Nearly a year had slipped by since the sudden journey of Brian and his father to London—a year of uneventful things, during which Comethup plodded steadily on with his elementary studies with the captain, and made, according to that gentleman’s glowing accounts to David Willis, considerable progress. David Willis, in his talks with the captain, was full of vague schemes for the boy’s future—schools he should attend, and the prizes he should gain, and the brilliant things he should do generally. The two men nodded heads over him on winter evenings long after he was asleep, the captain taking as much as, if not more, personal pride in his achievements than the father. David Willis had, of course, made up his mind that the boy must be a musician; it was the one profession in the world, and there were great prizes in it—prizes which David himself had never been able to clutch, but which would lie easily within the reach of his son. The captain said nothing on that point, but shook his head in secret as he walked home through the frosty streets; there was but one profession in his mind for Comethup, and he—the captain—had already sown the seeds which should make for an abundant harvest in it. Comethup Willis should yet shine in the annals of his country as a greater soldier than the captain had ever been, and should be able to point with pride to the man who had first given him a lesson in military tactics. The captain did notsee quite clearly how it was all to be managed; but Fate is good in the case of such a wonderful boy as Comethup, and things could be done somehow. At all events, there was plenty of time yet.
So another summer came round again, with its promise of a renewal of all the old delights, and Comethup was eight years old. Not a great age, certainly, save to the mind of a little child; but Comethup was older than his years, and looked on life, perhaps, with graver eyes than most. Nothing seemed to have changed in his small world; the captain looked exactly the same as of old, and carried himself as stiffly erect as ever. ’Linda had grown, but not to an extent to be marked by one who saw her almost daily. Then suddenly into Comethup’s quiet life came a great and terrible change.
One summer Sunday morning he was waiting as usual for the captain at the door of his father’s cottage. The bells above him were ringing for church, and he was expecting every moment that his father would pass him, as usual, with his books under his arm, and a kindly word for the child on his lips, on his way into the church. But this morning, although he could see at the far end of the sunlit street the figure of the captain marching toward him, he had seen nothing of his father; and the bell above him had started that slow, dull tolling which gave warning that it would stop in a few moments. Fearing that something might have delayed his father, or that he might—although that seemed impossible—have forgotten the time, he turned, and ran up the stairs to his father’s room. It was a small room near his own; the big best bedroom in which he had been born and in which his mother had died, was never used, and was always kept scrupulously clean and neat behind its closed door.
But David Willis was not in his room, and Comethup, a little vaguely frightened, was coming down again, when he saw that the door of the unused room stood slightly open. He paused, and then drew near and peeped in. In the semi-darkness—for the blinds were always drawn there—he saw his father kneeling beside the great bed,with his arms stretched out upon it, and his head buried between them; he seemed to be praying. Ashamed even at the thought of prying at such a moment, Comethup stole gently down the stairs, turned at the foot of them, and called loudly to his father, for the bell had stopped ringing now, and the captain was standing, watch in hand, in the cottage doorway.
He heard a movement above him, and his father came hurriedly down the stairs. He looked dazed, and something glistened about his eyes like tears; but Comethup had never seen a man cry, and did not believe that they could, and therefore dismissed that suggestion as impossible.
“I—I had quite forgotten,” said David Willis, glancing with a smile at the captain. “And the bell has stopped. I must hurry.” He went past them at a run, and Comethup and the captain quickly followed.
Late though he was, he paused for a moment at the church door and looked away across the little graveyard to the mound which Comethup had seen him decorate so often with flowers from his dead wife’s garden; then, remembering himself, he hurried into the church. The captain and Comethup crept in noiselessly by their own door and got into their places. They heard the first wheezy sounds of the organ above them, and then the first notes of the voluntary; then, even while the congregation were rising to their feet, the organ stopped abruptly, dying away on a long, thin note like a wail.
In the silence which followed—a silence in which he did not even seem to hear the sharp whispers of those about him, and in which the beating of his own heart was painfully loud and stifled—Comethup had time to feel with unerring instinct that something dreadful had happened. Moreover, the captain, who was looking up toward the organ-loft, had closed his hands on the boy’s shoulder with a grip which hurt him. A moment later, while the people were still standing looking up in the same direction, the captain had pushed past Comethup, bidding him, in a stern whisper, to stay where he was, and was making hisway toward the organ-loft. Some one near at hand—a woman—cried out suddenly, and there was a movement about her, and, before Comethup had quite realized all that had happened, another woman, young and pretty and with eyes that smiled at him through tears, had glided into the pew where the boy stood and had drawn him down on the seat, with his head against her breast. Then, dimly understanding that something was very wrong indeed, he clung to her, and let his tears have vent.
The next thing that he remembered was that the captain was in the pew behind, bending over and touching his head softly with one lean old hand; the woman was rocking him to and fro and murmuring to him, as though he had been in pain. And the people were all rustling out of church.
“Boy,” said the captain, in a low voice, “you did not—did not know your mother?”
The boy turned his head and looked up at the captain without answering.
“She was very beautiful and very good, Comethup. She—she went away when you came into the world. Your father was very fond of her—loved her dearly.” The captain bent his head, turned away his face, and lowered his voice. “And he is gone to meet her. Come home with me, Comethup.”
THE COMING OF AUNT CHARLOTTE.
Comethup slept that night on a hastily made-up bed in an empty room of the captain’s cottage. He remembered, long afterward, standing in the room, holding a candle, and shaking every now and then from head to foot with the last of his sobs, while the captain and the man Homer shook out the sheets and punched the pillows,and made the bed as comfortable as they could under the circumstances. It was made up on some old boxes and a chair or two, and the captain was touchingly apologetic about it and its meagreness. Comethup assured him, however, that it would be quite comfortable, and undressed and got into it gratefully; for the excitement of the day had worn him out, and he was very soon asleep. Before consciousness completely left him, however, he had a dim idea that the captain stole softly into the room more than once and bent over him to listen to his breathing, and then crept away again. But so dim was the recollection that he thought afterward it might only have been a fancy.
Breakfasting with the captain was a new experience. The meal passed almost in silence, for Comethup was still weighed down by the strangeness of his situation, and the captain, for his part, felt that gravity was necessary to the occasion. Even in that house, so far away from the actual house of death, everything appeared subdued. The captain gave his orders to Homer in a lower tone than usual, and addressed his few remarks to Comethup in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper. Moreover, the boy found that a new and sad importance had been thrust upon him by the event of the previous day; the captain was kinder even than usual, had pressed simple dishes upon his notice, and was particular about the sweetening of his very coffee. Comethup found, too, that this importance clung to him after he had passed into the streets. People turned and looked after him as he walked beside the captain, and whispered; more than one seemed to possess an inclination to stop and speak, but the captain held steadily on, and stopped for nothing.
Comethup had expressed a wish to go back to his father’s house; had put the matter delicately and with tears, in his desire not to wound his friend’s feelings, and in fear lest the captain should think him ungrateful. But he could not bear the thought that his father was lying alone there in a house which he seemed to know by instinctwould be more hushed and melancholy than the captain’s. So they went together.
