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Title: The Idol of The Blind
A Novel
Author: Tom Gallon
Release Date: October 27, 2014 [EBook #47211]
Language: English
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THE IDOL OF THE BLIND
BOOKS BY T. GALLON.
Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
The Idol of the Blind.
"No person well posted in current fiction lets a story by Mr. Gallon
pass unnoticed."--_Buffalo Commercial._
The Kingdom of Hate.
"The whole story is told with an appearance of honest, straightforward
sincerity that is very clever and well sustained, and the suspicion of
satire will only dawn on the reader when the story is well advanced,
and he is thoroughly interested in the tumultuous swing."--_Chicago
Chronicle._
Dicky Monteith. A Love Story.
"A good story, told in an engaging style."--_Philadelphia Press._
"A refreshing example of everything that a love story ought to
be."--_San Francisco Call._
A Prince of Mischance.
"The story is a powerful one, and holds the reader from the
start."--_Boston Budget._
"An admirable story."--_London Telegraph._
Tatterly.
"A charming love story runs through the book, which is written in a
bright and lively style.... The book is worth reading."--_New York Sun._
"We believe in 'Tatterly' through thick and thin. We could not
recommend a better story."--_London Academy._
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
THE IDOL
OF THE BLIND
_A NOVEL_
BY
TOM GALLON
AUTHOR OF
TATTERLY, A PRINCE OF MISCHANCE,
DICKY MONTEITH, ETC.
"When pious frauds and holy shifts
Are dispensations and gifts."
HUDIBRAS
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--COMETHUP ENTERS LIFE DISASTROUSLY 1
II.--AND MAKES DISCOVERIES 10
III.--THE GHOST OF A LITTLE CHILD 20
IV.--THE CAPTAIN PLAYS THE KNIGHT-ERRANT 40
V.--TELLS OF AN ERRING WOMAN 55
VI.--THE CAPTAIN IN STRANGE COMPANY 62
VII.--IN WHICH SEPARATIONS ARE SUGGESTED 79
VIII.--COMETHUP SUFFERS A LOSS 88
IX.--THE COMING OF AUNT CHARLOTTE 100
X.--COMETHUP LEAVES THE OLD LIFE 115
XI.--AND BECOMES A PERSONAGE 131
XII.--THE CAPTAIN SPEAKS HIS MIND 141
XIII.--A RETROSPECT--AND A FLUTTERING OF HEARTS 158
XIV.--AN INCUBUS, AND THE DEMON OF JEALOUSY 175
XV.--COMETHUP PRACTISES DECEPTION 183
XVI.--COMETHUP IS SHADOWED 199
XVII.--THE BEGINNINGS OF A GENIUS 214
XVIII.--AUNT CHARLOTTE IS SYMPATHETIC 231
XIX.--GENIUS ASSERTS ITSELF 247
XX.--THE DESERTION OF A PARENT 262
XXI.--GENIUS AND THE DOMESTIC VIRTUES 276
XXII.--A SECOND DESERTION 286
XXIII.--COMETHUP DRIVES A BARGAIN 301
XXIV.--UNCLE ROBERT HAS AN INSPIRATION 311
XXV.--THE FALL OF PRINCE CHARMING 327
XXVI.--BRIAN PAYS HIS DEBTS 332
XXVII.--THE PLEADING OF THE CAPTAIN 351
XXVIII.--MEDMER MELTS A SILVER SPOON 361
XXIX.--COMETHUP LEARNS THE TRUTH 369
XXX.--AUNT CHARLOTTE ATTENDS A CELEBRATION 374
THE IDOL OF THE BLIND.
CHAPTER I.
COMETHUP ENTERS LIFE DISASTROUSLY.
"My dear" had looked her last upon a troublesome world. She had taken
life sighingly, in little frightened gasps, as it were, with the fear
upon her, even from childhood, that unknown horrors lurked for her
in each day to which she was awakened. It can scarcely be said that
she had clung to life with any tenacity--rather with the instinct of
living; and she had fluttered out of it resignedly enough, a little
sorry, perhaps, that she had left any one behind to grieve for her. And
yet, with the inconsistency which had marked her life, she had died at
the very moment when life had actually begun to be worth living for her.
"My dear" was one of those who wait long for the happiness, if any,
that is to come to them, and find it a little tasteless when it is
at last given to them. She had been the younger child of a stern and
unbending man, who bent or broke to his code of rules those who were
weak enough to be bent or broken, and thrust sternly aside those whose
strength opposed itself to his. He had found in his little daughter
one who smilingly and timidly obeyed in everything, and worshipped him
without question--up to a certain point. That point was determined by
the arrival of David Willis.
It was an old and a very ordinary story; such stories are played out
to their bitter end day after day around us. David Willis was poor,
and had absolutely no expectations; so far as old Robert Carlaw was
concerned he simply did not exist--except as many other people existed,
as a part of the world with which he had nothing to do. David, for
his part, was as patient and long-suffering as the girl who loved
him; and so they solemnly and pitifully plighted their troth, and
agreed to wait. Boldness or resource of action was not in either of
them; the girl, despite her love for the man, and the sort of humble,
patient faithfulness with which she was endowed, would not have risked
her father's anger on any account. So, in a poor, half-ridiculous,
half-heroic fashion, they parted and waited.
They waited, strange as it may seem, for nearly twenty years; until
the man had entered the forties and the woman was nearing them. She
was still a pretty woman, soft-eyed and gentle of voice, with a great
mine of tenderness hidden away in her which no one had been able to
discover. When, on her father's death, she married David Willis, there
seemed a prospect that the mine would be discovered, but the time had
gone past; life had been so long a flat and stale and unprofitable
thing that the old fierce heart-beats at the thought of her lover, the
old hunger of love for him, had died away into a mere tremulous wonder
as to whether he would be good to her, or whether he might have moments
of harshness and sternness, like her father. She had hung too long
expectant on hope to believe that the world was going to be very good
to her now; she was only a little glad, for her lover's sake, that his
time of waiting was ended.
David Willis was a musician and a dreamer; not a very great musician,
and certainly a dreamer whose dreams brought him no profit. He had
filled the place of organist in one or two minor churches, living
simply and contentedly. By the very irony of things, when the woman
he loved was able to come to him and put her hands in his, and tell
him that there was no further bar to their happiness, he was out of
an engagement, and had scarcely a penny in the world. But, with a
childlike faith which, even at their years, came near to the sublime,
they married first and tried to be worldly afterward. Fortunately
for them, her brother was a man of property in a small, old-fashioned
town near the coast of Kent; and, having considerable influence in the
place, he offered, through the clergyman of the parish, the vacant post
of organist in the parish church to David Willis, after first roundly
abusing his sister for having married a pauper.
It was a quaint old town, a place of red roofs and winding streets and
strange old buildings; a very paradise to the dreamer and the woman who
had waited so long for him. Her brother's house stood at the far end
of the town, in the newer part of it; but they saw little of him, and
had, indeed, no particular desire to do so. They had their own quiet
dwelling-place, a little house nestling under the frowning shadows of
the church wherein he worked; a strange old place, with low ceilings
and black beams, with a garden of roses stretching right along under
the gray old church wall. Her life, for a few months at least, was a
sweet and shadowed thing; people said afterward--people who had never
known her--that they had seen her sitting often in the old church,
with her mild eyes looking upward at a great rose window over the
porch, while her husband practised for the services on the wheezy old
organ; had seen her wandering in her garden among the roses, singing to
herself in a subdued voice--the voice of one who has long been forced
to be silent, or to subdue any natural mirth that might be in her.
The summer went by, while David Willis played on his organ, and his
wife sang among her roses; and with the autumn came a new light in the
eyes of the woman--a light as of one who waits and hopes for something.
Poor, trembling, wistful creature, what dreams were hers then! What
dreams when she sat by her husband's side in the twilight, looking out
over the town where the lights were beginning to twinkle one by one
like sleepy eyes! What dreams of a little life that was to recompense
her for all she had missed, and all she never could find in any other
way! Childish hands were to draw all that mine of tenderness out of
her, as no other hands could have done; childish words were to wake
echoing words in her dull heart, and stir it to life again. She dreamed
tremblingly of all she would do; of all she would teach the child; saw
it walking by her side among the roses; fluttered into church proudly,
braving the eyes of younger women with the mite beside her.
Those were dreams which never came true. She had waited, through dull
and spiritless years, for her chance of life; it was written, in that
book which no man shall read, that her life in that fuller sense was
to be but a short one. She gave birth to her child--a boy--and knew
her fate even before they told her. She sank slowly, drifting out of
life with as little effort to retain it as she had shown throughout her
days. Almost the last thing she did was to take her husband's hand, as
he sat speechless with grief beside her, and put it to her lips, and
draw it up against her cheek.
"We waited--a long time--Davie," she whispered. "I wish--I
might--have--stayed." She did not speak again; she held his hand in
that position until the last breath fluttered out of her lips.
David Willis was utterly incapable of appreciating anything except
the magnitude of his loss. He wandered desolately from room to room,
picking up things that had belonged to her and putting his lips to
them, and weeping, in a hopeless, despairing fashion, like a child.
Fortunately for that other child who had been the direct cause of the
disaster, there were kindly people about the place who cared for it,
and found a nurse for it--a young and healthy woman who had but just
lost a child of her own, and who was installed in the house of David
Willis at once. From that big house in the newer part of the town came
Mr. Robert Carlaw, the brother of the dead woman, hushing his loud and
blustering voice a little as he crossed the threshold of the place of
mourning.
He had an air with him, this Robert Carlaw; a sense of saying, when he
entered a room, that it was something poorer and meaner than before he
came; a magnificent air of proprietorship in every one he honoured by
a nod or a handshake; the very town through which he walked became,
not a sweet and beautiful old place which seemed to have been dropped
clean out of the middle ages, but an awkward, badly built little place
in which Robert Carlaw was good enough to live. The swing of him was so
fine that the skirts of his coat brushed the houses as he went down the
street; other passengers humbly took the roadway.
He was very kind and sympathetic with David Willis, with the kindness
and sympathy of a patron to a dependent who has suffered a loss; he had
scarcely seen his sister since she was a child, and knew absolutely
nothing of her. He seated himself in an armchair--the chair which had
been hers--opposite to where David Willis sat with his head bowed in
his hands; he coughed, with a little shade of annoyance in the cough,
as of one who is not receiving proper attention. David Willis looked up
without speaking.
"Bad business, this," said Mr. Carlaw, with a jerk of the head which
was meant to convey that he referred to what was lying upstairs. "A man
feels these things; I know _I_ did. Cut me up dreadfully."
"Yes," said David, in a low voice.
"She was never strong, you know," went on the brother; "not like the
others, I mean. And then she married late, which tries a woman, I'm
told."
"Yes," replied the other again in the same tone.
"She was just the sort that would give in without making what I call a
kick for it. Hadn't half enough of the devil in her. Not a bit like her
brother in that respect. Why, I assure you, they've positively _tried_
to kill me, half a dozen times; given me over for dead. But they didn't
know Bob Carlaw; he's always proved one too many for 'em. There's a lot
of life in Bob."
David Willis got up slowly. "Would you like to see her?" he asked.
"No, no; I don't think so. It wouldn't--wouldn't do any good, and the
sight of any one dead always upsets me. No, I don't think I'll see
her; I only--only called in case I could do anything. A man needs
sympathy at such a time." He got up and took his hat, and swung toward
the door. Turning there, he said abruptly, "What about the kid?"
"The----" said David, looking at him blankly.
"The child; is it alive?"
"Yes," replied David; "doing well, they tell me."
"Ah--that's bad--for you, I mean." He paused a moment, coughed
uncomfortably, and stuck his hat sideways on his head; then remembered
himself, and took it off and frowned at it. Finally he got out of the
door awkwardly, and swung himself out through the garden of the roses
and went up the street, trying hard not to whistle.
It was on the day of the funeral that David Willis first seemed to
grasp the idea of his responsibility in regard to his infant son. He
had had no thought of that before; had listened to the sympathizing
remarks of the few friends he had with indifference, and had scarcely
appeared to realize that there was a new element in his life at all. He
grasped things slowly at all times, and required time to digest them;
he had room for nothing else in his mind then but the thought of his
loss. The day that saw her committed to the earth in the old churchyard
within sight of the garden where she had walked was a day which passed
for him like a troubled dream; he had a vague remembrance that people
were very kind to him, and helped him, and told him what to do and
where to stand. It was while he stood beside the grave that some words
from the burial service broke upon his ears as though nothing had been
said before; he saw in them something new and fresh and hopeful.
"Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full
of misery. He cometh up and----"
He lost all that followed; with those final words came a new thought
into his mind. The woman he had loved, for whom he had waited and
hungered so patiently, was to sleep her last sleep in that quiet place,
to sleep as calmly and as gently as she had lived. But there was
something more than this, something to comfort him. God had, after all,
been very merciful; so, in his simple mind, he told himself. The poor,
frail woman was gone; in her place had come a little child. The words
were true; he applied them at once to the baby. "He cometh up--like a
flower." Surely that was true; his eyes brightened as he thought of it;
the bitterness fell away from his heart; he almost longed to leave her
sleeping there and to get back to the child. He scarcely seemed to have
seen the child yet--to know what it was like.
As he crossed the churchyard to his house the thing was forced more
clearly and strongly upon him; he saw, with the fine instinct of love,
that this was what she would have wished, that the child must grow up
to think well of her, and to take her place. A man of rare singleness
of life and purpose, he had been capable only of single emotions; and
those emotions must, of necessity, be great. His dogged patience in
waiting for one woman through all the best years of his life had had in
it much of heroism; that was ended, and he turned now to something else
to fill his days. The child should do it; the child had been sent for
that very purpose. Over and over again the words came back to him, "He
cometh up--like a flower." That was very beautiful; it seemed strange
that he had not thought of that before. He dreamed a dream, even as the
woman had done, of all that the child was to be to him.
He went into the room where the scrap of humanity lay sleeping against
the strange woman's breast; the woman glanced up at him almost
resentfully as he bent over the child; just such another child had lain
warm against her, and this one filled the void in her heart a little.
She was a humble creature, of no subtle emotions whatever; her sense of
motherhood, so recently awakened, was the strongest feeling in her.
The man touched the baby's cheek with a hesitating forefinger, and
then turned away and walked out of the room. He saw quite clearly how
the child would grow up, knowing only him, desiring no one else to
fill its world. Before another hour had passed, the solitary man had
mapped out the seat the child should take in the house and in church;
had wandered in fancy over the fields through which the child should
accompany him. There was no disloyalty to the dead woman in all this;
the child had sprung out of the woman, in every sense, and took her
place quite naturally in the deep heart of the man.
That evening David Willis received an unexpected visitor. The visitor
came slowly and timidly, and yet with a certain forced air of defiance
upon him, up the garden path, and knocked at the door of the little
house. The one servant the house boasted, and who did not sleep there,
had gone to her own home at the other end of the town; David Willis
opened the door, and stared out into the twilight at the visitor.
The caller was a little man--very alert and very upright, with a
tightly buttoned frock coat, and an old-fashioned silk hat with a
curly brim. He carried something in one hand behind him. David Willis
remembered to have seen him once or twice in the streets, walking very
erect, and swinging a cane with a tassel attached to it; and always in
church on Sundays, where he occupied a little odd pew in one corner,
and gave the responses in a very loud and sonorous voice not at all
fitting to his stature. David held the door in one hand, and looked out
wonderingly at the little man.
"My name is Garraway-Kyle--Captain Garraway-Kyle--late of her Majesty's
service. You are in trouble, sir, your wife"--he stopped abruptly and
coughed and frowned, and tugged at one end of his white mustache with
his disengaged hand--"your wife, sir, was good enough to admire my
flowers; used to stop sometimes to look at them. I thought perhaps----"
His sunburned face took on a deeper tinge, and he brought his hand from
behind him and showed a carefully arranged bunch of flowers.
David Willis came out into the little path, and closed the door behind
him; his voice was rather unsteady when he spoke. "Thank you, sir," he
said. "Would you like me to go with you and point out the--the grave?"
"I know it. I was there this afternoon," replied the captain, shortly.
"But I should like you to come with me." So the two men went in silence
out of the garden, and by the little gate into the churchyard, David
Willis having no hat, and the captain carrying his in his hand.
At the grave the captain knelt stiffly, as though it were an effort
for him to do so, and put the flowers at the head of the new mound. He
remained for nearly half a minute kneeling, and then drew himself up
and faced the other. "She was a sweet and gentle woman, sir; I have
seen her often; I have ventured to peep over the wall when she was in
her own garden. She was very fond of flowers."
"Yes," replied David, "very."
"I wished sometimes that I might have offered her some of mine, the
finest garden in the town, sir. But, of course, I did not know her. I
am sorry to have had to give them to her like this."
"You are very good," said David, softly.
Captain Garraway-Kyle turned away and looked up for a moment at the
sombre church which rose above them. "You had not been married long, I
think, Mr. Willis?"
"Not quite a year," replied David.
"Ah! The child lives, I think?"
"Yes."
They walked back together to the gate which led to the cottage; and
there the captain held out his hand. "Thank you," he said, stiffly; and
then, "I am very sorry. By the way--boy or girl?"
"Oh, it's a boy," replied David.
The captain had gone a few paces down the street when he turned on his
heel and came back again. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Willis, but what will
you call him?"
It was almost an idle question, prompted in the captain's mind for
want of something better to say; but it set the old train of thought
running in David Willis's mind as it had run all that afternoon. The
words he had heard at the grave-side seemed to sound in his ears again;
the sudden thought struck him to give the boy some name that should
keep in memory his mother, and the purpose for which he came into
the world, and all that he meant to his father. He faced about, and
looked at his visitor with a new light in his eyes. "I shall call him
'Comethup,'" he said, slowly.
"I beg your pardon----" The captain looked a little startled.
"'Comethup,'" said David again, half to himself. "Yes, that's the name."
"Oh, I see; family name, I presume?" said the other.
"Yes," replied David Willis, "a family name. Good-night." And he went
inside, and sat down in the darkness to think about it.
CHAPTER II.
AND MAKES DISCOVERIES.
David Willis stuck to his determination, so suddenly made on that night
of the captain's visit, and the child was duly baptized under the name
of Comethup Willis. Simple David Willis chuckled to himself a little
over his ingenuity; he grew to like the quaintness of the name, and it
was a constant reminder--if such were necessary--of the tragedy which
belonged to the boy's birth. He always spoke the name rapidly when
addressing the child or when referring to it to any one else, slurring
the cumbrous name that he might hide the secret of it; only to himself
did he ever speak it slowly with the added words, "as a flower." It was
a never-ceasing source of joy to him to think how cleverly the name
had been conceived; he dwelt upon it lovingly, with the pride of the
inventor; and it became on his tongue a caress whenever it was uttered.
Apart from the mere name, the child filled his life and his thoughts to
a greater extent than he had ever even dared to hope. He grew rapidly,
and shook off the childish ailments which came with his years with
greater ease than most children; he had about him, even as a little
fellow, the grave, shy tenderness of his mother. Captain Garraway-Kyle
murmured once, as he held him at arms'-length and looked critically at
him, that he had his mother's eyes.
It was a strange life for the child, alone with a dreamy man in that
old house under the shadow of the church; if he could have written down
his impressions of life and those about him at that time, they would
have made curious reading. He remembered when it was possible for him,
by a great effort, to get both hands up to the door knob, and to twist
it round and stagger backward, pulling the door with him; understood
fully what a steep and treacherous affair the stone step was which led
down to the garden; and what a proud and wonderful day it was when he
summoned courage to step straight down upon it, instead of manipulating
the descent with one small bare knee on the stone and the foot of the
other leg feeling for the earth below. He knew his mother's garden by
heart, and all the wondrous corners of it, where strange things hid
which no one saw but himself. He learned early that the roses which
grew there, and nodded in a friendly fashion to him as he passed, only
grew there for a small boyish nose to be poked up at them to get their
scent, and were not to be pulled except on rare occasions, when his
father went round the garden with a basket, and gathered the choicest,
and tied them into a rude kind of wreath. Comethup knew then that a
great expedition was on foot; that they would go out of the gate at the
farthest end of the garden, and that he would stumble--holding fast by
his father's hand--through a place where the grass was very soft and
very green, and where some of it was raised in long hillocks higher
than the rest; a place where large flat stones with curious marks
upon them, and little babies' heads with wings cut on some, cropped up
out of the earth. On one of these hillocks the little homely wreath
would be laid, and his father would kneel and seem to whisper something
behind his hand. He knew that his mother slept there, and that she
would never wake up again, and never walk with him, as his father
walked, in the garden of the roses. Child though he was, he always felt
a little sadness as he stumbled back over the hillocks to the garden
gate, because the mother he had never seen lay, an inscrutable mystery,
out of his sight under the grass.
There was one never-to-be-forgotten day when he first learned of
something outside his own small world. It was Sunday, and the heavy old
bells were swinging, and his father had gone out through the sunlight
with books under his arm to the church. It struck suddenly upon the
child that this day was different from all the rest; that the little
maid-servant had a cleaner face and a whiter apron, and that his own
tiny suit was one which was laid by in a tall old press all the rest of
the week. Most of our impressions, whatever age we may be, come to us
through the sense of smell, and Comethup's impression of the day came
to him through the scent of the clothes. They bore the same scent as
the big best bedroom upstairs--a room in which no one ever slept and
into which he had peeped one day when the door was open; just such a
scent as that which hung about it had been wafted out to his nostrils
then. He began to see that there must be something "best" about this
day also, as there was about everything connected with it.
When David Willis came back from church, the child had got his
questions ready, and knew exactly what answers he required, as a child
always unerringly does. He asked why all the shops along the other side
of the street were closed, and why the bells rang on that day, and why
the people sang in the big church which loomed above them. And then
he heard for the first time of that other world into which we try so
hard to peer; of that dread Presence--dread to a child--beyond the
skies that shuts in our vision. He was puzzled to understand how his
mother could be right above him, watching to see if he were a good
boy or a bad; and why, in that case, those flowers were put upon that
grass-covered bed of hers out in the churchyard. He pondered the matter
deeply, and was much disconcerted to think that the God of whom every
one seemed so much afraid was all round him and could see everything he
did.
He went one day into the church with his father--an experience indeed!
It was quite empty, save for themselves, and the first thought
that occurred to him was to wonder where the roof was; and why his
voice rumbled and rattled and sprang at him from far above when he
incautiously spoke in his usual shrill treble. The phrase which his
father used--"the house of God"--awed him; he understood why the roof
was so much higher than that of their own house. A lovely pattern of
many colours on the stone pavement at his feet arrested his attention.
He followed the shafts of light upward to the great rose window high
up in the wall over the porch. His heart went a little quicker, and he
gripped his father's hand with his baby fingers. That surely must be
the eye of God looking down at him.
He went home tremblingly to think the matter over; saw in the childish
wonder of discovery something that no one had found before; screwed his
courage to make further inquiries of his father concerning this dread
Being. It was a terror to him to learn that the Being was everywhere,
not alone in the great place where people went in their best clothes to
worship him. He crept up to his tiny bedroom under the roof that night,
and hurriedly closed the door and drew the curtains, and lay in bed
quakingly triumphant at the thought that he had shut It out, only to
wake up with a start in a little while at the remembrance that It must
have been in the room before his precautions were taken. He climbed out
of bed, and pattered across to the window; pulled back the curtains,
and pushed open the casement. All the benign influence of a summer
starlight night was about him; the lights were twinkling sleepily and
safely down in the town; and he could hear calm, slow country voices in
the street beyond the garden. Life--great and wonderful to his childish
mind, although bounded by so narrow a horizon--seemed beautiful and
good and secure; he smiled, and dropped his sleepy head on his arms on
the window ledge, and slept there calmly till the morning came.
The world is always a place of giants to us when we are very little;
therein lies the tragedy and the terror of it. We are always told that
childhood is such a happy time; we cry always how gladly we would
return to it. But we know well that we would not return to it with the
ignorance with which we left it; that we should go back to its delights
and its irresponsibilities with the magician's wand of Experience in
our hands to make it a fairyland. To a lonely child the world in which
he lives is a place of terrors, with no one who understands his needs
to explain to him all he craves so desperately to know.
Comethup was left pretty much to his own devices in those early days.
David Willis liked to have the boy near him, liked to see him moving
about the house. But, in his dreamy fashion, he took but scant notice
of the child as a child; he painted to himself glowing pictures
of what the boy would be when he had grown older and was ripe for
companionship; for the present, he waited a little impatiently for that
time to come. So it happened that Comethup explored his world alone.
The seasons seemed always to come suddenly. He would wake up, bright
and alert, on a glorious morning of sunshine, with an endless prospect
of sunny days before him; fires were things of the past, and the
garden was no more a sealed place, wherein he must not run for fear of
splashing his little white legs with mud. In just the same way there
seemed no intermediate time between the summer, with its glorious
abundance of roses and its long, hot afternoons, and the time when the
roses were gone, and he was curled up like a little comfortable animal
on the hearthrug before the parlour fire. That was the time, too, for
going to bed in the dark, when the dreadful hour crept inexorably on;
when he must leave the warmth and brightness of the lower room and
climb with reluctant feet into a colder atmosphere, where grim shadows
lurked on the landing, and the pale moon grinned in at him through an
uncurtained window, like a queer face all on one side.
The church grew, quite naturally, from its mystic qualities, to be
his chief delight. Everything about it was wonderful, from the long
flight of stone steps which led up to the organ-loft where his father
played, to the great brown wooden bird, with its beak open, and
with outstretched wings, which stood on a carved pillar before the
altar. Its seats were a never-failing source of delight to the shy
child--places in which one could hide, secure from every one, and look
up at the great roof, and at the sunlight slanting in through the
windows. But perhaps it was best of all to sit up in the organ-loft,
as he sometimes did with his father; to draw a huge hassock close up
against the old-fashioned wooden partition, and sit there and look
down, unseen and unsuspected, at the people below. Comethup always
stood up at the proper places on those occasions, and sat down when the
people rustled into their seats; he tried, too, to murmur something
which sounded a little like the responses which rumbled up from below.
His world widened out a little as the placid years flowed on. The
garden of the roses no longer bounded his horizon; the gate ceased to
be a barrier which must not be passed. The spirit of adventure was
strong in Comethup one summer afternoon, when his father was sleeping
peacefully on the hard horsehair sofa in the parlour, and the little
maid who waited upon them was busied in the kitchen. The garden had
been all explored; on such a day as this, when the air was heavy and
still, the very scent of the roses hung heavily. Poor Comethup was a
little tired of roses--a little tired even of that wonderful garden,
every corner of which, every stick and stone, he knew by heart. And
then, just as he clung to the iron railings of the gate, and looked
out disconsolately into the quiet street, there came a playmate.
It was a dog; a mere boisterous, happy-go-lucky, tumbling, joyous puppy
of a few months; a thing of comical crinkled mouth and serious eyes,
a delightful romping rascal that loved the world and hailed every
creature friend. It stopped opposite the gate where Comethup stood, and
backed itself upon its ridiculous little haunches and inch of tail, and
barked deliriously; then dashed off a foot or two in excited chase of
something which didn't exist; and then, suddenly remembering Comethup,
returned madly to the assault, thrusting its little black nose under
the gate in a frantic endeavour to bite Comethup's little white socks.
It was irresistible. Comethup cautiously pulled open the gate,
trembling at his daring as he did so, and went down on the gravel on
his knees, clapping his hands, and doing all in his power to induce the
puppy to come to him.
But that wary animal knew better than that. He backed away, moving
his stump of tail convulsively, and, as Comethup followed on hands
and knees, backed away farther still out of reach. Finally the puppy
scrambled off sideways, going through the most extraordinary gyrations
and looking back at the child with one ear cocked up, and then dashing
off again sideways, tripping himself up occasionally in his haste.
Comethup got to his feet and set off down the pavement after the puppy,
leaving the garden gate wide open.
The sternness of the chase awoke in Comethup's blood; he determined to
have that puppy at all costs--to feel the soft, warm, live, struggling
thing in his arms. Twice he was certain he had it; had dropped all over
it, so to speak, in a frantic endeavour to clasp it. But the thing slid
from under his arms and impudently snapped at his very nose, and was
off again. At last, however, he ran it to earth in a corner, where it
promptly rolled over on its back, with its four legs in the air, and
surrendered.
By that time Comethup had lost his way; but that fact was of the
smallest possible moment. He was in a glorious city he had not seen
before; a place of curious old houses bending their upper windows
toward each other as though to whisper; of long, quaint gardens thick
with Old-World flowers--stocks and hollyhocks, and others beloved of
our grandmothers; with another church, not so magnificent or so large
as the one he knew, but older and quainter, with a great brass dial up
on one wall from which a brass finger projected to show the shadow of
the afternoon sun. The puppy was struggling in his arms, jerking itself
frantically upward to lick his round, baby face, and to softly bite his
chin. That of course was disconcerting; but Comethup managed to take in
a great deal with his eyes nevertheless.
He managed, among other things, to take in the figure of an upright old
gentleman with a heavy gray mustache, who was clipping and trimming
with a pair of scissors in one of the gardens. Comethup had just
stopped, out of the politest curiosity, to watch him, when the old
gentleman swung round and marched toward the gate, and cried violently,
pointing a finger at the child, "What the devil are you doing with my
dog, boy?"
Poor Comethup had never been spoken to in that fashion before; he
began to see in the old gentleman retributive justice sweeping down
upon him for having left his father's garden--above all, for having
left the gate open, an unpardonable thing. He would have liked to
drop the puppy, but remembered in time that he might hurt it; so he
lowered it gently to the ground, where it at once commenced tugging at
his shoestrings. With as much dignity as he could command under the
circumstances, Comethup tremblingly began to explain that he had found
it.
Before he had finished a half-dozen words, however, the little old
gentleman, with an exclamation, had pulled the gate open, and had come
out upon the pavement. Comethup began to tremble very much indeed,
but the old gentleman took him--not unkindly--by the chin, and turned
his face up so that he might look at it. Comethup must have looked
very appealing indeed, for the old gentleman suddenly smiled, and
exclaimed, "Why, it's little Comethup!"
"Yes," said Comethup humbly.
The captain, without a word, picked up the puppy with one hand and
offered the other to the child. They went up the garden path together,
into a quaint little room, where everything was very bright and
very straight and very orderly; very poor, too, if Comethup had but
known. There the old gentleman lifted him into a chair, and rang the
bell. Then he turned round, in his abrupt fashion, and held out the
struggling puppy with one hand toward Comethup. "You like this dog?" he
asked.
Comethup faintly admitted that he did.
The old gentleman thrust it into his arms. "Take it," he said. "Be good
to it, and feed it well."
Comethup tried to thank him, but at that moment the puppy had taken
him at a mean disadvantage, and was dancing about frantically in his
arms, and dabbing a tongue much too large for it against his face, so
that speech was difficult. And just then a man came in, taller than the
old gentleman, and much more erect; and put the back of his hand quite
suddenly up to his forehead, and held it there for a moment, and then
brought the hand down smartly with a smack against the side of his leg.
Comethup became vastly interested in a moment; he almost dropped the
puppy in his excitement. He knew that only one class of people did that
kind of thing; the little maid at home, whose sweetheart was a soldier
from Canterbury, had told him all about it. He began to speculate on
what wonderful house this could be, where this sort of thing went on
quite as a matter of course, and no one seemed to think anything of it.
In a vague way he wondered if he could persuade his father to let the
little maid move her hand and arm like that whenever she came into the
parlour at home; it would be something to look forward to--something to
ring the bell for.
The old gentleman ordered tea, and the man who had stood stiffly by
the doorway went through the same wonderful performance again and
disappeared. Comethup's curiosity swept away every other consideration.
"Sir," he said, in an awed voice, "he's a soldier."
"He _was_," returned the old gentleman, shortly. Then stooping near to
the boy, with both hands resting on the table, he asked, with a curious
tenderness in his voice, "Where did you get those eyes, boy?"
Comethup did not remember the other occasion on which Captain
Garraway-Kyle had said that he had the eyes of his dead mother; he did
not even know that this old gentleman was Captain Garraway-Kyle. He
looked up innocently, and smiled, and said he didn't know.
"You got 'em from your mother, boy," said the captain, almost in a
whisper, still looking at him earnestly.
"My mother's in heaven," said Comethup.
"True, boy, true," said the old gentleman, patting him gently on the
shoulder and turning away. "That's very true. Your mother was a saint."
Comethup had not the least idea what a saint was, but he knew it must
be something very good, because the old gentleman looked so serious.
The arrival of tea put an end to further conversation, and Comethup
looked out eagerly for the man to go through his performance, which he
did, to the child's great delight, as he was leaving the room.
The abrupt old captain was as gentle as a woman with the child; busied
himself to mix milk and water for him, and to spread jam on bread. It
was only toward the end of the meal that Comethup suddenly remembered
the chief adventure of the afternoon; that he had left the safe line
which bounded his daily life, and was with strangers in an altogether
different world. Even the possession of the puppy could not wholly
console him; his lips began to quiver, and it was with some difficulty
that he made the captain understand. The captain assured him, with
much earnestness, that he knew the garden where the roses were, and
that he knew Comethup's father, and the little maid, and the church,
and everything. Comethup was comforted, and the strange spectacle
was presented to the town, about half an hour later, of Captain
Garraway-Kyle, as closely buttoned as ever, and with his hat a little
more fiercely tilted than usual, holding Comethup by the hand, on the
way to David Willis's house; Comethup, for his part, clutching the
puppy with difficulty but with determination.
CHAPTER III.
THE GHOST OF A LITTLE CHILD.
That was but the first of many walks and talks with Captain
Garraway-Kyle. Comethup grew to look upon him as something very fine
and very splendid; learned from him, too, a very fine and very splendid
morality, which his dreamy father, for all the beauty of his character,
could scarcely have taught him. In those early days everything had, of
necessity, to pass the strong test of the captain's frown or approving
nod; each action was court-martialled, as it were, and approved or
utterly rejected, as the case might be. There was no dividing line with
the captain; he had lived by stern rules all his life, and a thing was
either perfectly right or it was perfectly wrong. Comethup's friendship
with the captain was probably the best thing that ever happened for
him; he grew up, under the old man's guidance, a pure and sweet and
wholesome little fellow, with a soul as clear as crystal.
