muster.
The Captain flung himself into a chair with a sigh of irritation. "It
is a funny thing I can't be let alone a moment," he said. "I came in
here for a little quiet and coolness, I didn't want you dodging after
me."
"No," Johnny agreed amiably; "no, of course not." Then, after a long
pause, as if he had just made sure of the fact, "It is cool in here."
It was, very; it might even have been called cold and raw, for there
had not been a fire there for days, but the Captain did not move, and
Johnny, stooping by the fire-place, examined the register of the
chimney, fondly believing in his own impenetrable deceptiveness.
"I can't help thinking it ought to be shut," he observed, looking
thoughtfully up the chimney; "the rain will come down; it might rain a
good deal if the wind were to drop."
"The wind is not going to drop for hours," the Captain snapped; "it is
getting higher."
A great gust rumbled in the chimney as he spoke, and flung itself with
the thud of a palpable body against the window-pane. Mr. Gillat heard
it; he could not well do otherwise. "Still," he said, "it might rain;
one never knows."
He took hold of the register with the tongs and tried to shut it. It
was obstinate, and he pulled this way and that, working in his usual
laborious and conscientious way. At last it slipped and he managed to
get it jammed crossways. Thus he had to leave it, for Captain
Polkington, apparently cool enough now, wandered back into the
kitchen.
Mr. Gillat, of course, followed and arranged and rearranged pots on
the stove till the Captain said he had left his handkerchief
up-stairs. Stairs were trying to his heart, so Johnny had to go for
it. Up he went as fast as he could, and came down again almost faster,
for he tumbled on the second step and slipped the rest of the way with
considerable noise and bumping.
After that Captain Polkington gave up his efforts to get rid of his
guard and resigned himself to fate. At least, so thought Mr. Gillat,
who no amount of experience could instruct in the guilt of the human
race in general and the Polkingtons in particular. The first hour of
Julia's absence had passed when Johnny went into the back kitchen to
clean knives. He left the door between the rooms open, but from habit
more than from any thought of keeping an eye on his charge. They had
been talking in the ordinary way for some time now, the Captain
sitting so peacefully by the fire that Mr. Gillat had begun to forget
he was supposed to watch. And really it would seem he was justified,
for the Captain, of his own accord, left the easy-chair and followed
him into the back kitchen, standing watching the knife-cleaning. He
had been talking of old times, recalling far back incidents
regretfully; he continued to do so as he watched Johnny at work until
he was interrupted by a loud sizzling in the kitchen.
"Hullo!" he said, "there's a pot boiling over!" and he made as if he
would go to it but half stopped. "It is the big one," he said,
"perhaps you had better take it off; I'm not good at lifting weights
now-a-days."
"No, no!" Johnny said hastily; "don't you do it, you leave it to me,"
and he hurried into the kitchen to take from the fire a pot which, had
he only remembered it, had not been so near the blaze when he left it.
"It is too heavy for you," he went on as he lifted it; "I don't know
what is inside, only water, I think; it will be all right here by the
side."
A gust of wind swept round the kitchen, fluttering the herbs which
hung from the ceiling and blowing the dust and flame from the front of
the fire.
"Dear, dear!" Mr. Gillat exclaimed as he drew back, "What a wind!"
Then, as he caught the whisper and whistle of the leafless things
which whisper to one another out of doors even in the dead winter
time, he realised that the outer door must be open.
"Shut it!" he said. "The latch is so old, it is beginning to get worn
out, and the wind is so strong, too. Let me see if I can shut it." He
went to the back kitchen for that purpose and found that he was
talking to empty air, the Captain was gone.
In great consternation he went out after his charge. He had not had a
minute's start; he could not have got far, not much more than round
the corner of the house. So thought Mr. Gillat, and started round the
nearest corner after him. Julia would not have done that; with the
instinct of the wild animal and the rogue for cover, and for the value
of the obvious in concealment, she would have looked by the water butt
first. It was not a hiding-place; the bush beside did not half conceal
Captain Polkington, yet he stood dark and unobtrusive against it and
so close to the door that in looking out for him one naturally looked
beyond him. As Johnny went round one side of the house the Captain
left the meagre shelter of the butt and went round the other, bent now
on finding some better hiding-place till it should be safe for him to
go to his precious store. And seeing that he was braced by an
insatiable whisky thirst and so possessed by one idea that he had
almost a madman's cunning in achieving his purpose, it is not
wonderful that he succeeded. While Johnny hastily searched the
out-buildings he lay hid. And when at last Mr. Gillat went back to the
house, being convinced that his charge must have gone back before him,
he, nerved and strengthened by a dose of the precious spirit,
carefully climbed over the garden wall, carrying with him all that was
left of his store. It was rather heavy, and the rising wind was
strong, but he was strong, too, and he bore more strength with him. He
could carry a weight and fight with the wind if he wanted to; his
heart was well enough when it was properly treated. And it should be
properly treated as long as he had his comfort, his precious medicine
safe and in a place where prying hands could not touch it.
