AUNT CHARLOTTE IS SYMPATHETIC.
Comethup almost forgot his distrust and his fears during the few days which followed, for ’Linda came to the captain’s cottage in quite the old fashion and accompaniedthem on their excursions, and seemed, in heart and soul, but little removed from the child of old times. She danced and flitted as gaily as ever among the roses, and was in all things so tenderly, earnestly grateful to Comethup for the excursions he planned and the holidays he gave her that he was more than rewarded, and began to find that no day was quite complete in which he did not see her, no night a time of serene and happy dreams in which he did not carry to his pillow some tender word she had spoken, or the remembrance of some glance she had given him. In that growing love for her which filled him he began—as lovers will—to read into her words, even of the most commonplace order, a new meaning; to give them a new gentleness, as addressed to himself. He was in danger of forgetting his duties in London altogether had not the captain delicately reminded him of his aunt one morning while they sat at breakfast. Comethup flushed with contrition, and determined to go to town at once.
He promised ’Linda on taking leave of her that he would come down again soon, and he kept his word. To such effect did he keep it that Miss Charlotte Carlaw, regarding his absences from London with some anxiety, touched at last upon the matter in her own characteristic way.
“You’re rather fond of the captain, aren’t you?” she said to him one day, when he had carelessly suggested to her that he thought he would run down to see the old man on the morrow.
“Yes,” said Comethup slowly. “We’ve always been—been very good friends.”
“So I should imagine,” said Miss Carlaw, with a short laugh. “Are you aware, my dear boy, that you’ve been down to see the captain five times in about seven weeks?”
“I—I didn’t think it was quite so many as that,” said Comethup. He felt grateful that his aunt could not see his face. “But you see—well, the captain’s always glad to see me—and I——”
“Yes, yes, I perfectly understand, Comethup. Nowlook here, boy, I’m an old woman and I’ve had a good deal to do with men and women, young and old. Boy, you’re keeping something from me, and it isn’t fair; I thought we were too good comrades for that. Come, I don’t want you to tell me anything that you’d rather keep to yourself, but you won’t humbug me into believing that you fly down to that sleepy hollow whenever you can find time for the sake of seeing the captain. Now, then, is she dark or fair?”
Comethup hesitated for a moment, then laughingly said, “Well, she’s dark.”
“Of course I don’t know the difference between one and the other,” pursued Miss Carlaw. “I only know that it makes a difference in the character. Well, I suppose you’ve sworn eternal vows, and have fully made up your minds—both of you—to die at once if anything should separate you, eh?”
“Not quite that,” said Comethup. “In fact, I haven’t—haven’t really said anything to her.”
“What? You don’t mean to tell me that you’ve been rushing backward and forward all this time and are just where you were when you started? Lord! things were different in my time. I must say you’ve been devilish slow, Comethup. Well, tell me all about it. Of course I know she’s beautiful; we’ll take that for granted. But is she nice? Is she a lady?”
“She’s everything that’s nice, and of course she’s a lady,” said Comethup. “You remember when I was quite a little fellow and you brought me to London? Do you remember also that I mentioned a child of whom I was very fond—’Linda?”
Miss Carlaw nodded. “Yes, I remember very well. And I suppose she’s grown up, and has wrought havoc with your young affections all over again? Well, you’re just the sort of fellow to fall in love very desperately and be tremendously in earnest. I’m sure I wish you luck. Only don’t break your heart if you lose; there isn’t a woman in the world that a man need break his heart over; you’ll find that out some day.”
“Ah! but she’s different from all other women; there couldn’t be anybody like her,” said Comethup.
“Exactly; we take that for granted. Most women are stamped by some man or other at some moment of their lives with that hall-mark which sets them above every one of their sisters; the ugliest and the commonest of them may claim that privilege, in most cases at least, if only for an hour or two. But what about this girl? Does she know anything about you? Does she know you’re rich?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Comethup a little indignantly. “But it wouldn’t make any difference to her if she knew it.”
“Of course not; how should it?” said Miss Carlaw dryly. “Riches never make any difference in this world, do they, my dreamer? There, I won’t laugh at you; go on with your wooing, and prosper in it. Do her parents, or whoever looks after her, know anything about the matter?”
“She has no parents,” said Comethup; “they’re dead, both of them.” And forthwith he proceeded to give his aunt some account of ’Linda and her history, so far as he knew; of how he had first found her, and her friendship for the captain, with many details of her loveliness and her charm which must have wearied the excellent old lady very much. However, she expressed deep interest in the matter, and listened with the utmost attention. Presently she got up from her chair and began to walk up and down the room, with her hand on his arm, in silence. After some minutes she broke the silence and spoke almost as though she were alone.
“Yes, it’s the one thing worth having, the one thing worth holding—I’m not sure that it isn’t the one thing worth dying for. Ah! that sounds foolish, perhaps, from the lips of an old woman to whom God never gave anything to attract a man—except perhaps a sharp tongue, and that sometimes drives ’em away. But you mustn’t think, Comethup, that you’re the only one on this earth that’s ever been in love. I know you think that no oneever had it quite so badly as you’ve got it; that all the others have been quite ordinary affairs compared to yours. But the best and the worst of us, the lowest and the highest, may all chance to have a touch of that fever in their passage from the cradle to the grave. It’s a beautiful fever, and I think the delirium of it takes us precious near heaven.“
She stopped again for some moments and appeared very thoughtful; finally shook her head, laughed a little, sighed, and squeezed his arm more tightly.