From the captain's standpoint, also, the friendship was a good
thing. The old man bore himself as erectly as he had ever done; only
to Comethup he relaxed somewhat the hard and unbending set of laws
which hitherto had governed his days. The stern old face broke up
into something of tenderness at the sight of the child; he prepared,
out of his scanty means, little treats and relishes for the boy's
entertainment. David Willis he never quite understood; saw in him
something out of the normal--a creature sent into the world, he
sincerely trusted, for some good purpose; only the captain had not been
able to make up his mind what that purpose was. The captain liked him,
even pitied him a little, as he had pitied him on the first night of
their meeting; but the man was beyond his range of vision. When, in
church sometimes, he heard the organ pealing out above him, he would
glance round at the child (for Comethup came in time to occupy a seat
in the captain's pew), and a little curious look of anxiety would
gather on his brow and settle there--anxiety as to what the boy would
do in the years that were coming to him, and how his father would help
to equip him for the world. But, for the most part, the captain was
willing to let the happy present time go on, grateful that, in the last
of his years, this little child should have come to sweeten them.
Great excursions were planned in those early days of Comethup's life.
It was a wonderful thing to see Comethup do what no other living
creature in the town dared do so boldly--open the gate of the captain's
garden, and march straight up the trim little path which led to the
front door of the house. He had been taught, when an expedition was
afoot, to be punctual to the minute; and he always found the captain
coming out of the cottage as he reached it, glancing generally at his
watch with a quick nod of approval. Then would the captain, with hat
a-tilt and cane swinging, and with pride in his heart, sally forth
with Comethup to make new discoveries on a prearranged plan. For the
old town, which had once been a mere resting-place for the captain's
declining years, took on a new aspect, when viewed through the eyes of
this child.
It was an old town--a beautiful old town; the captain read up a
complete history of it, and proved--to Comethup's entire satisfaction
as well as to his own--that something extraordinary had happened in
nearly every house it contained. It had been a town of great deeds;
had once touched the sea, and had helped to defend that part of the
coast line during some of the country's stormiest times. The sea had
long since retreated, and left the little place lying high and dry, to
sleep in peace, and dream about its deeds.
It had been a walled town, too; indeed, the old wall still remained,
only that, in the very place and beauty of less stirring times, the
wall had become a mere grass-grown bank, with flowers and shrubs
growing all about it. But here the captain was in his element; he could
point out how the town would be attacked from this direction, or how an
invading force would come from there; would draw sketches in the gravel
with the point of his cane to illustrate exactly how _he_ would have
defended it, had he been alive in those times, and how he would have
made it absolutely impregnable. Comethup, gazing at him with delighted
eyes, came to believe that he was absolutely the greatest general and
master of the art of war that had ever existed, instead of a poor
little half-pay captain whose name had never been heard of.
There was a quiet and sleepy little river, too, which ran just outside
the town under a stone bridge; and the captain used to lean over the
parapet of the bridge, on sunny afternoons, while Comethup sat on the
stonework beside him, and they used to fish for the bright, gleaming,
darting little creatures in the river below. They very rarely caught
anything: it was a great event when they did; but the captain used to
explain exactly how various kinds of fishing could be accomplished with
the minimum of ease and the maximum of success. The captain always
seemed to know how to tell one the best way of doing a variety of
clever things, but he never seemed to have accomplished very much in
a practical sense; Comethup used to think sadly, in after years, that
if the captain had only been able to do half the things he could tell
other people how to do, he might have been a general at the very least,
with his breast ablaze of medals and orders. But Comethup loved him
devotedly, just as he was, and would not have had him changed for the
wide world.
A great wide expanse of sandy, marshy land lay between the little
town and the sea, and this was their playground. It was a wonderful
place--a place they seemed never to be able fully to explore. The
captain never quite lost his dignity; but away from the town and
under the influence of Comethup he relaxed considerably. It is always
possible that he comforted himself with the reflection that, whatever
species of amusement they sought, it was of an educational character,
and would assist the boy's future. But the Captain Garraway-Kyle
who marched out of the little town, holding the child by the hand
and swinging his cane, was a very different person indeed from the
light-hearted old gentleman who imperilled the knees of his tight
trousers in stooping over sand forts and anxiously superintending the
erection of fortifications. The puppy--grown a little older and wiser
and more staid now--usually accompanied them on these expeditions,
and was not always to be trusted when a delicate matter of building
was on hand, having a propensity for playing the enemy and levelling
earthworks and forts and everything else in one indiscriminate heap. So
pleasant days went by, each filled full to the last sleepy hour with
new experiences for Comethup; and the captain seemed to grow younger as
Comethup inevitably grew older.
It has been said that Comethup often occupied a seat in the captain's
pew in church; it became quite a regular thing for him to do so after
a time. The child had drawn two lonely men together, and, although the
captain did not understand David Willis, while David, for his part,
stood a little in awe of the captain's brusqueness, the two men often
met, and it became quite an ordinary thing for them to sit chatting in
David Willis's modest parlour long after Comethup was tucked up in his
little bed at the top of the house. They were both inordinately fond
of the child; probably the captain excelled in that particular. They
never had very much to say to each other, and when they spoke at all
it was generally about that one subject of their thoughts. The captain
would recount some bright speech of the boy's that he had caught during
the day, and David Willis would nod in sympathy and smile. Then the
captain, after a puff or two at his pipe, would exclaim half sternly:
"Fine boy, fine boy, Willis. Make a man of him some day." And on Sunday
mornings the captain would come marching down the street, and his eyes
would gleam a little at sight of a tiny figure drawn up erect at the
salute inside the open gateway of David Willis's garden. The captain
would return the salute, to Comethup's intense delight, and the two
would go gravely round the corner and through the churchyard into the
church.
Sitting beside the captain, Comethup would have leisure, in the dim
light of the place, to examine the old man's hands as they were folded
calmly over his prayer-book on his lap. The child often wondered how
they could ever have held a sword, and how many people the captain,
in his days of war, had killed; the hands were so soft and white, and
their touch on his own small fingers or on his shoulder had always been
so light and gentle, that it seemed impossible that they could have
been made for any stronger deeds. Comethup was always more desperately
fond of the captain on Sundays than on any other days; partly because
the captain, in his best black coat, and with his hat off, looked so
very small and old and gray and lonely in the big pew, and partly
because Comethup was so passionately grateful to him--perfect old
gentleman that he was--for his kindly patronage of so very small and
insignificant a person as himself. He was quite proud to be seen
walking with the captain out of church, and holding his hand; he
reflected with pardonable vanity more than once that there were very
few people in the world, at least as far as he knew it, who were
privileged to go to church every Sunday with so great a warrior.
The pew behind that in which the captain and Comethup sat was usually
unoccupied; but on one particular Sunday a little commotion was caused
in the quiet old church by the entry of two people into it. They
came late, after the service had commenced, and they made some noise
in getting into their seats. Comethup saw heads turned, and people
whisper among themselves. He would greatly have liked to look round,
as others were doing; he was consumed with curiosity. But the captain
was looking straight in front of him, and even frowning a little, and
Comethup had to do the same.
Comethup came to the conclusion, before the service was ended, that the
newcomers behind them, whoever they might be, had not been taught how
to behave properly in church. One of them, who seemed to be a man, gave
the responses in a very loud key, and sometimes very carelessly quite
in the wrong places; he breathed very heavily--Comethup was almost
persuaded, but that it seemed so terrible, that he snored--during the
sermon; and some one else in the pew moved about a great deal, and
dropped books, and kicked and shuffled with his feet. The captain
grew more and more stern and frowning as the service went on, so that
Comethup was quite afraid at last to look at him.
As they were passing out of church, the people from the pew behind
walked in front--a very tall and portly gentleman, whose coat tails
seemed to swing very much as he walked, and a boy a year or two older
than Comethup. In the porch the gentleman swung on his hat, almost
before he had passed through the door, with a flourish; glancing behind
him as he went out, he caught sight of the captain, and nodded and
spoke: "Aha! captain, delightful day; had no idea you belonged to the
good folk. Who's our young friend?" He indicated Comethup, who was
watching him with something of admiration.
The captain did not seem well pleased; he clipped his words very short,
in a fashion he had when angry, as he replied, "Don't you know?"
"Of course not; how should I?"
"Then let me present you," said the captain, keeping fast hold of
Comethup's hand, and making an ironically elaborate business of the
introduction. "Master Comethup Willis--Mr. Robert Carlaw.--Comethup,"
he added, his tone changing as he addressed the child, "this is your
Uncle Bob."
The portly gentleman seemed surprised, but passed the thing off easily.
"Most extraordinary," he exclaimed, "though why the devil Willis
ever called the unfortunate creature by that outlandish name passes
my comprehension.--How do you do, nephew? I suppose I ought to have
remembered your existence long since; but I'm such a careless rascal
that I leave undone those things which I ought to have done--if you're
a good churchman you'll know the rest, without my troubling to repeat
it. Here's your cousin Brian; if you're half as much trouble to your
poor old dad as he is to me, I pity that worthy fellow."
The captain was obviously anxious to get away, but Comethup had been
looking at the boy to whom he was now introduced, and had, in a
childish, worshipping fashion, been quite fascinated by him. He was
rather taller than Comethup, and very well dressed, and was, moreover,
an extremely handsome boy. He had a rather high forehead for a child,
and very thick, curling brown hair brushed loosely back from it. His
eyes were keen and bold and dark, and gave Comethup the odd impression
of being able to see a great deal more than the eyes of other people.
He held himself very upright, with his legs rather apart, and his hands
thrust in his pockets; and he swaggered a little as he walked, like his
father. He put out his hand to Comethup, and smiled so beautifully with
a smile which made his face glow and change, that Comethup was quite
glad to think that he was his cousin; he almost felt that he loved him
from that moment.
David Willis came at that moment from the church, with his books under
his arm; he gazed in an absent-minded fashion at the little group, and
obviously did not quite know what to make of it all. Uncle Bob came
blusteringly to the rescue; shook David heartily by the hand and walked
off with him, with a hand clapped confidentially upon his shoulder and
his head bent down sideways from his greater height to talk to him. The
boy Brian walked along on the other side of his father, glancing back
over his shoulder now and then with an engaging smile at Comethup, who
followed behind with the captain. The captain was ill at ease and in a
bad temper; he puffed out his chest as he walked and breathed heavily
under his mustache, and made savage little cuts at the air with his
cane, as though it had been a sword.
At the gate leading to the garden Mr. Robert Carlaw parted jovially,
shaking David heartily by the hand again, and patting Comethup on the
top of his best Sunday cap. In the captain he apparently scented an
enemy; they bowed to each other stiffly, and the frown did not leave
the captain's face.
"He must come and see us," said Mr. Carlaw, with a jerk of the head
toward Comethup. "They'll be company for each other; besides, they're
cousins. You're such quiet folks; I declare I'd forgotten your
existence--absolutely forgotten it." He went swinging away down the
street, with the boy swinging beside him, a curious, almost pathetic
imitation of the father.
It had become the captain's habit to dine with David Willis every
Sunday--quite a simple, homely dinner of a joint and vegetables and a
pudding to follow. The captain walked into the cottage now, sat himself
stiffly down in a chair near the window, and drew Comethup against his
knee and put his arm about him. David Willis was wandering about the
room, softly humming to himself a fragment of the voluntary he had
played that morning, while the servant-maid laid the table. It was a
hot and breathless summer morning; the window of the little parlour
was wide open, and Comethup could hear people passing and repassing
in the street beyond the garden; could hear the murmur of their talk.
There was a high, old-fashioned mahogany bureau on the other side of
the room, with curved brass handles to the drawers, and with three
leather-bound books, growing gradually smaller in size upward, like a
pyramid, on the top of it. Comethup had never seen either the books or
the bureau opened; it was curious, therefore, to see his father, with a
smile on his face, stroll across there presently and lift the topmost
book and open it. "You didn't know our friend Carlaw was something of
a poet, did you?" he asked, addressing the captain.
Disgust sprang suddenly into the captain's eyes, and into the lines
about his mouth. "A poet? Yes, I could have believed even _that_ of
him." The captain chuckled a little grimly at his own humour.
David Willis laughed, and brought the book over toward the window,
turning the leaves slowly and looking into it. "Yes," he said, "he
wrote these when he was quite a young man; they were published by
subscription. He was a mere youth at the time, and he gave this copy
to his sister, my wife. It's very queer reading, very mad reading some
of it. He's a queer fellow, and a mad fellow." David Willis laughed
good-humouredly and closed the book and carried it back to the bureau.
"Yes, he's mad enough," said the captain shortly. "I know the sort of
man--met dozens of his kidney. They flash through the world, spreading
their feathers in the sun and making such a flutter that no one sees
what shame and misery they leave in their track; or, if any one does
see it, it's all excused with the phrase, 'Oh, he couldn't help it--he
was such a good fellow.' Bah!" The captain was quite indignant, and the
arm that held Comethup shook a little.
"You're a little hard on our friend," said David, easily. "He's really
rather a clever sort of fellow; there are lots of things he does quite
well, only not quite well enough to make anything of them. He paints a
little, writes a little, plays and sings remarkably well. But he never
gives his mind to anything. I remember he said to me once: 'It's not
my fault; they shouldn't have given me such a name. Think of it! Bob!
What can a fellow do with such a name as that, except go to the devil
with it? And I've tried consistently to go to the devil with it.' And I
really believe he has."
"Yes, I dare say he has," replied the captain, a little wearily. "And
there you have the whole man in a nutshell."
Comethup was destined very soon to see more of that fascinating boy,
and of his father. But a few days had gone by when the shadow of Robert
Carlaw loomed large in the open doorway of the cottage, and he came
in, followed by Brian. He seemed to take up an immense amount of room,
and to block out the light a great deal, in whatever part of the room
he stood. It was immediately after breakfast--David Willis always
breakfasted late, a habit he had acquired when living in town--and
David was smoking a pipe before setting about those small duties which
occupied his day. David Willis had on a very shabby coat and slippers
on his feet; Robert Carlaw's coat was of the finest, his boots shone
magnificently, and he smoked a cigar. He announced airily that he had
come to carry off his little friend with the extraordinary name; the
name, he declared, was too much to pronounce in such weather as that,
but he didn't love him any the less on account of it, and meant to
carry him off, for the day at least. So Comethup was duly made ready
and went away with a fluttering heart on the other side of Uncle Bob,
peeping round his portly person, as he trotted along, to catch a
glimpse of that fascinating boy who walked on the farther side of him.
It had been a whim on the part of Mr. Robert Carlaw; he had suddenly
made up his mind that he ought to see the child--had suddenly
remembered that it was the child of his dead sister, and, in a fashion
quite characteristic of him, he had dashed off, hot with the purpose,
at the very moment the thought occurred to him.
He even devised schemes as he went along between them for their
entertainment. They would do this, they would do that; they would have
tea in the garden, or a pony chaise should be hired, and he would
take them for a drive. A hundred alluring schemes were in his mind;
he seemed to enter joyously and childishly into their world, and to
understand exactly what would suit them best. But, by the time he
reached his own house with them, the keenness of the business was done,
the edge of it had worn off. He rambled with them, in a perfunctory
fashion, round the garden, but he was obviously tiring. Quite
suddenly, on an excuse, he left them and shut himself up in a room he
called his workroom, and they saw no more of him.
Brian did not seem in the least surprised; his lip curled a little
disdainfully when Comethup politely inquired whether his father was
unwell. Comethup had a curious impression that this boy, although he
obviously admired his father very much, and even imitated him, yet saw
through him in some way and knew him to be not quite so nice as other
people imagined. There was a careless, curt fashion of dismissing his
father's name which Comethup could not have employed in the case of
_his_ father for the world, and which made him a little afraid of his
cousin in consequence.
The house must have been a very beautiful one at some time; it was
filled even now with many beautiful articles of furniture, articles
such as Comethup had never seen, and many of which he did not know the
use of. But everything was in hopeless confusion and disorder; valuable
articles broken and thrust aside, and something equally valuable put in
its place to serve its purpose. Books lay about in every room of the
house--some of them flung, with wide-open leaves, by impatient hands
into corners; fine engravings were stood in their frames against the
wall, because no one had ever troubled to hang them up; many of them
had their glasses broken, and most of them were smothered in dust, or
torn, or otherwise maltreated. Some stood in rolls in the corners of
the rooms. It seemed, in every way, the house of a man who meant many
things--even meant to live beautifully; but of a man who had never, in
anything, got far beyond the mere fluttering resolutions.
But it was nevertheless a house of delights to the child--a place of
never-ending wonder. Only, in the midst of their exploration, Comethup
suddenly remembered that he had that afternoon made an appointment with
Captain Garraway-Kyle, and that that appointment must be kept. There
was a sort of tremor at his heart when he remembered how the captain
would be standing, just within the door of his cottage, with his watch
on his palm, waiting for him at the hour named. He informed Brian that
he must really go.
The boy looked at him in astonishment; a shade of annoyance crossed his
face. "Oh, put him off!" he said.
Comethup shook his head very decidedly; he was troubled, like the
gentle little creature he was, at the thought that he would have to
show any discourtesy to his cousin; but it was quite imperative that he
should meet the captain, and the thing had to be managed somehow. "No,
I couldn't possibly do that. The captain and I are very great friends."
Brian looked at the sober young face for a moment, and then burst into
a roar of laughter. "But he's so old!" he said, when he had recovered
his gravity.
Comethup shook his head again, and smiled. "Not when you know him," he
replied. "Sometimes he seems almost as young as I am, only ever so much
wiser."
The other boy stared at him curiously. "Why, how old are you?" he asked.
"Seven next week," replied Comethup.
"And I'm nine." Giving the other time to digest his superiority, he
presently added: "Must you really go and see this old chap? You can
easily explain afterward."
Comethup did not waver, but he decided to effect a compromise. "Why
don't you come too?" he said. "He would be very glad to see you."
Brian looked a little ruefully round the untidy room in which they
stood, and decided rapidly that it would be better to do that than to
remain in the house alone. "Yes, I'll come," he said, and darted out
into the hall for his cap.
Comethup ventured a suggestion. "Won't you--won't you ask your father?"
Brian laughed, and tossed Comethup's cap to him. "Not I," he cried.
"Dad never knows where I am. All I have to do is to keep out of the way
when I'm not wanted, and be right at his elbow when he thinks he'd like
to see me. Come along."
"We'll have to run," said Comethup. "We're late."
They arrived breathless at the captain's cottage, and found the
captain, as Comethup had expected, standing with his watch in his hand.
He raised his eyebrows at the sight of a second visitor, and Comethup
breathlessly explained the situation and tried to make a polite
little speech, apologizing for having introduced a visitor without an
invitation. But the captain interrupted him by saying stiffly that
his cousin was very welcome, and the three set out for the usual walk
together.
Somehow or other that afternoon the expedition was not quite a success.
In the first place, Comethup and the captain were not quite at their
ease; had, in fact, a ridiculous feeling of being on their best
behaviour before a stranger. Then, too, the old innocent games--the
building of forts, and the pleasant little make-believe world they had
created--were things they did not care to venture upon before this
boy, whose scornful laughter seemed to come so easily. They sat on a
wooden seat on the top of the grass-grown wall of the town, and found
themselves talking nicely, as Comethup would have put it, and being
very stiff and unnatural and dull in consequence. The captain did not
talk about his battles; was quite reserved, in fact, and difficult
to lure into any expression of opinion. Comethup, proud of his old
friend and of his old friend's achievements, tried to draw him on
to descriptions of happenings with which he himself was beautifully
familiar, but which he felt would be interesting to Brian, and give
that young gentleman a finer idea of the captain. But the captain was
not to be drawn; seemed, indeed, purposely to forget things which had
rattled glibly off his tongue but yesterday.
They saw Comethup safely to the gate of his father's garden, and the
captain gravely shook hands with him; knowing his mood, Comethup was
positively afraid to salute, and, indeed, the stern eye of the captain
forbade it. Brian's road home lay for some distance in the same
direction as the old man's, and Comethup stood at the gate for some
moments, watching them going on together. But the captain walked on
one side of the pavement and Brian swung along on the other, as far
apart as possible, and they did not appear to have anything to say to
each other.
After that, Brian Carlaw entered somewhat largely into Comethup's
existence, to the exclusion, at times, of the captain. Comethup meant
no disloyalty to his first friend, and went to bed many a night
troubled at the thought that there was a breach growing between them;
but Brian, child though he was, had a fine air of appropriating
Comethup and planning excursions with him, and arranging boyish
expeditions from which the younger child found it difficult to escape.
He would dash in, in the morning, with his eyes sparkling and his gay
laugh waking up the house, and drag Comethup off, waving aside every
remonstrance, and refusing to wait an instant for anything. He had
a splendid, reckless fashion, so Comethup thought, of scorning mere
ordinary doors and paths, such as were used by mere ordinary boys, and
of leaping and rushing across flower-beds or turf, and climbing in at a
window, in a most unexpected and daring way. One never knew quite where
to have him, or what to expect of him; one never knew quite in what
mood he would appear. And each mood was something different from the
last, and, whether grave or gay, wholly captivating. If he came with
some childish tale of tribulation on his lips, it was a tribulation
apparently so great and so real that all one's heart went out to him
and one could not do enough to show how deep was one's sympathy; at
least that was what Comethup felt. If he dashed in, with laughter on
his lips and devilry in his eyes, the thing was so infectious, so
maddening, that even grave little Comethup was bitten by it and felt
the devil leaping in his veins as well, and was ready for anything.
When it happened that the captain and Comethup met at all, they met,
curiously enough, although neither confessed it to the other, by
stealth. Brian monopolized the younger boy so much that there were no
more arranged meetings, unless the one met the other by accident a
day before, and was able to suggest that a meeting should be held. On
most occasions, if Brian had not appeared by a certain hour, Comethup
would steal off to the captain's cottage. Never a word would be said,
but each fully and completely understood the situation; and the
captain welcomed Comethup, and Comethup received the welcome, with as
much grave courtesy as though they had been in the habit of meeting
daily, and there were no outside circumstances in their simple lives
to separate them. It was clearly understood on either hand that Brian
was elsewhere, or had failed to keep some engagement he had made; and
the captain very happily, and Comethup very happily too, but feeling a
little bit like a traitor to both sides, would start off, hand in hand,
to enjoy one of the old days.
Yet, even on those occasions, so great was the influence of the other
boy upon them that they would keep a wary eye open--still without a
word to each other--for his possible appearance on the scene. The
building of the forts was not the splendid, sole-absorbing thing it
used to be, because they did it stealthily. Some one else had entered
into their paradise, and had turned the fruit of it a little sour.
Comethup tried hard, on those occasions, to be very, very good to the
captain; and the captain, for his part, tried hard to appear as though
there could be nothing different between them, and as though these
stolen days were just as nice and just as spontaneous as the former
days had been. But things were different, somehow; their world went
differently, and was not the world they had known before. Comethup
found his mind wandering, even during the recital of a thrilling battle
episode, to that boy with the splendid eyes and the charming manner,
and found himself wondering what the boy was doing, and if he carried
little Comethup in his mind.
The expeditions with Brian were not of the innocent and sober character
which marked those with Captain Garraway-Kyle; Brian was the leader,
and was ready at all times for something new; the very soul of the boy
seemed to cry out for that; a new discovery, fascinating to-day, was
old and tiresome to-morrow; the day was a hopeless and fretful one
that saw nothing new or fantastic accomplished. His enterprise knew no
bounds, and fear, in the ordinary mortal sense, was not in him. The
captain's expeditions had been wonderful, and each had furnished a new
delight for Comethup; but they paled into insignificance beside the
inventions of Brian.
David Willis was a man of many dreamy occupations, a man who never
hurried, and whose life may be said to have been filled with odds and
ends of employment. So it happened that Comethup came and went as he
would, and his father saw but little of him; he knew that the child was
happy, and he heard his voice frequently about the house. But beyond
that he cared nothing; he was simply content to know that the child
was there, and that all was well with him. Thus Comethup had plenty of
scope for his adventures, and plenty of time for any expedition that
might present itself.
There was an old and half-ruined house which stood on the extreme
outskirts of the town and was surrounded by an old, dark, neglected
wilderness of a garden. The two children had peeped in through the
rusty iron gates occasionally, with their small faces pressed close
between the bars, and had speculated upon what the garden contained
and who lived in the house. Brian stoutly asserted that the house was
empty, and then that it was haunted; he had probably heard his father
or the servants say that. It remained, and had remained for some
time, the one possible place which they had not explored; Brian would
not have confessed it for the world, but he had a deadly fear of it,
probably the only fear he knew concerning anything at that time. It
frightened him, even while it fascinated him; he would choose that way
to walk, even when it meant that to pass the house they would have to
go a long way out of the direction they had arranged.
At last one day he came in, with his eyes curiously bright, and
announced his intention of exploring the place. They would get in
somehow, he said--through a window if necessary. Comethup was
doubtful, but Brian's stronger will conquered, as usual, and they set
off. Near the place, however, the elder boy hesitated, and drew back a
little.
"I don't think we'll go," he said. "There won't be any fun in it." And
he began to walk away.
Comethup felt relieved; he had not liked the expedition from the first.
He said nothing, but set out to follow Brian.
But Brian chafed under a sense of degradation all day. He watched
Comethup sharply, to be sure that the younger boy was not actually
laughing at him; saw scorn in his eyes, when there was no scorn in
Comethup's heart. They had parted for their midday meal, and had been
out again in the afternoon, still under that sense of constraint, and
Comethup was diligently studying the pictures in an old book alone in
the parlour of his father's house, when Brian came leaping across the
flower-beds and cried to him from outside the window:
"Come along; don't wait for anything. I'm going to that house."
Comethup knew perfectly well which house was meant, but he affected
ignorance, and said weakly, "Which house?"
"Oh, you know; the haunted one; the one we didn't go to to-day. Come
along."
Comethup closed the book, but kept a finger between the leaves. "It's
very late," he urged, "and it'll soon be getting dark."
Brian stood with his hands on the window sill, impatiently kicking at
the house wall. "You're afraid," he said, looking up at Comethup.
Comethup shook his head, but his drawn brows showed anxiety. "No, I'm
not afraid," he said, slowly. "But I'd rather wait until to-morrow, if
you want to see the house."
"No one ever goes to a house that's haunted in the daytime," said
Brian. "I'm going now."
"It's nicer in the daytime," urged Comethup, getting one leg down from
the window seat and dangling it irresolutely. "But I'll come if you
like."
"Come along then," cried the other. "You're so slow; you can't make up
your mind quickly, as I do."
Comethup knew that the reproach was justified, and felt humbled
accordingly. He was not altogether so happy in this adventure as he had
been in all those which had preceded it. In the first place, he had
to steal out of the house into the mysterious summer evening, being
careful that no one saw him. His father was in church practising; he
could hear the slow droning of the organ, like the hum of a gigantic
tired insect going to sleep with the rest of the world. Comethup wished
that he had gone into the church with his father, and sat there, out of
the way of temptation such as this.
The evening was warm and heavy, and a hundred sweet odours came from
the gardens which fringed the road. Brian talked valiantly and loudly
as they went along of how foolish it was to be afraid of anything, just
because it happened to be dark, and of a hundred other matters tending
to keep up his ebbing courage. Comethup was silent, doggedly determined
to go through with the business, now that he had embarked upon it, and
with a plaintive hope in his heart that it might not be so dreadful,
after all.
Curiously enough, that part of the outskirts of the town in which the
house lay seemed always to be darker and more sombre-looking than any
other. All the houses about there were very old, with high walls and
tall, rustling old trees; with paths in their gardens which seemed
always full of dead leaves and weeds at all times of the year. And that
particular house was the most sombre and dismal-looking of them all.
It had originally been a very fine house; there were the remains of
carvings on the stone pillars which supported the gates. But everything
was in decay; one of the great gates hung merely by one hinge, and
swayed perilously when it was touched; the other stood permanently ajar.
Their young hearts were beating very heavily when they reached the
gates. A wind had risen, and was coming from the distant sea across
the flat marshland; it stirred the trees and bent their long limbs, so
that they seemed to point down at the two small, trembling figures, and
to ask who they were, and to plot and whisper against them. Comethup
and Brian gripped hands tightly as they slipped through the aperture
between the gates. The wind seemed specially to haunt that place; it
sent a dusty, whirling eddy of last year's leaves charging at them and
fluttering about them as they went hesitatingly up the long drive.
Brian stopped halfway to the house and pushed his cap back on his
clustering hair with well-assumed carelessness, and said: "There's
nothing to be seen; I don't think we'll go any farther. Besides, we
ought to be home."
Comethup kept steadily on up the drive. "I'm going up to the house," he
said.
There was nothing left for Brian but to follow him, which he did,
keeping a wary eye behind him. They gained confidence as they went on,
and even raised their voices a little above the whisper in which they
had spoken previously. They ploughed their way through the neglected
grounds where the paths were scarcely to be distinguished for the mass
of tangled weeds which overgrew them, and came up to the house. Not a
light showed anywhere; the windows were all shuttered, and the doors
apparently fastened.
"I don't believe any one lives here," said Brian, sinking his voice
again to a whisper. "But I don't think we'll go in to-night; we've seen
a good deal, haven't we?"
Comethup evidently thought that he had done sufficient to clear
him from that accusation of cowardice; but, for the keeping up of
appearances, he spoke with apparent reluctance: "Oh, if you like;
perhaps we had better go home."
The house behind them, standing up gray and stark and sombre in the
twilight, was a far more terrible thing than it had been when they
faced it. By common consent they hurried a little as they trotted along
among the dead leaves. The wind, too, was at their back now, and flung
fluttering things about their legs and against their ears; they were
afraid to look round, and yet afraid to go on without glancing behind
them. Halfway down the drive, too, they heard a rustling among the
trees, a louder rustling than that caused by the wind. Brian stopped
still, and Comethup wondered why his heart kept jumping up into his
throat and nearly choking him. Then, from among the shadows of the
trees, came a little figure all in white--a figure smaller even than
Comethup, but very terrible coming in that fashion, and in that hour
and in that place. At any other time they might have said it was a
little child, a girl; but now their nerves were too unstrung for
practical things. There could be no mistake about its identity. With
a sort of simultaneous gasp they set off at headlong speed down the
drive, straight for the gate.
And the figure came running after them, crying something piteously
to them. But that was worse than anything else; they almost tumbled
over each other in their eagerness to get out through the gates; in
fact, they never stopped running till they were far down the road, and
breathless. Then Brian leaned against a wall and surveyed Comethup with
horror-struck eyes. "It was the ghost!" he said; "and it ran after us!"
"Yes," said Comethup, slowly, and a little doubtfully, "it was the
ghost."
"And it was pretty big, too," said Brian, fanning himself with his cap.
"They don't look so large in the dark."
Comethup lay awake a long time that night in his little room under
the roof. He was not frightened; he was quite calm as he looked out
through the uncurtained window at the blinking stars. He seemed to set
everything else aside, and to hear only the piteous, pleading voice
crying to him in the garden; he was quite sorry now that he had run
away; and very, very sorry, in his childish mind, for the ghost.
"It was a very little ghost," he murmured to himself as he fell asleep.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CAPTAIN PLAYS THE KNIGHT-ERRANT.
Comethup saw nothing of Brian for two days after that, and, although he
seized the opportunity of making amends to the captain, he said nothing
of the adventure to that gentleman. Indeed, Comethup had been haunted
by the ghost he had seen, in quite a different sense from that which
might have been expected, and the captain seemed altogether unequal
to the occasion. He could think of nothing else; was, indeed, so
desperately sorry for that lonely little ghost that it lost the terrors
it might otherwise have had for him, and melted his heart with pity for
its dreadful fate. He lay awake at night, thinking of it in that garden
of shadows and decay, wandering alone among the trees, and always
with that appealing cry upon its lips. He tried, in a subtle fashion,
to put leading questions to the captain, in an endeavour to discover
something of the condition of ghosts in general, and little ones in
particular; but the captain, being of an eminently practical turn of
mind, dismissed the subject curtly enough. So Comethup was thrown on
his own resources.
On the evening of the second day, after he had left the captain at
the gate, and had saluted him in the fashion they always adopted when
Brian was not present, Comethup felt that he could stand this state of
uncertainty no longer. He remembered that the captain had once told
him that a brave man never shrinks from anything that will help his
fellows--a wise and beautiful thing, which Comethup had not forgotten;
and surely a ghost, and such a little one, was one of his fellows.
Comethup was not quite certain what a ghost was, or what position
in the scheme of things it really occupied; but, with that dogged
determination which lay behind all the gentleness of his character,
he determined, in his simple way, that he could not sleep in his warm
and sweet-smelling bed another night while the ghost wandered crying
about that desolate garden. With a horrible fear tugging at his heart,
and yet with a childish courage urging him on which was greater and
stronger than the fear, he took his cap and stole out of the house, and
ran as fast as his legs would carry him to the house he had visited
with Brian.
It was terrible work getting through that gate; and in the long drive
where the shadows were it was more terrible still. But he went on
slowly, with his hands spread out as if to feel his way, and with
his eyes, very bright and very wide open, peering into the darkness.
He coughed, and hummed a tune, but dared not look behind him; the
desperate business had been begun, and Comethup Willis, trembling in
every limb, had yet fully made up his mind to see the ghost before he
passed again out of the gate, if it were to be seen.
He saw it at last, much nearer the house than it had been before. It
came toward him, more and more slowly as the distance between them
lessened. Comethup backed away a little; but it suddenly stretched out
hands to him, and came forward at a run, so that there was no chance
of escape. And then the horror of the thing, the tense fear that had
been knocking at his heart, fell away from him in a moment. For he
touched warm hands of flesh, and saw that it was a child of about his
own age, looking wonderingly at him. Poor Comethup almost laughed with
the sudden relief, and they remained for a moment after their hands had
dropped away from each other's, looking into each other's faces shyly,
as children do at a first meeting.
"I'm so glad!" said Comethup at last. "I thought you were a ghost.
Where do you come from?"