Halfway to the house they saw, swinging toward them down the street, Mr. Robert Carlaw. He carried a beaming face, and took up even more of the pavement than usual as he walked. At the sight of Comethup he seemed to recollect himself; the expression of his face changed, and he sighed. The captain would have passed on, after a word or two, but Mr. Carlaw stood full in the way on the narrow pavement, and there was nothing for it but to stop.
“Ah, my poor little friend! I have been thinking of you all night; have passed a sleepless night. These things touch me more acutely than you might imagine; my nature is highly strung and these things wound me—cut me to the heart. But”—he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head—“‘in the midst of life we are in death,’ you know, and I suppose we must all be prepared for these things.—It was very sudden, eh?” he added, turning to the captain.
“Terribly sudden,” replied the captain, in a low voice.
“Ah! these things are not in our hands. I am sorry, very sorry; the shock of it has even tempered the joy I have in some unexpected news this morning.” His face began to beam again, try as he would to control it, and the captain looked at him with rising anger, but had no time to utter a protest; the other swept on with what he had to say, scarcely taking breath.
“A letter—yes, my dear sir, another letter has arrived from that dear eccentric soul, my sister. She appears to have repented of her conduct to me and suggests——”
“But, my dear sir,” began the captain, “this does not concern——”
“Wait, wait!” cried the other impulsively. “She suggests that she will come here—here, to this very town, at once—to-day. With some compunction, I suppose, for her behaviour to me—although, Heaven knows, I have forgotten and forgiven it long ago, poor soul—she suggests that she will not stay with me, but will put up at aninn. Oh, I know her; I know the dear creature. Protests are useless. I must go to the best inn this wretched town can boast and secure rooms for her. Think of it, she may arrive at any moment. And Brian, the blessed rascal——”
The captain pushed hurriedly past him and went on his way. But Mr. Carlaw in a moment came running after them again, and strode along beside them with a forlorn expression of countenance and with a hurried appeal to Comethup to bear his trouble manfully, and to look to something higher for consolation. Then he turned, and was off again, his step growing jauntier as the distance increased between them.
The captain strode along fiercely, muttering to himself; only at the garden gate did his features relax, and he passed into the house with a gentler face.
The dead man had been carried in there and laid in that big best room upstairs. Comethup had a wish to see him, and expressed it to the captain. But the captain shook his head. He sat down and drew the boy, in the old fashion, against his knee, and put his arm about him. “There are foolish, morbid people, boy, who’d be only too glad to let a little child look on death; but if you’ll take your old friend’s advice, don’t do it. I told you that he had gone to meet your mother; all the best of him has gone, and what is left scarcely concerns us any more. If you saw him now you would carry the remembrance with you to your grave. He died quite suddenly, and very peacefully; think of him as you saw him last, when he stood at the church door in the sunshine, with a smile upon his face. The rest is nothing, boy; the best of him is gone.”
Comethup urged no more. The very tones of the captain’s voice seemed to bring peace and consolation to him, and he went about the house—into every room except that which was closed against him—and wandered in the garden of the roses, almost believing that the roses drooped their heads a little, in pity for his sorrow.
While he was wandering aimlessly there he heard anoise in the street beyond, and saw that a fly had driven up and stopped. The driver descended from his box and opened the door, and out of the vehicle got, with considerable difficulty, a strange figure. It was the figure of an elderly lady, very richly dressed and enormously stout—so stout that Comethup saw she had a difficulty in getting through the narrow doorway of the fly. Her difficulty in alighting appeared, too, to be increased by the fact that she groped for the step with one foot, even though her arm was resting on the arm of the driver. She had a heavy black polished stick in her hand, and when she reached the pavement, still leaning on the man’s arm, she moved the stick gently in front of her, as though to feel her way. As the man pushed open the garden gate, and allowed her to walk inside, Comethup saw that her eyes were closed, and that she still moved the stick in front of her, feeling her way delicately with its point along the edge where the gravel joined the grass. Comethup knew then that she was blind.
The man walked behind her, as though to render assistance if necessary, but she came on fearlessly, stopping when within about a foot of where Comethup stood, drawn up close at the side of the path. “Who’s there?” she asked sharply.
Comethup was about to reply, but she felt her way to him, dropped her hand on his shoulder, and shook him a little. “I want a man called Willis—David Willis. Is this his house?”
Comethup, at a loss what to say, was in danger of being shaken again, when the captain appeared at the door. He came forward courteously, with a hand extended to guide her. “This is David Willis’s house,” he said. “Are you seeking him?”
“I am. What the devil should I be here for if I weren’t? Gracious—what ridiculous questions people can ask on a hot day!”
“Can I assist you, madam?” asked the captain, making a step forward.
But she waved him back fiercely. “Keep off, keepoff!” she cried. “I’m not a baby, and I can find my way alone, even in such a pokey place as this.” Still pushing Comethup before her, she got into the house and, in some fashion or other, into the little parlour. The captain had backed nervously away from her, as though he were backing from royalty, and now stood at a few paces distant, indefinitely waving his hands toward a chair which he had placed for her. But she stood, and waved her stick round the room, like some strange enchantress, still keeping her hand on the boy’s shoulder. There was an awkward pause for a moment or two, and then she spoke again, with growing impatience and in a higher key.
“Well, where is the man? Everybody seems to have lost their wits to-day. That infernal driver at the station sighed, as though his breakfast hadn’t agreed with him, when I mentioned where I wanted to go; and now here’s a man and a boy who’ve lost their tongues, and are staring at me as though I’d just come from paradise. Will no one speak? Where’s David Willis?”
“David Willis is—is upstairs, madam,” said the captain, with the idea of breaking the matter gently to her.
“Well, fetch him down. Gracious, what fools men are!”
“I regret that it is impossible,” said the captain.
“Why? What’s the matter with the man?”
“David Willis is dead.”
“Dead! What on earth are you talking about?” she asked, sharply. She sat down then, still keeping her grip of Comethup’s shoulder and leaning heavily on her stick with the other hand.
“I’m telling you the simple truth,” replied the captain. “David Willis died quite suddenly yesterday.”
She was silent for a moment, and appeared to be ruminating, although there was no expression save that of baffled anger on her great face. Comethup, glancing timidly up at her, saw that above the face, and under her bonnet of many colours, was a great mass of very beautiful snow-white hair. After a moment she spoke again,although her voice was scarcely any more gentle than before.
“Well, this is the last time I’ll come on such a fool’s errand as this,” she exclaimed. “Here I’ve been wandering about since early morning, swearing at porters and wondering all the time why I ever started, and the very man I came to see has died before I could get to him. Why the devil couldn’t he die next week, or a month ago, or any other time? Who are you, sir?” she asked, quite suddenly and fiercely, addressing the captain.