* * * * *
Julia came home from Halgrave later than she expected, but the wind
had increased to a gale, so that walking along the exposed road had
been no easy matter. Johnny by this time was almost desperate with
alarm, for Captain Polkington had not come back and, in spite of a
continuous search in likely and unlikely places, he had not been able
to find any trace of him or his whisky. It is true his search was not
very systematic at the best of times; it is not likely to have been
now; as his alarm increased, it grew worse, until, by the time Julia
came in, it had become little more than a repeated looking in the same
unlikely places and an incessant toiling up and down-stairs and across
the garden in the howling wind.
His account of the Captain's vanishing was much obscured by
self-condemnation and anxiety, still she managed to make it out and
she did not at first think so very seriously of it. She concluded from
it that her father had succeeded in getting at his whisky and Johnny
had failed to prevent him or find out the whereabouts of the store--a
not very astonishing occurrence. The fact that the Captain had not
returned or shown himself for so long was surprising and to be
regretted, seeing the badness of the weather. But it was not
inexplicable; he might be anxious to demonstrate his freedom, or, by
frightening them, to pay them out for the watch lately kept on him;
or--and this was the one serious aspect of the matter--he might have
taken more of the spirit than he could stand in his weak state and be
too stupid and muddled to come back alone. Julia reassured Johnny as
well as she could, and then, accompanied by him, set to work to search
thoroughly the house, garden and out-buildings.
It was dinner time before they had finished. Julia came to the doorway
of the bulb shed uneasy and perplexed. "It is clear he is not here,"
she said, and turned to fasten the door. A gust of wind tore it from
her hand, flinging it back noisily. She caught it again and secured
it. "It is dinner time," she said; "come along indoors, there is no
reason why you should go hungry because father chooses to."
Johnny followed her to the house. When they were indoors he said, "Do
you think--you don't think he has had an attack?--that he is lying
unconscious somewhere?" That was precisely what Julia was beginning to
think; there seemed no other possible explanation. Johnny read her
mind in her face and was overwhelmed with the sense of his own
shortcomings and their possible consequences.
"It is not your fault," Julia assured him; "you might as well say it
is father's for being so foolish and obstinate about his whisky--a
great deal better and more truly say it is mine for leaving you, and
for driving him into this corner, for not having managed the whole
thing better."
Johnny, though a little relieved that she did not think him to blame,
was not comforted. "Let us go and find him," he said; "we must find
him; never mind about dinner--we must go and look for him--though I
don't know where."
"We must look beyond the garden," Julia said; "he must have got
further than we first thought--but I don't see how he can be far in
this weather. Cut some cheese and bread; we can eat it as we go
along."
In a little while they set out together, Julia taking restoratives
with her, though she was also careful to leave some on the
kitchen-table in case Captain Polkington should make his way back and
feel in need of them in her absence. Outside the garden wall one felt
the force of the wind more fully, and realised how impossible it was
that the Captain should have gone far. Julia stood a moment by the
gate. Before her lay the road to Halgrave; her father might have gone
down it a little way; but if he had he must have turned off and sought
concealment somewhere for she had seen no sign of any one when she
came home. To the left stretched the heath-land, brown and bare, to
the belt of wildly tossing pines; it was hard to imagine her father
choosing that way. To the right lay the sandhills, a place of unsteady
outline, earth and sky alike pale and blurred as the north-west wind
fled seawards, lifting and whirling the fine particles till the air
seemed full of them; it was impossible to think of any one choosing
that way.
"We will go down the road to begin with," Julia said, and started.
All through the early part of the afternoon they searched; sometimes
stopped for a moment by a gust of wind; Julia caught and whirled,
Johnny brought to a panting standstill. But on again directly,
struggling down the road, looking in ditches and behind scant bushes,
leaving the track first on the right hand then on the left, searching
in likely and unlikely places. But always with the same result, there
was no sign of the missing man. At last, when they had reached a
greater distance than it was possible to imagine the Captain could
have gone, they turned towards the house across the heath. It was
difficult to think of the Captain going that way, seeing he would have
been walking in the teeth of the wind, but it almost seemed he must
have done it.