The child stretched out an arm, and pointed to the house. "There," she
said, "with father." She spoke in a whisper--the whisper of a person
long subdued, and used to the sound only of her own voice. She was very
pretty, with big, dark eyes, and a very white skin; but there was an
elfish, frightened manner about her that had nothing of childhood in
it.
"But the house is all shut up," urged Comethup. "Why doesn't your
father open the shutters?"
"All those rooms are empty," said the child; "they frighten you to go
in them, because you make such a noise, and the eyes in the shutters
stare at you. We live right round the other side."
"But it's such a dreadful place," said Comethup, compassionately,
looking from the bright, eager face of the child to the desolate
garden. "Aren't you very lonely?"
The child nodded and looked about her, and drew instinctively a little
nearer to the boy.
"Doesn't any one come to see you?" asked Comethup.
"Only Mrs. Blissett, in the morning. Mrs. Blissett makes the beds, and
gives me my breakfast and my dinner; then she comes again when it's
dark, and puts me to bed. And she grumbles all the time, and keeps on
asking what the Lord made brats for. That's me, you know," she added,
innocently.
Comethup looked properly sympathetic, and asked, "What is your name?"
"'Linda. I think it's a longer name than that, but father calls me
'Linda. What is your name?"
Comethup got it out trippingly; it was always a difficult matter, in
those early years, to get the uncouth thing off his tongue. The girl
looked puzzled, and begged him to repeat it; he did so, with a flush
upon his face. He was already beginning to understand, by the surprise
with which the name was always received, that there was something
remarkable and even ridiculous about it. But this girl apparently
liked it; laughed softly and turned it over on her tongue, and said
"Comethup," with a little break in the middle of it; "yes, it's a
pretty name."
Comethup was gratified, and had a sudden wish that he had paid her the
same compliment. They stood awkwardly and shyly looking at each other,
until the slow, heavy steps of some one trudging through the dead
leaves bestirred them to a recollection of time and place.
"That's Mrs. Blissett," said the child with a sigh, "and I shall have
go to bed. Come back here where she won't see you. Can't you hear
her coming, and grumbling to herself all the way?" The question ended
with a little ripple of laughter, and Comethup, glancing at the child,
saw all her white teeth showing in a smile, and her eyes dancing
with it. She drew him back among the shadows of the trees while the
heavy-footed, murmuring Mrs. Blissett pounded solemnly along toward
the house. They stood quite still, until the footsteps had died away,
and then, to Comethup's great surprise and consternation, this small
girl-child caught him by his jacket, kissed him swiftly, and cried in
a breath: "Good-night, Comethup; come and see me to-morrow," and sped
away from him through the trees.
Comethup stood, in a dazed condition, looking after her for some
moments, and softly rubbing his cheek with one hand where her lips had
touched him; and then, with very mixed emotions, set off for home.
But though the garden was the same, and though the wind whispered
through the trees, and the dead leaves drove at him, it had no further
terrors for him; had, indeed, become a place of wonder and delight, as
everything else seemed to become in his small world. His father, his
little room at home, his mother's sleeping place among the green mounds
in the churchyard, the captain and the building of the forts, Brian
and his reckless expeditions--all these were things of delight to the
boy. And now, in the midst of them, had sprung up a new wonder, growing
beautifully in the midst of the terrors which had seemed to be about
her. He went home with a fast-beating heart, full of his new discovery,
and anxious to unbosom himself regarding it to some one of sympathy.
He was never quite sure of his father; he loved him very dearly, and
thought his soft voice and the quiet, caressing words he used better
than all the music he played in the church. But his father had a dreamy
way of looking over him, or right through him, when some question of
moment was being discussed; of losing himself suddenly in the maze of
his thoughts, and wandering off somewhere where Comethup could not
follow him. So that Comethup often hesitated about giving a confidence
to him, because he feared, in his sensitive little soul, that his
father might not follow it out--whatever it might be--patiently to the
end, as it should be followed; might forget what the all-important
subject was before the tale had half been told. He hesitated now, and
was obliged to confess, sitting up in bed in the moonlight, with his
hands clasped round his linen-covered knees, that his father might not
understand, and might--worst thought of all--look dreamily at him, and
stroke his hair, and say, with a maddening smile: "Yes, yes, my boy.
Of course; just so," and begin to hum an air from some of his beloved
music and straightway forget all else. It was quite certain that it was
impossible for him to tell his father.
Brian, perhaps, had a right to know; Brian had been in the garden with
him, and still believed that the garden held a ghost. But Comethup
shrank more strongly still from the idea of telling his cousin; shook
his head very decidedly in the moonlight when he thought of it. It
may have been purely a matter of instinct, probably was; but in his
childish mind that garden, with its dim shadows and its quaint little
figure whose kiss still seemed hot upon his cheek, was a fairyland into
which he jealously desired to go alone, and in which Brian, in the
imagination, seemed an uncouth figure.
The list of possible sympathizers was narrowing down; there remained
only the captain; and slowly there grew in Comethup's mind the idea
that the captain was, after all, the right person. The boy acted
over to himself a little interview, in which he seemed to know, with
exactitude, what the captain would say and what the captain would do;
was sure of him, so to speak, from the outset. For, in Comethup's mind,
the captain might be abrupt and might be severe; but his rules of
conduct were such that, if followed, a small boy would sleep soundly
in his bed at night, and would not fear the darkness. So he decided to
tell the captain, and, comforted with the thought, fell asleep.
The opportunity occurred the very next day. Comethup went to tea with
the captain, firmly resolved to unbosom himself about the whole matter.
But he let the precious moments slip by, and talked of everything else
under the sun, and tried to appear interested in all that the captain
said, while his mind was leaping back to that desolate garden and to
the little figure wandering alone in it. He remembered, too, with a
sudden hot sensation of shame, that the child had cried, "Come again
to-morrow!" and here was to-morrow. Yet he sat there, saying never a
word of what filled his mind, until the moment arrived when it was
necessary for him to return home. For the captain was punctual in all
things, and Comethup arrived at the house at an exact hour, and left it
at another equally rigidly defined.
Comethup got as far as the doorstep before he made up his mind to say
anything; and then, as he brought his hand down from the salute, he
said hurriedly, "I--I wanted to speak to you--about something--sir."
The captain looked down at the small figure gravely. "Important?" he
asked.
Comethup felt his courage oozing. "Not--not very," he replied.
"Keep it till to-morrow," said the captain, nodding at him. "No time
now, you know. Good-bye."
Comethup saluted again, and went miserably away. He returned home, and
sat for a long time at the window, thinking about the child. He had not
promised that he would go again to see her; but it had seemed like a
promise, and he could not bear the thought that she might be waiting
there, with her great, dark, eager eyes straining toward the gate,
looking for him. It was the first time that any real or definite sorrow
had touched his life--the first time that any living thing had seemed
dependent on him for happiness. With the captain it was different;
it was impossible for Comethup's mind to grasp the idea that he was
all-important in the captain's bare existence; that the captain watched
for him, day after day, and felt his old heart jump a little as the
boy swung up the garden path, as he might have felt it jump, in years
gone by, at the coming of a woman. Comethup did not understand that;
he saw only in the captain's kindness and patronage of himself a very
great and sweet graciousness, a something that the captain went out of
his way to do, because he was very kind and very great. Comethup adored
the captain, but he did not know that the captain would have willingly
consented to be pierced through and through with his own old sword
hanging over the dim little looking-glass in his cottage parlour, if he
could thereby have served Comethup.
The hunger at Comethup's heart grew stronger as the evening wore on. A
wind had sprung up, bringing with it some gusts of rain, and flinging
little splashes on to Comethup's face as he sat with his chin in his
hands at the open window. At last, heedless of wind or rain, he caught
up his cap, and set off at a run for the captain's house.
The captain was pacing up and down the little parlour, turning abruptly
on his heel when he reached the edge of the hearthrug, and again when
he almost breasted the old oak bureau at the other side of the room.
Seeing the boy standing panting and white-faced in the doorway with his
cap in his hand, the captain stopped dead, and faced him. Comethup was
trembling so much that he even forgot to salute.
"Oh, sir!" he burst out, almost on the verge of tears. "The little
girl--I thought she was a ghost--in the garden--and it's raining--and I
promised to go and see her--and I haven't been--and Mrs. Blissett says
she's a brat, and--oh, sir--what am I to do?" And poor Comethup burst
into tears and hid his face in the lining of his cap.
It may naturally be supposed that the captain was startled. The first
idea he grasped, however, was that the boy was in distress, and that
was sufficient to stir him to action; he put his arm tenderly round
Comethup's shoulders, stooping a little and trying to draw the cap away
from his face, and led him over to a chair. There, seating himself,
he drew the boy against his knee, saying nothing, but gripping him
tightly with his arm, so that the very presence of that comforting,
encircling thing should make itself felt without the necessity for
words. In a few moments Comethup was calmer, and could give an
intelligent account of what he wanted.
The captain questioned him closely, and Comethup knew whether or not
he was pleased, at each point of the recital, by the tightening or
loosening of the arm about him. When he had finished, and had expressed
his determination to go to the house and see the child, the arm held
him very closely indeed.
For some moments the captain sat perfectly still; then he got up,
walked across to the window, and looked out. Darkness had already
fallen, and the wind and rain were making havoc among the captain's
roses. It was characteristic of the captain that he took the whole
matter from the boy's standpoint; never appeared to consider for an
instant that he might be interfering in some one else's business. He
saw only, as Comethup had done, the child alone in the garden, haunted
by fears of the echoing, half-empty house, and of Mrs. Blissett.
Finally, with a grunt, he turned sharply away from the window, walked
across the room to a long cupboard, and pulled open its double doors
with a jerk; then he pulled out from it a long, old-fashioned military
cloak, very rusty and faded, and swung it round his shoulders with a
single movement of his arm. "We'll go and find her, boy," he said, and
Comethup followed him obediently from the room.
The captain took down his hat from the peg in the hall and rammed it on
his head a little more tightly than usual, and opened the cottage door.
A drifting spray of rain drove in at them, and the captain threw out a
fold of his cloak, like a huge wing, and drew it round the boy. Then
they passed out of the cottage together.
Comethup had only a dim remembrance afterward of that walk; of
passing people in the streets, and seeing only their feet and ankles;
of hearing everything muffled and blurred through the heavy cloak;
of catching glimpses of a storm-twisted sky through certain tiny
moth-holes and thinnesses of the cloak as it touched his face.
Presently the captain threw back an edge of it, and Comethup saw that
they were standing before the iron gates.
"Go first," said the captain, in a low voice, "and call to her. Don't
frighten her if she is there."
So Comethup stepped softly into the garden, treading cautiously over
the wet leaves, and feeling the heavy rain drops from the branches
above him tumbling on his hair and shoulders. He called "'Linda!
'Linda!" as he went.
Out of the darkness near the house came the little figure at last,
as he had hoped; not joyfully, or with laughter on its lips, but
bedraggled, and wet, and trembling, and piteous. She ran to him and
caught him eagerly, whispering his name brokenly between her sobs, and
hiding her tear-stained face against his childish shoulder. She did not
see the captain, who stood with his arms folded beneath his military
cloak, looking down at them.
"'Linda, dear," said the boy, "you are all wet. Don't shake so; nothing
can hurt you. And here's my friend the captain; he's a soldier, you
know, and fights people." This last as a reassurance to the child that
she had powerful friends indeed.
The girl looked up at the captain, looked at him for a long moment in
silence. Comethup, turning about, saw that the captain had thrown back
his cloak and had dropped on one knee, and was holding out his long,
thin old arms toward the child; the cloak fell all about him like a
tent. She scarcely seemed to hesitate a moment, but went within the
shelter of the tent, and was drawn close there, with the captain's head
bent above her. Comethup was so surprised that he did not even think
how the captain would be spoiling the knee of his trousers in the wet
grass.
"Little maid, little maid," said the captain, "what brings you out here
in this dreadful place alone? Is there no one to care for you, poor
baby?"
"I came out to see--Comethup," said the child, getting over the name
with difficulty, "and Mrs. Blissett saw me and said I should stop here
in the dark, and banged the door and went in. I 'spects she's forgotten
me."
The captain murmured something concerning Mrs. Blissett behind his
heavy mustache, and suddenly gathered the child up in his arms and rose
to his feet. And when he spoke, although his voice was very gentle, it
was very determined.
"Where's your father, baby?"
"He's writing, and talking to himself," replied the child.
"I'll talk to him," said the captain. "Which way do I go--round here?"
The child told him the way, and he marched steadily through the wet
leaves and the long grass, with Comethup following him, until he came
to a door. Still holding the child in his arms, he began vigorously to
kick at the door, flinging his foot at it at regular intervals like
musket-shots. A sharp and querulous voice replied suddenly from the
other side:
"Stay where ye be, ye brat! I bean't goin' to 'ave ye runnin' in and
out just as ye likes. And stop a-kickin' that door."
"Open the door!" cried the captain, in a very loud voice.
There was a shuffling of feet on the other side, and the door was
pulled open. A candle had been set down on some bare, uncarpeted stairs
near at hand, and was flaring in the wind; a heavy, surprised-looking
country-woman stood in the doorway, looking out at the little group.
"Are you Mrs. Blissett?" asked the captain, rapping out the words
fiercely.
"Yes, sir, I be," said the woman, hurriedly bending herself at the
knees, in a sort of staggering courtesy.
"Then what the devil do you mean by putting this baby out in the
rain?" exclaimed the captain. "Stand aside, and let me in. Where's your
master!"
The woman was at first too startled to reply; she backed against the
wall, and waved one hand feebly toward the stairs. The captain nodded
at the candle, and the woman, with her eyes blinking nervously, groped
for it, picked it up, and backed away with it.
"Go first," said the captain, "and tell your master that a gentleman
wishes to see him.--Comethup, follow me."
The woman hesitated for a moment, and then went before them heavily up
the stairs with the candle. The door leading into the garden remained
open, and Comethup felt the wet wind blowing about his legs as he
followed the captain, who marched steadily close behind the woman. The
child had stolen an arm up round the captain's neck, under his cloak;
and he was holding her against his breast with one arm, while his tall
old silk hat, dripping with rain, swung in his disengaged hand.
At the top of the first flight of stairs the woman stopped at a door
and bent her head as though listening, and then rapped with her
knuckles. After a moment or two, receiving no answer, she turned the
handle and went hesitatingly in, the captain following her closely, and
Comethup hard on the heels of the captain.
The room in which they found themselves was so very dark that for
a moment those unused to it would not have noticed that it had any
light in it at all, or any occupant. But, far away in one corner of
it, Comethup saw a little round gleam of light, which reminded him
of the gleam of lanterns he had seen men carry on country roads on
winter nights, and, close beside the gleam, watching them intently and
frowningly, a face. Even before the lips parted, and the harsh voice
spoke, Comethup had that face indelibly impressed upon his mind, to
haunt him long afterward, in its curious detached circle of light,
while he lay in his bed under his father's roof.
It was a stern, strong, forbidding face--a face of hard lines and
straight firmnesses, without a single tender curve or hollow about
it, to proclaim that there was any softness in the man to whom it
belonged. The patch of light showed a great, high forehead, from which
the hair had long been pushed back and pushed off by impatient hands;
beneath this, straight black eyebrows almost meeting, and, under them,
eyes as cold and piercing as steel in moonlight. The man, as he sat,
was literally hemmed in by books; as the light of the candle carried
by Mrs. Blissett penetrated farther through the shadows, Comethup saw
that there were piles of books all about his feet, and about the legs
of the desk at which he sat; the desk itself was loaded with them, and
staggering heaps of them leaned against the wall and perched perilously
on chairs and other articles of furniture. In the silence which
followed their entry, while the man looked at them from beside his
little shaded reading-lamp, Comethup could distinctly hear the heavy,
agitated breathing of Mrs. Blissett.
"Well, what's this, what's this? What has happened? What do you all
want? Can't you speak? Is the house on fire?" All these questions were
rapidly jerked out in harsh, impatient tones, with a little querulous
note at the end of each, like the fretful tones of a child.
Mrs. Blissett was eagerly commencing a voluble reply which should
excuse her own delinquencies, when the captain stepped forward, with
the child still easily resting on his arm, bent his head stiffly and
spoke.
"Sir, I ask your pardon for intruding at such an hour, but I am a blunt
man, trained all my life to prompt action. I found this mite--this
baby--wandering in the grounds outside this house, drenched to the
skin, and crying as it hurts a man to hear a child cry. I understood
that she lived here, and had been shut out in the rain by this woman"
(the captain indicated the trembling Mrs. Blissett with a jerk of his
head). "So I brought her in." The captain stepped forward a little, and
uncovered the face of the child; she was sleeping peacefully, with her
head against his breast.
The man did not reply; he got up abruptly from his desk, kicking
over some of the piles of books about his feet as he moved, and began
striding up and down that end of the room, with something of the
appearance of a hunted animal, turning his face furtively toward them
as he turned in his walk, yet keeping always at the greatest possible
distance away. As he came to the desk once or twice, and fumbled
nervously among the papers and books upon it, Comethup was able to see
that his dress was very unkempt and shabby, and stained as a man might
stain it who read during hurriedly snatched meals, and was careless how
he ate. He spoke at last, in the same querulous voice; he spoke like a
man labouring under the lash of some secret trouble, and yet desirous
of putting himself right with the world. These people might have been
sternly arrayed against him, so strongly and petulantly did he offer
his excuses.
"I don't know you, sir; I have no desire to know you. There is an old
adage which says something about fools stepping in where angels fear
to tread. What if the child was in the rain? What if every living
creature that bears the brand of her sex wandered homeless and outcast
to-night? Would the world be the poorer? Would any single thing that
affects its progress, or its virtue, or its beauty, if you will have it
so, be changed or stand still? This woman"--he fiercely indicated Mrs.
Blissett--"was given a certain duty, and, like all of her class, having
received payment for it, she neglects to perform it. Don't you know
enough of the world yet, or where have you been living all your days,
that you don't know that?" Then, with a certain sudden jealousy, he
made a movement toward the captain, and asked, "What do you want with
the child? How does she concern you?"
The captain's arm tightened a little round the sleeping child. "I do
you the justice to suppose, sir, that, in spite of what you have said,
even you would not leave a baby out of doors on such a night as this,"
he said.
"Well, well, who said I should? But there are more important things in
the world than children; I have work to do here, and have no time to
give to the guardianship of babies."
"She is your child?" said the captain. "I have already heard how the
mite wanders round this place at night, lonely and neglected. Is there
no one to care for her?"
The man laughed, in a curious, hard fashion, and looked straight at the
captain. "No, no one," he said. "Really, sir, you take a great deal
upon yourself. You trespass on my property, and you interfere with my
domestic affairs. Is there anything else about which you would care to
make an inquiry?"
The sarcastic note was lost on the captain; he answered bluntly and
simply, as was his habit:
"I am an old and a very lonely man, sir, and, although I was brought
up to the profession of a soldier, I have thought sometimes that I am
not altogether fitted for it. I have some tenderness of heart still
left in me, and I could not have slept in my bed to-night with the
knowledge that this child was neglected and unhappy. I have no desire
to interfere in any business which does not concern me; but it must
occur to you that it is a strange life for a child to be----"
"Well, the fault of that is not mine,", said the man, swinging about
suddenly and facing the captain. "She--she has no mother, and I am
occupied with--with other things. You--you should not trouble; what can
_I_ do?" He spoke like a fretful child, walked to his desk, and began
turning over the leaves of a book.
The captain was puzzled; saw no prospect, with such a creature as this,
of making him understand the responsibilities of a parent. He turned
to Mrs. Blissett and put the child in her arms, and said with some
sternness: "Take her away, and warm and dry her, and put her to bed.
And be tender with her."
Mrs. Blissett vanished hurriedly with ejaculations of "My precious! The
dear lamb!" and the like, and the captain faced the father once more.
That gentleman, now that the chief object of the disturbance was gone,
seemed only anxious to be rid of his visitor; he seated himself at his
desk, and appeared to be busied with his books.
"Perhaps," said the captain stiffly, "after this intrusion I ought to
give you my name. I am Captain Garraway-Kyle, at present living in this
town, and I beg you to believe that my intrusion here to-night was with
the best possible motives. I assure you----"
"Yes, yes, I quite understand," exclaimed the petulant voice of the
other. "And my name is Vernier--Doctor Vernier; you may have heard of
me."
"No," replied the captain, "I regret that I have not."
"Ah! Good-night!" Dr. Vernier's head was down among his books, so that,
by the glow of the lamp, they could only see the top of it. But the
captain had not finished yet.
"I am sorry for the little child, and for her loneliness," he said,
"and if I might be permitted----"
The hard face glanced up for a moment and the brows were drawn together
in a straight dark line. "Thank you; I desire no one to assist me in
the management of my house. Once more--good-night."
The captain bowed stiffly, turned on his heel, and walked out of the
room, followed by Comethup, whose presence the doctor had not even
appeared to notice. They found their way out of the dark house, and
through the garden into the road. There the captain stood upright for a
moment, thinking deeply, and then looked down at Comethup. "Comethup,"
he said, "we won't be put off like this, eh?"
"No," said Comethup.
"We must go and see her again, and--and look after her, eh?"
"I think so," said Comethup.
They solemnly shook hands on that decision, the captain bending a
little to perform the operation, and then walked away homeward.
CHAPTER V.
TELLS OF AN ERRING WOMAN.
While the captain and Comethup were trudging steadily homeward through
the rain, the man in the dull upstairs room sat within his circle of
light, trying to fix his mind upon the work before him. He held his
broad forehead between his palms, and set his lips, and bent his eyes
steadily upon the printed page, tapping out a little impatient measure
with his foot, in anger with himself that he could not concentrate his
attention. Finally, he got up impatiently, kicking the books out of
his path, and began to stride up and down that end of the room, having
something again of the appearance of a hunted, animal trotting to and
fro within the measure of its cage.
"Am I such a brute?" he asked at last; "are there no days behind
these--far away in the background--when things were better and fairer,
and when I dreamed a dream, as other men have dreamed, of something
greater even than books? It was all lies, lies, lies! The man who hugs
a woman to his breast can only hold her safely if he pays the price,
and knits her to him with chains of gold, forged tightly. His fleshly
arms are never strong enough; she will slip out of them; all the tales
of woman's constancy and woman's virtue have no word of truth in
them; the women were virtuous because their lack of virtue was never
discovered."
He began to pace up and down again, locking his hands behind him, and
alternately clasping them behind his head.
"Why should I care?" he began again, restlessly. "There is a fate in
all these things, and if the fate means that this child shall grow up,
and live, and cheat another man, why, then the fate must do its work,
and nothing that I can say will change it. I have had it in my mind
sometimes to pray--if any prayers could avail--that the child might
die; that's one of the mysteries of this strange creation of ours, that
so fair and sweet a thing should grow up, to foul men's ways, and spoil
their work. I wonder if I----"
He was interrupted by the abrupt entry of Mrs. Blissett. That worthy
woman appeared altogether demoralized, shaken to her prosaic depths;
she came in panting, with one hand pressed to her ample bosom. The man
stopped in his walk and turned savagely upon her, although without
speaking.
"Please, sir, there's a lady, sir, as do be come to see ye; and she----"
Dr. Vernier, with an angry exclamation, took a stride toward her, but
stopped suddenly. There was a shadow behind the woman--the shadow of
some one else, creeping into the room with a hand against the wall as
though groping blindly. The man had seen it, and stood, like one turned
to stone, watching it. Mrs. Blissett, following the direction of his
eyes, turned swiftly, and backed away from it. The figure, still with
a hand against the wall, came slowly along the side of the room, with
her eyes fixed only on him. He seemed to recover himself at last with a
start, drew a deep breath, and waved Mrs. Blissett from the room with
an impatient arm. "You need not stay--you need not stay. I will see the
lady."
Mrs. Blissett evidently had a vague idea that this was a night when
anything might happen; she had performed her small duties about the
place for many months, and had never seen a living creature come to the
house, and on this night the place had already been twice invaded. She
backed out of the room with a sigh of resignation and closed the door.
The stranger had put an arm across her eyes, as though to shield
herself from the doctor's gaze, and was leaning against the wall; she
seemed, from the shaking of her slight body, to be weeping. There was
silence between them for some moments--a silence which the man broke;
his voice sounded strained and unnatural.
"Where have you come from?"
"A long way--a very long way," replied the woman without uncovering her
face.
"Why have you come back here?" His voice was dull and level and hard,
and his face might have been cut out of stone, for any changing
expression it wore. "You chose your own path; why have you abandoned
it?"
She was weeping so bitterly that for a time she could not answer his
question. At last she turned her face fully to him, a young and rather
pretty face, but haggard and wild with weeping and with sorrow; he
looked at it unmoved.
"I have been seeking for you a long time," she said at last, in a voice
scarcely above a whisper. "There has been a hunger here"--she struck
herself relentlessly on the breast--"greater than I could bear. I could
not sleep; I have even prayed to die. I want to see--to see the child!"
The man raised his arm fiercely, as though to ward off her approach,
and took a step backward. "No!" he cried, almost in a shout.
"I ask nothing else," she pleaded. "If anything could have held me
true to the old life--if anything could have bent me to your will, and
starved the soul out of me, it would have been the child. I tell you
something has gone out of me here"--she struck herself again--"and I
shall die if I can not hold her in my arms again. You are a man; you do
not understand. You can find it in your heart to laugh at me, because I
was able to leave her; but she is flesh of my flesh, and I can not tear
her from me. Let me see her; let me know that she is well; let me see
her smile into my eyes again; let me kiss her! Man, hear the rain and
the wind; I have come through them these many weary miles, and I will
go through them again. Let me see her, if only for a few minutes, and I
swear to you, by the God that gave her to me, that I will go away, and
trouble you no more! Only let me ease my hunger." She was down on her
knees at his feet, stretching out her hands to clasp them; he backed
away to avoid her.
"You did not think of all this before," he said, slowly. "Where is the
man?"
"Dead!" she said, in a low voice.
"Ah! I thought so; I should scarcely have seen you here again had he
been alive. And what do you think is to become of you now?" He asked
the question with the bitter savagery of one who sees something that
has wronged him in the dust at his feet, helpless, and is gladdened by
the sight.
"I do not care," she said. "It does not matter; can't you understand
that nothing matters? But my child, my baby; that has been the bitter
thing through all. Do you think that I would plead to you as I do now
for anything else? Do you think that I would kneel at your feet in any
other cause?"
The man began to pace up and down the room again, grasping his strong,
square chin by one hand, and bending his brows in thought. The woman
drew herself slowly to her feet and watched him intently. After a
moment the man faced about, leaned his back against the wall, folded
his arms, and looked down at her.
"Hysterics, or appeals, or tears are useless in a matter of this kind,"
he said; "let us look at it clearly and dispassionately, as though it
lay outside ourselves. You have no right here; your part in my life and
in the child's is played out and done with--do you understand that?
You cut yourself off from it all long ago; I have set myself to forget
your very name, and I do not suppose that the child can remember you.
From the standpoint of justice and morality, you have simply ceased
to exist; you're outside the pale--a lost, abandoned woman. Do you
understand _that_?"
The woman did not answer; she stood rocking herself to and fro, like a
creature in pain, with her hands pressed tightly to her eyes.
"When I married you," the man went on, "I gave you everything that a
woman could desire--money, culture, a home. No thinking woman wants
more than that. You chose to tell me that the life you led was dull
and spiritless; that I was always with my books; that my friends did
not interest you, and that you found their conversation tedious. I
think once--it's an old forgotten thing, and I'm not quite sure about
it--but I think once you told me that you had hoped for something else;
I believe you said some foolish schoolgirl nonsense about love. Well, I
gave you all I had to offer, and I fail to see how any reasonable woman
could ask for more."
"No, you never would understand that," she murmured behind her hands.
"Then you made the acquaintance of this other man, a ne'er-do-weel,
a child laughing in the sunshine, with no purpose in his life and
no character in his face. But," he went on, sneeringly, "he was the
pretty, empty-headed fool you wanted; he could quote rhymes to you, and
fill your ears with things that had no substance in them--things such
as every man has whispered to the woman he craves since the world first
began. Well, you believed him; you caught at the shadow, and lost the
substance. Now he's dead, you think you can come back here, as though
nothing had happened."
"I do not; I only want to see my baby. Give me but an hour with her;
let me assure myself that she is well; let me see her only in her sleep
if you will. I must see her; this hunger at my heart will drive me mad."
"It has not driven you mad before," he said, with a laugh.
"No, I tried to forget; _he_ made me forget. Oh, don't you understand
that a woman may be righteous even in her sin; that she may cling to a
man sinfully sometimes, just because she has promised? It is too late
in the day now for us to blame each other, or for me to attempt to
justify myself. Only believe that I have left all that old unhappiness
behind. John, you will let me see her?"
"How did you find out where I was?" asked the man, after a pause.
"I went to the old home and found that you had left. I made fruitless
inquiries for a long time, and at last, quite by accident, happened
upon some one who had seen you in this town. I came here yesterday and
got a quiet lodging, and set about to look for you. Indeed"--as the
man made an impatient gesture--"indeed, I have not come to trouble you
again; I will go away, and you shall not see me any more."
The man appeared to be thinking deeply. After a long pause, during
which she looked at him appealingly, with her hands tightly clasped, he
spoke, going first to the door, and assuring himself that it was shut.
"When I left the home you dishonoured and abandoned," he began, "I
dismissed the servants and brought the child with me, and came here
secretly. I had some pride, more perhaps than you imagined, and I
did not want the stupid story bandied about on every one's lips. I
determined to set aside that mistake and begin over again. So I chose
this old house, in a town where no one knew me; I got a woman to come
in, day by day, to do what little work there was to be done, and to
look after the child. It's a dreary place," he said, looking round the
darkened room with a sigh, "but the child has to suffer, I suppose, for
the sins of the mother; that's an inevitable law. It's an inevitable
law also that punishment follows sin--not in the next world only, if
there be one, but here. I should be wanting in something, failing to
carry out what I have so often preached and written, if I did not
recognise that punishment must follow your sin, and that you--poor
frail mortal that you are--have inevitably and unconsciously rushed
upon your own punishment. It shall be a fine and a bitter one, I
promise you. Listen to me."
She looked up at him tremblingly, striving to read in his inscrutable
face the meaning of his words.
"You shall not only see the child for an hour; you shall live here, in
the same house with it, as long as you like." Then, as she would have
cried out, he put up one hand to stop her, and laughed, and went on
mercilessly: "But on one condition. I have told you that no one here
knows anything of my story; they believe, I think, that the mother of
the child is dead. Let them still think so. The condition I impose is
that you shall remain in this house, under the name by which I first
knew you; that you shall occupy the position of housekeeper; that you
shall see the child, and attend to her wants in every way, and at any
time you like. I have discovered to-night that she has been somewhat
neglected by the person I paid to look after her; you will have a
deeper interest in her than that, and may be trusted, I think, to look
after her well." He laughed again, then suddenly stepped across to
her and took her fiercely by the arms and looked into her eyes. "But
understand this: She is to know nothing of the relationship that exists
between you; she will know you only as a paid dependent. The instant
that, from any endearment you give her, or any word you let slip, she
learns that you are her mother, you leave this place, and see her no
more! Do you understand that?"
She shrank away from him and covered her face with her hands. "Oh, I
can not, I can not!" she cried.
He pointed to the door. "Go as you came; you have no right here; I have
been a fool to permit you to stay even so long as this. Go at once, or
I will have you turned from the doors!"
"No, no, stop!" she cried. "If there is no other way, I accept your
condition."
"Good. But you must clearly understand that you have absolutely no
interest in the child's life; she goes or comes as I bid or as I
permit; you have no voice in anything which concerns her. But you may
see her, provided always that you respect that condition, and that she
does not learn of the relationship between you. The instant I discover
that she even guesses what it is, you leave this house, and you never
return. Is that clear?"
"Yes, yes, I accept. Indeed, if there is no other way--and I know I
deserve not even so much as this--if there is no other way, then I am
grateful."
"You have need to be. For the future you take your old name, and we
will prefix something respectable to it, for propriety's sake and
for the child's. You will be known as Mrs. Dawson, and there is no
necessity for you to tell anything concerning yourself that you do not
care to have known."
"I understand; I understand perfectly. May I--may I see the child--now?"
"She is asleep, I suspect," replied the man, coldly.
"Indeed--indeed I will not wake her," cried the eager woman.
"Very well. You will find her room at the top of the house, the door on
the left." Then, as she was moving rapidly across the room, he called
to her. "You will find a spare bed in that room; it was used by the
woman Blissett, who attends on her, when 'Linda was very ill some time
since. You may sleep there to-night; I will have another room prepared
for you to-morrow."
She reached the door, and then turned to look back at him, with some
words of thanks on her lips. But he was at his desk, with his head
buried among his books and papers; and she stole quietly out and closed
the door. Then, with a light and rapid step she flew up the stairs,
calling softly as she went, in a whisper, "'Linda, 'Linda, my baby!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE CAPTAIN IN STRANGE COMPANY.
For the first time in his remarkably short existence Comethup Willis
began to lead a double life. He had already done so, to a very small
extent, in regard to his meetings with Brian and with the captain; but
now he began systematically to divide his life into two parts. His
reason for this was purely an instinctive one, and he would have been
puzzled, under any circumstances, to explain even to himself why he saw
in his childish mind that such a course of action was necessary. But,
although he admired and almost worshipped his cousin Brian, as a being
superior in every way to his very humble self and of more brilliant
parts, he yet felt that, in a delicate matter like that on which he had
embarked with the captain, Brian must be set aside.
It caused him many heart-pangs to arrive at this conclusion, but to his
childish understanding it was the only thing possible; having once made
up his mind, he kept stiffly to it. He had entered into a compact of
the emotional order with the captain, and he consoled himself for any
disloyalty to Brian with the thought that he was only concerned with
the captain in the matter, and that the secret was not really his own.