The captain presented himself with some formality, and she nodded at him in acknowledgment. The captain went on to state briefly that he was a friend of the dead man, and had come there that day chiefly on account of the child. She became alert and eager in an instant.
“Ah, I’d almost forgotten it. I heard there was a child. Where is he?—what is he?—how is he?—can’t you speak, man?”
“He is beside you now, madam,” said the captain, quietly.
She twisted Comethup round, and dropped her stick with a clatter, and took him by both shoulders. Comethup almost felt that the closed eyes could see him, so closely did she hold him for a moment and so still did she sit. Then, in the same abrupt fashion as before, she cried: “Well, can’t you speak? What’s your name, boy?”
“Comethup Willis,” replied the boy.
She dropped her hands with startling suddenness from his shoulders and got up, and spread the hands out before her. She was shaking and trembling violently, and the corners of her mouth were twitching. “Who spoke?” she asked, and her voice had fallen almost to a whisper. “Whose voice was that?”
The captain wonderingly replied that it was the boy who had spoken. She passed her hand across her forehead once or twice, still trembling a little; it seemed as though she were trying to recall some old remembrance, to bring back something which had long since slipped away from her. Presently she sighed, then laughednervously, and then frowned. “Give me my stick there,” she said.
Comethup picked up the stick and put it into her hand. She closed her own hand over his and detained him, felt for her chair with her foot, and sat down again.
“I am sorry, ma’am, if I frightened you,” said Comethup politely.
“No, you didn’t frighten me; it wasn’t that. I—I like to hear you speak. You never saw your mother, did you?” she asked abruptly.
“No,” replied Comethup. “She died when I was born.”
“Ah, well, you’ve got her voice, boy, just as she used to talk to me. That’s what startled me, coming from the grave like that.” Still holding his hand, she sat for a long time with her chin resting on the top of her stick and without taking the slightest notice of anybody.
The captain broke the silence at last. “May I suggest, madam, that we have not the pleasure of knowing—of knowing——”
She sat up with a start. “Oh, I’d forgotten all about it. My name’s Carlaw—Charlotte Carlaw. I’m this boy’s aunt.”
“I met your brother this morning in some excitement,” said the captain. “He informed me that he had had a letter from you, and that he expected you to arrive. He was on his way to engage rooms for you at an inn.”
Comethup, watching her face, saw that it began to work convulsively in a most appalling manner; then she bent over her stick and began to shake; and finally her great face broke up altogether and she burst into hearty laughter, swaying and rocking herself in her chair and seeming as though she would never stop. When, presently, she recovered somewhat, she ejaculated breathlessly: “Well, that’s good; Brother Bob flaring about the town, looking for me, and seeing that my bed is properly aired, and that fires are lighted, and warming pans got ready, and that people understand my due importance. Oh, it’s good, it’s very good!”
“He seemed very anxious, certainly,” said the captain.
“Anxious? I should think so. I knew what a tremor he’d be in when I sent that letter. Well, I only hope he’ll engage rooms at every blessed inn in the place—and pay for ’em. I won’t stop anywhere now, especially a place of his choosing. No inn shall hold me; I’ll stop here.”
“But, my dear madam——” began the captain.
She turned on him fiercely. “Silence, sir! How dare you? This is my brother-in-law’s house, and I have a right to stop here if I will. What’s it to do with you? I never heard of such a thing. Do you think I’m afraid of a dead man, or forty dead men? I’ll stop just where I please, I’ll have you know.” She turned away from him angrily, and drew Comethup toward her. Bidding him stand quite still, she began to pass her hands over his face, touching every feature so lightly that he scarcely felt the touch at all; she dropped her hands finally with a sigh of satisfaction, bade him speak again, and, on being obeyed, sighed with still deeper satisfaction, and sat for a long time deep in thought. The captain was beginning to wonder what he should do, and was doubtful whether to stay or to go, although he scarcely cared to leave the boy in that house of death, when Miss Charlotte Carlaw seemed to plunge at once into his thoughts and to know them unerringly.
“You needn’t be afraid to leave the boy here,” she said, sharply. “I can look after myself and him better than any two of you if I am blind. I suppose there’s a servant in the house, so that I can send for anything if it’s wanted?”
The captain reassured her upon that point, and she jerked her head at him in dismissal. The captain courteously bade her “Good-day,” patted Comethup on the shoulder as he passed, and went out. After a few moments of silence she asked the boy abruptly: “Your voice startled me so that I forget what you said your name was. What is it?”
Comethup told her, slurring the word as much as he could to get over the cumbrousness of it; but she made him repeat it again and again, and each time more slowly, until she had got it completely; then she turned it over and over angrily, pronouncing it quickly and slowly, and with the accent here and the accent there; finally shook her head over it and exclaimed: “I can’t think what they gave you that ridiculous name for; I don’t like it. We’ll change it.”
Comethup thought of ’Linda, and of how she had expressed her appreciation of it, and said courageously, “I like it.”
“Oh, then we won’t change it,” said Miss Carlaw, and began to talk of other things.
Now it happened that the captain, on his way to his house, ran full tilt against Mr. Robert Carlaw, who was coming round a corner looking very dejected. He informed the captain that he had been to the station five times and had met every possible train, that he had engaged rooms, that he had done everything, and still there was no sign of that dear eccentric creature, his sister.
“Of course, you see, the difficulty is, one never knows when she may swoop down, so to speak, upon one, and a man does not like to be taken at a disadvantage; naturally he does not. This sort of thing is worrying.”
“I think I can relieve your mind,” said the captain, with a smile. “I’ve just seen your sister.”
Mr. Robert Carlaw seized him excitedly by the arm. “Where? When? Take me to her, I beg!”
The captain shortly related the circumstance of Miss Carlaw’s visit to David Willis’s house, and, almost before the words were out of his mouth, his hearer had turned sharply and set off at a run, with a beaming face; his dejection was gone, and it was only when he neared the house that he recollected the necessity for a dignified bearing, and moderated his pace. As he turned into the garden, he strolled quite easily and casually up the garden path and tapped at the door.
His sister heard him, and asked Comethup who it was.The boy, who had glanced out of the window, told her. She began to laugh again, but straightened her face as her brother entered the room.
That brother, who had been admitted by the little servant, advanced toward Comethup as though to speak to him; saw the great figure in the chair, rocking itself over the head of its stick, and started back in astonishment. “My dear sister,” he exclaimed, “I never expected to find you here. I do assure you I——”
“Don’t tell lies,” she exclaimed.
“My dear Charlotte, I have been hunting everywhere for you.”
“Well, I know that,” she returned. “And you’ve just met Captain What’s-his-name, and he told you where I was. Why the devil can’t you tell the truth for once, Bob?”
“My dear sister, I do assure you——” he began; but she fiercely interrupted him.
“There, save your breath. What do you want with me?”