”Ihad it once—that fever; I had it very badly. No one ever knew it, thank Heaven! I speak of it now for the first time, yet I would not willingly forget it. What a long, long time ago it seems! What a mad business it was—and ye gods! what I suffered! I can afford to laugh at it now, boy; but it wasn’t a laughing matter then, I can assure you. It was just that sort of crazy business that a man or a woman drifts into without knowing it, and then wakes up suddenly, with a start, to a new life, as it were. I—poor fool that I was—fell in love with a man’s voice—the sweetest voice and the most honest, I think, I’ve ever heard. He liked to talk to me; was good enough sometimes, when I was lonely and out of sorts, to come and read to me. Lord! the music of it all is in my ears now. A woman grows more lovely—even if she be plain she grows quite passable—but she grows more lovely in her own estimation just in proportion as a man seems to think her lovely, or seems to rate her above other women. I thought that—and had my awakening. He came to me one day and took my hand—God! what brutes men can be without knowing it!—and said he knew that I was his friend, and he wanted me to help him. He was in love with some one else; opposition had been placed in his way, and I, curiously enough, had influence. He wanted me to help him. Well, I did. I saw them married. I made a speech—a damned ridiculous speech—at their wedding, and sent everybody into fits of laughter. And all the time my heart was aching as I never thoughtanybody’s heart could ache. So you see I know what it is, Comethup.”
She paced about for some time longer and then sat down and resumed her natural manner. Comethup, who had been on the point of offering some sort of consolation, was so disarmed by the ease with which she threw aside any touch of emotion she had displayed that he said nothing.
“Well, boy, I want you to be happy; I’m quite sure you deserve to be. And I don’t know the girl who could help falling in love with you if you set about it in the right way. But do your wooing in your own fashion; I don’t want to interfere.”
Comethup paid another visit to the captain on the following day, announcing his coming by telegraph about an hour or so before he actually arrived. The worthy captain was, of course, delighted to see him, although probably he had his own suspicions concerning the real object of the visit. The young man, emboldened by his conversation with his aunt, and filled with a desperate longing to see ’Linda, left the captain soon after dinner and set off to find her. The captain seemed to understand the matter perfectly, and when Comethup would have offered some excuse for his departure merely clapped him on the shoulder and gently thrust him out of the house.
It was a clear and calm autumn evening, with just that faintest chill in the air which seemed to whisper of a coming winter—a chill so slight that it only quickened the blood, made the air seem purer, and caused one unconsciously to quicken one’s step. As Comethup went along the road which led to the old garden, the sun was setting out beyond the wastes of land behind the town, and the old-fashioned red roofs and the square tower of the Norman church were bathed in the warm light, and all their edges softened by it. He thought he had never seen the old place looking so peaceful before.
As he reached the gates he saw, with a sudden leaping of his pulses, that ’Linda was standing against the onewhich still hung on its hinges, and was looking out into the road. She sprang forward with a little cry of pleasure as he came near her, and took his hand and drew him quickly into the garden.
“I did not hope to see you so soon again,” she said softly, looking up at him. “When did you arrive?”
“To-day,” said Comethup, holding her hand in both his own and looking into her eyes.
“Only to-day? And you came at once to see me. That was good of you. So many other people would not have troubled, or would have waited until to-morrow. But you came at once.”
There was a new tenderness in her voice, a new light in her eyes—or so he thought—that was not born of mere gratitude. She almost seemed, with her warm fingers twined about his, to be clinging to him; he thought with regret of the desperate loneliness that must have been hers, through the days since last he had seen her; of the weary evenings through which, perhaps, she had stood at the gate, looking out along the road while he was far away.
“I could not have waited until to-morrow,” he said; “I don’t think I should have slept. ’Linda, you don’t know how much, how tremendously I wanted to see you. Dear, I always want to see you more than any one else in the world.”
She was silent, looking up at him and smiling gravely into his face. The trees about them seemed almost to have hushed their whispering and their rustling, to hear what the two had to say.
“Do you remember,” he went on almost in a whisper, “how I found you here first, and how you—you kissed me when I left you?”
She shook her head and laughed. “No, I surely didn’t do that. And if I did—well, we were very young—mere babies, you know.”
“’Linda, don’t laugh at me. We’re not children any longer; but I’ve never ceased to think of you, never ceased to—to love you. I think—in fact, I know—thatI came here to-night to tell you that; I think I’ve tried—tried very hard—to tell you several times before. Only I was afraid that you wouldn’t listen to me.”
She lifted the hands she held and laid them for a moment against her cheek, then looked up at him. “Why should I not listen?” she asked gently.