This species of deception, while it added a new element of excitement
to his life, made him also frantically desirous of falling in with
every plot and plan arranged or invented by his cousin on the few
occasions on which they met. Those occasions were few indeed, for the
captain had shown, in some curious, curt fashion, that he did not like
the boy Brian; and Brian, for his part, was laughingly contemptuous of
the captain. So that poor Comethup, in order to keep all his friends,
and in the deep desire he had not to wound the feelings of any of them,
had a very difficult task to perform. A child of blunter character or
perception would have got through with the matter very easily, and
would not have troubled about it at all; but Comethup took everything,
even in those days, in deadly earnest, and lay awake many nights in
the dark, sore at heart with the thought that some light word of his
to the captain, or some half-promise broken to Brian, might have
given either of them pain. Comethup had that strange and--for the
possessor--terrible quality of being able to feel, with the utmost
acuteness, any pain borne by those with whom he came in contact; the
quality of feeling it so instantly that it was often more real in its
intensity to him than to them.
It is possible that the captain understood the desire in Comethup's
mind that Brian should not be included in their compact to befriend
'Linda; indeed, it was a matter so completely between Comethup and the
captain that probably neither of them would have thought of including
any one else in their confidence. Moreover, the matter, begun in secret
and at night, had, in all appropriateness, to be carried on in the same
fashion. Even the captain was not too old, and Comethup certainly not
too young, to have a mutually romantic feeling that that was the proper
course to adopt. They talked it over together in all seriousness.
"You see, Comethup," said the captain, "we were not received with
that--that cordiality which could lead us, with any delicacy, to
approach Dr. Vernier again. I'm not quite sure that we wish to do so;
but, in any case, it will be wiser to leave him out of the question."
Comethup nodded, feeling that that argument was unanswerable.
"The question then resolves itself into this," said the captain,
sitting stiffly upright, with a hand on each knee, and looking down
at Comethup, who was imitating his attitude as far as possible, on a
stool before him, "how are we to save fair ladies who are wandering
about in dreary woods, and getting wet, unless we do it by force of
arms, and bid defiance to the enemy?" The captain had, in his many
conversations with the boy, got the true poetic, romantic ring; it was
a never-ceasing delight to Comethup that his wonderful friend was able
to bring that glamour into the commonest circumstance of life.
"We might go and walk round the house, and--and hide among the trees
until she comes out," said Comethup.
The captain shook his head. "Scarcely dignified, I'm afraid, Comethup,"
he said. "Of course," he added with a fine air of carelessness, "we
might happen to stroll past the place, and we might just look in at the
gates, and----"
Comethup understood perfectly, and nodded with much vigour. So complete
indeed was the understanding between them that, when the captain, on
parting with him, said with much ceremony, "You might call for me about
seven o'clock, Comethup, if you are not better employed," the boy felt
his heart leap, and was eager for the expedition.
But the captain was a man of bluntness, and totally unused to lurking
ways. They reached the gates in the semi-darkness, and looked in up the
dreary avenue, and then walked slowly on side by side. The captain even
waved his stick skyward, and predicted airily that it would be a fine
day on the morrow. Comethup agreed with him, with more eagerness than
befitted the occasion, even going out of his way to recall impressions
of yesterday's weather as compared with the present. Then, about a
hundred yards from the gate, the captain swung on his heel, and they
strolled back again. Still no sound about the deserted place, and no
little figure in the garden. The captain came from pretence to reality
at a bound, and faced sternly upon Comethup.
"Boy, this isn't right, and I'm not right to be teaching you to hide
and skulk here. I'm going up to the house."
"I think perhaps it would be better," admitted Comethup slowly.
They marched with much determination through the wind-swept garden and
among the drifting leaves. Both Comethup and the captain looked eagerly
all about, but saw nothing; they made the circuit of the house, and
then stopped at the door by which they had previously entered.
The captain raised his stick and struck sharply on the panel; waited
a little, but there was no response. Then he stepped back and glanced
up at the windows; but they were all closely shuttered, and no light
appeared anywhere. The captain stepped up to the door again and renewed
his attack on the panel. After another long period of waiting, there
was a sound of shuffling feet on the bare boards within, and the door
was opened so far as the length of a chain that held it would allow.
The captain pressed forward to the aperture and spoke:
"Is Dr. Vernier within?"
"The doctor say he can't see no one," came the reply.
"Oh, I'm much obliged," said the captain. "I wanted to know if the
child--the little girl--is well? You remember I----"
"Oh, yes, I knows all about you," replied the woman sharply. "And
there's folks as can look after her, and mind their business without
no interferin'." The door was slammed quickly, and they heard the
shuffling feet going down the hall.
The captain remained very upright for a moment, recovering himself;
and then turned to Comethup. "Let that be a warning to you, boy," he
said stiffly, "never to argue with your inferiors. The enemy is not
to be surprised, that's evident; we must try stratagem. As a soldier,
Comethup, I have learned that stratagem is very useful. I despise it,
but it's very useful."
But all the stratagem the captain could employ, and all the loyal aid
given by Comethup in a cause in which he was desperately interested,
failed to bring them any nearer the object of their search. They walked
past the garden many times after that, on many successive days, taking
it casually in their walks first, and afterward going there of set
purpose. But the garden was always empty, and the house apparently
deserted. They had almost given up in despair, when one night, rather
later than usual, when they passed the gates, Comethup, lingering for
a moment, saw the faint flutter of something white among the trees,
and ran to it, crying softly "'Linda!" The captain went in too, but
remained standing just within the gates. With a delicacy which belonged
to him, he let the children meet in their own impulsive, breathless
fashion alone.
'Linda was clinging to the boy, divided between laughter and tears,
when the captain, looking past them, observed a figure hurrying toward
them from the house--the figure of a woman certainly not portly
enough to be Mrs. Blissett. The captain took a few strides forward,
and reached the children at the same moment that the woman came up
with them; she stood, almost in an attitude of defiance, looking at
him. He noticed that she was tall and rather slight, and quite young.
Instinctively his hat came off, and he bowed in his stiff fashion. For
a moment there was silence between them; each seemed to be waiting for
the other to speak.
"What do you want, sir?" she asked at last, in a suppressed voice.
"I merely called--came here, I should say--in the hope of seeing the
child, and knowing that she was well," said the captain. "I found her
here the other night, and, though it is no business, of course, of
mine, I feared that she was lonely, and, forgive me, perhaps neglected.
I came here a few evenings ago, but was refused admittance."
"You are a friend of--of Dr. Vernier's?" she hazarded.
"No, not exactly a friend," replied the captain, diplomatically.
"We--we have met--that is all. Are you the child's nurse?"
The woman bent her head and stretched an arm out, and drew the child
close against her.
"I thought perhaps you might be a--a relative," ventured the captain,
replacing his hat.
"No," she replied, in a low voice, "I am not a relative. Dr. Vernier
has engaged me chiefly to look after the child."
"I am glad," said the captain, with awkward gallantry, "that she is in
such good hands." The situation was becoming embarrassing; the captain
knew that he had no earthly right there, and felt that he must withdraw
his forces without delay. He stooped, and held his hand out to the
child, who shyly took it; bade her "Good-night" with much gentleness,
and turned and left the garden, followed by Comethup, who glanced back
again and again at the little white figure walking with the woman in
the direction of the house.
Comethup was very serious indeed as they walked toward his father's
house. This new figure in the story could not be dealt with with the
ease with which a mere Blissett might be tackled. He saw a prospect
of losing forever that little figure which had so strongly interested
him. He expressed his fears tremblingly to the captain as he trotted
beside him.
"Shall we see her again, sir?"
"Don't know, Comethup," replied the captain, dejectedly. "Direct attack
has failed; stratagem has failed also. I'm afraid we can't do anything
else to assist your little damsel in distress, Comethup."
Comethup went to his bed, to dream that he went again to the garden,
and found the gates fastened strongly against him; that he beat his
hands against the bars of them, crying to the child to let him in, and
to the captain to come with his sword and break the gates down. He
awoke in the dark, with the tears still wet upon his cheeks, and cried
himself to sleep again.
Sick with the necessity for consolation, he went on the following
morning to see the captain. The captain had constituted himself, for
some time past, a sort of informal instructor to Comethup; had dragged
from an old box some very out-of-date lesson books, and was renewing
his own youth by plodding steadily over that first stony ground
of knowledge with the boy, taking infinite delight in his pupil's
progress. Comethup had learned many things at those lessons--scraps of
this and bits of that--and had had, interwoven with the more technical
subjects, a certain thread of hard and pure and very fine morality as
to straightness of living and one's duty to one's fellows, which had
formed the captain's creed throughout all his simple life.
On this particular morning, although neither mentioned his distress
to the other, the matter was very fully in the minds of both, and no
real attempt was made to take lessons seriously. Indeed, the captain,
with a very fine intuition, had guessed what would be the condition of
Comethup's mind, and had not even got out the books. Comethup found him
standing near the window, examining, with a somewhat troubled face, a
pair of boots, passing one finger delicately over places in the uppers
which seemed untrustworthy, and holding them from him at arm's length,
to get a more general effect in regard to their appearance. The soles
of the boots were very thin, and the heels rather high.
"I am going," said the captain, setting the boots down on the window
seat, and gravely returning Comethup's salute, "to pay a visit to
the shoemaker's." He regarded the boots with a thoughtful frown.
"They _might_ go a week or two longer, Comethup, but the result would
probably be disastrous. One gets used in time, when one is not rich, to
judge exactly the moment when delay, in a matter of this kind, is no
longer safe, and when the thing must be done, if it is to be done at
all. It's like fighting a battle, Comethup; either you must strike at a
given moment, or you'd better not strike at all. Will you come with me?"
The captain always addressed the boy with equal courtesy, and Comethup
had learned to reply with gravity. He expressed his willingness now to
accompany the captain, and they set out.
In a quaint little street, in the very heart of the town--a place which
Comethup had not before explored, and which was reached by diving under
an archway and then doubling sharply round a corner--they came upon the
shop which the captain sought. He had wrapped the boots neatly in brown
paper, and carried them tucked under his arm, probably with the desire
that no one should guess his errand; he even glanced about him to right
and left for a moment before stepping into the low doorway of the shop.
It was a very little shop, so low and small that it seemed half
underground; the captain, although by no means a tall man, had to duck
his head a little in entering. Comethup noticed at once that it was
not like an ordinary shop, in that it had no counter, and that only a
heavy bench ran along one side of it, on which an old man was seated,
hammering away with much fierceness on something fastened to his knee.
But Comethup had no time to take in more than the bare details of the
place, for his eyes were arrested by something else: a little figure
perched up on the rough bench beside the man and looking with wide,
astonished eyes at the captain and the boy. It was 'Linda.
The man who worked had looked up at them for a moment sharply out of
keen black eyes, and then had bent his head again over his leather. He
worked as one in a frantic hurry--a man who had no time for thought,
scarcely a moment even to breathe; the hammer rose and fell sharply,
rising up above the level of his head, so closely were his eyes bent on
the work. The child sat quite near to him, smiling at the visitors.
The captain's voice broke in across the hammering, and stopped it.
"Why, little one," he said, gently, "what are you doing here?"
The hammer rested on the leather, the man's knotted hand grasping it
firmly; his black eyes looked up sideways at the captain. "Why not?" he
asked in a quick, harsh voice. "What should harm her?" He did not speak
like a countryman. Comethup was a little afraid of him, and of his
black eyes, but the child beside him only smiled, and did not move.
"Nothing, nothing," said the captain, hastily. "I was merely surprised
to see the child here; she is a little friend of mine--we _are_
friends, are we not, 'Linda?"
The child nodded, and Comethup, emboldened by her smile, crossed to
where she sat and shyly held out his hand. She leaned forward and put
her arm about his neck and kissed him. The shoemaker glanced at them
sharply, and then, with a grunt, started hammering again at his leather.
"We have been looking for you, 'Linda," said Comethup, softly.
The old man caught the remark and paused in his hammering, in the same
fashion as before, and looked quickly round at them. "Yes, that's what
you do from the time they lift you first into your cradle till the hour
they slip a winding sheet round you; it's the old story, begun by baby
lips, and whispered by the dying. Looking for her?" He put out a hand
and touched Comethup on the breast and pushed him almost roughly away.
"Let be, let be; the little maid can bide here as long as she will." He
spoke with a certain stern sadness, and Comethup and the captain looked
at him in perplexity.
"Oh, they're very good friends, and he's a good boy," said the captain,
laughing. "You don't know the boy."
The old man glanced up at him sharply. "No, but they're all alike." He
leaned forward suddenly and took Comethup by the shoulder and drew him
toward himself, looking straight into his eyes. Comethup's heart beat a
little faster than usual, but he did not flinch.
"Well," said the captain, after the scrutiny had lasted for some
moments, "what do you make of him?"
The shoemaker, still keeping a grip of Comethup's shoulder, looked up
at the captain and spoke in a low voice. "A good face," he said, "and
the eyes of one who will dream dreams, and carry them with him always.
I've dreamed my dreams, but"--he passed his hand over his forehead in a
lost, dazed fashion--"I've lost them all." He sighed, and took up his
hammer and fell to work again, muttering to himself. Presently, coming
back to realities with a start, he put down the hammer and asked the
captain civilly if he could do anything for him.
The captain produced his parcel and began, with great care, to point
out exactly what he wanted done and what he desired left undone. The
shoemaker obviously saw here a work on which his finest arts could be
exercised, and listened with equal care to the minute directions. The
business being finished and the price arranged, the captain lingered in
the doorway of the little shop and carelessly put a question:
"Does she come often to see you?"
"When she will," replied the old man, softly hammering. "Sometimes a
week goes by and I see nothing of her; and then she'll slip in and
sit beside me for an hour, and be gone again--so lightly that I think
afterward it's a dream, and that she has not been here at all. It's all
dreams; nothing is real."
"Oh, I'm afraid some things are very real," said the captain gravely.
"No." He brought the hammer down sharply to emphasize the word. "If
they were real we could not bear them; we should go mad. It's because
they are dreams that we can laugh a little sometimes and say that it
doesn't matter, and pray for the hour when we shall wake. Nothing's
real, nothing's real; we should be glad of that." He fell to hammering
again, in the same hurried fashion as when they had first seen him.
Indeed, nothing would rouse him again; even when the captain asked that
he might take the girl with him, and she slipped down from the bench
and walked with Comethup to the door, the shoemaker merely raised his
eyes for a moment to look at her, and went on again with his work. They
heard the noise of the hammering long after they had passed through the
doorway and through the little street; it only seemed to die away when
they came out through the archway into the busier parts of the town.
The captain had a delightful new pupil that day. The three went out
to the marshes beyond the town, and there, at Comethup's modest
suggestion, the captain assisted in the building of the forts and
instructed 'Linda in the first principles of military tactics. She
proved an apt and eager pupil, overleaping obstacles which appeared
to present themselves to the slower mind of the captain, and showing
a delightful sense of the fine art of strategy and a quickness of
resource in a difficult situation, which elicited that gentleman's
warm approval. In the most natural and fearless fashion she walked
back with them to the captain's cottage and partook of the captain's
simple dinner, unconsciously and quickly taking a position in the small
household which no one had dared to occupy before. She showed unbounded
delight at the salute given by Homer, the captain's man, and actually
called him back into the room again and insisted on his repeating the
performance in order that she might see exactly how it was done, making
the blushing man do it very slowly indeed, that she might take in every
turn and twist of his arm.
Comethup trembled a little, lest the captain should take offence; but
the captain's heart had been taken by storm, and he allowed the mite
to rule him as completely as she appeared to rule others with whom she
came in contact outside her father's house. Finally, Comethup received
instructions to take her back home in safety; and the two children
set off hand in hand, the captain standing at the garden gate of his
cottage to watch their departure. She had completed her conquest of
that gallant warrior by seizing him by the lapels of his coat and
drawing his head down in the most unexpected fashion and kissing him
before she dashed out of the cottage with Comethup, whose salute to the
captain was a mere undignified flying wave of the arm, in consequence
of her haste.
At the big iron gates which led to her father's house they saw the
woman standing who had been in the garden on the previous day; she drew
the child swiftly within the gates, and went down on her knees and held
her close to her breast without a word. Comethup, embarrassed, stood
looking on, not knowing whether to go or to stay; he felt, however,
that the necessity of the situation compelled him to explain the
child's absence.
"We met 'Linda quite by accident," he said, "the captain and I, and she
has had dinner with the captain. I do assure you, ma'am"--he had got
that phrase from the captain--"that she has been perfectly safe."
"Oh, I am quite sure she has," replied the woman, looking round at him
with a smile. "And I am very grateful to the captain and to you.--Say
'Good-night,' 'Linda," she added to the child.
Comethup was getting quite used to that rapturous hug with which 'Linda
favoured her friends--was getting rather to like it. He lingered for
a moment outside the gate, until the two figures had disappeared, and
then sped away homeward, planning for to-morrow, and for many other
morrows, in which the captain and 'Linda explored again with him
the wonders of the old town and of the buried ramparts, and renewed
acquaintance, for 'Linda's sake, with all the strange things he had
learned under the captain's tuition.
It happened that night that the captain was restless and ill at ease. A
man of simple tastes and simple habits, he had lived for some years in
the old town, scarcely seeing any one but his man Homer before Comethup
came into his life. It had cost him not a little to shake himself free
from the stiff and rigid rules of life into which he had grown; but,
led by Comethup's persuasive hand, he had done so, and had, in a sense,
renewed his lost youth in the child's company. He was frightened a
little now sometimes when he thought of what it would mean to him if,
by any chance or change of circumstance, he lost the boy; he dared not
contemplate the barren life he had been content to live for so long,
nor think how empty it would be if he had to return to it.
And now, in the strangest fashion, this child had led him to
another--had brought even a softer element into his life, and increased
his responsibilities. The captain, in a gentle, foolish fashion, was
proud of those responsibilities, and would not willingly have let them
go. He might have argued with himself that the children had natural
guardians who could look after them, and whose rights were greater than
any he possessed; but he plumed himself with the idea that the children
had turned to him, and relied upon him more completely than on any one
else. As he paced about his little room in the dark, he seemed to feel
again that baby's arm round his neck and her soft, rounded face pressed
to his hollow one; he thought of her sitting in the strange company of
the old shoemaker; remembered, with a pang, the forlorn little figure
he had first seen in the garden.
It all ended in a determination to see the shoemaker and to learn
something more of him. He had visited him on one or two occasions when
a specially delicate matter of repairing had to be explained and when
the man Homer could scarcely have been intrusted with it, but beyond
that he knew nothing of the man. The captain weighed the _pros_ and
_cons_ of the matter carefully, and finally put on his hat and set out
for the shoemaker's house.
It was a fine moonlight night, and the captain, on turning into the
little street through the archway, saw that the door of the shoemaker's
shop was open, and that the man he sought was sitting on the step, with
his feet in the room and his back propped against the doorpost. The
captain walked on, carelessly swinging his cane, and trying to hum a
tune; stopped opposite the little shop, and remarked upon the beauty
of the night. The old man grunted some inaudible reply, and looked up
at him suspiciously; he was smoking a short, black pipe, pulling and
puffing at it as furiously and rapidly as he appeared to do everything.
"If you've come about those boots----" he began aloud, but the captain
checked him.
"No; of course I did not expect them yet," he replied. "I happened to
be strolling round this way, and thought I should like a chat with you."
The shoemaker took his pipe from between his teeth and stared at the
captain for a moment; then replaced the pipe and nodded. The captain
was a little disconcerted, but he had an obstinate feeling that he
would not go away with his purpose defeated, and so he leaned against
the other doorpost and smiled and nodded back at the shoemaker.
"Yes," he said airily, "I was interested in what you said
to-day--about--about what you call your dreams; and about--the child."
The shoemaker did a surprising thing: he got up suddenly, thrust his
face toward the captain, and looked at him in the moonlight steadily;
then turned abruptly, and stumbled down the two steps which led into
his shop, leaving the captain gasping and staring after him. In a few
moments the captain, looking in through the doorway, saw the glimmer
of a light; then saw the old man bending to light a candle which stood
on the bench while a gigantic shadow, grotesque and hideous, danced
and sprawled all over the wall behind him and the ceiling above. When
he had got the candle alight, and had carefully set his foot upon the
match, he went to the door again and beckoned. "Come in," he said; and
the captain went down the two steps a little doubtfully.
The shoemaker closed the door and dropped a wooden bar across it. The
door fitted above the two steps; the shoemaker seated himself upon the
topmost one and waved his hand toward the bench, on one end of which
the candle stood.
"Sit down," said the man.
The captain seated himself, and glanced somewhat apprehensively about
him. The window was shuttered, and the tools with which the man worked
had been piled neatly together on a little table with a raised edge
which stood against the wall. Boots in every stage of formation and
repair lay all bout the place--some mere gaping upper parts, and others
having but the faint suggestion of what they might ultimately become in
roughly cut leather sheets. The captain drew his coat-tails about his
knees and rested his hands on them, and waited for the other to speak.
The shoemaker waited for some moments, and then began in a low voice,
with his eyes bent on the ground:
"I wasn't born in these parts--it doesn't matter where I came from;
some might call me a rough and common man, working at a dirty trade.
Yet time was when I read and talked and held my own with men who'd been
to school and college. Many and many a night I've laid awake reading
and thinking and working--trying, as men say, to better myself. And
what has it all brought me?" He threw out his arms with a passionate
gesture and without raising his head, and let them fall at his sides
again.
The captain was silent, wondering what was coming, seeing in the man's
attitude and in his voice some long, pent-up story, and wondering, in
his simple fashion, why the man should have chosen him to hear the tale.
"My life was not all work and book-learning. I married. Looking at me
now, any man might say I am a hard and bitter creature; but I was the
happiest in the world then. We had a child--a baby girl--the fairest,
sweetest thing that ever came straight out of God's arms."
He sprang up with a cry and waved his arms fiercely above his head.
"Straight out of God's arms!" he cried, in a loud voice. "Let any man
deny that she has gone straight back into them!"
"She is dead, then?" said the captain softly.
The man dropped his arms and stared about him for a moment helplessly.
"Yes, but that happened long after. I can remember her now, as a tiny
child, coming into the room where I worked and climbing on the bench
beside me, and prattling to me in her baby fashion--music sweeter than
any other that a man hears. I wish"--he had begun to roam restlessly up
and down the place, swinging his arms as he went--"I wish it might have
been possible for her to remain like that forever. But, of course, that
wasn't to be. She grew up, and I was proud of her and proud to think
that she belonged to me and held me dearer than any one else. Then
into our paradise came the man--as the man always comes. I think he
must have loved her--at first, at least; she was so good and beautiful
and pure that no man could pass her by and look into her eyes without
loving her. And then--oh, ages ago; I've forgotten when it was--she
went away, and wrote me a letter saying that she had gone with him and
that she would never forget me, and that some day she would come back
with him, and that we were all to be happy together."
The captain's elbow was resting on his knee and his head was propped on
his hand, so that the hand shaded his eyes. The shoemaker went on, in a
dull, heavy voice. He had clearly forgotten that he had a listener.
"I tried to find him, tried everywhere. I watched for her, night after
night, until they said that want of sleep and care and sorrow had
driven me ill. It was then I first began to dream; I have dreamed ever
since. And when at last I was better, and was able to get again to my
work, her mother was gone; they did not tell me where at first, but
afterward I learned that she had died, and I was completely alone. I
came here then; it was a place where no one knew me, and none could
ask questions. And here, two years ago, a letter followed me, written
by the man, and saying that she was dead. That is the hardest thing of
all--that she died in some strange land, far over the seas; and I can
not even know where she lies buried, or where she sleeps, or whether
the sun shines on her grave. It doesn't matter--it doesn't matter."
The captain raised his head and looked at him. "Perhaps she was happy
in her new life; perhaps----"
The man broke in upon the words fiercely. "She died in shame and
want and misery. The man had tired of his plaything; in his cold and
brutal letter he told me that they had not agreed, and that he had
deemed it wiser to part from her. He begged of me to believe"--the
scorn in the old man's voice as he flung out his arm passionately was
terrible--"that he would have married her had it been possible; he was
sorry for her death."
He had drawn his arm, in an uncouth fashion, across his eyes, and his
voice shook as he finished. Presently he let his arm fall to his side
and looked about him in that curious, helpless way, with something of a
smile upon his face.
"And so you see," he went on, in a gentler tone, "I live on here from
day to day, and dream my dreams; and am happy to forget sometimes which
is truth and which is dream. And then quite suddenly one day, while I
sat at my work here, I lifted up my eyes and saw--O God, my heart leaps
now when I think of it!--saw _her_, as I thought, come back to me, a
baby again, standing in the doorway smiling. That was the best dream of
all; that is the best dream still." He raised his eyes, laughed aloud,
and clasped his hands.
"Does she come here often?" asked the captain, gently.
"Yes, often and often. We do not even speak to each other sometimes,
but I like to feel her close beside me, just as the other one sat, ages
and ages ago. Who knows"--he laid a hand upon the captain's arm and
sank his voice to a whisper--"who knows but that she is mine, come
back, like a fairy child, in purity and innocence, to comfort me, and
to tell me that all the rest has been a dream indeed? How else should
she come to me? Yes, I like to think that--it comforts me."
The captain would not have stripped away that dream from the man for
the world. He was so touched that he begged quite humbly that he might
be permitted to come again to see him; and finally went out into the
darkness and took his way homeward. But the captain was troubled in
spirit, and the shining heavens above him did not seem to have quite
the clear and fine message of peace that they had held so long for
his simple soul. He took a circuitous route, and came again to the
great dreary place where the child lived and looked in through the
dilapidated gates. He sighed a little as he turned away, and whispered
softly, "God keep you, baby--God keep you!"
CHAPTER VII.
IN WHICH SEPARATIONS ARE SUGGESTED.
In quite the strangest and yet the most natural way the old shoemaker
was drawn into that little circle which revolved round the captain. It
was a curious little band in most respects, formed of strange beings,
with nothing of the practical about them; the captain seemed sometimes
to be the youngest of them all.
Comethup's life, at that enchanting time, was very full indeed--so
full that he had sometimes to stop and gasp with wonder at all the
extraordinary things and the extraordinary people that filled it. The
captain had been something to be grateful about, and to hug one's self
over; the ghost in the garden had resolved itself into a very sweet and
tender personality. And now came this wonderful old man, who hammered
away half underground, and talked sometimes like a book and sometimes
like scraps out of twenty books, all disjointed; whose hair was wild
and whose eyes shone, and who was something to be a little afraid of
at first and to love desperately afterward, although, for that matter,
there were but few people who came into Comethup's life that he was not
able to give some part of his heart to. There was but one little hunger
in his heart, and that was that he could not bring Brian into what he
would have termed the chief glory of his life, for he had that keen and
unerring instinct which told him that Brian would be impatient of the
old shoemaker, and as scornful of him as he was of every one else who
did not exactly please him.
Comethup got quite into the habit of paying hurried visits to the
shoemaker's shop, and then lingering for a while, in the fascination
of the man and of the place. Very often he found 'Linda there, seated
silently beside the man on the bench. Very few customers ever seemed
to come there, and the few who did took no notice of the children. The
old man's moods varied greatly: sometimes he was in a savage humour and
worked fiercely, hammering away at the leather as if for dear life,
and taking no notice of the children; at other times he would sit,
with his hands clasped idly on his apron, staring dreamily out of the
window, and occasionally muttering to himself. On one such occasion he
called Comethup suddenly to him and put his arm about his shoulders and
stretched out the other hand toward the window. "Look, boy, look!" he
cried. "What do you see?"
Comethup gazed blankly through the window, the panes of which were of
old and common glass that distorted everything seen through them. He
shook his head, and looked round at the old man. "Nothing," he said,
"only the houses, and the church spire at the end of the street."
The shoemaker shook him gently but impatiently. "Look again," he
whispered; "move your head from side to side, as I move it--so. See the
houses leap and jump and tremble; see the spire of the church double
up like a reed, and seem as if it would plunge down into the street.
Again--move your head again--see how they leap and tremble and fall!"
Comethup, a little frightened, moved his head, and then laughed
faintly. "But it's only the glass," he said.
"Ah, but a man may sit here--a man poor and humble and with no
power--and yet dream that he has the power so to sweep away those who
have wronged him; to bring their fine houses tumbling about their ears,
like things built of cards. Boy, I tell you if a man can dream that, he
is stronger and greater than those who have the power to build--eh?"
Comethup obediently said, "Yes, I suppose so," and the old man laughed,
and took up his work and fell to hammering. Comethup, after he reached
home, tried the plan with other windows, and trembled a little when
he remembered the fierce whisper in which the old man had spoken; he
wondered, too, why he should carry in his breast the desire to injure
any one, or to wreck what he had built. Meanwhile, Brian had to be
reckoned with; it was impossible to ignore him completely, and the
hours which Comethup spent with him were growing fewer and fewer. But
one morning he sprang suddenly into the very midst of it all, as it
were, and quite accidentally.
He had been attending the grammar school on the outskirts of the town,
in a desultory fashion, staying away when it pleased him, throwing his
soul into the work for a day or two, and thinking of nothing else,
and then disappearing for the whole day for about a week, dashing
home, tired and hungry and dusty at the end of each day, and refusing
any account of his movements. Once or twice, when Comethup had been
away with the captain, he had heard on his return that his cousin had
called; but when he went himself to his uncle's house, to express his
contrition, Mr. Robert Carlaw airily informed him that he hadn't the
remotest notion where Brian was, or what he was doing.
"Takes after his father, the young rip. I was just the same when I was
a boy; began to go to the devil before I was breeched. It's in the
blood, and, damme, I'm the last man to try and stop him, the rascal!"
Comethup usually came away feeling desperately sorry for his cousin,
and trembling considerably at the thought of the path that unfortunate
youngster was treading, yet having, nevertheless, a sneaking admiration
both for him and his ways.
It happened, on the morning in question, that Comethup had arranged to
meet the captain; they would, in all probability, find 'Linda at the
old shoemaker's, and after that there was the glorious prospect of some
hours on the marshes in the captain's delightful company, with deeds
of daring to be recited and romantic possibilities to be discussed.
It had been firmly agreed upon between the captain and Comethup as to
what their duties were to be in a moment of emergency, should the old
town, for instance, be attacked by an alien foe, and 'Linda carried off
by the besiegers. Comethup almost wished, with a beating heart, that
it might happen, because, according to the captain's account--and the
captain was very serious when he mentioned it--it would mean midnight
rides, and shootings, and maimings, and slaughterings to an absolutely
delightful extent.
But this morning disappointment was in store for them. 'Linda was not
to be discovered at the shoemaker's, and the old man, being in a bad
humour, growlingly stated that he knew nothing about her, not even
pausing in his hammering to make the remark. Comethup and the captain
turned away sorrowfully. Former experience had taught them that it
would be useless to apply at her father's house; but they walked past
it, and Comethup even ran a little way into the garden, and softly
called her name. But there was no response, and, after waiting a few
moments, they were compelled to set out on their expedition without her.
She had taken so prominent a part in their lives of late, and
imagination so cruelly suggested her figure in every place they
visited, that the business of the day had no zest in it. The captain
presently seated himself on a bank out on the marshes, with his cane
lying across his knees, while Comethup sprawled at his feet and watched
the distant line of the sand hills beyond which the sea lay. Suddenly
the captain sat rigidly upright and stared away across the marshes
in an opposite direction to that in which Comethup was looking; an
ejaculation escaped his lips, and Comethup twisted round on one elbow
and followed the direction of the captain's gaze.
Two figures were running toward them, coming breathlessly over the
uneven ground, and waving to them as they ran. Comethup sat up with a
start. "Why, it's 'Linda!" he exclaimed; and then, in a more surprised
tone, "and Brian!"
The two came up pantingly, and the girl dropped down beside Comethup;
the boy Brian tossed his hair back from his face, and burst out with
his tale.
"We've been looking for you everywhere," he exclaimed. "You know
I couldn't find you at your house"--this to Comethup--"nor at the
captain's; and dad was in one of his frightful tempers, and had been
raving about the house, swearing he'd kill me. He often does that, you
know; I'm quite used to it. So you see I didn't know what to do, until
at last I thought of that house we went to see, Comethup, you know, the
one that was haunted. It wasn't half bad in the daylight, and it wasn't
haunted, after all."
"I know that," said Comethup. "And so does the captain."
"How did you find this--this child?" asked the captain, dropping one
hand lightly on the girl's head.
"I'm coming to that," replied Brian, briskly. "I went into the garden
and had a good look round, and there didn't seem to be anything to be
afraid of. So I walked round the house to see what there was to be
seen, and I----"
"And you saw me up at the window," broke in 'Linda, with a laugh.
The boy smiled back at her, and dropped down beside her on the sandy
ground. "Yes," he said, "and I asked you if you were the ghost,
and what you were doing up there; and you said you were waiting for
Comethup. And I said that I was looking for him, too, and we'd better
go and look together. Then I showed you how to get down from the window
by the ivy, and--and here we are." He rolled over on his back, crossed
his hands under his head, and laughed again.
It was all true. He had stormed the situation in a fashion which
neither Comethup nor the captain would have dreamed of; had flung
himself joyously, as it were, into the midst of a matter from
which they had innocently plotted to exclude him. 'Linda, too, had
entertained him with an account of all that had happened: of her
expeditions with Comethup and the captain, down to the minutest
details, proud of the fact that she had so much to tell to this new and
charming companion.
Comethup and the captain, with a quick mutual appreciation of the
matter born of their intimacy, glanced at each other rapidly; the
captain turned away his head, and sighed a little. 'Linda saw that, in
some strange fashion, she had offended her former friends; the keen
edge had been taken from the adventure, and she looked at Comethup with
a little sudden quivering of the lip. Brian, blissfully unconscious,
lay on his back on the ground, whistling softly to himself.
The situation was becoming embarrassing, and the captain had just
cleared his throat, with the idea of making some commonplace remark
which should set them all at their ease, when, looking up, he descried
another figure coming swinging toward them at a rapid rate. The swirl
of the coat-tails and the poise of the hat were not to be mistaken. He
exclaimed hurriedly, "Brian, here's your father!"
Brian Carlaw turned lazily over on one side and surveyed the
approaching figure; resumed his former attitude, and said with a laugh:
"I suppose he's come to kill me; I didn't think he'd find me here."