“My dear girl——”
“Don’t talk like a fool; I’m not a girl, nor a child—as you’ve found before to-day. When the Lord sent me into the world without eyes, the devil gave me some of his wits, to redress his Master’s unfairness; you’ve found that out before to-day, Bob. Let us understand each other. I simply wrote and told you I was coming down here, because if you’d met me unexpectedly in the street it might have been too much for your nerves. But I don’t think we have anything to say to each other; I don’t like you, and you don’t like me; we fought like Kilkenny cats when we were youngsters, and you generally got the worst of it, although I couldn’t see where I was hitting. Now we have to behave like decent members of society, and we can’t pummel each other, but I generally manage to get the best of it still. What do you want?”
Mr. Robert Carlaw cleared his throat and settled his neckcloth, and hesitated for a moment before speaking. At last he began: “My dear sister, I had hoped that some—someof the unpleasantness which embittered—yes, I repeat, embittered—my visit to London might have been swept away at this later interview. Of course, I admit that the fault was mine—it must have been—but——”
“Don’t worry yourself; itwasyour fault. But we don’t come any nearer to what you want.”
Mr. Carlaw sighed, and stretched out his hand toward his sister; showed his teeth in a fierce grin, and shook a fist at her. “I have endeavoured to explain. My object in desiring to meet you is a pure and a simple one—I may say a brotherly one.”
She began to rock herself over the head of her stick again in that dreadful fashion which had alarmed Comethup before. The boy would have been glad to escape from an interview in which he appeared to have no part, but that Miss Carlaw had laid her hand again on his shoulder, and was detaining him beside her.
“O Bob, Bob, what a humbug you are! You’re one of those fellows who can’t take a straight line. If fifty different roads branched out before you, and you were blindfolded, and forty-nine of those roads made for good and the other didn’t, by the Lord, you’d choose the other! I believe you’ve always been rather popular with women—I can see you twirling your mustache; I’m sure you are, you dog—but you haven’t been popular with me. The others had ordinary eyes to see your perfections; I had other eyes which served me better.” She sat up fiercely, and brought her stick down sharply on the floor. “Why the devil can’t you be honest? Why can’t you say that you want my money? There, don’t protest; I swear I’d like you the better if you’d only say straight out what you want. You’ve got all our late respected father’s cant and none of his firmness. Now, listen to me. Are you listening?”
“I am all attention, my dear Charlotte,” replied Mr. Robert Carlaw, humbly.
“Very well, then; let me tell you at once that I’m sick of all this hunting and bowing and scraping after a poor old blind woman’s money. Hear me, you rascal! I’ve hadnot an ounce of real love or real pity on this benighted earth since my mother died, years and years ago. People have professed to pity me for what they deemed an affliction, and have whispered in the next breath that my money was surely a compensation. There have been men low enough and mean enough to be ready to marry me—professing all sorts of things—for my money; my own flesh and blood, in the shape of my dear brother Bob, is prepared to grovel and bend humbly before me, in the hope that I may remember him, and that he may fatten on what I leave when he has ceased to remember me. Listen to me again. There is no more accursed being on God’s grossly mismanaged earth than the forlorn creature with money, and without that which money can not buy. Now, brother Bob, I’m getting old, and there’ll be a chance for some of you before long to fly at each other’s throats on my account. But I’m going to try an experiment; do you understand me—an experiment?”
Mr. Robert Carlaw at once expressed the keenest interest. “Delightful! What vigour you still possess, my dear Charlotte! What is the experiment to be?”
“I’ll tell you. I’m going to make myself useful for once, in a way, if I can. I haven’t quite lost sight of the hope that there’s some good, some sweetness, in the world. You don’t possess any, but that probably isn’t your fault. I don’t possess much, although I’m a devilish sight better than you are; but I may be able to find some. I’ve been haunted a little lately by the memory of that girl—our sister—who didn’t care, or seem to care, a bit for any of the things I clutch so strongly, and you would clutch if you could. She was fool enough, in the world’s eyes, to wait twenty years for a man who wasn’t fit to touch her hand—at least that’s my view—and then to die before she quite knew what the experiment was worth. God forgive me!—I might have eased the way for both of them; but I chose to laugh, as others did, and then was too ashamed afterward to do anything. Look here”—she pushed Comethup forward a little—“this is her boy; and I’ve learned, in a pretty long experience, to judge peopleby their voices and by their faces, for I can know a face better than you could if you had a dozen eyes. Bob, my dear, I’m going to make up for past neglect. This child is left alone in the world; I’m going to look after it.”
Mr. Robert Carlaw’s jaw dropped; he hesitated a moment, and then came forward protestingly. “But, my dear Charlotte, may I remind you that you have already held out hopes to——”
“Nothing of the kind,” she ejaculated. “I gaveyourboy the chance I might have given to any one else; I can’t say I liked him, any more than I like his father; but he’s got a father to look after him, and this lad hasn’t. Besides”—she laughed a little—“your boy will make his way in the world; he’s got the voice and the manner for it; he’ll sail smoothly through things that would upset any one else. Therein he favours his father. No, this is my experiment, and if I can squeeze a little love and tenderness out of this baby for my own sake, and not for the sake of my bank account—well, I sha’n’t quite have failed.”
She got up, still with her hand on the boy’s shoulder, and began to pace up and down that side of the room, firing a shot or two at Mr. Robert Carlaw as she moved.
“You’ve been monstrous kind, Bob, and you’ve pretty well run yourself off those fine legs of yours on my account this morning. I’m much obliged to you, and, just to show you that I’m in a good humour, I’ll pay whatever bills you’ve been incurring on my account. And that reminds me: I suppose, with funeral about to take place, and other matters of that sort, I should be rather in the way here; besides, I want to go to an inn, where I can swear at the waiters if necessary; it relieves the mind wonderfully. So I won’t stop here, after all; I’ll go to the inn.”
“My dear Charlotte, my house, poor though it is, is quite at your disposal.”
“Thanks, I think not. No, my mind is made up, and I shall go to the inn. This boy, with the name I haven’t digested yet, can show me the way. What is the place?”
“I ventured to take rooms for you at The Bell, in the High Street.”
“Good; we shall find it. Good-day to you, brother Bob. Don’t carry any bitter thoughts in your mind about me, because it might destroy your sleep, and I wouldn’t have that happen for the world. Good-day to you!”
There was such a finality about those last words, and she began to pace so resolutely up and down the room, pushing Comethup before her, that Mr. Carlaw, after opening his mouth once or twice, as if to speak, apparently gave up the matter as hopeless, and shrugged his shoulders and went out without a word. After he had passed through the garden and into the street Miss Carlaw, who had stopped in her walk, gave a short laugh and addressed the boy.
“Nice man, that! Ran through one big fortune—married money—ran through pretty well all that, with the exception of a fixed sum which the wife was cute enough to secure for the boy and which is tied up, so that the father can only use so much a quarter. Oh, a nice man! And he hadn’t even thenousto go to the devil decently, whimpered over it, and did it by halves, till the devil must have been pretty well ashamed of his follower. There, we’ll forget all about it. Take me to this inn he mentioned. Is it far?”