The short day was already beginning to close in when they reached the
belt of pines. It had grown much colder; one could almost believe
there would be frost in the air by and by. The wind was lulling a
little; it still roared with strange rushings and half-demented
tearings at the tree-tops, almost like some great spirit prisoned
there, but it had spent its first strength. The rain clouds were
going, too; already in places the sky was swept clear so that a pale
light gleamed behind the trees.
Julia stood in the vibrant shelter of the pines, pushing back her
hair; she was bareheaded; a hat had been an impossible superfluity
when she started out.
"Johnny," she said, "we have come too far; father could not have got
to the trees in such weather as it was when he started; we must go
back. I expect he is somewhere nearer home; we have not half searched
the possible radius yet."
Johnny said "Yes." He was dog-tired, so tired that his anxiety was now
little more than dull despair animated by an unquestioning
determination to continue the search.
He would have done so somehow, and with his flagging energies been
more hindrance than help, had not Julia prevented him; as they neared
the house, now almost merged in the dusk, she said--
"I am going to fetch a lantern; the moon will be up soon, but until
then I shall want a light. I am just coming in to get it, then I shall
go out again; but you must stop at home; father may come back, and if
he found us both out after dark he would think something was wrong and
start to look for us; then we should be worse off than ever."
Johnny said "Yes"; but suggested, "I think we'd better look round
about the house once more. I think I'll take a light and look round
again."
Julia did not think it would be much use; however she consented,
though she had to go with Johnny; she did not trust him with a lantern
among the out-buildings. They looked round once more, in the sheds and
in the dark garden; afterwards they went out and looked beyond the
wall all round, on the side where the heather grew and also on the
side where the loose sand came close. It took time; Johnny was too
tired to move quickly or even to understand quickly what was said to
him. At last Julia stopped and spoke decisively.
"You had better go in now," she said; "it won't do for us both to be
out any longer; one of us must go in, and I think it had better be
you. Make a good fire, see that there is plenty of hot water and get
something to eat so as to be ready to do things when I come back."
Johnny acquiesced and Julia, having watched him into the house, took
up her lantern and set out in the direction of the sandhills.
It was her last resource; it did not seem to her likely that her
father could have gone there; at the best of times he disliked the
place, finding it very tiring. Still, with the wind behind him as it
would have been this morning, it is possible he would have found it
the easiest way--if he could have managed to forget what the coming
back would be. At all events she determined to try it, so she set out
for the waste.
By this time the moon was rising, and, in spite of the driving clouds
which had not all dispersed, at times it shone clear. Beneath it the
stretch of sand lay pale and desolate, a new-formed landscape of fresh
contours, loosely-piled hills and shallow scooped hollows shaped by
to-day's wind. An easy place for a man to miss his way with a gale
blowing and the sand dancing blinding reels. A hard place for a man to
travel far when he had to face the wind; a strong man would have found
it very tiring, a weak man might well have given it up, driven to
waiting for a lull in the weather. As for a man in the Captain's
health--when Julia thought of it she hurried on, although she knew if
her father had to-day, as he had all through his life, followed the
line of least resistance, the chances were that her help would be of
little avail to him now.
She carried her lantern low, looking carefully for footprints; soon,
however, she put it out; she would do better without in the increasing
moon-light. But she found no prints; after all, as she remembered, she
was hardly likely to; the wind and blowing sand would have obliterated
them. Over the first level of sand she went to the nearest rise
without seeing anything; up to that and down the following hollow,
looking in every curve and indentation, still without seeing anything.
Then she began to climb the next rise. The moon was struggling through
a long cloud, one moment eclipsed, the next shining with a half
radiance which made the landscape unevenly black and white. For a
second it looked out clear, and the sand showed like silver,
tear-spotted with ink in the hollows; then the cloud swept up and all
turned to a level grey. She had climbed to the top of a rise by now,
sinking deep and noiseless into the soft sand. It was too dark to see
what was below; all was shadow, black shadow--or was it a blackness
more substantial than shadow?
The cloud passed from off the moon's face, the light shone out once
more, turning the sand to silver. All the great empty space, where the
dying wind still throbbed, was white silver, except down in the hollow
where, black and still, lay the man who had followed the line of least
resistance.