“Oh, because I didn’t think it was possible that you would care anything for me. You see I’m only a big, rough fellow; I’m not even clever, or anything of that kind, but I——”
She slipped one hand from his grasp and laid it quickly on his lips. “Hush! you are the best fellow in the world,” she said. “I think I’ve always seemed to turn to you and think of you most naturally when I wanted help or consolation; in the dullest and the weariest hours I think you’ve seemed to smile at me and make me stronger. Oh, are you sure you love me?” She laid the hand that had touched his lips upon his shoulder and looked up into his eyes; her lips were quivering.
“Dear,” he said, “I’m quite sure; I love you with all my heart and soul. I know I’m young, but I’ve never seemed to think about anybody else; there has never been any one else. It’s always been little ’Linda in the garden; I’ve always felt your arms about my neck, just as you put them when we were children.”
She slipped them round his neck now. “See, they are there again,” she whispered. “But, oh, are you sure,quitesure, that you will never change; that you will love me always?”
“Always,” he replied simply. “I couldn’t change.” He bent his head and kissed her; and she clung to him, sighing a little and glancing behind her at the shadows among the trees. “You’re frightened, dear,” he said. “What is it?”
“No, not frightened. Only this place weighs upon me a little, and the years have seemed so long while I have been waiting. How good you are to me!”
“I’ll try to be, dear love,” he said. “I’ll bring such sunshine into your life, it shall be such a time of happyholidays that you shall forget all the weariness, all the waiting; I’ll make you forget it.”
“Yes,” she said, looking round the garden again, “yes, I’ll try to forget it—hark! what was that?”
She drew away from him suddenly and stood with her hands clasped on her breast, looking toward the gate they had left. A faint light shone beyond it in the road, but all was still and quiet.
“I hear nothing,” said Comethup.
She stood listening for a moment, and then laughed and came back to him. “I thought I heard some one come into the garden,” she said with a smile. “But it was only fancy. When one has wandered long in a desolate place like this, and has had no companion but one’s own thoughts, one is full of fears and fancies.” She threw her arms suddenly about him, and hid her face upon his breast. “Take me away soon, dear,” she whispered; “let me forget everything. You don’t know, can’t guess, how bitterly, bitterly tired I am of it all.”
He soothed her with gentle words, and presently led her toward the house. Beneath the little balcony she stopped and put her hands upon his breast and thrust him gently away.
“Don’t come in,” she whispered. “I am very tired, and shall go straight to my room. I’ll see you to-morrow, and many other to-morrows,” she added, smiling.
“Good-night, dear love,” he replied. “Do you remember the night I came here first, after my return, and saw you on the balcony up there, and you ran down to me?”
“Y—yes,” she replied, “I remember. Good-night!” She kissed him swiftly and slipped out of his arms and ran up the steps, paused on the balcony for a moment to blow a kiss to him, and was gone.
He lingered about the garden quite a long time, until the lights had disappeared one by one and the house stood up black against the sky. Then, carrying his hat in his hand, as though the very place in which she hadwalked were hallowed, he went out of the garden and back to the captain.
He found that gentleman conning a newspaper in his little parlour with the aid of a reading glass. The captain scorned spectacles, although they were really necessary in his case; he considered them effeminate. A reading glass was a graceful compromise. He looked up as Comethup entered, and laid down the glass and carefully folded the paper. “Well, boy,” he said, “I suppose you found her?”
“Yes,” said Comethup, “I found her.”
Something in his tone, in the large-hearted joyousness of it, struck the captain; he got up and stood with one hand resting on the table, looking across the shaded lamp at Comethup, who towered hugely at the other side of the room. For a moment or two nothing was said; then the captain made the half-circuit of the table, and they looked into each other’s eyes and their hands met.
“You don’t mean——” began the captain.
Comethup nodded and beamed upon him. “Yes,” he replied, “she’s going to be my wife. I’ve loved her—oh, a long time—ever since I was a little chap. Isn’t it splendid?”
The captain gave Comethup’s hand a final grip and let it go. “She’s the best woman in the world,” he said with great emphasis, and went back to his chair.
In the few days that followed before Comethup returned to London the captain endeavoured to frame various excuses for keeping out of the young people’s way. To-day he would be too tired; on another occasion there would be letters to write, or something which needed immediate attention in the garden. But Comethup and the girl laughingly insisted on his accompanying them, declaring that they could not possibly expect to be thoroughly happy if they left him at home. So, with some misgivings, he continued to be their companion as of old.
’Linda proved on that nearer, more delightfully intimate acquaintanceship with her to be the strangest creature of moods and caprices that could well be imagined.There seemed always a passionate desire in her heart to be all, in tenderness and gentleness, that her lover could wish; to show him how deep and sincere her love and gratitude were. Yet, though she succeeded in part in that desire, there were hours when she showed him only petulance; when the beautiful face was turned to him almost with careless indifference to meet his caress; when the words he uttered seemed to fall on unheeding ears. Again and again he left her at night with the miserable feeling that he had failed in some way to please her; blaming himself always, in that he was a rough and uncouth fellow, and that her delicacy and sweetness were things he could not properly meet.