“A very little way, ma’am,” replied Comethup.
“Then we’ll walk; I don’t want to squeeze into that wretched fly again if I can help it. And I suppose it’s been waiting there all this time.” She got out her purse and deftly opened it, seeming to know every coin it held by the mere touch of her quick fingers, selected two coins, and handed them to Comethup. “There, run out and give him these and come back to me. And, boy,” she recalled him as he was hastening to the door, “just remember that I’m your aunt, and call me so.”
“Yes, aunt,” he replied.
“That’s better.”
Comethup ran out and paid the driver, and ran back again. When his cap was in his hand and she had gothim again by the shoulder she stopped, as they were nearing the door, hesitated a moment, and then spoke.
“You’re not afraid of me?”
Comethup laughed, and assured her that he was not.
“That’s well; you’ve no reason to be, as you shall find. Now go on, and be careful how you go; remember you are my eyes for the future.”
And the strange pair set out together.
COMETHUP LEAVES THE OLD LIFE.
Comethup carefully conducted his aunt to the inn and saw her comfortably established there. She appeared to have the whole establishment, from the landlord to the boots, at her beck and call within two minutes after passing the portals; was ordering dishes to her liking and sharply questioning those in attendance upon her, and flinging out an occasional biting word of sarcasm, that held them breathless and awed. At first she insisted that Comethup should stay and lunch with her; but he was equally firm in refusing. He remembered that the captain had enlarged his own simple meal for that day on Comethup’s account. He was divided, as usual, between the picture of this new friend, blind and helpless in a strange place, and the other picture of the captain, who had been so curtly dismissed but a few hours since, awaiting dinner for him.
To his relief, Miss Carlaw appeared to understand the situation at once. “That’s right; say what you mean, and stick to it. I suppose you’ve got another appointment—some one else has asked you to dinner, eh?”
“Yes, aunt, the captain.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. You needn’t mind me; I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and if theydon’t do what I want here, I’ll know the reason why, by the Lord I will! Come back here when you leave the captain. Off with you.”
Comethup was late, and, although he ran as hard as he could, the captain had already sat down to his meal when he arrived. His face lit up when he saw the boy, although, quite mechanically, and for the due preservation of discipline, he glanced at his watch.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” said Comethup, breathlessly, as he saluted just within the doorway; “but my aunt wished me to show her to the inn, and I’ve been detained. I’m very sorry.”
“Never mind,” said the captain. “Come in and have some dinner.—Homer, another plate, please.”
Very little was said during the progress of the meal. The captain had a vague load on his mind, Comethup a very real one. The captain had been pacing about his room for an hour past, putting the case as clearly before himself as he could; telling himself, in so many frank and brutal words, that this child was an orphan and penniless; that this strange old woman had enormous wealth, and seemed to have taken a great fancy to the boy. Well, that was as it should be. The boy had his way to make in the world, and a poor old half-pay captain, going slowly but surely toward the end of his earthly journey, was not the man to be able to do much to help any one. The captain’s heart ached a little, it is true, and he looked back on the years that had stretched before the coming of this child, and the years that would stretch on after he had gone.
Comethup, for his part, tried once or twice to break the matter; he was not very definite in his ideas about it at all yet; he only knew that his aunt practically claimed him, and that she was not likely to remain in the old town with him. He watched the captain nervously, and was quite glad at last when that gentleman opened the matter.
“Rather strange lady, your aunt, eh?” he began.
“Yes,” replied Comethup. “But very kind, sir, I think.”
“I’ve no doubt of it,” said the captain, heartily. “She certainly appears to be very good-hearted.”
There was another long pause, and then Comethup said, “She means—means to be very kind to me, sir.”
“Ah!” The captain nodded, and then added, with what cheerfulness he might: “That’s good; that’s very good, Comethup.”
Comethup swallowed the lump in his throat and looked at the captain wistfully. “She says—says she’s going to look after me.”
The captain nodded again, but did not speak; he turned his head and looked out of the window at the sky.
“I hope—I’m afraid—afraid she may mean me to go away with her.” It was out at last, and Comethup waited breathlessly for the captain to speak. But the captain merely stood up and murmured the words of the simple grace which closed each meal, and then walked across to the window. He stood there looking out for a long time, and finally twisted round and spoke a little more sharply than usual, perhaps to hide that which he did not care to show.
“Boy, life’s a big campaigning ground, where every man is under orders from a general he doesn’t even see. Sometimes it’s his good luck to march shoulder to shoulder with a friend for a bit, even to fight shoulder to shoulder with him. But an order may come suddenly, and the one marches off to some other place where he is wanted, or where promotion is quicker. Old and young, rich and poor, gentle and simple, we’re all under orders, boy, and if at the last, when the fight is done, there’s a comrade beside us to close our eyes and hold our hand for the last time—well, the great general has been merciful, that’s all.”
He paused for a moment, then sat down on the window seat and shaded his eyes with his hand.
“If it should happen that you have to go out into the great world now, as you surely must go some day—well, I’d be a poor fellow, and a bad friend, and no true soldier, if I held you back. It may not happen now, but—ifit does”—he looked up quickly and smiled at the boy—“we sha’n’t be the worse friends, Comethup, and we sha’n’t forget each other—shall we?”
Comethup’s heart was almost too full to reply, but he gasped out, “No, sir,” and the captain got up with a smile.
“That’s well, boy. Now, I suppose your aunt will be expecting you, and you’d better go back to her. Please let me know what she proposes you should do, and when you are to leave us, if you go at all.”
Comethup saluted gravely and went out of the house with a heavy heart. At the inn he found his aunt impatiently walking up and down her sitting room; she stopped as he entered and addressed him by name, although he had not spoken.
“Well, Comethup, settled it with the captain, eh?”
“I’ve had dinner with him,” replied Comethup evasively.
“Ah—and talked about me the whole time, I’ll warrant! Well, I’m sure I don’t mind, and you don’t either of you know enough of me to say any harm.”
“I do assure you, aunt,” said Comethup, “that the captain spoke most highly of you.”
“Very nice of him, I’m sure. Quite pleasant to know that you impress people like that. However, we won’t talk about the captain now, or anybody else. Come over here.”
She seated herself near a window and put her hand on the boy’s shoulder in the same fashion as before. Comethup felt that his fate was about to be decided, and trembled a little, a fact which she instantly detected.
“Well, what’s the matter with you?” she asked, although not unkindly. “Do you think I’m going to eat you, or do something else dreadful to you? Have you ever read any fairy tales? Have you ever heard about a fairy godmother?”
“Yes,” said Comethup.