He appeared quite unconcerned about the matter, and Comethup could
not help looking at him with increasing admiration as he observed his
indifference to the approaching danger.
But it was obvious, as Mr. Robert Carlaw drew nearer, that he had no
hostile intention. He was apparently greatly agitated, and seemed to be
shouting something to them as he almost ran forward over the ground.
He waved in his right hand a sheet of paper. He came upon the waiting
group literally at a bound, and so out of breath that for a few moments
he could do nothing but alternately thump his chest and tap the sheet
of paper with a trembling forefinger and stretch it out appealingly
toward his son. His dignity was too great to permit him to sit down,
even on the bank beside the captain; he remained pacing about, and
gaspingly endeavouring to speak for some moments, before he could get
a word out, and when the words came they were, in view of what Brian
said, certainly surprising.
"My son, my beloved son!" He stretched out his arms toward the
recumbent boy, and something seemed to catch in his throat, as though
he swallowed with difficulty.
Brian raised himself on one elbow and looked at his father through
half-closed eyes. "I thought you were going to lick me," he said.
Mr. Robert Carlaw again agitatedly indicated the letter. "My boy,
forgive me, I beg. This is a moment when indiscretion, hastinesses
of temper, may be forgotten. This is a moment that comes but once
in every man's life. You are not--not too young to understand. My
boy, I have sought for you"--he swept his arm vaguely toward the
horizon--"everywhere. I have been cut--cut to the heart at the thought
that I--I had driven you from me. My son, thank Heaven I have found
you!" He took off his hat, breathed heavily, and mopped his face with a
delicate handkerchief. They looked at him in astonishment, not unmixed
with awe; he appeared to be so terribly in earnest.
"Is anything the matter?" asked the captain, breaking a silence which
began to be oppressive.
Robert Carlaw replaced his hat at a greater angle than usual, struck
himself on the breast, laughed, and shook the letter at the little
captain with ferocious playfulness. "Matter, sir? Matter enough! No
longer can it be said that Robert Carlaw and his son hide their heads
under a bushel--or under two bushels; this letter, sir, contains the
promise of fortune--fortune rightly bestowed. No longer shall my son
live obscurely, as his wretched parent has been compelled to do;
no longer shall he herd with the sons of tradesmen and commoners;
henceforth he takes that brilliant path which Fortune has mapped out
for him." He laughed again, and stretched out his arms again toward
Brian, who was sitting up, staring at him in amazement.
"I'm afraid we don't understand," said the captain mildly.
Robert Carlaw, feeling that he had to deal with inferior minds, came
down from the heights. "My dear sir, the matter, bluntly, is this. We
are friends here, and there is no reason why all the world should not
know such news as I have to tell. This, sir"--he indicated the paper he
held--"is a letter from an eccentric lady, of--er--excellent birth--in
point of fact, my sister; older than myself, a spinster, and childless.
She writes, in her dear eccentric fashion--sweet woman, but, like
myself, a spice of brimstone in her--to say that her loneliness tells
upon her with advancing years; that she seeks some one to whom she may
give what tenderness is in her, some one who shall become her heir. She
suggests--nay, in her eccentric fashion, demands--my son. He is to fill
the vacant place in her heart, and in her house; he is to become, when
it shall please the good Lord"--Mr. Carlaw raised his eyes piously, and
touched the brim of his hat with his fingers--"to call her from us, the
possessor of her wealth."
"That's very fine for the boy," said the captain slowly.
"Yes," responded Mr. Carlaw, thoughtfully, "the boy is like his father;
he was not built for toil. There are those who are made--positively
made, sir--to cut a figure in the world, that duller eyes may look
on them, and admire. I am one of those; it is in the blood; Brian is
another." With a great show of hurry upon him, he thrust the precious
letter in his pocket, and stooped and caught Brian by the arm and
dragged him to his feet. The boy, with that unbelief in his father
which past experience had probably sown deep in his breast, resisted
a little, and did not enter quite so joyously into the spirit of the
matter as his parent wished.
"But what have I got to do?" he asked, petulantly, rising slowly to his
feet with his fathers assistance.
"Do?" exclaimed that gentleman. "My son, there is not a moment to be
lost. You do not know your Aunt Charlotte; I have but stated the case
mildly when I say that she is eccentric. She may change her mind at
any moment; may have forgotten the suggestion she makes in this letter
before we have time to reach London. Come; there is not a moment to be
lost; it is the opportunity of a lifetime."
"Oh, we're going to London, are we?" asked the boy, his face
brightening.
"Yes, my son," cried Mr. Carlaw, clapping him affectionately on the
shoulder, "to London! London the glorious, the wonderful! London, where
you shall take your place among the best of them, and be no more hidden
from sight here. Your poor father would have taken his place among
its notables years ago, but that the purse-strings had to be kept too
tightly. Come, my son, it wrings a father's heart to have to part with
you, but Fate has been good to you, my son, Fate has been very good to
you."
He had got his arm round the boy's shoulders, and was actually dragging
him away, without remembering the proprieties, when Brian turned and
looked back over his shoulder, compelling his father to halt for a
moment. The smile that Comethup thought always was like light played
about his face for a moment as they sat there watching him.
"Good-bye!" he called. "I don't want to go a bit, but if dad says
I must, there's no help for it. Good-bye; don't forget me. I won't
forget you, any of you, and I'll come back soon to see you. Good-bye,
Comethup."
The last they saw of him was his slight, boyish figure, still encircled
by his father's arm, going across the uneven ground toward the town.
Mr. Robert Carlaw was waving his disengaged hand enthusiastically in
that direction, as though he pointed to fortune and all desirable
things.
CHAPTER VIII.
COMETHUP SUFFERS A LOSS.
Comethup was glad to think, as he sat at the captain's feet, looking
after Brian and his father, that Brian had appeared to remember him
last and most of all; he was glad to recall it afterward when Brian was
gone. The suddenness of the boy's departure made the whole circumstance
more surprising and dramatic than it otherwise would have been; this
sudden whipping of him off into fortune and grandeur, at a few moments'
notice, quite took away Comethup's breath. Indeed, the emotional
meeting between father and son, acted out to the accompaniment of
sounding phrases on the part of Mr. Robert Carlaw before their very
eyes, had held them all breathless. It was only when the two figures
disappeared over a ridge that the three watching ones seemed to gasp in
concert, and to blink their eyelids, as though awaking from a dream.
"Dear me!" said the captain, pushing his hat back from his forehead and
looking down at Comethup, "it's very sudden, isn't it?" In his simple
heart, although he scarcely liked to acknowledge it to himself, he felt
a certain great relief come upon him with the departure of father and
son. It can not be actually said that he disliked Brian; but he was
puzzled by him--perhaps even a little afraid of him. With their going,
the peace of the day seemed to be restored, and the captain could find
it in his heart to hope that fortune might indeed be awaiting Brian in
London, and that the boy might remain there to enjoy it.
"I'm sorry he's gone," said Comethup, smothering a sigh.
"I expect you'll miss him?" said the captain. Comethup detected, with
quick sympathy, young though he was, a little note of jealousy in the
captain's tones, and did not reply.
"He didn't want to go," said 'Linda, slowly, with her eyes still turned
toward where the two figures had disappeared.
"No, but I'll warrant he'll want to stay," said the captain sagely,
with a laugh.
They fell to talking of him, and of the wonder of his sudden fortune;
and from that the captain drifted into telling them of London, and of
the width and length of its streets, and the glory of its buildings,
and the wonder and mystery that the monster held, a riddle never to
be read. He went on talking of the place, as he had known it years
before, almost forgetful of his audience, while the children listened
breathlessly. Presently, remembering where he was, and that time was
flying, he got up abruptly, and took a hand of each and marched them
off to his cottage to dinner.
Comethup felt his cousin's absence more than might have been supposed.
Now that there was no longer any necessity for fitting in his meetings
with the boy and with the captain so as to preserve with nicety the
balance between them, he blamed himself, in his sensitive little soul,
for possible past neglect, remembered that Brian had called to him last
of all before he disappeared, and wished many times that he could have
made some atonement. The charm of Brian's light-hearted, mad way of
taking life, his resource and daring, were full upon the gentler boy;
his disappearance to claim that mysterious fortune which awaited him
seemed but a fitting part of all he had done before. Comethup thought
of him at night when he lay awake; pictured him in those wondrous
streets and palaces and buildings, the glory of which the captain had
but faintly suggested; saw him petted and admired; looked forward to a
time when he would come back to the sleepy old town, richly dressed,
perhaps even with a carriage and prancing horses, to pay a flying visit
to his old friends.
Nearly a week went by, during which he paid his daily visit to the
captain, and saw 'Linda once or twice, and went through the old quiet
routine. He had almost settled in his own mind that Brian had gone out
of his life, and was beginning, with the carelessness of childhood, to
dismiss the matter from his mind, or at all events to cease to think
strongly about it, when one evening, as he sat at the window of his
father's house, conning over a lesson which the captain had set him, he
heard a shout, and, looking up, saw with astonishment the laughing face
of Brian on the other side of the glass, nodding at him. Comethup had
time to notice, even as he hurriedly pushed open the window, that there
was no new grandeur about Brian: that he wore the clothes he had been
accustomed to wear, and looked in every respect precisely as though he
had never set out with his father to discover his eccentric aunt and
her great wealth.
"Why, you've come back!" gasped Comethup.
Brian leaned his elbows easily on the window sill, and nodded and
laughed. "Yes," he said, "I've come back. But we had a lot of fun and
saw a lot of things. My word, you should see London!"
But Comethup was absolutely palpitating with questions. "But have you
come down to see us? And how long do you stay? And when are you going
back?"
Brian laughed, and shook his head. "I'm not going back," he said. "I
don't quite understand it; all I know is that my aunt didn't like me,
and she and dad almost had a fight about it, and called each other
names. You never saw such a rumpus. And now we've come back, and it's
all over." He laughed quite light-heartedly and good-naturedly, with no
appreciation of the disaster.
"And you won't have the fortune?" said Comethup, looking at him with
wide, distressful eyes.
"No, and I don't want it. I couldn't possibly have lived with her; you
never saw such a woman. Why, she's quite blind, and goes feeling her
way about with a stick. And if anything upsets her she swears, just as
dad does; I really don't know which of them got the best of it. But
I'm glad it's all over, although dad went on like a madman about it at
first. But he'll get over that in time."
"And you won't go to London again?" said Comethup.
"No. But we had fun while it lasted. I believe dad went back to her
house every day from the hotel to try and see her, and kept on ringing
the bell until he found it was no use, and then we came back here. Of
course I don't care a bit; I don't want her beastly money; but I'd
liked to have stopped in London a little longer; it was jolly--would
have been jollier if dad hadn't been in such a fury all the time.
Good-night; we've only just got back, you know, and so I ran round to
see you. Good-night!" He was off out of the garden and down the street
almost before Comethup could gasp out a reply.
The true story of that visit to London, and its failure as a commercial
speculation, only came out long afterward. Indeed, nothing in regard to
it would have been known had not Mr. Robert Carlaw remembered that, in
the first flush of his joy, he had unconsciously taken the captain into
his confidence; to return, apparently beaten and without his purpose
accomplished, would, he felt, discredit him in that gentleman's eyes;
and he therefore hastened to give him some explanation, from his own
point of view, at least. He paid a visit to the captain on the very
evening of his arrival from London.
The captain was, perhaps, as greatly surprised by the visit as Comethup
had been by the apparition of Brian. Mr. Robert Carlaw had lifted
the latch of the cottage door without ceremony, and stood in the dim
light of the evening, a heavy figure, gazing half defiantly at the
little captain, who had risen in haste from his chair. Mr. Carlaw, in
characteristic fashion, seized the situation at once, and plunged into
his explanation before the captain had had time to utter a word.
"My dear sir," he exclaimed, advancing into the room and stretching
out a hand with much cordiality, "you're surprised to see me? Confess
it; I am surprised to see myself, as our French neighbours would say.
I believe I told you when we went to London something of the object of
our visit, but"--he shrugged his shoulders and took off his hat with
a flourish and banged it down on the little table--"the situation was
absolutely impossible, not to be tolerated for an instant by a man of
spirit."
The captain did not commit himself to any expression of opinion. He
crossed the room, closed the door, and came slowly back again, waiting
for his visitor to continue.
"Imagine, my dear sir, what it would mean to be at the mere beck
and call of a petticoat--and such a petticoat! All women are
unreasonable--dear creatures, I admit, and they've played the devil
with Bob Carlaw--but there is reason in all things. To be confronted
with a shrieking harridan who doesn't know her own mind for five
minutes together, who insults her own flesh and blood." (Mr. Carlaw
struck himself frantically on the breast and wagged his head) "and
loads my cherished son with reproaches--no, sir, it was not to be
borne. Charlotte is a dear sister and a worthy woman, and I esteem her;
but--there are limits. I trust, whatever my faults may be, that I shall
never be accused of a lack of what I may term the gentler virtues.
Vices I have, but they are, thank God, the vices of a gentleman. In
short, sir, the situation was impossible. I am glad to think that I
controlled myself and--as a soldier might express it--retreated with
dignity. Frankly, I do not mind confessing that the loss, from a
monetary point of view, is great. My son will not set forth upon that
career for which I had destined him with such bright prospects as he
might have done. But, sir, you will agree with me that there are
limits--limits which may not be passed."
Mr. Robert Carlaw leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling; he
breathed heavily, and tapped the fingers of one hand upon the table.
The captain began to think that he had misjudged Mr. Carlaw, and that
he might be, after all, rather a fine fellow.
"I am sorry," he said, slowly, "for the boy's sake."
"Yes; for myself I do not care; the world has handled me roughly, but
I have contrived, thank Heaven, to turn a smiling face to it, as a
gentleman should. I have hopes for my son; he is not--not of common
clay, and I think you will admit that his appearance is such that he
should be able to cut a figure in the world. My dear sir"--he leaned
forward and spoke confidentially--"I will not deceive you. There may
have been--nay, there was--a selfish thought in my breast in the
matter. I had a vision of my son taking his place, as he should take
it, with the aid of that wealth without which we can do nothing; and I
had a vision, too, of his old father, who would do him no discredit,
mind you, leaning upon the boy, perhaps even guiding him a little, amid
the many temptations which would beset him. I repeat, I may have had
such a thought, but it was not wholly selfish; it was for the boy's
sake, entirely for the boy's sake."
The captain began sadly to think that he had been a little hasty
in forming that better judgment of Mr. Carlaw; but he spoke
diplomatically. "No doubt," he said, "you would have been of great
assistance to him."
"My knowledge of the world and of its pitfalls would, of course, have
enabled me to support rather than to lean upon him," replied the
other. "But, there, it's useless talking of the matter; the thing is
done. You may not be aware of it, my dear sir," he added, moodily,
"but disastrous luck has followed me--dogged me--all my days. Think of
this: here is my son, who, it has been said, favours his father, and
is--again I am quoting others--decidedly a handsome boy. Yet what does
it avail him? Nothing; for the very woman whom it is necessary to
impress is stone blind."
"Blind?" ejaculated the captain.
"Exactly. Did you ever hear of such a piece of misfortune? I do not
refer to her, but to the boy's prospects. Had she been able but to look
at him--only once--the thing would have been different. But it happens
that she was born blind; she is the sturdiest and the strongest of the
family; but her very affliction caused my father to leave practically
the whole of his fortune to her. I was left to struggle along on a mere
pittance. My younger sister, since dead, got nothing. Yet that very
circumstance, which has given her every luxury which money can command,
is the undoing of my boy's fortunes. Think of it!"
"Then did she--did she object to the boy?" asked the captain.
"Would have nothing to do with him; didn't like his voice; didn't like
his manner of speech to her; didn't like anything. Then, again, she got
on troublesome family matters--matters on which we were never able to
agree; she rubbed me very much the wrong way; in short, the whole thing
was impossible. I shook the dust of her house from my feet and came
away. Mine is a nature, sir, that will not brook interference; that
bows to no man, certainly to no woman."
He got up, picked up his hat, and began to move toward the door. He
had something further, however, to say; the nervousness of his manner
proclaimed it. The captain rose politely to open the door for his
guest, and Mr. Carlaw swung round in the doorway, as he put on his hat,
and spoke in a less self-confident manner.
"I--I am bound to confess that--that the matter--has troubled me. I
had--well, perhaps I hoped great things for the boy, that Fortune might
smile on him more kindly than it has done on his wretched father."
He laughed, and shrugged his shoulders. "However, that's done with;
I desire to hear no more about it. After all, I suppose we all take
our throw with the dice at Fortune's table some time or other; if we
lose--well, we take our bad luck like gentlemen still."
"Certainly, certainly," murmured the captain.
"I--I believe that I've mentioned--something about the matter to you
before our departure for London. Of course, I regard you as--well, may
I say?--a friend; and it is hardly necessary for me to add that I have
no desire that this matter----"
He was stumbling so awkwardly among his words that the captain came a
little stiffly to his relief. "The matter is not one which concerns
me," he said, "and as I have been honoured with your confidence, I
shall, of course, regard it as a confidence."
Mr. Robert Carlaw's face cleared suddenly, and he darted out a hand and
caught that of the captain. "My dear sir, I knew it was unnecessary for
me to make such a request. You are very good. Good-night, good-night!"
He went swinging away through the garden and down the street, humming a
tune as he walked. The captain stood looking after him.
Within a few days matters had settled down to their usual routine. It
seemed impossible that Brian could ever have been away, or that it
could ever have been suggested that his absence was to be permanent.
Comethup was quite glad to have his small circle of friends complete
again, and, as Brian himself did not appear to regret the loss of that
visionary fortune, Comethup began to think that it could not matter so
very greatly after all. In those early days, on which the child looked
back so often afterward, there was nothing to mar his peace of mind,
now that Brian had been admitted, in a sense, into complete intimacy
with them all by his discovery of 'Linda, except one circumstance--a
circumstance small enough in itself, but one which troubled him
nevertheless.
Brian, eager at all times to be in the very thick of everything,
however slight, that was in progress around him, had paid a visit to
the shoemaker's shop, going there with Comethup one morning in search
of 'Linda. Before they entered, he had glanced up at the overhanging
shop front, and had read there the painted name of the proprietor,
"M. Theed." He appeared to carry the name in his remembrance after
he entered the place, and to be fitting it together in some way and
puzzling over it. Even as he saw 'Linda seated on the bench, and nodded
laughingly to her, he turned in his quick fashion to the old man, who
had ceased hammering and was looking curiously at him, and asked,
"What's your other name?"
The shoemaker looked at him for a moment in silence, and then replied
slowly, "Medmer."
"That's a queer name," said the boy--"Medmer Theed; and what a queer
place you've got here!" He glanced round, and then appeared to dismiss
the matter altogether from his mind. "We've come to find 'Linda," he
added.
The old man laid down his hammer and put an arm about the child, as
though to draw her to him. Comethup was a little surprised and a little
frightened, on glancing at him, to see the expression of his eyes.
"Let the little maid stay here," he said, almost in a growl; "she has
naught to do with you."
Brian stared at him and laughed, and looked with raised eyebrows toward
Comethup. Comethup came quickly to the rescue.
"Why, Brian is our great friend--my cousin, you know. He's known 'Linda
a long time."
The shoemaker did not reply for some minutes; he sat, with his arm
drawn round the child and his head bent, muttering to himself. Then
presently, with a sigh, he withdrew his arm and took up his work, and
began hammering again steadily, as though no one were near him. After
waiting for a few moments, Comethup drew nearer to the bench; and
'Linda scrambled down and put her hand in his, and prepared to go with
them. Comethup politely wished the shoemaker "Good-day"; but he kept on
steadily at his work, and did not appear to hear. The three children
went out together, and down the little narrow street. Comethup,
glancing back over his shoulder for a moment, saw that the shoemaker
had come to the door of his shop, and was standing there, with one
hand shading his eyes, looking after them.
Nor did his distrust of Brian appear to leave him. Absurd as it
may seem, when the object of that dislike was so young a boy, the
old man's feelings were not to be mistaken. He maintained a rigid
silence whenever Brian came near him, even watched him suspiciously;
and although the boy, conscious of it, tried every art and charm he
possessed to ingratiate himself with the shoemaker, he signally failed.
His boisterousness and high spirits were useless here. Medmer Theed,
like most distorted characters, was evidently as strong in his dislikes
as in his likes, however unreasonable the former might be.
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 not see 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 his way 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."
CHAPTER IX.
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 instinct would 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 an inn.
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 a noise 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, keep off!" 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 laughed nervously, 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--some of 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; it _was_ your 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 had not 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 people by 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 gave _your_ boy 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 the _nous_ to 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 got him 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.
CHAPTER X.
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 they don'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--if it 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'm going 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 a _man_; 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 done with. 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? Of course 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 and subtle, 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 be _quite_ alone, 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 could scarcely 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. _He_ came 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 late afternoon, 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 little town 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 times the
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 box of 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.
CHAPTER XI.
AND BECOMES A PERSONAGE.
The strange pair travelled in state. Comethup had been given such a sum
of money by his aunt that the mere handling of the yellow and white
coins in his pocket almost sufficed to take his breath away. The old
lady was so jealous that the boy's sovereignty should begin at once
that she left the paying of porters and the purchase of first-class
railway tickets entirely to him, merely telling him the amounts he was
to pay, and being careful, in every instance, that the necessary homage
in return for the coin was exacted from the man to whom it was given.
"Did he touch his cap to you? Was the rascal respectful?" These
were her constant inquiries; and, to do her justice, it may be said
that she held her head higher, as she walked with her hand on the
boy's shoulder, than she had been in the habit of doing. Indeed, her
blindness seemed to affect her more than it had ever done before; she
seemed anxious to know what was going on about her, and what notice
they attracted. "Do people stare at us? Do they whisper? Why don't you
tell me everything, just as you would tell it to yourself? You must
remember I'm walking in the dark; you are my eyes for the future."
Again, when London was reached and he had helped her out of the railway
carriage, she chuckled softly to herself as she leaned upon him, and
nodded her head approvingly. "You walk well, boy; you carry yourself
like a gentleman. A man always can, or a boy either, when he has money
jingling in his pockets. And I swear that yours shall never be empty."
A servant in livery approached them and touched his hat. He glanced
with some surprise at the boy, and spoke to his mistress and offered
his arm to her. But Miss Carlaw waved him scornfully aside. "You
needn't trouble, William; I can dispense with your help in the future.
Where's the carriage?"
The servant led the way across the station to where a fine carriage
with two horses was drawn up; he opened the door, and Miss Carlaw got
in, followed by Comethup, who began to realize that he had indeed
entered upon a life of luxury. The noise and roar of the streets
through which they drove surprised and startled him, after the
sleepy quiet of the old town he had left. His aunt was eager with
anticipations of all they were to do, and of all the changes she
contemplated making in her own mode of life, for the boy's comfort.
"Oh, we'll do big things with you, Comethup; you shall be the
best-known boy in London. By the Lord! I've never had a chance like
this before. I'll dress you like a prince, and let them see that I've
got some one young and handsome--for you _are_ handsome, you dog,
there's not a doubt of that--some one young and handsome about me, who
loves me. Oh, I'll be good to you, Comethup, if you keep to your part
of the bargain, for I'm precious hungry for somebody's love, I can
assure you. I've waited a devilish long time for it."
The carriage drew up at the door of a large house in a square, with
a huge garden, protected by an iron railing, in the center of the
square. As they alighted, Comethup felt that it must be a very grand
neighbourhood indeed, for other carriages were stopping at other doors,
and elegant ladies were getting in and out of them. Almost before his
aunt had alighted from her carriage the wide door at the top of the
steps was opened, and Comethup had a glimpse of a hall beautifully
furnished and hung with old-fashioned armour, such as he had heard the
captain describe in giving accounts of historic battles--a hall large
enough, the boy thought, to be a room itself, and not a mere passageway
to other rooms, as it proved to be when they had passed through it.
There seemed to be servants everywhere, both male and female, opening
doors, and coming in noiselessly with tea, and bringing letters and
other things which had arrived for Miss Carlaw during her absence.
It appeared to have been the work of a confidential servant--an
elderly, staid woman, who was apparently the housekeeper--to open and
read these letters aloud to her mistress; but when she was about to
do this now, Miss Carlaw stopped her and turned to Comethup. "Can you
read?" she asked, sharply.
"A little," replied Comethup. "The captain taught me."
"Give me one of those letters," said Miss Carlaw, holding out her hand
to the housekeeper. A letter was handed to her, over the back of which
she swiftly passed her hand; she appeared to know in an instant from
whom it came, by the crest on the back, and even muttered the name.
This she handed to Comethup. "Open it," she said, "and read it."
Comethup opened it tremblingly, and floundered about for a moment among
the strange, cramped handwriting; then blushingly confessed that he had
not been used to reading writing.
"No, of course not; very foolish of me to think you would be able to,"
replied his aunt, taking the letter from him. "For the present we shall
have to go on in the old way, until you've learned a little more,
Comethup; and then we'll dispense with everybody else for our private
matters."
The letters were opened by the housekeeper, and read aloud, Miss
Charlotte Carlaw making audible comments upon them as the reading
proceeded. Then a minute account was given of all that had occurred
in her absence--the names of callers, and what they had said and
what messages they had left. When all was finished, and Miss Carlaw
had drunk her tea and had seen that Comethup was also provided with
refreshment, she gave orders that all the servants in the place were to
be brought to her.
"Every Jack and Jill of 'em," she exclaimed, emphatically; "I've
something to say to them."
When they were all wonderingly and somewhat sheepishly assembled, she
delivered herself, proudly and firmly, of what she had made up her mind
to say.
"Now, just attend to me, all of you, for I'm in deadly earnest, and
I mean to see that my orders are carried, out. You see this young
gentleman"--she indicated Comethup, who was seated beside her--"this
is Master Willis, my nephew. For the future he takes a place in this
house, and wherever I may be, second only to mine. If he says a thing
is to be done, understand that it is to be done; if he gives an order
to any one of you, it must be obeyed, as swiftly as though I had given
it myself. You needn't be alarmed, any of you; he's not the sort of
fellow to give any of you any trouble. But, trouble or no trouble, you
will understand he's the young master here, and the Lord help the
man or the woman that forgets it! You know me, or you should by this
time, and you know that, although I can't actually see you, I know
what you're doing, every one of you, by night or by day. I know your
tricks, and your humours, and your little tempers, and all the rest of
it; but we'll have no tricks or humours or tempers with Master Willis.
As I say, you won't find him exacting; but what he wants he's to have.
That's all; I've nothing more to say."
They appeared to understand very perfectly. One of them--Comethup
thought it was the butler--even stepped forward and murmured a little
incoherent speech, intended to convey the loyalty of himself and his
fellow-servants to the young master. Miss Charlotte Carlaw nodded
approval, even punctuated the broken speech with nods, and dismissed
them all with a wave of her hand.
"Now you understand, Comethup," she said, turning to the boy when they
had gone, and putting her hand on his shoulder, "what your power here
is. You'll find, although I don't think you need the advice, that all
the money in the world won't enable you to hold that power if you don't
set about your life in the right way. If you're peevish, or tyrannical,
or unjust--well, you must expect to get sour looks and unwilling
service; if you are a gentleman, and show that you only demand what is
your right, and demand it courteously--for servants are human beings,
and have their feelings--you'll be served gladly and faithfully; at
least that's what _I_'ve found. Now come with me, and I'll show you
over the house, and I'll show you your rooms."
She appeared to know every inch of the great house, from the lowest
floor to the garret, telling him instantly what each room was, even
to the servants' rooms. "I keep a butler and a housekeeper," she
explained, "but I like to know everything myself, and what everybody is
doing. They used to think once they could cheat me because I couldn't
see 'em; but they found out their mistake long since."
It was indeed a beautiful house, scrupulously kept, and very richly
furnished. Rare pictures hung on the walls, and wonderful china stood
on shelves in cabinets; and the tables and chairs and other articles of
furniture were many of them richly inlaid with rare and precious woods.
"I can't see any of these things, you know, Comethup; I can only tell
the shape of them, and I'm a pretty good judge in that way. But all
these things are here because it pleases me to think that I can afford
to buy them, and to delight other people's eyes with them, perhaps even
to make some of 'em a little envious. I was born to have eyes, if ever
any creature was, for I love rich and beautiful things, even pictures.
I've got a man who happens to be honest, and knows a good picture when
he sees one. When you've grown older, and studied hard, you'll know the
value of all these things, Comethup, and you'll be able to describe, in
your own way, all the pictures to me; and that will please us both. Now
come and look at your own rooms."
The two rooms which had been allotted to him seemed, to his delighted
eyes, the most beautiful in the house. They were quite high up, and
quite simply furnished; but the windows of both looked out over the
square, where all the life and bustle that were so fascinating went on;
and each seemed to contain exactly everything that a boy could possibly
need. In the sitting room were pictures of battle scenes, and deeds of
daring generally, choice engravings and etchings for the most part; and
on the tables and on shelves were numbers of books, beautifully bound,
whose very titles, as he glanced at them, gave promise of the delights
to be found within.
Miss Charlotte Carlaw stood perfectly still, with her hand upon his
shoulder, until she heard his astonished gasps; then she chuckled with
satisfaction and marched him through into the bedroom. Here a young man
in a sober brown suit was unpacking his box and carefully arranging its
contents in the wardrobe and in a huge press that stood at one side of
the room. He was a round-faced, good-humoured-looking young man, and
Comethup liked his appearance.
"Ah, is that you, Gwilt?" cried Miss Carlaw. "This is your young
master, Master Willis.--Comethup, Gwilt will attend to you, and do
everything you want--brush your clothes and keep them in order, and
assist you to dress when necessary. He is your special servant, and
will have no other duties. Now tell me; do you like these rooms?"
"I think they're beautiful," said Comethup.
"Well, just look round them, and tell me if you think there's anything
else you would like. What do you think of the pictures? I got a man
specially to choose them, told him they must be bright, and just the
sort of things a boy would like; no sickly love-making, or cottage
interiors, or nonsense of that kind, but just a few with some blood
in 'em--fighting, and chopping up, and highwaymen, and nice little
delicacies of that kind. Like 'em, eh?"
"I don't think I shall ever get tired of looking at them," said
Comethup. "And there are a heap of books here, too, aunt--quite the
most beautiful books I've ever seen," he added.
"Of course, I'd forgotten the books. I wrote to a bookseller to send me
all he could think of that would be likely to appeal to you--same style
as the pictures, you know. Now there isn't much time before dinner, so
just wash your hands, and come down to the drawing room when you hear
the first bell. I'll go and change my frock."
She was going out of the room, with her stick moving before her, when
Comethup sprang to her side. "Won't you let me--let me take you----" he
began.
She understood in a moment, and her face lighted up as she looked down
at him. She did not merely put her hand on his shoulder, as she had
done before; she drew it round his neck. "That's my dear boy!" she
said, almost in a whisper.
He conducted her safely to the door of her room, and then dashed
upstairs again to his own. It was quite a new sensation to have some
one to attend on him, to anticipate his smallest wants, and be ready
silently and respectfully with each thing he required. The young man
was deft and quick, and seemed really proud of his young charge; he
even delicately turned him round for inspection at the last moment, and
smiled and nodded approval.
"There's a tailor, and a bootmaker, and other people a-coming
to-morrow, sir; Miss Carlaw's orders, you know. Miss Carlaw says as
she'll be present for the measurin', sir, so as to tell the men what
she wants you to have, sir. They'll be here at eleven in the morning,
sir."
"Oh, thank you," said Comethup, a little staggered by the intelligence.
He found his aunt in the drawing room, pacing up and down in her old
fashion, with her black stick lightly touching the carpet before her.
Her hand upon his shoulder, as they went into the dining room, reminded
her of the subject of his clothes; she moved her fingers over the cloth
impatiently.
"Yes, we'll change all this, Comethup," she said. "I told you we'd
dress you like a prince; we'll have a velvet dinner suit for you. Lord!
I'll make 'em stare at you; I'll give 'em something to talk about. They
talk of their brats to me, and the beauty of them, and the cleverness,
and the devil knows what; we'll outshine 'em all, Comethup."
They dined in solemn state that evening, Comethup sitting near his aunt
at one end of the long table, with the grave butler--who looked so very
great and so awe-inspiring that Comethup had felt a sudden inclination,
on entering the room, to bow to him--and some three or four gigantic
footmen in attendance. There were many courses, and Comethup was
considerably at a loss as to how to manage, until he began to watch his
aunt and to do exactly as she did, after which he got on pretty well.
Soon after dinner she dismissed him, telling him that she knew he must
be tired, and that she should go soon to bed herself. He kissed her,
and, out of the fulness of his heart, murmured a few grateful words
to her; she laughed and thrust him gently away, telling him, as he
went out, to ring for his man if he wanted him. Comethup was too full
of the joy of those wondrous rooms of his to want a stranger near him
then; he rambled happily about the rooms for some time, looking at the
pictures, and opening the books, and examining everything that was to
be examined. Finally he undressed and got into bed and fell asleep, and
dreamed that Gwilt had turned suddenly into an ogre and swallowed all
his clothes, so that he could not get up, although his aunt was calling
him from the bottom of the stairs, and a perfect army of servants were
lined up and down the staircase, bowing and waiting for him to pass.
He was awakened in the morning by Gwilt, who looked anything but an
ogre, with his fresh, cheerful, smiling face, with the information
that his bath was ready. He was getting a little used by now to this
wondrous change in his fortunes, and to the fact that grown men
and women seemed to take a delight in ministering to the needs of
such a small and insignificant boy as himself. He got through the
day very well, passing through the ordeal of being measured for an
enormous quantity of clothing, which he felt he should never under any
circumstances wear out, and noting with surprise how completely his
aunt seemed to understand exactly what she wanted him to wear, and how
unerringly she knew the texture of cloth and velvet and laces by the
mere touch of those quick fingers of hers.
On this second day there were again no visitors, a fact which Miss
Carlaw explained to Comethup after the servants had been dismissed
and while she was drinking her wine after dinner. "You see, Comethup,
I don't believe in half-measures. I've made up my mind to spring you
on them all at once, as it were, to show you forth in all your glory.