She was always filled with the deepest contrition afterward; was always a thousand times kinder and gentler to him than she had been before, so that the misery he had suffered was more than atoned for. On one memorable occasion, when nothing that he did or said seemed to please her all day, and when she had scarcely responded to his caress when they parted under the balcony, she came running after him while he was sadly walking down the avenue, and cried his name, caught his arm, and fell breathless upon his breast, weeping. He feared that something had occurred to startle her, and was beginning eagerly and anxiously to question her, when she stopped him and poured out all that was in her self-accusing heart.
“Oh, my dear, my love, don’t go from me like this! Why are you always so kind and good and gentle to me? Why don’t you strike me, or laugh at me, or call me harsh names—anything that should teach me how bad I am and how shamefully I treat you? Dear heart, I’ve been horrid to you all day—won’t you tell me that I’ve been horrid?” She looked up into his face and gently shook him.
He looked down at her, held her close, and laughed happily. “No, I couldn’t tell you that,” he said slowly, “because it wouldn’t be true, ’Linda dear. We can’t always be alike, you know, and if the world doesn’t go right with you sometimes—well, I suppose that isn’t yourfault. You’re always a great deal too good to me, much more than I deserve, and I wouldn’t have you different for all the world. Whether you’re glad or sorry, or whether you say the sweetest things to me to tease me, you’re just ’Linda, and that’s all I want. You mustn’t fret, dear; you’ve done nothing that I should call you harsh names for; there’s nothing you could do—now or at any time—that could possibly be wrong. Don’t you understand that? It’s just because I love you, and think there’s no one like you in the world, that I think everything you do is right. I don’t seem to be able to say exactly what’s in my heart, but I think you know.”
“If you knew sometimes how miserable I feel after I’ve behaved badly to you—how I cry myself to sleep sometimes, thinking about it—you wouldn’t think so badly of me,” she said.
“But, my darling, I don’t think badly of you. Don’t I tell you that everything you do is right?”
“Oh, if you will only always think that; if you will be content with me just as I am; if you will remember only all my good days and forget all the bad ones!”
“But there are no bad days,” he replied generously. “Indeed, I have nothing to forgive or to forget. How could I have? Why, it just shows what a wonderful little woman you are, that you could run out here again to-night and say all this to me just because you thought that you’d been unkind to me. And you hadn’t been unkind at all. There, good-night, and don’t cry yourself to sleep, will you?”
They parted happily enough, and he watched her as she ran back to the house. Turning slowly at last, with lingering feet he passed out of the garden. As he reached the road a man brushed close against him and glanced up sharply into his face in the darkness, then passed on. Comethup, with a muttered word of apology, went his way.
In a few moments, however, he had an uncomfortable sensation that the man was following him—keeping well out of sight in the shadows of doorways, but still doggedlyfollowing. The young man stopped once or twice, and the man immediately stopped too and disappeared; when Comethup went on again the man’s step could be distinctly heard behind. At last, with a growing feeling of anger, Comethup swung round and quickly retraced his steps; the movement was so sudden that the man was taken by surprise and stopped falteringly, evidently not quite knowing what to do. He was an old man, much bent about the shoulders—apparently not from age, but rather as a result of heavy labour of some kind.
Comethup stared at him for a moment, and then, as the man glanced up again at him and made a movement to get past him, Comethup knew him; it was old Medmer Theed. His anger died away, and he held out his hand to the old man. “Why, Theed,” he exclaimed, “I couldn’t make out who on earth was dodging along behind me; I had no idea it was you. How are you?”
“I am well, I thank you,” replied the old man a little distrustfully. “You are out late, sir.”
“Oh, we don’t call this late in London,” said Comethup with a laugh. “Besides, if I’m not mistaken, you know why I’m out late. Didn’t I see you five minutes ago, as I came out from Miss Vernier’s?”
“Yes, you did,” said the old man, chopping his words off sharply.
“I’d just been to see her home, you know,” said Comethup. “I suppose you don’t see as much of her now—not as much as you used to do? Don’t you remember how she used to sit on the bench beside you in your shop when she was quite a little thing?”
“Am I likely to forget it?” asked Theed, looking up at him out of his bright dark eyes. “Don’t I—a hundred times a day, when I’m at work—feel her close beside me? Don’t I hear, in the air about me, the very sound of the childish songs she used to croon to me? Do I remember?” He made a step suddenly toward Comethup, and laid a hand on his arm. “You were but a child then, a baby like herself; have you forgotten? Can any one who has ever looked into her eyes forget her? They sayyou have travelled far—for many years in many lands; yet her eyes drew you back here again as surely as a load-stone. Could you resist them? Could you forget her?”
“Why, no,” said Comethup. “I think you’re quite right there: I’m quite sure no one could forget her who had once seen her.”
“One and all, young and old, she draws them all back,” went on the old man, speaking as if to himself. “The years go on and bring their changes; the snows come and the flowers bloom again; and still she calls them all back, still she draws them to her. I dreamed once that it might be possible to keep her a child always; to keep her close beside me, crooning her songs and playing with her doll, and knowing nothing of anything outside; never growing older, and never knowing any sorrows but such as may innocently touch a child. But the dream never came true.”