“Well, then, I’m going to be your fairy godmother. I’m going to show you what the world is like, boy; I’mgoing to look after you, and—if you’ve got the stuff in you, as I think you have—I’m going to make a man of you. Understand this: I want to make a bargain with you—a bargain I think you’re sensible enough to understand. Treat me fairly, and be straight and clear with me, and tell me the truth in everything you do, and, by the Lord! I’ll never desert you; play me false, or prove anything but what I believe you to be, and I’ll turn you out of doors at a moment’s notice to starve. I don’t want to make a prig of you. I don’t mind if you get into trouble, or what you do, so that you’re aman; anything short of that I won’t stand. Now, will you take the risk?”
It was a strange proposition to make to a child, but, in her deep earnestness, she did not seem to understand the strangeness of it. Comethup hesitated for a moment, and then began politely, “It’s very kind of you, aunt, and——” but she instantly checked him.
“Never mind that. What do you say? You must remember that I’m a lonely old woman, and a bit short in my temper on occasion; but I’ll be a good friend to you if you’ll be a good friend to me. That’s fair and square, isn’t it? I only want you to love me a little, Comethup, and you may be sure I shall know the difference between the false and the real. If you try to humbug me, I’ve done with you. Now, what’s it to be? Yes or No?”
“Yes,” said Comethup.
“Good! Not another word. If you don’t mind kissing a blind old fright you can kiss me, and we’ll call it sealed. Now, when will you be ready to start?”
“To London?” asked Comethup, anxiously.
“Yes, to London. You can’t start being a man in this one-eyed old town; you’d simply vegetate.”
“You see, aunt,” he began, timidly, “there are people—people I should like to say good-bye to. They’ve all been very kind to me, and I shouldn’t like them to think——”
“That you were turning your back on them in a hurry, eh? You’re quite right, boy; only I don’t want to stop here forever, and you must get your farewells donewith. How many of these people are there? Half the town full, I suppose?”
“Oh, no,” replied Comethup, laughing; “there’s only the captain and—and ’Linda——”
She caught him up swiftly on that name. “Halloo! who’s ’Linda?”
“A—a little girl,” said Comethup faintly.
“Oh, you dog! you’ve begun precious early. Why, you oughtn’t to know what a petticoat means at your age. Is she pretty, child?”
“Very pretty,” said Comethup, with an air of deep conviction.
She rocked herself over her stick and laughed delightedly, and shook him by the shoulders. “I like you the better for it; we’ll make a man of you all the more easily. I suppose you’ll break your heart, or hers, when you leave her?”
“I shall be very sorry,” replied the boy, “and I think she’ll be sorry too.”
“Well, well, you shall come back and see her; I don’t want you to lose any of your friends. Only, mind, I must be first; I’m beginning to have a devil of a jealousy in me, child, of all these friends of yours who seem so fond of you. Is there any one else?”
“Yes; there’s Brian.”
The old lady stiffened a little. “Well, it won’t break his heart, at all events. Any one else?”
“Yes, one more; Mr. Theed.”
“And who the devil’s Mr. Theed?” she asked, wrinkling her brow.
“Oh, he’s a shoemaker—quite a nice shoemaker, I do assure you; he has dreams, and visions, and things. The captain likes him immensely, and ’Linda worships him. I think that’s all.”
“And enough, too,” she ejaculated. “Lord, what a family! The strangest collection I should think anybody could have got together! Comethup, I’m beginning to think you’re a very remarkable child. Well, how long do you want to say ‘Good-bye’ to these people? Ofcourse we must stay here for a day or two—until after the funeral. Suppose we say a week; will that be long enough?”
Comethup caught gladly at the suggestion, and so the matter was settled. His aunt informed him that she had taken a room for him at the inn, and that he was to sleep there during the remainder of his stay in the old town. She gave him perfect freedom during the day, making the sole stipulation that he must dine with her at seven o’clock every evening; he could leave her immediately after breakfast, but he must never fail to put in an appearance at dinner. Having said this, she quite abruptly dismissed him, and he left her pacing up and down the room, with her stick lightly tapping the floor before her as she walked.
That strange week passed all too swiftly. There was so much to be crowded into it; so many delightful places—never so delightful as now—crowded with childish memories which had to be visited, and to which silent farewells had to be given. Not all the importance which his new dignity gave to him could quite swallow up the sorrow he felt in tearing himself away from the only place he had ever known. He wished, ungratefully enough sometimes, that he might wake suddenly and find that it had all been a dream, and that his aunt had never really come into his life, save in a dream; wished passionately that he might keep the people and the things about him just as they had ever been. Knowing nothing of that inevitable and seemingly cruel shifting about of the pawn in the great game of life, he resented it miserably and wondered why it should be necessary.
He saw the captain every day. Like an older child than himself, the captain planned to make the week seem longer than it really was; spun out the hours, arranged excursions to their old haunts, and tried valiantly to set aside the thought that their parting was near at hand. Once, indeed, when they were together on the old sandy waste outside the town he started a lesson, new andsubtle, in military operations, but broke down in the middle and sat brooding, with his chin resting on his hands. They walked home silently, hand in hand, afterward, and the captain’s voice was husky when Comethup left him at the gate of his cottage garden.
With ’Linda it was a different matter. Comethup sought her one afternoon in the desolate garden of her father’s house, and, by good chance, found her wandering alone there. She ran to him with a cry of delight and hugged him in the usual tumultuous fashion; then, seeing his grave face, became grave in an instant for sympathy, and asked him what was the matter.
“I—I’m going away,” said Comethup, “I’ve come to say good-bye.”
She held him from her at arm’s length for a moment, and then threw her arms about him and clung to him, and shook him despairingly. “Oh, but you mustn’t, you mustn’t! Who’s going to take you away? What shall I do when you’re gone?”
“I’m dreadfully sorry,” said Comethup, miserably. “But you see I can’t help it. My father’s dead, and my aunt has come down to take me to London. You know, ’Linda, there’s the captain, and Brian, and Mr. Theed; you won’t bequitealone, will you?”
“Oh, it’s bad of you, it’s cruel of you!” she exclaimed, crying, and shaking him, and clinging to him by turns. “None of them are like you; I don’t love any of them as I love you, you know I don’t.”
That was very gratifying to Comethup; he felt his heart swell within him, even in the midst of his misery. “Yes, I know, I know,” he said, striving to soothe her. “But I’m coming down to see you, you know; I’m not going away altogether. In fact, I’m not going away at all for a day or two. It hurts me very much, indeed it does, to have to say good-bye at all; but I can’t help it, and I don’t really want to go at all.”
But she was not to be soothed or convinced. He left her in the desolate garden, with her arms laid against the trunk of a tree and her head resting upon them. He couldscarcely find his way between the big iron gates for the tears in his own eyes.
He saw her again, a couple of days later, in the old shoemaker’s shop; and then, with the quick forgetfulness of childhood, her sorrow seemed to have gone in great measure, and she asked him eagerly about what he was going to do, and spoke with sparkling eyes of the glories of that London to which he was going—glories which the captain had painted for them. The shoemaker hammered away at his work, apparently without listening; but he must have heard the conversation, for, when Comethup was leaving with the girl, he ceased hammering, looked up, and spoke.