I'm quite sure you're a handsome boy, even as you are in your country
clothes; but I'm going to make you look handsomer yet. By the Lord,
I'll dazzle 'em!"
The clothes began to arrive in an incredibly short space of time, and
in about a week from Comethup's first appearance in London his aunt
informed him one morning that a big dinner party was to be given that
night at which he was to be present. She was evidently very anxious
about the matter--so much so that she communicated some of her anxiety
to him, and it was an exciting day for both of them.
"The people who are coming are chatterers, fools, every one of 'em; but
they're just the people we want to give you a send-off and to blazon
the whole thing right and left. You shall be dressed like a prince
to-night, indeed; I've given Gwilt his orders. And understand that
when you've taken me to my set, _you_ are to take the one at the other
end of the table; don't forget that. You've nothing to be frightened
at, child; they'll rally you, and tease you, some of 'em, but you've
only got to be yourself, and to be quite simple and natural, and I'm
sure I sha'n't blush for you. There are two golden rules for any one
of the male sex entering society: one is, that every man he meets is
a fine fellow, worthy of his admiration; and the other, that every
woman, even if she's ninety, and ugly as the devil, is a goddess to be
bowed before. Let him remember that always, and, by the Lord! he'll be
popular."
Comethup was dressed early that night, by his aunt's instructions, in
a soft, loose suit of brown velvet, with a wide lace collar on his
shoulders--lace of a value which had made Comethup blink at the mere
naming of the price in his hearing. Deep lace ruffles fell over his
small hands, and he looked altogether a captivating little figure as he
joined his aunt in the drawing room, where she was awaiting the arrival
of her guests. She drew him toward her and ran her hands quickly all
over him, to assure herself that everything was right.
"I wish I had eyes to-night, child," she said, with a little sigh. "But
I shall know what you look like by the impression you create."
Comethup only dimly remembered that evening afterward. He knew that
a great number of people came, all very richly dressed, and most of
the ladies blazing with diamonds; that a number of the ladies went
into raptures over him, and that one of the gentlemen, who chuckled
tremendously at everything any one said, dubbed him "Prince Charming";
that, seated at his end of the table, with a gigantic footman standing
behind him, he sent every one within hearing into paroxysms of laughter
by returning what he thought were perfectly polite and natural
answers to questions which were asked him; that Miss Carlaw leaned
her head sideways to catch what was said, and nodded and smiled, and
was altogether immensely delighted with the success her nephew was
achieving.
Indeed, the astute old lady made quite a mystery of him; hinted at a
romantic parentage, and refused to say where she had discovered him, or
anything about him. She called him to her, as the ladies were leaving
the room, and put her arm about his neck and bent down and whispered:
"You're a wonder, Comethup; I'm very well pleased with you, Prince
Charming."
His last sleepy recollection of that night was of standing with his
aunt in the hall, where she was bidding her guests good-night, with the
summer-night wind blowing in upon them through the open door, and the
lights of the carriages outside, while every man gravely shook hands
with him, and every woman insisted on kissing him. He wondered then
what they would have thought if he had suddenly saluted in the fashion
the captain had taught him. And with that thought he wondered what the
captain was doing then, and whether he had missed his small boy friend.
CHAPTER XII.
THE CAPTAIN SPEAKS HIS MIND.
If Miss Charlotte Carlaw, through all her strange life, had lived for
such pleasures as she might manage to squeeze out of each day, with
the aid of her wealth, it may be said that with Comethup's appearance
she began to live for the gratification of her vanity in regard to the
boy. She was fiercely jealous of him--jealous almost of any thought he
gave to any one but herself; and yet she was as jealous, on the other
hand, for his success in attracting notice, and in winning that very
admiration the expression of which aroused her jealousy. She was torn
always between two feelings in regard to him: she must be first and
everything in his life; and yet others must worship him, and hold him,
if possible, to be first in theirs.
It was a strange, unnatural life for a child. He saw no one of his own
age; he was waited on, at every hour of the day, by bowing, obsequious
men and women, to whom often he would have been glad, but for the fear
of his aunt, to be on a more friendly footing, and to have chatted
naturally with; he met strange people, day after day, who talked of
things he could not understand; and, despite all that was done for him,
it must be confessed that he was often desperately lonely.
Tutors had been provided for him, not only for elementary subjects, but
for music and painting and other accomplishments. He had a passionate
desire to learn, to become a great and clever man, if it were possible,
although, of course, with the inconstancy of childhood, he changed his
ideas of a profession at least once in every twenty-four hours. But of
all the strange, unnatural life he led, perhaps the strangest and most
unnatural times of all were some of the nights he spent with his aunt's
guests.
For it must be said at once that Miss Charlotte Carlaw had not been
dubbed eccentric for nothing. The one passion of her life had been to
be amused. A creature of moods, subject to horrible fits of depression
and melancholy, she sought eagerly, and had sought all her days,
for something to keep her mind employed and to drive away dulness.
Her first dinner party had been highly respectable, because it was
necessary that Comethup should be seen and valued by the best people;
but some of the subsequent ones were of a different order altogether.
Comethup thought that that second order of gathering was a much more
jolly function than the first--the men were so very amusing and laughed
so heartily, and were such jovial good fellows, and the women were
so very, very pretty, and had such bright eyes. Then, too, at those
gatherings everybody seemed to talk at once and to shout out the most
extraordinary things, with roars of laughter to accompany each speech
or story. The stories Comethup did not understand in the least, which
perhaps was well for him. Again, they had a delightful fashion, both
men and women, of calling each other by their Christian names, which
Comethup thought was very nice and familiar, and saved a lot of trouble.
But it was after dinner that the real excitement of the evening
began, for the ladies--there were always a less number of ladies than
gentlemen--did not go into the drawing room, as on the more formal
occasions; they stopped and chatted, while the gentlemen smoked.
Indeed, some of the ladies puffed a cigarette in the most natural
manner, quite as though they liked it, and then, later on, they would
all troop noisily into the drawing room, Comethup and his aunt leading
the way; and there mysterious games were played.
To his utter astonishment, he discovered that his aunt was a most
wonderful card-player; she had the cards pricked through, in some
curious fashion, so that she knew unerringly what each was by the
lightest touch; and she was said, by all who knew her, to be a most
formidable antagonist. Certainly she took the keenest delight in every
game, and staked largely. Indeed, they all did that, and Comethup soon
ceased to think with any surprise of the sums which changed hands in
one evening.
Then, too, there were other mysterious games played--some on a green
table with squares marked upon it--games at which every one grew very
eager indeed, and some of them very silent. There were beautiful
little square cubes, with dots marked upon them, which were shaken
up in a silver-mounted box and turned out on a table amid shouts and
exclamations and mutterings; and all the time, in every game, the
money clinked and rattled and changed about from one to the other.
One night Miss Carlaw suddenly called out his name, and he went to her.
"Here, we can't have Prince Charming standing about looking at others
playing. He's the master here, and, by the Lord! he shall play himself.
Turn out your pockets; let's see what money you've got. I have had the
devil's own luck to-night, and perhaps you'll be able to fleece some of
these good folk too. Turn out your pockets, you rascal!"
The boy did as he was told, and she counted it rapidly over, touching
each piece with her fingers. Then she took some coins from a pile of
gold and silver before her and added it to Comethup's stock, and thrust
the whole lot in his hand.
"There, take that and sit down here. If you're sharp you'll soon get
into the way of it; and if any of these people take advantage of your
youth and innocence, I'll be the death of them. Now, boys and girls, on
we go again!"
Comethup, child though he was, soon got into the excitement of the
thing. With promptings from the others, he learned what to do and what
to say, and, fortune favouring him, he went to his room that night with
his stock of money still further increased. Altogether, he thought it
was rather a glorious business, and couldn't quite understand why some
of the men wore sour looks when they went away.
It became quite a regular thing for the child to take his place among
those excited, eager gamblers. Time after time he went to bed in the
small hours of the morning, sometimes so worn out that he was glad to
let the sympathetic Gwilt undress him and lift him into bed. Sometimes
he made horrible blunders with the cards and lost heavily; sometimes he
won. But, under any circumstances, it did not affect him, for his aunt
was careful to see that he always had plenty of money.
They drove out nearly every day, and seemed to spend a great part of
their time in shops. Miss Charlotte Carlaw had a perfect passion
for buying. Anything that was pointed out to her, and of which she
approved, or anything that the boy noticed, was bought at once. She
encouraged Comethup to spend his money royally, and never hesitated for
an instant about anything she thought he would like, however costly it
might be. The whirl and the excitement and the intoxication of the new
life were upon him, so that he had but little time for thought; yet
sometimes he found his thoughts straying back to the simple life in the
old town, which seemed all so very far away, and to the simple people
he had known and loved there. He ventured to approach his aunt on the
subject one day when they were alone.
"Aunt, I've been thinking--about the captain," he began timidly.
"What captain?" she asked sharply.
"_The_ captain--Captain Garraway-Kyle. You remember he was very kind to
me."
"Ah! So you're getting tired of me, are you?"
"Indeed, no," said Comethup. "I'm sure you don't think that. But I've
thought of the captain very often, and I shouldn't like him to think
that I'd forgotten him. Besides, you asked him to come and see me
yourself."
"Quite right, Comethup, quite right. I'm a foolish old woman, and
you're a good fellow not to forget your old friend. Write to him
to-night, and ask him to come here and stay as long as he likes. Tell
him to let you know by what train he is coming, and on what day, and
you can drive down to the station to meet him. Will that satisfy you?"
Comethup thanked her gratefully, and wrote to the captain within the
hour, begging him to come to town at the earliest possible moment and
to stay as long as he could. He wrote the letter very carefully, and
scanned it anxiously afterward; but finally sent it, and began to count
the hours before a reply could be received. He began, too, to arrange
what should be done for the captain's entertainment when he arrived.
Two days elapsed, and then there came a letter addressed to Master
Comethup Willis in a small, stiff, rather cramped handwriting. The
letter was brought to him while he sat at breakfast with his aunt; he
tore it open eagerly, and exclaimed at once, "Oh, he's coming, he's
coming!"
"The captain?" inquired his aunt.
"Yes. He writes very nicely. He says he will be most--where is it?--oh,
he says he'll be 'most delighted to accept, and will come on Thursday';
that's to-morrow. He's very particular; he's written quite plainly the
name of the station, and the time the train arrives."
"Well, order the carriage, and go down to meet him. And don't forget
you're to give him a good time while he's in London; if you think
he'd like to go to any particular place, take him there. You ought
to know by this time that you can do as you like in those matters.
Besides, I want the captain to understand who Prince Charming is, and
what position he takes. You'd better interview Mrs. Currie, and tell
her a gentleman is coming to stay with you, and that she is to make
arrangements about his room. Give your orders, Prince Charming, give
your orders."
It happened that on the day fixed for the captain's arrival a dinner
party had been arranged at Miss Charlotte Carlaw's house--a dinner
party of the more riotous kind. The captain had decided upon so late
a train that he reached London but little before the dinner hour.
Comethup, who was to play his usual part in the festivities, had to
be dressed in all his glory before setting out for the station; there
would have been no time for dressing afterward. Thus it happened that
the simple old gentleman, stepping out of the railway carriage in the
dusk of an autumn evening, was confronted by a gaily dressed little
figure in the costume, on a miniature scale, of a gallant of the days
of Charles I, with plumed hat and lace ruffles and everything complete.
Beside this figure stood a tall footman.
The captain had some difficulty in recognising his young friend, and,
even when he did so, he did not appear to be quite at his ease. The
footman who took his small portmanteau from his hand evidently overawed
him; it is impossible to say what dream the captain had had as he
travelled to town, but it is certain that he had not expected to meet
the child in this fashion.
Comethup got into the carriage, and it was only then that they really
began to talk to each other. Comethup had slipped one hand timidly into
the captain's and the captain's fingers had closed over it; the man
looked down at the child beside him.
"Well, little friend!" he said.
"Oh, sir," said Comethup, with a deep sigh of content, "you don't know
how glad I am to see you! It seemed such a long time before your letter
came; I thought all sorts of horrible things must have happened--that
you had gone away--or--or anything. But it's all right now, and I'm so
glad you've come."
"That's good, Comethup, that's good," murmured the captain, more moved
than he cared to show. "This is quite a holiday for me, and we must
make the most of it, eh?"
"Oh, yes, we've arranged lots of things for you, so as to give you what
aunt calls a good time while you're in London. There's a dinner party
to-night--that's why I was obliged to come looking such a swell, as
aunt calls it; I didn't mean to come to meet you like this, you know,
but there wouldn't have been time to dress after I got back--and a lot
of nice people are coming; you _will_ enjoy yourself."
"I hope so, I'm sure," said the captain. "And I'm sure I don't mind
you're being a swell in the least, Comethup. I suppose," he added, a
little wistfully, "I suppose your aunt is very good to you?"
Comethup nodded and laughed. "There never was anybody half so
good--except you, sir, of course. She gives me everything I want, and
some things that I scarcely want at all. It's really quite wonderful; I
really didn't think anybody could have so much money."
"And you're quite happy?" asked the captain.
"Y--yes," replied Comethup, after turning the matter over in his mind
for a moment. "You see, I can't help thinking sometimes about you, and
'Linda, and----"
"Ah, that reminds me," said the captain. "I saw 'Linda to-day, and told
her I was coming to see you. She sends her love to you; I think she
would have liked to come with me."
The carriage drew up at the house, and the captain alighted. He held
himself very erect, shabby little figure that he was, as he went up the
steps and into the house. He was conducted at once to the room which
had been set apart for him, and presently made his appearance in the
drawing room, where quite a number of people had already assembled, and
approached Miss Carlaw. She stood, as usual, with her hand on the boy's
shoulder. She seemed to know the captain's step at once, and greeted
him cordially.
"Well, captain, so you've really come to see how Prince Charming likes
his kingdom? What do you think of him now, eh? Are you prepared, like
every other Jack and Jill, to prostrate yourself and worship? What do
you think of him?"
"I think he looks--looks very well," said the captain.
"He's reason to be," she retorted, with a little note of defiance in
her voice. "Prince Charming knows he's only got to clap his hands, and
his foolish old fairy godmother will get whatever he wants, if it's to
come from the other end of the world. Oh, we do things properly here,
I'll warrant you, sir--don't we, my prince?"
Comethup took his usual place at table, at the opposite end to his
aunt, and had the captain at his right hand. The boy, young as he was,
could not but remark to himself what an incongruous figure the captain
cut in that assembly; his quiet, delicate, old-world face and manner
contrasted so strongly with the faces about him; his dress, perfectly
neat though it was, seemed to belong to a bygone day when compared
with theirs. Once or twice, too, when things were said and stories
told which Comethup did not understand, the captain was the only one
who did not laugh; indeed, he stiffened a little in his chair, and
once laid his hand upon Comethup's, where it rested on the table, and
pressed it slightly, as though in sympathy.
Miss Charlotte Carlaw had been in a strange mood all the evening, had
told her wildest stories, had laughed more loudly than any of her
guests. After the men had lighted their cigars and cigarettes, and some
of the women had begun also to smoke, she suddenly clapped her hands
and cried out: "Where's Prince Charming?--Come here, you dog, I want
you."
The captain, watching her after the boy had run to her, saw her
with her arm about him, whispering something to him, insisting upon
something; the child was hanging back and blushing, and pleading with
her, also in a whisper. At last he laughed, and appeared to consent.
She clasped her hands again, and cried for silence.
"Silence for Prince Charming! Boys and girls, you have not yet learned
all our prince's accomplishments. He can play like a born gambler; he
can whisper a pretty speech in a lady's ear; now you shall hear him
sing. Oh, you need not be afraid; he has lessons daily from one of the
best masters.--Come, up with you, Comethup!"
One of the men caught him up and put him on the table just in front of
his aunt; she held one of his legs, so that he might not overbalance.
One of the ladies ran to the piano and played a few notes, and then
Comethup, very timidly at first, but more boldly as he went on, sang
his song.
It was a foolish thing for a child to sing under any circumstances--a
riotous chant of drinking, and women's eyes, and red lips, and what
not; but it had a rousing refrain, and after he had sung it once, they
all stood up, shouting, with their glasses in their hands, and roared
it all over again. Comethup, for his part, seemed to see none of them;
he sang with all his might and main and put his heart into the wretched
ditty, and he sang to the captain. And the captain sat still, with his
head resting on his hand, and watched him.
The uproar as he finished was deafening, and as they trooped into the
drawing room two of the men carried him shoulder-high between them, and
some one started to sing, "For he's a jolly good fellow." It was taken
up by them all except, perhaps, by the captain, who walked quietly
along in the rear.
The cards and dice were got out at once, and Miss Carlaw plunged into
the game. Comethup had slipped away, and had stolen over to where the
captain sat apart; he drew near him, and the old man put his arm about
him and held him close, without speaking. Presently, however, Miss
Carlaw remembered the boy, and stopped her game to call aloud for him.
"Where's Comethup? He's been winning people's money all the week, now
he's got to give them a chance of revenge.--A man can't slink away with
full pockets, you know, Prince Charming. Where are you? Come and take a
hand here at once."
The boy rose obediently, and the captain rose with him. Indeed, the
captain walked with him to Miss Carlaw's side, and then ventured to
interpose, in a low voice, "You surely do not let this child play,
madam, and for money?"
She turned her face up to him, with a frown upon it. "And why not,
pray? He's got money enough and to spare; let him win or lose as he
will. Don't spoil sport, captain; sit down, and take a hand yourself."
"No, no; I am but a poor gentleman, and have nothing to lose; it is as
well to be frank on such matters." He turned and walked back to his
former place, changed his mind, and came back to watch the child play.
Comethup was in luck that night; more than once Miss Carlaw patted his
shoulder approvingly when the money was pushed toward him. When at last
play was finished, and the guests had departed, the captain lingered a
little uneasily, glancing once or twice at the old woman, as though he
wished to speak. Perhaps she guessed his intention, for she kept her
hand obstinately on Comethup's shoulder and said pointedly: "Well, I
suppose we're all tired, and had better get to bed.--Why, you're quite
sleepy, Prince Charming."
The captain raised his head. "If you would spare me a matter of five
minutes, madam, I should be glad. There is something I wish to say----"
"What, at this time of night? Won't it keep till morning?"
"I'm afraid not," replied the captain, quietly.
"Just like a man--so devilish unreasonable! Very well, let's have it."
"Not before the child," said the captain, in the same tone as before.
"Oh! You seem determined to have your own way, so I suppose I must
humour you. If I fall asleep, don't accuse me of rudeness.--Prince
Charming, go to bed."
Comethup, wondering a little, kissed his aunt and gravely shook hands
with the captain. When he had gone, and the door was closed, Miss
Carlaw seated herself, rested her hands on the top of her stick and
her chin on her hands, and waited for the captain to begin. He seemed
somewhat at a loss, and paced about nervously for a few moments before
speaking.
"Miss Carlaw, what I am--about to say--may appear--I fear it must--in
the light of an impertinence. I know that I have no right to say
anything, no right to interfere; but I happen, lonely old fellow though
I am, to have a great affection for this child you have so generously
taken under your care." The captain paused for a moment and then swung
round and spoke almost fiercely, "In God's name, madam, what are you
making of him?"
"That's good," said Miss Carlaw, in a tone of approval. "I like a man
to come to the point and hit out straight. So you want to know what I'm
making of him, do you?" She started up from her chair, and advanced
toward the captain threateningly. "I'll tell you, sir. I'm making a
gentleman of him; I'm showing him what the world is like, and----"
"The worst side of the world, madam," said the captain, indignantly.
"It's good enough for me," she retorted.
"That may be; you are a woman of the world, and can choose for
yourself. This child is helpless; his fresh young mind can take in
everything he sees about him. You stand at the present moment as
everything to him--his benefactress, almost his goddess. What you do
must be right, simply because you do it. You told me just now that
you were training this boy to be a gentleman; I tell you, madam, you
are training him to be a blackguard, and probably worse, if there is
anything worse."
Miss Carlaw had stopped, and was listening intently. Her brows were
drawn down, but she nodded sternly as the captain finished speaking.
"Go on, sir," she said.
"I've known this boy, madam, since he was a baby--he's little more than
a baby now--and I've never found a sweeter, cleaner, purer soul on this
muddy old earth of ours yet. He turns naturally to sweet things, to
everything that has the sunlight and free air upon it; he's as clear as
crystal. Think of his age, madam! Is it an age when he should be mixing
with men and women--forgive the discourtesy, I beg of you--with men and
women not too choice in their conversation or their manners? Is it an
age when he should be gambling and tossing gold about at an hour when
he should be in bed? Believe me, I do not stand before you as a prig,
or as one who would have a word to say against anything in its proper
place or its proper season; you choose your own guests, and your choice
is doubtless a right one, for every man and every woman chooses in this
world according to his or her need. But with this boy--this baby--it's
different. His soul is in your hands, to do what you will with it. And
I say, frankly, madam, that you are doing with it badly."
She did not speak; she turned about, and went to her chair and sat down
in the same attitude as before, except that she rested her forehead on
her hands instead of her chin. After a pause the captain spoke again.
"I trust--I beg that you will forgive me if anything I have said
appears harsh. I am not used to women's ways, and have been but little
in their society, but I have spoken out of the depths of my heart. It
hurt me when the child left me, but I was glad, for his sake, and I
readily recognise the unstinted generosity you appear to display toward
him. But, madam, I entreat you to remember not only the child, but the
man who is growing up under your hands."
She sat for a long time in the same attitude, and when, presently, she
raised her head and spoke, he saw with contrition that her lips were
quivering; she even stretched one hand toward him for a moment, as
though to ask his pardon.
"You're a good man," she said, in a curiously altered voice. "And I
am--well, I'm a wicked old fool. I've been treating this child like
a toy, holding him before all my friends, that they might see what a
beautiful thing I had managed to secure. Friends, indeed!" she cried,
fiercely, getting up and beginning to pace about, "there isn't one of
them I care a brass farthing for; there isn't one of them I wouldn't
show the door to-morrow. Oh, you're right; you're very right, and I'm
a monster. I've been given this glorious thing from God, and I don't
even know how to take care of it. Captain, I'm sorry to think, from
what I know of the world, that there are very few men who would have
been brave enough to say what you have said to-night. But there's a
Providence in your coming--a Providence that set the boy longing to
see you. I--I am more glad than I can say that you came here. I've
been blind--blind in two senses--but I'll end it. By the Lord! I'll
make this boy what you say he should be; he sha'n't minister to my
whims any longer." She began to laugh, and shook her head at him
whimsically. "Oh, I like you; it's refreshing to meet a man like you
occasionally--you're precious rare. By George! you did more for the boy
than I did, and knew more about him--upon my word you did. Oh, I'll be
good to him, I'll be proud of him. I want--I want to think about all
this; and then I'll talk to you about what's best to be done for him.
Give me your hand. Will you promise to stay here a week at least--now,
I'll take no denial--a week at least? It'll make the boy happy, and
it'll do him good, and it'll take him away from me, which'll do him
good too."
"Then I won't stay," said the captain, with a smile.
"Very well then," she exclaimed, "we'll do what we can with him
together. Oh, you needn't be afraid; I haven't spoiled him yet. But
you've got to advise me what to do. It's evident, although it hurts me
to say it, that I'm no good at the game."
So the captain remained in town for a week, while Comethup's fate was
decided. Long discussions were held late at night, after he had gone
to bed, between Miss Carlaw and his earlier friend. During the day the
boy, blissfully unconscious of any change being contemplated, drove
about with the captain and his aunt to every conceivable quarter of
London, in the frantic desire to give the captain what he called "a
good time." It often happened that they drifted, quite naturally,
toward one of the large barracks, or down to the Horse Guards, where
the captain cocked his head knowingly and became at once, in the eyes
of his admiring young friend, an expert; indeed, the mere passing of
a soldier in the streets stiffened the little old gentleman's figure
and gave a sternness to his eyes, which showed, Comethup thought, that
he ought really to have been a very great and very wonderful general
indeed.
No more dinner parties were given during that week; but once or twice
the three, after dining together, went to a theatre, Miss Carlaw
appearing to understand the play, whatever it might be, quite as
clearly as her companions. She had a wonderful faculty for locating a
voice; and when once Comethup, in a rapid whisper, had explained to her
what the scene was, she appeared to know exactly where each particular
character came on, and how he or she moved about, and when they made
their exits. It was truly wonderful, and Comethup lost a great part of
the real business of the stage by watching her eager, listening face,
and wondering that the loss of her eyes was really so little of a loss
after all.
The captain's visit was drawing to a close when one evening after
dinner Miss Carlaw turned to him and waved a hand toward the boy, and
said abruptly, "Now tell him all about it."
Comethup looked from one to the other, while the captain cleared his
throat and coughed, flushed a little, and drew himself up in his chair.
Miss Carlaw waited impatiently, lightly tapping her fingers on the
table before her. At last the captain spoke.
"You must know, Comethup, that your aunt, Miss Carlaw"--he bowed with
much ceremony toward that lady--"your aunt has been good enough to
ask my advice, and to place some confidence in me, in regard to your
future. Of course, Comethup, I need hardly say that she is far more
competent than I can hope to be to----"
"No, no," ejaculated Miss Carlaw, shaking her head vigorously. "But go
on."
"To put the matter briefly, my dear boy, your aunt feels that there is
not only a time for play but a time for work. We are both very proud
of you; we hope to be prouder still. No man can do anything in this
world unless he learns to work; unless he learns to fight his way with
others, and find out what the world is like, and learn some of its
lessons."
"Well put, captain, excellently put," interrupted Miss Carlaw again.
"To come to the point, Comethup, your aunt thinks that it would be
wiser for you to mix with boys of your own age, and she intends to send
you to school. She has already selected a good school, and----"
"And look here, Prince Charming," broke in the old woman, "I think I
know my boy well enough by this time to know that he'll do whatever
we think best, for his own sake as well as for ours. The captain here
has told you very prettily why we think it's necessary; just let me
say that if you don't like it when you get there, you can just come
straight back again. I'm sure you're brave enough to like it, and to
make the best of it, although you're only a little chap. And you shall
come to me every holiday--oh, they've got precious long holidays, I
can tell you--and you shall see the captain whenever you like. This
school is only a few miles from your old home, and is right close to
the sea. Of course I don't know, but I should think it's extremely
likely that our good friend here might find time to run over to see you
occasionally on half holidays."
"Most assuredly," said the captain.
"Well, what do you say to it all?" inquired Miss Carlaw.
Comethup's heart had been beating a little faster than usual while they
spoke; but the prospect was really more alluring than they thought, and
the pill they desired him to swallow needed no gilding, for the boy's
life had been recently an unnatural one--strange and wonderful, but
still unnatural; and the prospect of meeting boys of his own age, the
greater prospect of learning something, and becoming a clever man, made
his heart leap indeed. Then, too, the thought of frequently meeting the
captain, of being within but a few miles of him, was attractive; he
could scarcely hope for better fortune. After a pause he said slowly:
"Of course, I should like to go to school, and--and learn; and it would
be nice to see the captain, and to come back to you for the holidays.
I'm quite sure I should like it."
Miss Carlaw clapped her hands and smiled. The captain nodded at the boy
approvingly. "I knew just what he'd say," exclaimed Miss Carlaw.--"Come
here, Prince Charming."
The boy slipped down from his seat and went to her side. She drew her
arm about him and said, with a tenderness that was strange to her: "You
mustn't think, Comethup, that I want to get rid of you--God forbid!
But you're all I have in the world, all I've got to think of or to be
proud of. And I want you to be a clever man; I want to be able to point
to you and say: 'There's my boy; match him if you can!' That's what I
want to think. And so you'll work hard and grow fast, and this foolish
old aunt of yours will wait at home in patience until you come back to
her." Her voice had fallen almost to a whisper, and he felt her lips
lightly touch his hair before she pushed him gently from her.
The final details were arranged on the morrow, not without conflicts
between Miss Carlaw and the captain. The old lady would have sent the
boy to school dressed as a prince; the captain was for plain clothes in
order that there might be no distinction between him and his fellows,
and the captain had his way. The next serious point of difference was
on the question of pocket money, Miss Carlaw having firmly made up her
mind that the boy must be possessed of no less a sum than a sovereign
a week, and the captain urging that a half-crown would be more than
he possibly could spend. The two worthy creatures came to high words
over the matter, and finally arrived at a compromise: Comethup was to
have five shillings a week, and the captain exacted a promise from Miss
Carlaw that this was not to be supplemented by any additional sum, at
all events for the present.
It had been arranged that the captain was to accompany the boy to
the school and see him safely established there; it was scarcely
necessary for Miss Carlaw to go, when the place was really almost on
the captain's road home. The captain, proud of having got his own way
in the matter, and prouder still of his mission, was very particular in
discussing matters with the principal of the school about the airing
of beds and the arrangements generally for the boy's comfort; quite
gave himself airs, in a gentlemanly fashion, over the matter. But when
it was all done and the two had parted at the school gate, and the
captain had watched the figure of the child going back slowly across
the deserted playground to his new life, the little gentleman drooped
a little, and was not so cheery or confident as he had been; lingered
about so long, indeed, near the gate, that he nearly lost the last
train to the dull little town in which he lived, and had to make a run
for it.
CHAPTER XIII.
A RETROSPECT--AND A FLUTTERING OF HEARTS.
Comethup Willis had passed his sixteenth birthday, and could afford
to smile, with something of complacency, at the thought of that small
and trembling boy who, eight long years before, had parted from the
captain at the school gate on a certain summer evening. Yet, looking
back over the years themselves, though they had been long in the going,
the span of them seemed not so great after all. Comethup thought, with
a comfortable sigh of content, what happy years they had been; what
a wonderful time of close, strong friendships, and boyish vows of
faithfulness; what days of work and play, and strong and vigorous life;
what nights of perfect, dreamless sleep!
It had indeed been a happy time; he wondered, in his grateful heart,
if ever boy had been so blessed before. The school had been a good and
healthy one--a place where a boy was taught to work hard and to play
harder; and Comethup, in the atmosphere of it, had grown into a tall,
straight-limbed lad, with a strength about him which his dreamy face
and slow, quiet smile belied.
He sat on a seat in the playground, with his head leaning against the
trunk of a tree, and dreamily watched the boys at play, and thought
about the eight years that had slipped so peacefully by. To-morrow was
to be his last day at school; to-morrow the captain was coming, quite
early in the morning, and they were going away together in the evening.
The captain always came early on great match days; and to-morrow was a
great match day, and Comethup was to play for the school for the last
time.
Comethup thought of the captain with tenderness; remembered his many
visits to the school, and the keen delight he had taken in his young
friend's progress. Was it not the captain who had been present on
that memorable occasion when Comethup Willis made his first century?
That was two years ago, before the boy had shown signs of growing to
his present height. It is a matter for doubt as to which of them--the
captain or Comethup--trembled the most on that occasion. It had been
one of those disastrous days, from the schoolboy's standpoint, when
luck had gone clean against them; when unfeeling rivals had bowled
balls and manipulated catches in a manner which appeared to leave no
hope of victory. Comethup had gone in last but one, and it was the
first great match he had played in. He remembered now, as though it
were yesterday, how he had seemed to see a crowd of faces in a great
square about him, and here and there a little patch of colour from a
lady's dress; remembered, too, how he had passed the captain on his
way to the wicket, and of how the captain, in a trembling voice, had
whispered to him huskily to save the day. As he bent over his bat for a
moment he murmured a prayer--for which he may surely be forgiven--that
God would let him save the day and please the captain.
His heart leaped a little, even now, at the thought of that day; at the
thought of how he managed to get most of the bowling, while the other
batsmen "kept his end up"; of the cheering, frantic crowd of boys as
he hit as he had never hit before--as one inspired, indeed--while the
score crept steadily up on the board; of the wild tumult when the hit
was made which assured them of victory; of the carrying out of his bat,
while a score of youngsters struggled for the honour of bearing him
shoulder-high to the tent. He remembered it all perfectly, and smiled
at the recollection; smiled, too, to think how the captain had marched
proudly in front while the boy was carried along; and of how, when he
grasped Comethup's hand, there had been tears in the little gentleman's
eyes.
In everything that had happened in his school life the captain seemed
to have taken a prominent place. There was scarcely a boy in the great
school who did not know him--scarcely one, indeed, with whose name he
was not familiar. Nearly every half-holiday had seen his erect figure
turn in at the gates, and his quick eyes, under the gray eyebrows,
look about in search for Comethup. On summer days, when the cricket
field was dotted with white fingers and the pleasant click of bat
against ball was heard in the drowsy afternoon, the captain was there,
and never a stroke, good or bad, escaped him; on winter days, when the
snow was deep and boys were blowing on cold fingers, and the sharp
cries and shouts of the sliders cut keenly through the frosty air,
there was the captain again, buttoned to the chin, clapping his gloved
hands furiously, and laughing with the best of them. He had become, in
time, quite an institution, and may be said to have again considerably
renewed his youth, in that place where youth was monarch of all.
And to-morrow was to end it; to-morrow the last farewells must be said,
and he would go away, appropriately enough, with the captain. It had
been arranged that he was to stay for a week with the captain in the
place of his birth before going on to London to join his aunt; after
that the plans for him were indefinite.
Curiously enough, during all the years of his school life he had never
once visited the old town; something had always occurred to prevent
his doing so. It was but a few miles distant from the sea; but the
captain had visited him so frequently, and was always to be expected on
half-holidays; and his own holidays were spent, from start to finish,
with his aunt in London, so that he really had had no opportunity
of going back to the old place. But now the captain had begged him
to spend a week at his cottage, and Comethup, after consulting Miss
Carlaw, had gladly accepted.
The boy had heard frequently, through the captain, of the welfare of
those in whom he was interested. Not having seen them since he had
been a child himself, it was difficult to realize that changes could
have taken place, or that others, as well as himself, must have grown
older. He thought of 'Linda still as a little child wandering in the
garden among the drifting leaves and under the whispering trees; saw
Medmer Theed, the shoemaker, hammering away at his work, without an
additional wrinkle; was forced to believe, in a vague fashion, that
Brian must have grown, because he himself had grown, and Brian was
certainly older. The captain had shaken his head more than once at the
mention of Brian's name, and hinted that father and son did not pull
well together.