“Why, you couldn’t expect it to come true,” said Comethup, looking at him wonderingly. “’Linda was obliged to grow up, as we all grow; and now she’s quite a beautiful woman.”
“Yes, a woman—a beautiful woman,” whispered the old man, passing his hand in a dazed way across his forehead. “There was another child—or was it this same child, after all?—a child who grew to be a woman, and then——” He came eagerly, almost threateningly, toward Comethup in the deserted street and looked up scowlingly at him. “Why do you come here at all? Why not leave her in peace? Why not leave her a child—in heart at least? The world is wide, and you have seen much of it; this is but a little corner of it, a place hidden away. Why not go out into your world and leave her in peace?”
Comethup looked at him in amazement for a moment—amazement not unmixed with awe, for the man appeared so desperately in earnest. “You don’t understand,” he said at last. “But since you think of her so much, and because I know you were her friend when she was very young, let me tell you that I love her very dearly, and that she is to be my wife.”
“Your wife! Ah! there was some one else who said that once. It is such an easy thing to say! Yet you look—yes, you seem honest. I remember I liked your face when you were a child. Will you swear it?”
“Why, of course, if you won’t believe my bare word.”
“Yes, but what will you swear by?” He glanced up at the starlit sky. “Not by the stars: there is no firmness or strength about them; they glitter and shine to-night, and all the heavens blaze with them; to-morrow you shall not see one of them. No, there’s no constancy about the stars.”
“By the moon, then,” said Comethup lightly, willing to humour him.
“No, not by the moon; that’s lovers’ nonsense—they all swear by that. But there—you need not swear. I can read men’s faces like a book, and I have read yours. Only be good to her, be true to her—for her sake and your own. For the man who wrongs her”—he shook a trembling, knotted forefinger in the air—“the man who wrongs her deals first with me and afterward with his God. She came to me a mite of a child, sent straight by God to fill an ache in my heart; came to me with smiling eyes, just as another baby—or was it the same?—I always forget—just as another baby once came to me. She belongs to me, and no man shall harm her.”
“You don’t think that I shall harm her, do you?” asked Comethup gently.
“No,youwill not; but others may. I can not rest for thoughts of her—dreams of her. I do not know which are the dreams and which the waking. But I have crept at night about her house to see that all was well with her; I have been like a faithful dog, to guard the place where she sleeps. For that is her power: she draws all to her who have seen her once. But she draws the good and the evil alike.”
Muttering to himself he turned abruptly and went rapidly toward the centre of the town, where his own dwelling was. Comethup looked after him for a moment, and then went thoughtfully back to the captain’s house.The captain had gone to bed, but had left a light burning in the little parlour for Comethup. On the table lay a packet addressed to him from London. On breaking the seal he found that the envelope contained two or three letters which had arrived for him in his absence, and had been forwarded by Miss Carlaw’s housekeeper.
Two of the letters were unimportant, but a third was from his cousin Brian. He sat down and began to read it by the light of the lamp. It had been hurriedly scrawled, and he had some difficulty in deciphering it. Briefly and jauntily, with a delightful candour which under other circumstances would have been refreshing and even amusing, Brian informed his “best friend on earth” that he was in desperate straits, and near starvation point; that he had but one thing on which to congratulate himself, and that was that he was but treading in the footsteps of many men more illustrious than he could hope to be, who had travelled the same stony road before; but that the consolation demanded a large amount of philosophy to make it effective when it was remembered that actual food was not always to be obtained; that his landlady, who was a hopeless Philistine, refused to be comforted with promises, or with the possibility of seeing herself immortalized by reason of her businesslike connection with her impecunious lodger; that things were, in a word, at their worst. He implored his cousin to come to his rescue; this would absolutely be the last occasion on which such an appeal would be necessary, as his real prospects, from a sordid point of view, were growing brighter every day.
Comethup read the letter through carefully, smiling a little at some of the quaint phrases and sighing a little over the whole business. It happened that he had decided to go back to London on the morrow, and he was glad to think how much easier now it would be to help his cousin than before he had an income of his own. Whatever might occur, and whatever he might have to keep from his aunt, he would at least be spending that with which he had a right to be doing as he liked. Comfortedby that thought, he thrust the letter into his pocket and went to bed.
Brian had given an address in the neighbourhood of the Euston Road—in a queer, shabby street of tall houses, every one of which, Comethup discovered as he traversed it, appeared eager to share its accommodation with single gentlemen, or indeed with any one who might care to apply. Comethup, with a mental picture before him of his cousin sitting in a cheerless room, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, craving food, had not hesitated a moment after reaching London, but had driven straight to Brian’s lodging, with his portmanteau on the roof of the cab. His arrival caused something of a flutter; it was evident that he was regarded as a prospective lodger. But when he inquired for Mr. Brian Carlaw, the landlady herself appeared—a little thin, eager woman, with an anxious, watery smile upon her face. A look of relief seemed to come over her when she saw Comethup. Prosperity—a prosperity which was new to her—seemed to be about this well-dressed, elegant young man with the grave eyes. With something of timidity she begged that he would step for a moment into a room she indicated; she would like a word with him.
GENIUS ASSERTS ITSELF.