“You’d better have stayed here, boy,” he said sharply. “Folks that go to great cities lose their dreams, lose everything that’s worth the keeping. You’ll be rich; you’ll wear fine clothes and see fine people; it’ll spoil ye. That life spoils ’em all.Hecame from a great city,” he added, in a lower voice.
Comethup gently replied that he hoped it would not spoil him; and presently, after gravely shaking hands with Medmer Theed, went away with the girl. But, after they had stepped into the street, the old man came hurriedly to the door and called him back. Waving the girl aside, he bent down and whispered in the boy’s ear:
“If I’ve been harsh to ye, don’t take heed of it. And look to yourself, boy. I had a dream of ye last night, when the moon was high, and it troubles me. I can’t quite make it out, but there was blood upon you, boy, and it frightens me. Look to yourself in that great city. Yes, I remember there was blood upon ye.”
Comethup, a little frightened, stared at the old man for a moment, and then hurriedly joined ’Linda and drew her away. He turned the matter over in his mind once or twice, but, remembering the wild dreams the old man had had before, and being but a child, with many more important things to think of, it slipped from his memory, happily enough, and did not trouble him.
He took ’Linda back to her father’s house in the lateafternoon, after roaming about with her during the day, and set off for the captain’s cottage. For the captain had been invited by Miss Charlotte Carlaw to dine with her that evening, and he was to accompany Comethup back to the inn. Miss Carlaw had asked the boy, kindly enough, if he would care to invite his old friend, and Comethup had gladly seized the opportunity. He found the captain a gorgeous figure—in his eyes at least.
That gallant gentleman had raked out of his wardrobe his dress suit; it had lain there unworn for years, since his seclusion in the country, and was very old-fashioned and somewhat threadbare. But Comethup felt more proud than ever of his friend, and only wished that his aunt had eyes to see him. Comethup, for his part, cut a somewhat better figure in the matter of dress than he had hitherto done, for his aunt had had him measured for a new suit of mourning, and had gone down to the little shop at which it was being made, every hour or two during the day, and had so frightened the unfortunate tailor that the clothes had been completed in an incredibly short space of time.
The captain put on his old military cloak, in order to hide something of his glory from the mere ordinary people in the streets, and the two set out for the inn together. Comethup, remembering his aunt’s attitude toward the captain on the occasion of their first meeting, trembled a little as to the reception he would meet with; but was delighted to find that the old lady was graciousness itself. She welcomed the captain to her quarters with profuse apologies for the poorness of the fare and the meagreness of the room.
“Not my fault, you know, sir,” she said, “but that infernal brother of mine. Of course, I’ve not been able to discover whether there is a better inn than this in the town, but I’m convinced there must be, and that it’s just a trick on the part of Bob Carlaw to cause me annoyance. Oh, I know him, and I’ll be even with him some day.”
“I fear, madam,” said the captain, “that our littletown is somewhat deficient in accommodation for travellers. You see, we never have anybody here, or very rarely. This is a very good inn in its way, and I——”
“I beg your pardon, captain,” she interrupted, sharply, “you haven’t lived in it. I say that it’s a devilish bad inn. There, there, forgive my short temper. I shall be very glad to get back to London again, where I know every turn and corner of the house I live in, and can’t run against things unexpectedly. Will you oblige me, captain, by informing me if it’s after seven o’clock?”
The captain consulted his old-fashioned watch. “By the clock of the parish church, madam, it is some three minutes past the hour,” he said.
She rapped impatiently on the floor with her stick. “Comethup, ring the bell; ring it hard. I’ll let these people know that when I say seven I mean seven.”
The entrance of dinner as Comethup’s hand was on the bell saved a further explosion, and they sat down. The captain could not but admire, as Comethup had done before, the ease and dexterity with which Miss Carlaw found everything she wanted, seeming to know by the slightest movement of her quick hands exactly where everything about her was. She kept up a running fire of comment on herself and her mode of life, and on all she had already planned to do for her nephew.
“I suppose, like the rest of them, captain, you think I’m a helpless old woman, and bemoan my fate to be shut up in darkness, eh?” She went on rapidly, without giving him time for a reply: “Indeed, you’re quite mistaken. I’ve got such a blessed lot to be thankful for that I haven’t time to think about any little trifle that might otherwise worry me. Look at me, sound and strong and hearty, with everything I want in this world, and the other one too far off to be thought of yet a bit. Oh, and I can assure you I’m not a lonely old woman by any means. I love company; I love to hear voices and laughter and music all about me; there’s nothing like it to keep the heart young. I can tell you there’s generally a house full where Charlotte Carlaw is—and merry timesthe rogues have, men and women alike.” She paused, and her face grew grave and thoughtful for a moment. “Only sometimes, when they’re all gone, and the music has ceased and the house is quiet, I’ve felt—I’m an old fool, I know—but I’ve felt it would be good to have some one, pure and sweet of heart—some one who didn’t love me for my money, or because I said smart things, or sharp things, or because I was eccentric; some one who’d gone deeper into the heart of the old woman than that, and understood her a little. D’you know what I mean?”
“Yes, I think so,” said the captain.
Comethup, at that change in the old woman’s voice, had unconsciously moved his hand along the table nearer toward her; she must have been aware of the movement, for she dropped her own unerringly upon it. “And even here, you see,” she went on, “the Lord was good to me; I found this baby. I tried to find one before, but, oh! that boy! I sha’n’t forget it in a hurry. He’ll do big things, I don’t doubt; there’s no knowing what he will do; but he was too much for me. It’s all surface—surface there; I suppose he can’t help it, but it’s all sparkle and dash and nothing else. This chap’s different, I think.”
“I know it,” said the captain.
“You’re rather fond of the boy, aren’t you?” she asked.
“We’re very good friends,” said the captain, with a smile at Comethup. “I was a lonely old man before he came; I suppose I shall be a lonely old man again. But I’m not—not such a curmudgeon that I can’t be glad at his good fortune.”
“Well spoken, well spoken,” cried Miss Carlaw, rapping her knuckles on the table. “And you mustn’t think you’re losing the boy; I’ll trot him down here to see you as often as I can spare him. And you must come up and pay me a visit in London; we’ll always be glad to see you.”
Comethup’s face brightened, and the captain thanked Miss Carlaw cordially. She gave the old soldier permission to smoke, and signed to Comethup to produce a boxof cigars, the best the inn could afford, from the side-board.
“You must forget my sex, you know, captain,” she said, “and look upon me as a host rather than a hostess. I should probably smoke myself if it weren’t that I’m afraid that I might startle this baby. Oh, I’m going to make a man of him, captain; I’m going to make a devilish fine man of him. And, by the Lord! I think he shall be a soldier.”