"Not the lad's fault, you know, Comethup," he had said, "although I
never liked the boy. But Robert Carlaw ought never to have been a
father--ought never to have been anything, for the matter of that. And
yet the boy's clever, I'm told; but it's a cleverness, an infernal
smartness, I don't like."
The afternoon wore away, and Comethup was roused from his reverie by
the clanging of the bell summoning the boys to roll-call. He got up
lazily and stretched himself, and suddenly saw a small boy standing
before him, panting and eager.
"Willis, there's some one to see you."
"See me? Where?" He thought at first that it might be the captain, who
had not been able to wait longer, in his eagerness for the morrow.
"Out by the gate there," said the small boy, pointing behind him. "A
man--a young man. Asked me to find you."
"All right," cried Comethup, and went leaping and striding toward the
gate. There seemed to be no one there at first, until he went out a
pace or two into the road; and there, leaning easily with his back
against the wall, was a young man smoking a cigarette. "Did you want to
see----" began Comethup; and then, as the young man turned quickly, the
boy stopped, and looked at him with a puzzled expression for a moment;
as the other smiled and threw back his head, Comethup gasped out,
"Why--it's Brian!"
Brian nodded, and stepped forward and shook Comethup by the hand. It
was the first time they had met since Comethup had left the old place
with his aunt; yet there were things about this tall, handsome fellow
of eighteen that were the things he had known in the Brian who had been
a child. It was the same smile that broke over his face suddenly,
like light; the dark eyes, that seemed to see so much farther and
so much more than any other eyes; the brown hair, waving back from
his forehead, and worn rather long; the slightly swaggering fashion
of carrying himself--the fashion which his father had carried to an
excess. There were, besides all this, a carelessness of dress and a
recklessness of manner that seemed to be a part of his natural growth,
too.
"Yes; it's Brian. I thought I might be able to see you. By Jove! you
haven't altered a bit, my cousin of the queer name. Of course you're
bigger, but you've still got that angelic face and that maiden air of
goodness. I'll put you into a poem some day, only no one will believe
I've drawn you from life. There, let's stop jesting; I want you to
help me. The truth of the matter is, there's been a kick-up between my
father and myself; we never did hit it; his ways are not my ways, and
he's a blackguard, and not with my sort of blackguardism either." He
laughed, and clapped a hand on Comethup's shoulder. "Look here, old
boy, I'm not envying you the plums of life you've got, but I want--oh,
I have the right, as far as that goes--I want you to help me."
"Why, of course," began Comethup, "if I can----"
"You can do everything. According to my father, you stole my birthright
from me, you rascal, although that wasn't your fault. Some of us get
the bread in this world, and the others, for all the asking, get the
stone. Let's cut all this and come to the point. I'm going to London;
it's the only place where a man with brains--and I _am_ a man now,
although I am only eighteen, and I know I've got the brains--it's the
only place where a man can do anything, or show what stuff is in him.
In the country, among these grinning, slow, dead-and-alive yokels, one
can't move; one seems to get stuck in their beastly clayey soil, and
to take root there and never to move again. London's the place; I saw
it once when I was a boy; I've dreamed of it ever since. I know what
I can do there; I'll make men recognise me. But I'm a beggar, so far
as money is concerned, and I'm heavily in debt. I don't care a hang
about the debts; dad'll have to pay them; that was what the row was
about. However, it's his own fault, and in any case it doesn't matter
now. What I want to know is this: can you let me have enough money to
take me to London, and give me a bit over until I find my feet? I know
you've got plenty, and I don't know any one else to whom I can turn.
I knew you were here, because I saw the captain--that old starched
chap--a day or two back, and he told me where you were."
"I'll gladly help you," said Comethup. "How much money do you want? I
am afraid I haven't very much."
"Well, have you got five pounds you can spare?"
Now it happened that within the past year Miss Charlotte Carlaw, in
the pride of her heart, had been in the habit of breaking her promise
to the captain and forwarding sums of money to Comethup whenever she
could find an excuse for so doing--whenever, for instance, he had made
a big score at cricket, or had written her a letter with which she
was particularly pleased. Moreover, as every bill--and they were not
many--which he contracted was promptly paid, without question, by his
aunt, he found it somewhat difficult, as a mere schoolboy, to get rid
of all the money he had, although it seemed to slip through his fingers
pretty quickly. Only on the previous day Miss Carlaw had sent him
twenty pounds in bank notes, with a message to the effect that, as he
was visiting the captain, he would probably want some money to spend,
and ten pounds was for that; and, as he was now a gentleman at large
and his school days were left behind, he would want some further money
in his pocket, and ten pounds was for that.
"I don't think five pounds is much good to you," said Comethup. "Hadn't
you better take ten?"
"By all means," exclaimed Brian, with much alacrity. "Hadn't the least
idea you'd got so much. By George! I shall be a millionaire; ten pounds
will last a deuce of a long time."
Comethup put his hand into his pocket and produced the money. "Don't
you think," he said, "that it would be better for you to go and see my
aunt--_your_ aunt, too, you know--and tell her what you mean to do?
She's awfully good, and I know that she----"
"No, thanks, I'd rather not; I had one experience with the old girl,
and that was enough. Oh, I'll get on capitally. And if I want anything
more, I can easily come to you. You won't mind, will you?"
"Not a bit," said Comethup. "I'll give you our address in London, and
you can write to me. I shall be up there in a week's time."
He wrote it down on the back of an envelope and gave it to Brian. They
shook hands again quite heartily, and Brian, retaining Comethup's hand
for a moment, said, in his friendly fashion: "Wish me luck. I'm going
to set the Thames on fire, if ever a man set it flaring yet. You know
what that means, don't you? They say that of any one who's going to
do something more wonderful than any one else. I know what's in me; I
know what I can do. And that wretched old sleepy hollow where you and
I once lived, Comethup--I've done with the infernal place. It shall be
proud of me some day--proud to think that I lived there, that I was
born there; oh, I'll make them whisper my name with awe, and condone
all my past offences. Good-bye, old chap; it's awfully good of you, and
some day, when I'm rich and famous, I'll pay it back--I will, indeed.
Good-bye; I'll write and let you know how I get on. But you'll hear of
me--oh, you'll hear of me."
He crammed the envelope and the notes into his pocket and set off down
the road, turning once to wave his hand to Comethup, who stood at the
gate watching him.
The captain turned in briskly at the school gates on the following
morning immediately after breakfast. He seemed to glow with the
conscious pride of one intimately associated with the most important
man of the day; to be proud of the fact that he was bearing off the
boy whom it was the school's delight to honour, for Comethup was the
head boy of the school and captain of the Eleven--a man whom little
boys regarded with awe, as he, when a little boy, had once regarded
the captains who had long since passed out of the school. Very proud,
too, was the captain to have this big lad slip his hand under his own
weaker arm and stroll with him about the playground and among groups
of admiring boys; prouder still when the head master, whom the modest
captain regarded as a very wonder for learning, came to him and shook
hands and murmured a few appropriate words about the loss the school
would suffer with the departure of Comethup Willis.
The day, with its cricket match--in which Comethup covered himself,
for the last time, with glory--came to an end, and the captain and
the boy were free to depart. A fly was at the gate; Comethup's boxes
were piled upon it, and a crowd of younger boys had gathered about to
see him go and to give him a final cheer. In the pride of the hour
he had determined to drive the captain the whole of the way home, in
order to save the trouble of the short train journey; the captain had
expostulated, but Comethup had laughingly had his way.
As the fly started, the eldest boy, who would be captain next term
in Comethup's place, cried lustily, "Three cheers for Willis!" and
Captain Garraway-Kyle stood up in the vehicle, snatched off his hat
and waved it, and responded heartily. As he sat down again, and the
fly, turning the corner of the road, left the familiar faces behind, he
said in a gratified tone: "That's music, boy; that's the best of all
music. When it comes from the throats of those who love you, it's the
finest orchestra in the world; sometimes it comes falsely, and means
nothing; and then, if you have but the right ears to hear, the music
is all jangled horribly, and means nothing but lies, and fawnings, and
hypocrisy. But that's the right music, boys--the music that comes from
those who love us."
They drove on for some time in silence, and then the captain said
abruptly: "I had a visitor this morning, in a state of great
excitement; he hasn't been near me since you went to London. Can you
guess?"
Comethup looked at him inquiringly and shook his head. "No," he said.
"Who was it?"
"Your uncle, Robert Carlaw. Said he'd had a great shock; that Brian had
left him suddenly, without giving the slightest warning of where he was
going or what his intentions were; he had merely left a curt note--I
saw the note, and it was really very rude--a curt note saying he was
going away, and did not intend to return or to trouble his father
again. I suppose that mad fellow, your uncle, was fond of the boy in
his way; at all events, he ramped and raved about the place, and talked
of ingratitude, and serpents' teeth, and thankless children, and what
not, until I was quite glad to get rid of him. I wonder where the boy
has gone?"
"I saw him yesterday," said Comethup. "He came here--to the school, you
know--to see me. He told me he was going to London to make his fortune;
that he'd quarrelled with his father, and didn't mean to go back to
him. I was awfully surprised to see him."
"But what's he going to do in London, without friends and without
money?" Then, as Comethup sat silent, looking before him, the captain
dropped a hand on the boy's arm. "Comethup, he didn't come to you
merely to say good-bye, after seeing nothing of you for eight years. I
suppose you----"
"Oh, I could see that he was in distress," broke in Comethup,
hurriedly, "and when I'd got such a lot I couldn't very well let him go
to London without a penny. You see, London is a big place, and he might
starve--anything might happen. So I just gave him--well, just a little
money; and I told him to write to me and let me know how he was getting
on; I gave him my address in London."
The captain was silent for a few moments, and then he said: "Well,
well, I suppose you were right; you couldn't let the fellow go without
a penny. But if I were you, Comethup, I shouldn't mention the matter
to your aunt. I detest deceit, but there are some things it's just as
well in this world to say nothing about. Miss Carlaw--very properly, no
doubt--dislikes your cousin, and she might be hurt if she thought you
were spending her money on him. Personally, I don't like the fellow,
but I think it was the only thing you could do. But I don't think I'd
say anything to Miss Carlaw about it."
It was quite a new sensation, and a very pleasant and exciting one, to
drive into the old town seated beside the captain. The eight years,
which had seemed to bring so many changes to the growing boy, had not
changed the place at all; it appeared a little dwarfed, perhaps, grown
smaller and less imposing; the gaunt old buildings, which had towered
to the sky in the imagination of the small child, had dwindled, in the
eyes of the youth, to mere ordinary dwellings. But, best of all, the
things about it that were changeless were the solemn hush and peace
that lay upon it, a stillness that belonged to no other place. The roar
of London, the busy, murmuring life of school, were dropped completely
behind; it was like coming home to rest, to some little place set in
the heart of woods, after the toil and fret of a long day.
Homer was there, at the door of the captain's cottage, saluting in the
old fashion; he had grown a little grayer and a little less erect in
attitude. The old familiar room, looking out over the garden and the
street, seemed smaller than before and a little shabbier. Of everything
the boy remembered so well, the captain alone seemed as though the
years had leaped over him and left him unaltered.
Comethup was up very early the next morning--long before the captain
had risen; he had a feeling that he would like to visit some of the
old places alone. He lifted the latch of the cottage door--for no one
thought of locking doors in that part of the country--and stole out
softly through the garden and into the street. One or two early risers
whom he passed looked at him curiously, and he thought he recognised
some faces he had seen in the streets as a child. He sniffed the sweet
morning air with delight, thinking how good it was to be rich and free
and healthy; he might have thought, too, how good it was to be very
young, but for the fact that he did not consciously appreciate that
blessing.
He went to the house in which he had been born; it was held by
strangers now, and there were curtains of a hideous colour in the
windows, and one of the blinds had been drawn up by a careless hand
and hung awry. But the roses were there in all their beauty--roses
grown for other hands to pluck and to delight other eyes. He leaned
over the little gate which led from the street and looked about him;
looked into all the familiar corners that had held such terrors for
him when he had been very young indeed; thought of the mother who had
wandered there, as he had heard his father describe. And that brought
him quite naturally to the churchyard, where he found the two mounds--a
little less prominent than they had been--side by side, with some fresh
flowers upon them. He knew that the flowers must have come from the
captain, and his heart swelled a little, with renewed gratitude to his
old friend.
It was too early for breakfast yet, and he set off through the town;
aimlessly, as he told himself, and yet of fixed purpose. There seemed
to be but one place that he desired to visit, and his pulses thumped a
little, in an unaccustomed fashion, as he drew near to it; it was the
garden in which he had found 'Linda.
The years had brought one change on the very threshold of it: one of
the gates--that which had hung by a single hinge so long--had given way
completely, and lay prone upon the grass inside, half covered with dead
leaves and choking weeds. Comethup picked his way across it and walked
cautiously under the trees. Bright as the morning was, it seemed quite
dark here, and he shivered a little as he went on. He almost expected
to see a little figure he remembered so clearly spring up again in his
path and run to him, crying his name; but no one was in the garden,
and only a bird fluttered among the leaves and cried in quick alarm
to his mate. He made the circuit of the house, and looked up at the
blank windows; but the place seemed quite deserted, and he came away,
wondering a little impatiently where the girl could be, and filled with
a determination to invoke the aid of the captain in order that he might
see her.
A glance at his watch told him that the captain's breakfast hour was
near at hand, and he hurried back to the cottage. As he drew near to it
he saw that some one was in the garden--a young girl, tall and slim, in
a sober gray gown, with little ruffles at the throat and wrists. Her
back was turned toward him, and she was busily gathering the choicest
of the captain's roses. Even then no suspicion of her identity entered
his mind; he stopped for a moment, wondering, and then walked to the
gate and pushed it open.
The click of the iron latch caught her ear, and she turned swiftly,
with the roses held close against her breast. Comethup caught his
breath as he looked at her. Something strangely familiar, and yet
strangely unfamiliar, was in her attitude, and in the glance she gave
him; he was still tugging at his memory and hesitating on that half
recognition of her, when she came forward slowly, smiling and colouring
a little. And then he knew her.
"'Linda!" he faltered, and pulled his cap off awkwardly.
She thrust the bundle of roses into the curve of one arm and shyly held
out her hand to him, yet with a self-possession that only increased his
nervousness. He took the hand and held it, and did not quite know what
to do with it, until she released it, and laughed, and looked at her
roses.
"The captain told me you were coming, Comethup," she said. And then,
quite irrelevantly, "Isn't it a beautiful morning?"
"Lovely," murmured Comethup absently, looking at her rather than at the
sky. "I--I've been looking for you at--at the old house."
"Have you? I got up quite early this morning; we must have missed each
other. You see, the captain likes roses, and I thought that these
would look nice--in a bowl, you know--on the breakfast table."
"I'm sure they will," said Comethup, getting his voice a little under
control and wondering vaguely why his throat was so dry. "Do you know,
I didn't know you at first, 'Linda; I'd quite forgotten that you'd
be--be grown up. It's such a long time, you see; everything seems to
have altered."
"Yes. _You_'ve altered, Comethup, very much." She plucked another rose
and added it to the bunch, and pressed her face down upon them. Without
looking up, she said, "Shall we go in and put them in water?"
"Yes, I think we'd better." He was so much in awe of her that he was
quite afraid to come near her, and kept his distance, accordingly, in
the narrow path. He opened the door for her, and, in her nervousness,
she caught her foot on the step and tumbled against him; they both
blushed and laughed, and she dropped some of the roses. Comethup
stooped to pick them up, and found that they were not at all easy
things to get hold of; they seemed to slip out of his fingers as easily
as they had slipped out of hers. However, they were all picked up at
last, and the two went together into the captain's little sitting room.
There a bowl had to be found, and Comethup was quite glad to get
away for a moment to fetch water, in order that he might recover his
feelings. She was very busy with the flowers when he came back, setting
them in place in the big bowl, and singing softly to herself as she did
so. Once, when a flower fell over the edge, Comethup sprang to reach
it, and their hands met on the table; the hand and arm seemed to burn,
and he wondered, desperately and foolishly, if his face had turned red,
and why it was so impossible to talk naturally and easily to her--why,
indeed, he could find nothing to talk about.
The entrance of the captain seemed to put them both at their ease. He
came a little way into the room and stood there, with his hands behind
him, looking with a pleased smile at Comethup and at the face of the
girl glancing up at him from the flowers. She nodded brightly to him
and ran across and took him by the lapels of his coat and kissed him.
"So you stole a march on me, eh?" said the captain, glancing from one
to the other. "While the old boy is asleep you two youngsters have been
getting the benefit of the morning air, eh? Well, you look as bright
and fresh as the morning, both of you.--What do you think of her,
Comethup?"
Comethup laughed and blushed, shifted from one foot to the other, and
weakly hazarded the opinion that she had grown.
"Grown!" exclaimed the captain. "I should think so. Time stands still
with the old ones, but, Lord! what a change a year or two makes! Why, I
remember the time when I had to stoop and bend my old back for her to
stand on tiptoe to kiss me; and now--well, look at her, boy; I can keep
as straight as a lance, and still the rogue's lips can reach me. So you
didn't lose time about finding your old playmate, Comethup."
"Well, sir," said Comethup, "I found her in the garden here, only a few
minutes ago."
"Yes," broke in 'Linda, "but he says that he'd been to look for me, and
couldn't find me."
"And yet found you after all, eh? Trust him for that. Now let's have
some breakfast."
'Linda, after a little protest, took off her hat and sat down with
them. She kept very near to the captain, and seldom looked at Comethup,
save now and then shyly, after he had found his tongue, and was
relating in boyish fashion some of his school adventures. The captain
threw in interjectional remarks for 'Linda's benefit, such as "There's
a boy for you!" or "What do you think of that now?" and others to the
like effect. After breakfast, the girl, in seeming haste, put on her
hat and hurriedly kissed the captain, shyly touched Comethup's hand,
and prepared to depart. Comethup found his courage then and said
blushingly:
"You know I'm only stopping with the captain for a week, 'Linda. I
suppose--I hope I shall see you--very often?"
The captain broke in heartily before she had time to reply. "Why, of
course; you must come to breakfast every morning, and then we can plan
some excursion for the day and make the most of our time."
"Yes," urged Comethup eagerly. "We might go for a drive sometimes,
you know. It would be rather jolly, sir"--he turned to the captain
appealingly--"it would be jolly if we could go for a picnic one day,
and take our lunch with us, wouldn't it? You see, 'Linda, we could go
wherever you liked."
"That would be splendid!" said the girl, clasping her hands. "I've
never been for a drive in my life."
"Then we'll go to-morrow," said Comethup. "We can start directly after
breakfast and make a day of it."
The captain and Comethup spent that first day in strolling about the
neighbourhood and sitting out on the sandy hillocks beyond the town,
talking--mostly of the future--and dreaming old dreams over again of
the past. There seemed so much to be said in that familiar atmosphere;
it seemed so easy to live over again the old days, when Comethup had
known no other existence.
On the day arranged for the picnic 'Linda came running into the garden
just as breakfast was placed on the table; breathlessly kissed the
captain, and shook hands with Comethup; announced, with a roguish shake
of her head, that she would not take off her hat, as they were to start
so soon; and chattered ceaselessly and happily about everything--the
weather, the horses that were to take them, the road by which they
should go, and a thousand other things. Comethup had ordered a
capacious carriage from the inn the night before--an open carriage to
hold four, with two horses. Homer--most wonderful of men--had prepared
a huge luncheon basket, to the contents of which Comethup had added a
couple of bottles of claret. The carriage drew up at the gate just as
they had finished breakfast, and 'Linda ran out to inspect it.
Comethup followed her, and stood beside her at the gate, waiting for
the captain. "I'm so glad," he said, slowly, "that it's a fine day,
and--and that you're so pleased."
She turned round swiftly, her dark eyes dancing. "Oh, it's the first
real holiday I've ever had; I couldn't sleep last night for thinking
about it. But"--her brows wrinkled a little anxiously--"won't this
cost--cost a lot of money?" She waved her hand toward the carriage.
"No, not much," said Comethup carelessly. "Besides, it doesn't matter;
we'll have a jolly day, and you know I've got plenty of money."
He heard a sigh flutter from her lips, and had a boyish longing to tell
her that he should like to share every penny he had, or every penny he
ever would have, with her; that she might never have any fear that he
would go away and leave her without a holiday. He was almost making
up his mind to say that he would give her just such a holiday as this
every day of his life, irrespective of weather, when the captain came
down the path and joined them, followed by Homer staggering under the
weight of the luncheon basket.
The captain had a new tie for the occasion, and was dressed in his
best; he gallantly handed 'Linda in, and she and Comethup took their
places at the back of the carriage, the captain facing them. The
captain was in high feather; heard the regular beat of the horses'
hoofs behind him, and held himself more erect in consequence. Comethup
and 'Linda sat silent, except when they answered the captain's remarks,
or when 'Linda said something about the beauty of the day, or of the
scenery, on which occasions Comethup eagerly and cordially indorsed her
opinion.
They were to drive to a little wood the beauty of which was celebrated
in the neighbourhood, although neither the captain nor his companions
had ever penetrated so far. It was some fifteen miles distant, near a
little old-world village, and they leaned back contentedly in their
seats with the prospect of a long and pleasant drive before them.
Suddenly, from the side of the road, they heard a hail, and the horses
were drawn up sharply. Comethup turned about, and saw a figure hurrying
toward them--the figure of a man, with long coat-tails flapping in
the wind and a hand waving to them. The captain frowned a little, and
muttered something under his breath. The figure came rapidly nearer,
and disclosed itself as that of Mr. Robert Carlaw, heated and flushed;
a little more full of habit, Comethup thought, than in former days, and
a little more red in the face, but the same smiling, swaggering Robert
Carlaw as of old.
He stopped at the carriage door, and pulled off his hat with a
flourish to 'Linda; saw Comethup, and fell back a step, in delighted
amazement. "What!" he cried, "is it possible that I look again upon
the little nephew of whom I have thought so often? And yet, little no
longer. Alas! time works changes upon us all. My boy"--he spoke with
some emotion--"give me your hand. Little Comethup! And so you've come
back to your old haunts, you lucky man of fortune, to turn the heads
of all the pretty girls, eh?" He glanced at 'Linda, and smiled and
shook his head. "Gad! you make me wish my youth could come back to me,
although I never had _your_ chances. With good looks, and fortune, and
youth--well, the ball's at your feet now; you're a lucky rascal. And so
we drive our carriage, do we?"
Comethup had shaken hands with him somewhat diffidently. "I am very
glad to see you, uncle," he said, as soon as Mr. Carlaw had finished
speaking. "We're just off for a picnic; I'm staying with the captain
for a week, before I go on to London. I've just left school, you know."
"A picnic! Oh, for the days of picnics, and pretty faces, and murmuring
brooks, and the deuce knows what else! Gone, alas! forever. But what
do I see? A vacant seat. Youth and beauty on one side, and crabbed age
on the other. Gad! I'll balance you; youth and beauty run in couples,
captain--crabbed age shall pair as well. I'll join you."
He had the carriage door open and a foot on the step before any one
could speak. But the captain put out a hand. "My dear sir," he said, "I
can assure you that we did not contemplate an addition----"
But Mr. Robert Carlaw cut him short. "Not a word, not a word," he
exclaimed. "Picnics are like all other joyous things in the world--the
more the merrier. And I'm not a great eater, by any means." He was into
the carriage by this time, and had dropped with a sigh of contentment
beside the captain, thrusting that little gentleman ruthlessly out of
the way. He closed the door, and the carriage moved on again.
He had taken the matter so completely by storm, and it was so
impossible to tell him that he wasn't wanted, and to stop the carriage
and thrust him out again, that the three holiday-makers resigned
themselves to the inevitable and sat in awkward silence, casting
furtive glances at him.
CHAPTER XIV.
AN INCUBUS, AND THE DEMON OF JEALOUSY.
Of all the people in their small world, it is possible that Mr. Robert
Carlaw was quite the last they would have chosen as a companion for
what had promised to be a happy day. He sat for some time in gloomy
thought, waking now and then to a sudden smile, as though joyousness
were expected of him, but showing plainly that the effort cost him
something, and was difficult. The lightness had gone out of the others,
too; they sat more stiffly than they had done, and looked anywhere but
at him. At last, with a sigh, he broke the silence.
"I can not tell you," he began, "how grateful I am to Providence
that I met you. For me the sun shines no more; blackness creeps
about me. If I should laugh a little in the sun to-day, if I should
be glad that bright faces are before me"--he bowed toward the
young people--"believe that it is only a passing thing, and that
despair--horrible despair--will claim me for its own within a few
hours. Sir"--he turned abruptly on the captain--"I am a most unhappy
man."
"Indeed, I am sorry to hear it," replied the captain coldly.
"A most unhappy man," pursued the other. "I have been stung, sir, stung
to the quick; I have nursed--nay, fondled--a viper in my bosom, with
the inevitable result. I allude, sir, to my son. Debts I could have
forgiven, recklessness I could condone--it is in the blood, and must
out; but ingratitude, never! When I think of all that that boy owes to
me--his talents, his education, everything--I feel that it is too much.
Even the family temper--the temper that will take him far--he owes to
me. And now, sir, what does he do?"
The captain shifted uneasily in his seat, and Comethup looked
distressed; 'Linda had turned her head away.
"He forsakes me in my declining years; mocks the hand that fed him;
leaves me to loneliness and despair. And yet, foolish creature that I
am, my heart still yearns for him; my hearth is still warm for him.
After all," he pursued, in a lighter vein, "I suppose I have no right
to complain. As I have said, it is in the blood; he bears the taint
that has kept his wretched father down in the world, and yet--thank
God!--the taint which has kept him a gentleman." His breast swelled,
and he shook his head valiantly.
No one quite knew what to say, and there was an awkward silence.
Comethup glanced at 'Linda, but she was still looking out across the
country, and he could not clearly see her face.
"I suppose," went on Mr. Robert Carlaw, rapidly regaining his more
joyous manner--"I suppose that one must expect that young birds will
try their wings, and fly from the nest in time. I trust that he will
fly strongly; I'm _sure_ he will fly strongly. But he was made for
better things than to seek his fortune in the rough-and-tumble of the
world. Like his unfortunate father, he is a disappointed man; he should
have had a fortune, but for the caprices--there, there, we will say
no more of that. I had hoped, too, that he might have remained, for
another reason; I had almost believed that a childish attachment was
ripening into--but no matter; time will show."
Comethup glanced at 'Linda again; her face was still averted, but on
her cheek he could see that a sudden flush had grown, and that her
hands were toying nervously with a ribbon at her waist. Deep down in
his heart a little sudden chill of uneasiness sprang up and clouded the
day for him; he had a quick memory of the last time he had traversed
that road in a carriage as a child, when he had seen his cousin and
the girl strolling down a lane together, the boy's arm round her neck.
He wanted to spring up and tell Mr. Robert Carlaw that it wasn't true,
that no one wanted him there, and that he was spoiling everything and
making every one unhappy. But he sat still, and for a time they drove
on in silence.
The picnic was not a success. The day was perfect, Homer's catering
of the best, and the wine excellent; but, hovering over all, was
the melancholy spirit of Mr. Robert Carlaw, accompanied, strangely
enough, in Comethup's mind at least, by another spirit--that of a
bright-faced, handsome fellow, wandering alone in a big city and
fighting hard against desperate odds. Certainly Mr. Carlaw did his
best to be agreeable; showed much alacrity in opening bottles and
spreading out the contents of the basket; was eager in his attentions
to Comethup, whom he persistently styled "my lucky nephew." Indeed, it
became evident that he was anxious to ingratiate himself in Comethup's
good graces; he pressed wine upon him, as though the feast had been of
his giving; sat beside him and flattered him with talk of the boy's
school career--of which he professed to have heard minute details; and
generally endeavoured to be very lively and agreeable.
After the meal was ended, and they had all regained something of their
lost spirits, 'Linda laughingly announced that she was going to search
for fairies in the wood, and ran off among the trees; Comethup sprang
up and went after her. But even here Robert Carlaw was not to be shaken
off; he cried out something about his youth returning, and plunged
after them. The fairies were forgotten, and Comethup strolled sulkily
beside her, with Mr. Robert Carlaw close at his elbow, swinging his
stick jauntily and humming an air.
"A word with you, my dear nephew," he said, linking his arm in
that of the boy and bending his head toward him. "Our young friend
here does not matter, and is probably"--he smiled and nodded at
her--"sympathetic. I have always had a kindly feeling for you, my dear
boy. In the case of another man, who carried his heart less openly on
his sleeve than I do, that feeling might have been lessened by the fact
that an inscrutable Providence thrust you into my boy's place. But
that, sir, does not influence me; my heart rings true to those of my
own blood, those I would call my friends, without any consideration of
mere earthly gain to influence me. In a word, boy"--this with charming
frankness--"I like you; fortune has not spoiled you, and I feel that
there is much in our natures--simplicity and guilelessness--that is
akin. I want you to look upon me as your friend; I do not want us to
lose sight of each other. The world is a wicked place, full, I am told,
of schemers and double dealers. You may need protection; count on me.
Remember that my poor house, such as it is, is open to you. I may be
coming to London--probably in search of my truant--and we may meet.
There are those in London who know Bob Carlaw--good fellows all, mind
you, and gentlemen--and I promise you sha'n't have a dull moment. Oh, I
assure you Bob is well known in town--among the best."
Comethup, who was really a little captivated by the man's manner,
murmured politely that he would be very glad to see him in town, and
that he was quite sure they would always be good friends. Mr. Robert
Carlaw wrung his hand and clapped him on the shoulder, and appeared
very grateful and very much moved. So complete was his gratitude,
indeed, that he was not to be shaken off in any way; he kept quite
close to his young friend until they were all ready to get again into
the carriage.
The drive home was a silent one, at least for some part of it. Within a
few miles of the town Mr. Robert Carlaw fell into a heavy slumber, and
the three drew heads together and conversed in whispers. Comethup, who
had not been very happy all day, received unexpected comfort, for, as
he sat beside the girl, he suddenly felt her warm, slim fingers slipped
into his hand, and he held them softly until the carriage stopped.
If the captain saw anything, he was discreet enough not to appear to
notice it.
They shook Mr. Carlaw to consciousness at his own gate. He was profuse
in apologies and thanks, and it was somewhat difficult to get rid of
him; indeed, he ran back to the carriage just as it was starting, to
grasp Comethup again by the hand and to look fervently into his eyes.
They all got out at the captain's cottage, and 'Linda and Comethup
lingered for a moment in the garden among the roses, while the captain
went inside. When the captain came out again, smoking, the girl
announced that she must go home at once; it was getting late. Comethup
immediately offered to escort her, and she kissed the captain and went
off with the boy down the road in the twilight.
Now there were a hundred things which Comethup wished to say; a hundred
indefinite and tantalizing matters to which he seemed vaguely to seek
an answer. But the boy was more afraid of this slip of a girl than he
had ever been of anything or any one in all his life; the very flutter
of her dress in the semi-darkness, the light touch of a ribbon-end
which blew out and whipped his hand once as he walked beside her, were
disquieting and awe-inspiring things. He tried frantically, as he had
tried before, to hark back to the old days when they had been children,
and she had clung to him and cried upon his shoulder. But this was no
child; this was something wonderful, that had her eyes and her voice,
and a suggestion of her in many little ways; but it was a different
being, and the child of old times might have been a ghost indeed, as he
had once believed, for anything she had in common with this girl. Yet
something must be said, and he plunged at the matter.
"'Linda!"
She looked round at him quickly. "Yes," she said.
"I'm so awfully glad that--that you've been able to go with us there. I
mean that I----"
"Oh, it's been glorious! I can feel the swing of the carriage now, even
while I'm walking. And it's been such a lovely day! Of course, it would
have been better if Mr. Carlaw hadn't dropped down upon us; but it was
very nice as it was."
"It--it wouldn't have been half so nice if--if you hadn't been there,"
ventured Comethup, trembling. "I mean that I--oh, I haven't had a
chance of saying how glad I was to find that you--that you remembered
me, and--and liked me; you know I had all the messages you sent me
while I was at school; I haven't forgotten one of them; I couldn't
forget them."
"Oh, yes; the captain always asked me if I had any message for you, and
so--and so of course I sent them."
"But you--you didn't mind sending them; I mean you liked sending them,"
said Comethup, hurriedly.
"Why, of course; we had been such good friends, and I----"
"Yes, that's it," said Comethup, eagerly. "We were always good friends,
weren't we?--and although I've been away so long, still that doesn't
make any difference, does it? What I wanted to say was that--that I
hope you won't forget me when I've gone to London; that I shall be able
to see you sometimes. You won't forget me, will you, 'Linda?"
They had reached the gate leading into her father's garden, and
they passed in together. She looked round at him for a moment and
smiled, and held out her hand quite frankly, with much of the girlish
bashfulness gone. "No, I sha'n't forget you, Comethup," she said.
"I sha'n't forget that you were my first friend. Do you remember
the night, long ago, when you found me here in this garden? And then
afterward you brought the captain to me. How could I forget?"
He took the hand, and held it in both his own. "I was quite sure you
wouldn't, 'Linda," he said, gladly. "I never forgot you all the years I
was at school, although I couldn't see you. But I'll see you often now;
I shall be coming down from London to see the captain, I expect."
"London?" she said, absently. "Every one seems to go to London. Brian
has gone there."
There came again that little chill feeling at his heart to curb his
gladness. "Yes," he said, slowly, "I suppose you've seen a great deal
of Brian?"
"Oh, there was no one else to see, except the captain. Brian and I have
always been good friends; I think he was quite sorry to go away from
me."
Comethup stirred the leaves impatiently with his foot. "I suppose--I
suppose you're very--very fond of Brian?"
She laughed gayly, and twisted herself so that her skirt twirled about
her. "Oh, yes," she said, "we got on very well together. He was always
getting into trouble, poor boy, and then he used to come to me for
advice. You see, I'd known him always; we met each other every day."