The landlady followed him with a hesitating air and stood looking at him for a moment or two without speaking. Seeing that she trembled and nervously twisted the edge of a shabby black silk apron between her fingers, he began to imagine that something must be the matter—that something dreadful must have happened.
“I hope Mr. Carlaw is not ill?” he exclaimed anxiously.
The landlady shook her head. “No, sir,” she began, and her voice was faded and thin and anxious like herself; “he ain’t what you’d call ill—not by no means. Not, that is to say, in body; but I’m thinkin’ ’is mind ain’t quite what it ought to be—not for peacefulness.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Comethup gravely. “Hadn’t I better see him? I think you said he was in.”
“There’s a word I’d like to say to you first, sir,” she interrupted hastily. “Might I make so bold as to ask if you’re a friend of Mr. Carlaw’s, or perhaps a relation?”
“Yes,” said Comethup, “I am his cousin. Why do you ask?”
The woman came a little nearer to him and mysteriously lowered her voice. “Sir, it’s now a matter of nine weeks since Mr. Carlaw first entered this ’ouse. I won’t deny it, as I was took with ’im; frank and free was ’e, an’ ’earty, to the point o’ bein’ quite familiar. ’Is meals ’e’s ’ad reg’lar, and always a kind word as to the cookin’, and the quality of things in general. And I won’t deny, sir, as we’re proud of ’im. ’E give me one of ’is books, and though I couldn’t—’avin’ ’ad to work ’ard all my days, an’ po’try bein’ a thing, to my mind, as one must be eddicated up to—couldn’t make much of it, still there it was, and the print, I must say, was like the ’Oly Bible for clearness. But proud we may be, and proud we may continue, and I won’t deny as ’e gives the ’ouse wot one might call ‘tone’; but neither pride nor tone never filled any one’s stomach yet, if you’ll forgive me mentionin’ such things before a gentleman.”
“I suppose,” said Comethup slowly, “I suppose you mean my cousin has not—not been able to keep quite regular as regards his payments, eh?”
“Reg’lar ain’t the word, sir, I do assure you. He ain’t paid nothink yet; not even the week in advance as I asks for in general from all as comes to me. But ’e were that smilin’ and ’appy and easy with me when ’e first set foot in the place, and such a way ’e ’ad with ’im, that it seemed like a insult to mention such a thing.”
“Yes, I think I understand,” said Comethup. “If,without hurting your feelings or—or disturbing your arrangements in any way, I might be permitted to be responsible for this bill, perhaps——”
She burst into tears; not with any violence, but rather with as near an approach to happiness as the dull routine of her hard life had left her capable of. She began to assure him, with a gratitude which was pitiful, that she saw what he was in his face directly she met him; mentioned, between her exclamations of relief, the exact sum to a halfpenny which was then due; and felt her small horizon cleared of clouds by the appearance of a banknote. The bill paid and duly receipted, she broke into extravagant praise of her lodger—of his manners, of his cleverness, of his wit. Comethup begged to be taken to him, and she led the way up the stairs with alacrity, and ushered him into Brian’s room with smiles and ejaculations of respect which must have given the whole business away to the most innocent mind.
Brian Carlaw was lying on a sofa near the window, smoking a cigarette and reading. Books and papers were strewn in all directions—flung about, it would almost appear, with something of studied carelessness. The whole place was full of the reek of stale tobacco; the man on the sofa appeared, late though it was, to be but just out of bed, so carelessly dressed and so generally unkempt was he. He did not rise, but waved a hand toward Comethup by way of welcome. The landlady, with murmurs, had gone out and closed the door.
“My dear old chap, this is a surprise indeed. Somehow or other I’ve lost sight of you—couldn’t find you anywhere. In moments of desperation I’ve even taken to hanging about outside that aristocratic town residence; of yours in the hope of seeing you, but I’ve only seen my afflicted aunt drive out alone. Where have you been, my young Crœsus?”
“Oh, I’ve been away. Your letter was sent on to me, and so, as I returned to-day, I came straight here. I’m sorry to hear that things have gone so badly with you.”
“My dear boy, when did they ever go well? I wasbrought into this world first with a disposition to sit in the sunshine and play with flowers; and yet it seems to me that there’s always a howling tempest as a sort of cheerful music to accompany me on my journey through life, and a snowstorm thrown in, just for luck. I was born for fair and pleasant things; I get only hard ones. I am the plaything of the gods, and the favourite game of the gods appears to be football. My very landlady looks at me with an expression which tells me I am little else than a robber of the widow and the fatherless; my sensitive soul will not permit me to meet her eye at meal times.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’d worry about her any more if I were you,” said Comethup. “I took the liberty, in order to save you any trouble, of settling up with her. I hope you don’t mind.”