The captain beamed upon her; saw in this the opportunity for the gratification of those desires he had had, but which he had seen so little prospect of carrying into effect. With the delighted boy sitting between them, they began eagerly to build plans for his future, until, before the captain took his leave, Comethup had grown, in their loving imagination, into a giant of six feet five at least, and was a guardsman in a shining helmet and with a long, drooping mustache. Finally, when the moment for parting came, this extraordinary old woman started up and insisted on the three of them joining hands and singing “For Auld Lang Syne” until the tears stood in Comethup’s eyes and he wanted to embrace both his friends from sheer emotion.
But there was a sadder day to come—a day when the parting was to be in earnest. Comethup had already said his farewells to Brian, who, indeed, took the matter light-heartedly enough, and waved aside Comethup’s carefully prepared apology to him for having apparently stepped into his shoes. Comethup was glad indeed to think that his cousin bore no resentment toward him.
Miss Charlotte Carlaw, delicately enough, had prevented the boy’s presence at his father’s funeral; only on the day following it the captain had gone with him to the churchyard, and had shown him a new mound, on which fresh wreaths of flowers were lying—a mound close beside the one he already knew so well. It had been a conspiracy between his aunt and the captain to keep his thoughts away from that sad subject, and the boy was a little remorseful at the thought of how well they had succeeded;but his father’s life had been in a sense a thing apart from his—a thing so peaceful and full of quiet dreams that it seemed but a natural and fitting ending, even to the mind of the child, that he should sleep here calmly, in this beautiful place, beside the woman he had loved.
The captain had arranged to collect such personal effects of the late David Willis as might be of interest to his son—personal papers, and some portraits of his dead mother, and a few trinkets; the rest were to be sold. Comethup’s life in that quiet old place seemed to have closed strangely enough; he seemed, in a sense, to have left those who belonged to him sleeping quietly near their home, and to be going out of the life he had known quite naturally, now that the life itself existed no more.
The day fixed for the departure came at last, dawning just as placidly as a hundred other days had dawned. Comethup even thought it strange that people whose faces he knew passed along in the street below the window of the inn where he sat and went about their business quite heedless of the small boy who seemed to be leaving everything behind. He reflected miserably that everything would go on just the same when he had gone—that the snow would come, and the leaves fall, and the roses bloom again, for some one else; that the captain would take his walks abroad, and sit in church on sunny Sunday mornings; that ’Linda would wander forlorn among the trees in that dreary garden. He fell upon his knees before he left his room and prayed desperately and with tears that God would teach them not to forget him.
He was very silent over breakfast, and his aunt was quick to understand the cause. “What, not all the farewells made yet, boy? How many more people have you got to weep over before you’re carried away captive? There, there, I’m not laughing at you; the Lord forbid! I dare say you want an hour or two to yourself, just to rush round and embrace folks. I’ve ordered a carriage, and I’m going to drive to Deal. I can get a train direct there to London; if I went to the wretched little station here,I should have to change once at least, and that’s a nuisance. It’s not a long drive, and I shall leave here directly after lunch. Lunch at two, sharp; we’ll leave at a quarter to three. So I’ll give you until two o’clock. Off with you.”
Comethup made the most of those few hours. In quite a systematic fashion he went from place to place that he had known, going first to his father’s house, and looking up at the shuttered windows, for the place had been closed, and the captain had the key until after the sale. The boy wandered through the garden of the roses, and into every nook and corner wherein he had played so often in those earlier years; thence into the churchyard, with no feeling of fear, and scarcely one of any very deep sorrow. The place was so quiet and lay so calmly in the sunshine, and the birds fluttered and chirped so gayly about it, that it seemed a good thing that the two gentle creatures, who had loved each other and him so well, should be sleeping quietly there. He stole into the church, sat down in the captain’s pew, and thought of all that had happened since last he sat there. But he was young, and there were living things to be seen, and he did not remain there long.
He ran hard to the captain, only to discover that that gentleman was out. The man Homer informed him that the captain had gone out immediately after breakfast, and had not said when he would return. Comethup, after waiting impatiently a little while, saluted Homer, and then shook hands with him and went away.
The day seemed marked out for disappointment. ’Linda was not in the garden, and when, taking his courage in both hands, he knocked boldly at the door of Dr. Vernier’s house, there was no response. Nor was she to be discovered in the shop of Medmer Theed; and that strange old man himself appeared to be so frantically busy that he hammered away as if for dear life, and scarcely returned Comethup’s greeting.
The boy wandered disconsolately out on to the sandy wastes beyond the town, looking keenly in all directions,in the hope of seeing a familiar figure. But no one was in sight, and when presently he heard the clock of the old church chime the three quarters he hurried back to the inn.
“Well,” cried Miss Carlaw as he entered, “have you got it all over, eh?”
“I haven’t seen any one,” said Comethup.
“Ah, that’s unfortunate. But I can’t give you any more hours, you know. Too much emotion isn’t good for the young, and you’ve had a week of it. Come, eat your lunch.”
The carriage was at the inn door exactly to the minute, and the small luggage put upon it. Comethup, before he followed his aunt into the vehicle, looked wistfully up and down the street, but no one he knew was in sight. Their way, however, lay past the captain’s cottage, and there, to his infinite delight, was the captain at his garden gate, shading his eyes with his hand and looking up and down the road.
“Oh, please,” cried Comethup, frantically, “please may we stop?”
“What the devil for?” asked Miss Carlaw, sharply.
“Oh, there’s the captain, standing at his gate, looking for me. I really can’t go without saying good-bye to him.”
“All right; I suppose you must. Call to the man to stop. A minute, mind, no longer.”
Comethup tumbled out of the carriage, almost before it had stopped, and ran back to the captain. The captain saw the boy flying down the road toward him; tried to salute in the old stiff fashion, but changed in a moment, and caught the little figure in his arms and held him tightly. For a moment neither could speak; and then the captain, as if ashamed of showing any emotion, thrust the boy gently away, cleared his throat, and spoke quickly. “Thought I’d missed you, Comethup. Make a man of yourself, so that I’ll be proud of you. And—and write to me; tell me all you do. There’s your aunt waving from the carriage. Good-bye.”
Comethup hurried back to the carriage, turning his head once, as he ran, to see the captain standing stiffly at the garden gate shading his eyes and looking after him. The boy got into the carriage, and the horses started again.
“Well, now I hope you’re satisfied,” exclaimed Miss Carlaw. “Just understand I don’t stop for anything else—not a minute. We sha’n’t get to Deal this time next week if I have to keep dropping you on the road to embrace all the inhabitants.”
As the carriage turned out of the town Comethup, looking out of the window, saw two figures moving slowly along a road across the end of which they drove. Their faces were toward him, although they were not looking at him; he saw that it was his cousin Brian and ’Linda. The boy’s arm was thrown round the girl’s shoulders, and he seemed to be explaining something to her about some flowers or grasses he held as they strolled along. Comethup gazed wistfully at them, but, remembering his aunt’s words, he was silent, and the carriage soon left them out of sight. The last spire of the old town, the last red roof, had disappeared, and only the flat country lay on either side of the broad road. And so Comethup Willis left the things he knew behind him.