Brian Carlaw brought his legs down from the sofa, and sat upright. He shook his head playfully for a moment, then began to smile, then to laugh outright; finally he got up and came at Comethup in his pleasantest and most jovial fashion, and clapped both hands on his shoulders. “You dear old rascal,” he said, and his eyes had a light of tenderness in them which was sufficient repayment, if any were needed, for anything that Comethup had done; “you dear old rascal, I knew that you’d put things right for me directly you came. You know, old boy, my nature—damn it, I can’t help it; it was born in me—my nature is a proud and a sensitive one; and though I may carry a brave face to the world, and laugh and joke with these people who have for the moment to supply me with bread and butter and a roof to cover me, still my spirit rebels against the idea of owing them money. I don’t like it; I don’t want to feel that I owe this man or that woman, of however common clay they may be, so many pounds, shillings, and pence. I’ve got my work to think about, my hopes in life to realize; and these sordid things come up against me and hurt me, and leave their stain, as it were, upon the work I have to do. Don’t you understand that? Now, my dear boy, I shall go on cheerfully. Likethe immortal village blacksmith, I can look the whole world in the face again—well, notquitethe whole world, because I’m already deeply in your debt; but all that shall be wiped off some day, and we’ll start with a clean slate. Now, I sincerely hope that that woman hasn’t overcharged you.”
“I shouldn’t bother about that if I were you,” said Comethup. “It’s paid and done with, and you won’t need to trouble about it. But how are you going on? What are you going to do?”
“My dear fellow, that’s a question for the future; and the future, for good or ill, can always be depended upon to take care of itself. For the present—and that’s the only really important thing—you have stepped in, like the splendid chap you are, and have put all my world right. I won’t attempt to thank you: thanks between friends are always meaningless. Let us go out somewhere and look on the world, and be grateful, and sit in the sunshine.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Comethup. “You see, I’ve been away in the country for some time, and I must hurry back home. I only called here on my way from the station.”
“Well, some other day, then, although I wish you could have made it to-day. I’m just in the mood for a holiday. So you’ve been in the country, have you? What part?”
“Oh, the old place, our old home, you know,” replied Comethup.
“Indeed! the dear old spot! And I suppose you saw all the old people and all the familiar sights of our boyhood. Been staying there long?”
“Only about a week this time,” said Comethup.
The other caught him up quickly. “Thistime! Do you often go down there, then?”
“Well, I’ve been down once or twice to—to see the captain. You remember the captain?”
“Oh, yes—queer, stiff old chap!—I remember him very well. I—I suppose the place hasn’t changed much?” Hehad walked across to a table, had picked up a cigarette, and was lighting it.
“No, very little,” replied Comethup. “People die, and get married, and live the same lives that other people did before them; nothing very exciting ever happens there.”
“I suppose not. I’ve half a mind to run down there myself one of these days, just to dream among the old streets where I lived when I was a boy; it would be rather inspiring, I should think. Let me see: there was a little girl—what the deuce was her name?—used to live there in a house we thought was haunted. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Comethup. “She lives there still; her father’s dead, you know.”
“Really, I don’t think I ever met him. But I see you’re impatient to be gone, so I won’t detain you. By the way”—this as Comethup was moving toward the door—“I wish you would let me have—say a fiver. I hate to ask you; but, you know, I haven’t a shilling to bless myself with, and although I get all I want here, still there are some additional things which——”
“I’m very sorry,” said Comethup; “I never thought of that. Here you are. I’ll come round and see you again. I suppose you’re working pretty hard now?”
“Well, not what you would call working; as a matter of fact, I’m waiting for an idea. I can feel it coming. I know that at any moment of the night or day I may wake up with the whole thing complete in my mind, ready to put down on paper. But these things can’t be forced—one has to wait for them.”
“And the other books?” asked Comethup. “I suppose they’re going well?”
“Very well,” replied Brian. “From a point of view of fame, they’re going very well indeed; people are talking about me, and I’ve even been preached at from some rather popular pulpits. Of course I get a little money from them, and that money will increase as time goes on. I don’t mind confessing that I was in the depths of despair this morning. Now I shall go out, and look my fellow-manin the face, and enjoy the sunshine, and slap myself on the breast and say, ‘Brian Carlaw, you are once again a free man!’”
Comethup left him and drove home. Miss Charlotte Carlaw, even in the midst of an affectionate greeting, expressed her surprise that he should not have telegraphed the hour of his arrival, in order that the carriage might meet him. He explained lamely that he had made up his mind quite suddenly to return, and that there had been no time for anything. Miss Carlaw sat in her accustomed chair, amid a curious silence, for some moments, evidently waiting for him to speak, feeling, probably, after the confidence he had before given her, that there would be something further to say. Delicacy urged her to be silent, but impatience and anxiety for him prompted her to speak, and at last she broke out, in characteristic fashion:
“Well, boy, how fares the wooing? Do you come back with a heart too big for your waistcoat to hold it, or has the jade proved fickle and sent you about your business? Come, I’m an old woman—perhaps an old fool—but I’m tingling to know if she has used you well, and if you’re happy.”
He crossed to her and stooped, and put an arm about her shoulders and kissed her. “Yes, dear,” he said, with a little laugh; “I’m so happy that I can’t express what I feel.”
She put her hand up and softly stroked the hand that lay on her shoulder. “That’s well, boy; that’s well,” she said. “And what did she say to you, and what did you say to her?”
“Lots of things that I can’t remember—lots of beautiful things that I didn’t think any one could ever say to me,” he replied.
“Well, don’t tell me; you’ve evidently got it pretty badly. I’ve never seen this girl, and know nothing about her; but I’m quite sure that she’s all that’s good and sweet and true, or you wouldn’t have selected her from all other women. Just a word or two to you, my boy, although Idon’t think you need it; but I’m a woman myself, and women are strange creatures to deal with. Don’t forget that a girl is a thing of moods and whims and fancies—quite the best of them are that—and they’ve got to be humoured, just like spoilt children. The world has banded itself together for centuries past to spoil its womenkind—sometimes in the best sense, generally in the worst—and you can’t blame the women if they’ve learned to take advantage of it. I think a woman wants to feel that a man is her master, but she wants him to be a gentle master, all the same. And there is no woman living will love a man, in the best and finest way that a man can be loved, unless she is first his friend and his comrade—unless, unerringly, in time of doubt or trouble, her thoughts fly to him. There! I’ve done preaching. Now tell me what you’re going to do, or what’s going to happen, or what you’ve determined on.”
“Oh, I don’t think we’ve determined on anything yet,” said Comethup. “You see, it seems only just to have happened. I’ve only just found out, as it were, that she loves me.”
“She’d be a fool if she didn’t,” ejaculated Miss Carlaw. “Well, I’m not going to interfere in your love-making. In your own good time I must make the girl’s acquaintance. In this, as in everything else, I leave all to your own good judgment and common sense. Make your own plans, and I’ll back you up; I can’t say more than that. But remember that if at any time you want her to come to London or to see me, this house is open to her, and she may stay under my wing as long as she likes. Selfishly, I’m glad to hear she has no friends. Relatives are a nuisance—at least, mine have always been. But you know I don’t include you in that, don’t you?”
Comethup’s visits to the old town became of necessity more frequent. It was splendid to think, as he started off from London on each occasion, that in the desolate garden would be waiting the woman who watched for his coming and listened for his footsteps through weary days when he could not reach her. Once or twice he had suggestedthat she should go to London as his aunt’s guest, and see all the wonders of that wonderful city; but she had hung back shyly, pleading that there was plenty of time, or that she liked better to see him down there. Always she had some half-laughing excuse, so that he ceased at last to urge her, and was content to live in the happy present, and to leave the more formal questions of introduction and such like matters to the future. Always, too, she was the same petulant, impulsive, warm-hearted creature, quick to anger and as sudden in her repentance; wounding him deeply at times, and yet striving afterward to heal the wound with so much of love and tenderness and self-reproach that he would not willingly have been without the pain which revealed to him such depths of wonderful compassion in her. Each night, when he sought his bed, there was some faint bitterness in his heart; and yet, greater than the bitterness, the remembrance of some beautiful phrases she had used, some sudden, half-shy glance of her eyes, some wholly spontaneous caress. His love for her grew with the wonder of her; but she seemed always so intangible, so changeful, that he was never sure of her—was forever, after he had parted from her, on the verge of rushing back to crave her forgiveness for this, or her clearer understanding of that.
Once, when he parted from her at night under the balcony, she clung to him, held him for a moment after they had whispered their “Good-nights,” and looked up into his eyes. He saw her own were swimming in tears. “Dear,” she whispered, “I wish I were kinder to you; you deserve so much more than I can ever give you.”
“No,” he replied, “I don’t deserve anything; you’ve given me already more than I ever hoped to gain. Why, you’re the best woman in the whole world, and I——”
She put her hand quickly on his lips. “And you are the best man—better and more patient than any one else could be. Tell me”—she laid her head upon his breast, and he had to bend his own to catch the words—“tell me, what would you do if you found—if it were possible that I did not love you?”
His arms closed more tightly about her. “It isn’t fair to jest about that,” he said. “Why should you think about it at all? You do love me?”
“Yes, of course. But what would you do? Would it mean—oh, how serious you are!—would it mean so much to you? Think: I vex and trouble you a hundred times a day. I know I do, only you’re too good to say anything about it. Wouldn’t it be better if you loved some one—some one who loved you steadily and firmly, just as you deserve to be loved? Wouldn’t it be better?”
“My dearest,” he said, “you don’t understand. I’m only a youngster, I know; but I’m quite sure I never could love any one else; that I want you just as you are, whether smiling or in tears, whether frowning—but that doesn’t happen often—or laughing. Although we’ve been parted such a long time, you seem to be the ’Linda who has grown up with me; we’ve been waiting for each other all this time. Only you mustn’t say such things as this, because you hurt me. I can not think what I should do without you now.”
She looked up at him with a smile, and drew his face down and kissed him. “Rest content,” she whispered. “Only be patient with me; I won’t desert you.”
Comethup walked home thoughtfully, holding that last whispered phrase of hers steadily before him, and striving to banish everything else. He found the captain standing leaning over his garden gate, smoking a cheroot, and looking up and down the road.
“There’s a note for you inside,” said the captain; “it was sent round from the Bell Inn an hour since.”
Comethup, wondering a little, walked into the cottage, followed leisurely by the captain. The note lay on the little table, in the circle of light thrown by the lamp; the young man picked it and tore it open. It was from Brian Carlaw.