Comethup found himself making a rough calculation of what eight times
three hundred and sixty-five would be, but checked himself in the midst
of it to ask, "I suppose--you're ever so much fonder of him than you
are of me?"
She laughed again, and took a step or two toward the house, then came
back to him. "I didn't say so," she said, softly. "Besides, what does
it matter?"
"Oh, nothing," said Comethup. "Only I should like you--I should like
you to be fond of me; I should like----"
"I _am_ fond of you, Comethup," she said; and laughed again, in that
provoking fashion she had. He laughed too, then, and held out his hand
sheepishly.
"Good-night, 'Linda," he said.
She slipped her fingers round his, and drew nearer to him. "Don't be
cross," she said, in a whisper. "I love all my friends. You may kiss me
if you like."
She turned one cheek toward him, and he bent forward reverently and
touched it with his lips. Then, waving her hand to him, she sped away
between the trees toward the house. He stood for some moments looking
after her, and then turned and walked back to the captain's cottage,
with his head in a whirl. He was quite certain of two things: that
'Linda was the most beautiful woman in the world, and that he was
desperately in love with her and would be prepared to face all things
for her sake, and perform prodigies of valour for her, and go out,
if need be, a lonely exile, carrying a broken heart in his bosom and
a stern yet gentle face to his fellows--all of which he knew was the
proper thing to do, from the manly standpoint, in the present state of
his feelings.
He saw 'Linda almost every day during his stay in the old town;
they walked and drove with the captain, and came, toward the end of
the week, to renew something of the old happy familiarity of their
childhood. Comethup suffered all the tortures and all the ecstasies
of a boy in his condition; was set walking upon air by a word from
her, or a pressure of her fingers; or was plunged into the depths of
misery by a rebuff, however slight or meaningless. But, being young and
wonderfully healthy, he slept well and did not lose his appetite; and
the matter, serious as he thought it, had no great effect upon him.
The day came when he was to start for London to join his aunt. He had
decided to drive to Deal, as she had done, and there take a train for
London; the fly was to come for him and his belongings immediately
after breakfast. 'Linda breakfasted with them that morning, and seemed,
Comethup thought miserably, brighter and happier than usual. For
himself, he wondered what he should say to her, or what she would have
to say to him, when the moment for parting came.
When the fly drew up at the door, he shook hands with the captain and
then turned toward the girl. With downcast eyes she offered him her
cheek and gave him her hand; but the captain cried: "Lips, you rogue;
the boy's not kissing his grandmother!"
Blushingly she turned her face, and their lips met; and Comethup
stumbled somehow out of the house. As he was getting into the fly she
ran out of the garden and came close to him.
"Comethup!" she whispered.
He turned, and leaned toward her. "Yes, 'Linda; what is it?"
"You're going to London; you may meet--may see Brian; oh, please carry
my--my good wishes to him, and say I want to know what he is doing and
if he is prospering. You will, won't you, Comethup?"
He looked at her eager face and nodded slowly and solemnly. "Yes,"
he said, "I'll tell him. We shall be sure to meet, you know; I'll
certainly tell him. Good-bye!"
She smiled gratefully, and kissed her hand to him. He carried the
remembrance of those last words of hers on the journey to London, and
turned them over and over as he went.
CHAPTER XV.
COMETHUP PRACTISES DECEPTION.
Miss Charlotte Carlaw was awaiting the arrival of her nephew in the
drawing room. "I'd have driven down, my dear boy, but I find I don't
get any lighter as time goes on, and I thought you could possess your
soul in patience until you saw me. Come here, giant. Lord! what a
long time it seems since you first came into this house, a scrap of
humanity I had to stoop to! And now you're so big as to make me feel
uncomfortable; and your voice is deeper, and you've finished your
school days. There, come and kiss a foolish old woman; I'm devilish
proud of you, and I hear nothing but good reports of you. I've never
said so before, but I say it now; it was the best day's work I ever did
when I found you and brought you to London."
"A good day for me, aunt," said Comethup, gratefully.
"That's as it may be. I knew you'd got the right stuff in you, although
if it hadn't been for the captain I should probably have ruined you.
And how is the captain?"
Comethup assured her that the captain was well, and wished to be held
in remembrance by the best woman in the world.
"So that's what he says of me, is it?" said Miss Charlotte Carlaw,
laughing, and rocking herself over the head of her stick "You might
have told him I was the happiest woman, if that's got anything to do
with it. Well, did you meet any one else down in Sleepy Hollow?"
"Yes," said Comethup slowly, as if labouring under deep thought, "I met
my old playfellow, 'Linda."
"Oho! And what's our old playfellow like by this time? Grown old and
ugly--eh?"
"Oh, no," replied Comethup, with a short laugh. "I think--the captain
thinks--she's rather pretty."
"Oh, the captain thinks so, does he? And what does Prince Charming
think? There, you needn't be afraid to tell me anything; you wouldn't
be a boy, and you wouldn't be your mother's son, if you didn't fall
over head and ears in love with some one. And I suppose you've said all
sorts of pretty things to each other, and she's given you a ribbon or a
flower, or something or other, and you----"
"No, indeed," said Comethup. "She hasn't given me anything."
"Then you're both of you devilish backward for your ages, that's all I
can say. Did you kiss her?"
"Y--yes," said Comethup slowly.
"Ah, that's better. Well, I won't ask any more questions; I suppose it
isn't fair. Now sit down and tell me all about the end of your school
days--all you haven't told in your letters--beautiful letters they
were, too, Prince Charming, and I had only one grievance about them:
that some one else should have to read them to me. However, that can't
be helped. Now tell me what they said to you when you left, and whether
they were sorry, and whether they cheered you, or if there were any
speeches. Oh, I had a mind to come down and walk with my dear boy among
the people who looked up to him and loved him; I've been mighty jealous
of you, and mighty proud. Eight years ago, or more, I struck a bargain
with you, and you've held to it more faithfully than many a man could
have done. I wasn't mistaken in you, Comethup, and some day perhaps
you'll know how you've changed my life and what you've really done for
me. Now tell me everything. Lunch will be ready directly."
Comethup entered into a long recital of his doings, sharply questioned
at intervals by Miss Carlaw as to the number of runs he had made here
and the number of wickets he had taken there; she appeared to know all
the technicalities of everything that had concerned him by heart. The
recital lasted well into the middle of lunch, and she heard it through
to the bitter end with complete and smiling satisfaction. Then, after
sitting silent for some minutes, she turned abruptly to him, and felt
for his hand upon the table and covered it with her own.
"Now, my dear boy," she said, "you've been away from me, for the most
part, for eight years. I am a lonely old woman and one who has but one
love in her life, and that's you. I've missed you and longed for you
dreadfully; but I knew it was all for the best, and you were growing to
be a brave and clever lad, and so I put up with it. Now, it's no good
blinking facts; I'm getting old, and, at the best, I haven't got so
many years of life before me. I've thought of all sorts of things for
you--professions into which I might put you; I've thought of sending
you to one of the universities. But these years have taught me a
lesson. I can't spare you. After all, there are plenty of poor devils
in this world who have got to earn their living, and I don't see why
you, who have plenty, should stand in the way of any one of them. I
know you'd beat 'em hollow, whatever you took up, if you once started;
but I'm not going to let you try. As I've said, I'm a lonely old woman,
and I'm devilish tired of my own company. If you can put up with me,
and are not ashamed of me--no, no, boy, I ought not to have said that;
forgive me--I think we might manage, for a year or two, to run about
the world together and have a good time. I've never travelled yet, for
travel simply means inconvenience; but you shall be my eyes, and we'll
educate you in our own fashion. You shall see all that this good old
earth has to show you, and you shall tell me all about it and give me
your own impressions; and I shall be happy, and we'll both be happy. I
don't want to make a vagabond of you; but there's a good idleness as
well as a bad idleness, and we'll see if we can't find the first. What
do you think of it?"
"I think it would be splendid," said Comethup. "There are lots of
places I've heard of that I should like to see, and if you think----"
"I don't think about it; I've made up my mind. There are people who'll
say that a blind old creature, such as I am, ought not to hang like
a millstone round a boy's neck; but I think we shall manage to rub
along together--eh, Comethup? At the same time"--she held up a warning
forefinger--"if you feel any doubts about the matter, or have any other
purpose in your mind, out with it. Let's have plain sailing to begin
with, and we sha'n't make blunders afterward. I don't want you to be
reckless; but you shall have plenty of money, and we can afford to
travel in the best style and to go to the best places. I shall trust to
you so completely that I intend to put the management of everything in
your hands; you shall draw upon me for what you want, and I sha'n't
ask you questions. Now what's it to be, Yes or No?"
"Yes, with all my heart," replied Comethup.
"That's good; we'll call it settled. I purpose starting almost
immediately, and we shall probably be away for three or four years;
but that will depend upon how things turn out. Now let's talk about
something else. Did you meet any one else when you were staying with
the captain?"
"Yes, we met Uncle Bob one day."
"What! Robert Carlaw? What did _he_ want?"
"I don't think he wanted anything," replied Comethup. "He came to a
picnic with us--we didn't invite him, but he came--and was very nice."
"No, Bob wouldn't want any inviting. It's my honest belief that that
man will manage to get into heaven one day by sheer bounce; I don't see
how they're to keep him out. So he was very nice, was he?"
"Yes, very. He suggested he might be coming to London."
Miss Carlaw nodded her head a great many times. "Oh, I dare say. Well,
I'm not going to coerce you, or to control your actions in any way, but
I wish you to have nothing to do with that man, or with his son. It may
be prejudice, and I dare say it's very wrong; but I don't like him, and
I never shall, and they won't do you any good. What's the boy doing?"
"I believe he's in London," said Comethup. "I know he came to London to
make his fortune."
"Make his fiddlesticks! That boy'll never make his fortune unless
he makes it out of somebody else. I don't want to be uncharitable,
Comethup, but he's like his father, and his father shuffles. If you
take my advice you'll have nothing to do with either of them. I dare
say people would accuse me of injustice, and would say that I ought to
have put that boy in the place you occupy. But, in the first place,
he's had a father to look after him, and you hadn't; and, in the second
place, I'm devilish glad I wasn't such a fool. No, Comethup, I'm quite
satisfied with my bargain, and you and I will make the best of life
together and have a good time. I look upon you as a man now, although
you're young, and shall expect you to behave as a man. Now, I suppose
you've spent all your money--there, I don't want to hear details--and
want some more? You've left your school days behind now, and I suppose
we must treat you differently. Come with me, and we'll see if we can
find a cheque for you."
He conducted his aunt to a little room where she wrote her letters and
transacted her business generally. He had often seen her write, and had
been astonished at the ease and accuracy with which she did it--writing
on a curious board, with slips of metal, having notches in them,
stretched across it; with the aid of this she carried on quite a large
correspondence in a clear, neat hand. So used had she become to it that
she quite easily fitted in a cheque, seeming to take rapid measurements
on it with her fingers, filled it up, signed it, and handed it to him.
"There," she said, "that's for fifty pounds. As I've told you, I don't
want you to be reckless, but you can have more when you want it. You
know where the bank is, and you can drive there whenever you like and
cash it. There's only one thing I want you clearly to understand: I
want you to be a man and to learn your way about; and I want you to
keep a clear and open face to the world and to me. Do that always, and
we sha'n't quarrel."
He commenced a halting form of thanks, but she checked him and waved
him away, explaining that she had business to attend to, and smilingly
adding that she couldn't be bothered with him. But the business proved
to be of short duration. The proud old woman soon came bustling up
to the boy's sitting room in search of him, and suggested a drive.
The carriage was ordered, and they selected as their route, at Miss
Carlaw's command, the most public and fashionable ways.
"We shall be away from London for a long time," said Miss Carlaw soon
after they had started, "and London won't have a chance of seeing my
boy. So we'll give 'em a chance now; we'll let 'em see that the Prince
Charming they knew has grown a man indeed. Do they look at you? Do
they stare? Lord! it's at this time I want my eyes most; I never felt
the want of 'em until you came. But I mustn't grumble; I shall have a
judgment on me if I grumble after all my blessings."
Jealousy and envy racked her foolish old heart as much as they had
ever done. Amid all her joy at his return, she fell very often into a
despondent mood; strove, in a strange, pitiful fashion that was almost
grotesque, to make herself pleasing to the boy; was anxious to be seen
about with him, and yet fearful lest she should weary him, or he should
long for some other companion. The joy that his presence meant to her
was sometimes more than swallowed up by her jealous fears concerning
him. Had she but known, no such fear need ever have troubled her life,
for Comethup had a genuine and deep affection for her, born of his
gratitude for her many generosities, and, in greater measure, of his
respect for her strength and force of character. But it was, of course,
impossible for him adequately to express that, and so her fears never
really left her.
With that promptitude which marked all her actions when her mind was
once firmly made up, Miss Carlaw arranged to close her house and to
depart for the Continent in less than a week. It was a busy week, for
clothing had to be bought, and arrangements made as to their route,
and many other things settled to which only Miss Carlaw could attend.
Comethup went about with his aunt a great deal, but was often left to
his own devices; and on one of those occasions he made up his mind that
he would go down to the bank and cash the cheque which his aunt had
given him. The matter had completely slipped his memory before, for
there was little need for him to spend money, and he still had some in
his pockets. He had been with his aunt to the bank once or twice in
earlier years, and remembered well where it was situated. At the sudden
recollection of the large amount of money he was soon to have in actual
cash in his pocket, he hailed a hansom, immediately after leaving
his aunt's house, and prepared to drive down in state. It seemed much
better fun to the boy's mind to be able to take a cab, and pay for it,
than to order the carriage, as he could have done at any time.
His foot was on the step of the vehicle when a hand was clapped on
his shoulder, and he heard a familiar voice ejaculating his name. He
turned quickly, and saw the smiling face of Brian Carlaw. He could not
help noticing, even in that first brief glance, that Brian had changed
in some indefinable fashion, although it was comparatively but a few
days since they had met outside the school. London seemed to have put
its stamp upon the handsome, reckless face, and in the bold eyes, and
not to their improvement. Brian's dress had always been careless, but
now there was a sheer untidiness about it that seemed to belong to the
change of face.
"Well, this is lucky," exclaimed Brian, gripping his cousin's hand.
"I was just strolling up toward your place. I don't think I'd have
ventured to go in, after my recollections of our worthy aunt, but I
thought I might get a glimpse of you. And so we flaunt it in hansoms,
do we?" He laughed good-humouredly, and slipped his arm affectionately
through Comethup's. "In with you. I've nothing to claim me at the
moment; I'll go wherever you're going, and you can drop me when I'm
likely to be in the way. By Jove! you're a lucky youngster; and yet I
don't think I'd change places with you. Where are you going?"
"I'm going to the bank," said Comethup, hastily, standing up to give
the direction to the driver. As he settled into his place beside Brian
he added: "I'm awfully glad to see you; I've been thinking a great deal
about you, and wondering what you were doing."
"Boy, I'm living--that's what I'm doing. To-day, perhaps with a few
shillings in my pocket; to-morrow with nothing. No gilded luxury for
me; I've taken Fate by the throat, and I'm going to choke something out
of her. I'm only a boy--not nineteen yet--a boy, at least, in years;
but I've read there have been glorious boys who started as I have done
and took the world by storm. Oh, don't think I'm boasting, don't think
I'm mad. The days in Sleepy Hollow are done with; I stayed there too
long as it was. In London here--well, a man may starve, or walk with
broken boots, but everything about him lives--_lives_, I say; every
face of man or woman bears the stamp of a history; every sound, even if
it be the sound of an oath, has life in it. I tell you, it's glorious;
one has only to gird up one's loins, as it were, and join in the race,
and the excitement keeps you going; it must."
"But what are you doing?" asked Comethup.
"Doing? Everything that's worth doing. Working, seeing people,
dreaming. You've heard of Chatterton? He, poor devil, came from Bristol
to this wonderful city when he was about as young as I am; he poisoned
himself in a garret. I promise you I won't do that; life's too strong
in me; and if it comes, as it will, to a rough and tumble with the
world, the world goes down. But I'm working as he worked--writing.
You'll all be proud of me some day. I've met men already in these few
days who have begun to encourage me and tell me what I can do and how
to do it. I've been stringing rhymes for years--ever since I was a
boy; now I'm stringing rhymes in good earnest. I've had introductions
here, introductions there; this one has promised to take me up, that
one to see that I'm not forgotten. There's a trick in this as there is
in everything else--the trick of making people believe in you, making
people like you. You've got to show yourself a very fine fellow, and to
declare that you _are_ a very fine fellow; if you're loud enough about
it, people will believe you. Here's your bank, you millionaire. Shall I
wait for you, or come in?"
"Oh, come in, if you like," said Comethup.
Brian Carlaw was close at his elbow when he presented the cheque;
even laughed easily when Comethup hesitated a moment as to how he
should take the money. "Take it how you will, so that you get it," he
suggested. And when the boy had folded the notes and thrust them into
his pocket, his cousin linked arms with him again and drew him out of
the bank.
"Where are you going?" asked Comethup, as they reached the pavement.
"Going?" said Brian laughingly. "Well, I'm going to keep you in sight,
youngster; you have no right to be wandering at large in this dreadful
city with all that money in your pockets. Frankly, I'm going to have
lunch with you. My breakfast this morning was a small affair, and I was
casting about in my mind as to how to obtain a lunch when I met you.
Genius always has to do that kind of thing, you know; it's one of its
penalties. You shall give me the best lunch in town."
Comethup could not well refuse; but he was torn between the thought of
this reckless, penniless, hungry cousin of his, and the remembrance
of a certain blind old woman, to whom he owed everything, sitting in
her solitary dining room and lunching alone and anxiously awaiting his
return. However, before he had time to think about the matter with any
clearness Brian had thrust him into the waiting cab and had instructed
the driver in a loud voice to drive them somewhere where they could
lunch. "The best place in London," he added, "and look sharp."
"So this is the way she treats you," said Brian, looking round at the
boy with a smile. "Fifty pounds at one fell swoop! Why, ye gods! it'd
keep me for a year. Not that I envy you--envy isn't in my nature--only
it's a queer, topsy-turvy world when one man, who doesn't mean to do
anything in particular, has more than he wants, and another, who wants
to set the world ringing, can scarcely get a crust. There, that's sheer
green envy, isn't it? But what _are_ you going to do? Or have you made
up your mind to live at ease and do nothing?"
"Well, in a couple of days I'm going abroad with my aunt--for three
years, I believe. We're going to travel about."
Brian Carlaw's face grew grave, and, without making any reply, he sat
for some time almost in moody silence. Poor Comethup began to feel
guilty; drew a mental picture, as he was in the habit of doing, of
himself travelling in state and luxury through all the fair places of
the earth, while this clever cousin, who was bound to become a great
man and who craved only fifty pounds for a whole year, struggled along,
in hungry fashion, alone in London. He counted himself the usurper;
wondered, in all modesty, what his aunt could have found in him to
like so much better than this brilliant youth, who would surely some
day shed glory on her name. In a cumbrous, boyish, ineffectual way,
he strove to think how he might help this cousin, who was himself so
helpless.
The cabman knew his London, and drove them to a place noted for its
cookery and its cellar. Brian quite naturally led the way, and they
found a table in a corner and seated themselves. "Perhaps you'd better
leave the ordering of things to me," he said to Comethup; and the boy
willingly did so.
At the finish of the meal, when Brian had lighted a cigarette, he
leaned across the table to Comethup and spoke confidentially. The
eyes that Comethup thought were always so beautiful looked with the
friendliest, frankest expression into those of the boy, and his voice
had in it that soft ring of tenderness which made it almost like the
voice--except that it was deeper and stronger--of a woman.
"Dear old chap," he began, "I talked like a blackguard to you just now;
you're a dear, fine fellow, and I had no right--no earthly right--to
envy you your good luck. We've always been good friends ever since we
were little fellows, and we sha'n't be the worse friends because one is
rich and the other poor. You and I don't count friendship in that way,
do we?"
For answer Comethup, unwilling to trust his voice, stretched his hand
across the table; it was immediately gripped by the hand of the other.
"I knew what your answer would be," said Brian. "I don't want you to
think--oh, I don't know quite how to express it--but I don't want you
to think that I'm afraid of the future; I'll make as good a fight of
it as any one, perhaps better. Only there's an element in me that isn't
quite--well, not quite a manly one--something of the feminine, I mean;
it makes me long for sympathy and a friend's face and what-not. And
that was why, although you're only a boy, I was somehow rather looking
forward to your being in London; we might have seen something of each
other occasionally; at all events, it would have been good to know
that you were near at hand. However, you've got your own life to live,
and you're going to have a good time--and so am I, for the matter of
that." He threw back his head, crossed his hands behind it, and laughed
softly. "It's only this cursed want of money----There, I'm behaving
like a blackguard again, so we'll change the subject. Let's talk--oh,
of anything else."
The flimsy banknotes in Comethup's pocket seemed to weigh heavier
than lead; he thought miserably of all the luxury with which he
was surrounded, of the bowing servants, the costly furniture, the
carriages, everything that was his for the raising of a finger. And it
seemed harder than ever that Brian--so gentle, so cheerful, so willing
to take the rough with the smooth--should have presently to go out into
the world and fight desperately for actual food. He plunged his hand
into his pocket and pulled out the bundle of notes, and spoke in a
choking voice, "Brian--I--I say--Brian----"
Brian, who had been gazing meditatively at the ceiling, looked across
at him, suddenly leaned forward, with his elbows on the table and his
chin on his palms, and spoke in a surprised tone. "Why, Comethup,
what's the matter, boy?"
"Look here, Brian"--he sunk his voice to a whisper and looked round
apprehensively--"I can't take--take all this money, and know that
you--that you haven't a penny, or scarcely a penny, in the world. You
see, Brian, anything might happen to you. Why, you might actually
starve! It would be horrible. You know I have a great deal more--lots
more than I can possibly want. No one would know anything about it, I
promise you. Won't you take them?" He thrust the notes across the table
and pushed them against Brian's sleeve.
Brian changed the position of his head, lowering it so that his face
was hidden by his hands. Comethup saw emotion in the attitude, and
pressed the notes harder upon him. If he could have seen behind the
hand, he would have known that Brian's dark eyes had suddenly lighted
up with satisfaction, and that his mouth was working suspiciously,
almost as though he were trying to repress a smile. When, however,
after a moment or two he took his hand from his face and looked across
at the boy, his expression was grave enough, and his mouth was firm
with determination. He shook his head solemnly.
"No, old chap, it's impossible. Remember, I owe you money already. But
for you, I should have starved days ago. No, I've got to make a fight
for it, and I shall manage to fall on my feet. I know you can afford
it, and I'm awfully grateful, but it isn't fair, and I'm not going to
do it." He pushed the notes back again across the table.
"But, Brian," urged Comethup, "just think for a moment. I shall be away
three years at the least, and I shall have plenty of money--oh, I'm
not boasting about it, but you know I shall have plenty--and I can't
bear to think that you may be in straits while I'm having a good time.
You say this'll keep you for a year; by that time you will probably be
doing big things. If you don't like to take it, let it be a loan; if
you want to pay me back, you can--when you're rich and famous."
That point was apparently one which had escaped Brian. He pondered
for a moment, half started forward, and drew back again, and finally
stretched out his hand with a smile. "You're the finest fellow in the
world, Comethup," he cried, "and, by Jove! I'll dedicate my first book
to you. You're the only friend I've really got. Yes, I'll take the
money--or stay, you'd better keep a fiver of it to pay for the lunch
and to keep you swimming till you get another cheque. You don't know
how happy you've made me, old boy." He was busily engaged with the
notes, detaching one for five pounds and tossing it across to Comethup,
while he pocketed the others in businesslike fashion. "I shall go
home singing like a lark. By Jove! I'll be able to work now. The fear
of getting up each morning without the prospect of a meal before you
doesn't sharpen your wits, in spite of what people may say. Look here,
I'll give you my address. You must write to me, dear old chap; and
I'll write to you and let you know all that I'm doing. Besides, I may
want to send you this money back; it won't be long before I repay it,
I promise you. Keep me informed of your movements when you change from
one place to another, and I'll write to you regularly."
Comethup paid the bill, and they went out together. He had quite
forgotten about the cab, and it was still waiting; Brian thrust him in,
and stood on the pavement to say good-bye.
"I won't try and thank you, old boy," he said, "because such a thing
as this is too great for thanks. If ever you're desperately hard up,
you'll know what I feel like at this moment. You've got my address;
don't forget to write to me. Good-bye!"
They gripped hands, and Brian walked rapidly away, with that curious
half-swagger which was so like his father's step. Comethup drove home,
beginning to wonder a little as to how he should account to his aunt
for the disappearance of the money in the event of her questioning him.
He remembered how fixed was her dislike to Brian, and that, although,
as she had said, she had no wish to control his actions in regard to
his cousin, she would probably not be pleased to know that he had
regarded even her suggestion so lightly. Somewhat quakingly, therefore,
he sought her presence on his return to the house.
"Well, you rascal," she said, smiling, as she heard his step in the
room, "I suppose you have been running about town, throwing your money
about, eh?"
The shaft struck home, although she had only spoken in jest, and
Comethup winced. "Well, not exactly throwing it about, aunt," he began;
but she checked him.
"There, there, I don't want to know anything about it. I gave you the
money to spend, and I expect you to do as you like with it. I don't
want you to indulge in wanton waste--that would be absurd; and I don't
think you're likely to do it. But you needn't stint yourself. And let
me know when you want any more. By the way, as to-morrow is our last
real day in town, and there'll be a good many things to attend to, I
think we'll go to the theatre to-night--something bright, with music in
it. Would you like to do so?"
"Very much, aunt," he replied.
"Very well, then; you'd better go and see if you can get a box--a box
is always more comfortable. Now I want you to learn to please yourself,
and to choose for yourself, and then you'll please me. Just look down
this morning's paper and see what piece you think we should both like,
and then take a hansom--I heard you drive up in one just now; I'm glad
to see you're finding your way about--take a hansom, and drive off to
the theatre and get a box for to-night. If you can't get it at one
place, get it at another; you've got money enough. Get a big box, near
the stage."
Comethup tremblingly began to fumble in his pockets. He had no
very distinct idea of what a box would cost, but he knew it was an
expensive matter, and the gold coins in his pocket were remarkably
few. He coughed and hesitated, and Miss Carlaw began to show signs of
impatience.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Don't you want to go? For Heaven's
sake, boy, don't stand there in that fashion! Comethup, is anything the
matter?" Her voice had changed in a moment, and she came rapidly across
the room to him. "Comethup, something has happened. What is it?"
"If you please, aunt--I--I'm dreadfully sorry, but how much does a box
cost?"
"What the devil's that got to do with it? Anything from two and a half
to three guineas, if it's a good one. What _is_ the matter with you?"
"Well," said Comethup, slowly, "I'm afraid I haven't got money enough."
She stood quite still for a moment, as if not fully understanding what
he said. "Not money enough?" she echoed at last. "But, my dear boy,
haven't you cashed the cheque I gave you--the fifty pounds, you know?"
"Yes, aunt, I cashed it. But--I'm dreadfully sorry--there isn't much of
it left--not enough for that."
Miss Charlotte Carlaw whistled softly, and looked grave. "My dear
boy," she said, "I told you you might spend that money just as you
liked, and I'm not going back on my word. But you're a youngster at
this game, evidently, and perhaps I was foolish to give you such a sum
all at once. Fifty pounds is a good deal of money, and, although I'm
very rich, you mustn't let it slip quite so quickly as that, Prince
Charming. I don't want you to tell me anything unless you wish, but, in
God's name, boy, what have you done with it? What have you spent it on?
I told you to do as you liked with it, but for the life of me I can't
think what you've done with that money in a matter of two days unless
you've lost it. Have you lost it, Comethup?"
"No," said Comethup, slowly, "I haven't lost it. I know it seems--seems
awfully strange, especially as I only cashed it to-day; I really didn't
want it then."
"There's some mystery here," said Miss Carlaw, "and I think I ought,
for your sake, to get at the bottom of it. Devil take the money! I
don't care a pin about it. But what have you done with it? Come, you
don't mind telling me?"
"No," said Comethup. He had made up his mind that some explanation must
be given. "I didn't want to tell you, but I gave it away, or lent it."
"Well, go on," replied Miss Carlaw.
"I gave it--lent it, I mean--to--to an old friend. He was hard up, and
he really didn't want to take it. But he said it would keep him for a
year----"
"Poor devil!" ejaculated Miss Carlaw under her breath.
"And I wanted to help him, so I made him take it. I didn't want to tell
you; you know I never have anything to spend money on, and I thought I
should be able to get along with what I had for a long time."
Miss Carlaw turned away abruptly and pulled out her purse. Twisting
round toward him again, she held it out, even shook it at him. "Here,
take this. Oh, my dear boy, I'm an old fool, and you're probably a
young one; but, upon my word, I think you're making me love you more
every day. It was a lot of money to give any one, but you're quite
right, and I hope I should have done the same myself. Here, take this,
and go and see about the box. There's money enough there."
"No, I'd rather not take any more money, aunt, thank you; not yet, at
least. I don't want it, and I can just as well wait a bit."
"Will you take it? Don't talk nonsense."
"No, thank you, I'd rather not," said Comethup.
She laughed, very well pleased, and came nearer to him. "Here, take
it," she urged gently, "and pay for the box and your cab, at least.
Lord! I love your obstinacy."
Comethup took the purse and kissed her, feeling very guilty, and went
out to do her bidding.
CHAPTER XVI.
COMETHUP IS SHADOWED.
Comethup, sitting in solemn state with his aunt in a great box which
would comfortably have held six, could not quite get rid of that guilty
feeling he had of having deceived her. It was certainly the first
time, but, despite the difference in their ages and dispositions, and
despite the relationship existing between them, they had hitherto been
in all things friends; there was a fine comradeship between the old
woman and the boy--a comradeship which had demanded complete confidence
on his part and equal trust on hers. Having nothing to conceal, his
life had been like an open book to her, and she had read the book
eagerly and with satisfaction. Now, for the first time, it had become
necessary that he should deceive her; that, however justly, he should
use her money for a purpose of which she would not have approved.
On the other hand, he thought with very genuine sympathy and affection
of Brian, the boy who seemed destined to make so much more of life than
Comethup could hope to do; who was in every sense, he thought, made of
better and finer stuff. He remembered how he had said that fifty pounds
would keep him beyond the reach of want for a year in London, and
trembled a little to think how small a sum fifty pounds really meant;
he found himself doing disturbing sums in division in his head, and
figuring out how much lay between Brian and starvation every week.
In an interval between the acts, when the lights were turned fully on
in the theatre, he leaned out over the edge of the box and carelessly
looked at the people below. Not a few glasses were levelled at him, and
not a few whispers went round concerning the identity of the handsome
boy who sat in the big box with the old woman with the closed eyes.
Gazing beneath him at the rows of stalls, he suddenly caught his breath
and drew back; then leaned over again in some amazement. Beneath him,
seated beside a lady in evening dress, was Brian Carlaw.
Comethup's exclamation had not been unnoticed by his aunt. "Some one
you know?" she inquired.
"I--I'm not quite sure," said Comethup. "I think I'll go round and see,
if you don't mind."
"By all means," said Miss Carlaw. "If it's anybody nice, bring 'em
here; if you think they'll bore me, don't."
Comethup made his way down to the stalls, and came face to face with
Brian, who was coming out. Brian looked confused for a moment, and
then extended his hand. "My dear old boy, this is delightful. Twice in
one day; there's a fate in it. I dare say you're surprised to see me
here; but, as a matter of fact, it's a piece of speculation. There's
a woman"--he jerked his head to indicate the lady whose side he had
quitted--"who's very good fun, and very useful. She's taken rather a
fancy to this budding versifier, and I think it's probable that she may
be able to do something for me. At all events, she's a useful person
to know. So you see, as it's no use hoping to do anything in this
world without taking risks, your money enabled me to secure a couple
of stalls to-night; to bring her down here in style--in a word, to
make a good impression. My dear boy, it'll pay; depend upon it, it'll
pay well. I told you this morning that I was learning the trick of the
whole business; it's as easy as winking when you know it, and I think
it'll carry me through anything. You may sit and write and starve in
your garret forever, and do not a ha'porth of good; you've got to come
out of your garret and cut a good figure if people are to believe
you. I'm beginning to like the game; I am, indeed. Come and have a
cigarette."
Comethup hastily declined, murmured something about how glad he was to
see Brian again, and went back to his aunt's box. He hoped, and indeed
believed, that it was all right; but a little curious feeling of doubt
in regard to Brian came into his mind, and would not be dispelled. He
watched his cousin and the lady who was with him during the evening;
noticed that Brian sat very close to her and whispered; observed that
she talked in loud tones and laughed somewhat immoderately, and made
considerable play with a huge feather fan. He had, too, to begin a new
calculation in regard to the money with which he had supplied Brian;
found it necessary to deduct from it the price of two stalls and an
approximate amount for cabs, and then to redivide the sum remaining
by fifty-two; Brian's income for a year looked meagre indeed. Miss
Charlotte Carlaw made inquiries concerning his friend, but Comethup put
her off with an evasive reply.
On the following day the final arrangements were made, and they started
for the Continent. Miss Charlotte Carlaw had carried the whole matter
through with such energy, and in so short a space of time, that there
had been no time to inform the captain, but Comethup wrote him a long
letter from Paris, on the first day of their arrival there, breaking
to him, as gently as possible, the intelligence that they would not be
likely to meet for at least three years. The boy thought sometimes, in
those early days, that he would have been glad to get back again to
the old-fashioned town in which he had been born, and to narrow down
his world--which had widened so much recently, and was widening every
day--to the captain and 'Linda and the few others who had known and
loved him as a child. But he blamed himself the next instant for his
ingratitude.
They spent quite a long time in Paris--nearly two months--and at the
end of the first month a surprising event occurred.
He was passing one day through the large hall of the hotel at which
they were stopping, with his aunt's hand resting on his arm, when he
observed a young man, whose back was toward him, making some inquiries
of a servant. The attitude and gestures seemed familiar. As he passed
with his aunt toward the staircase he glanced back over his shoulder
and saw that the young man had turned and was looking hesitatingly at
him. It was his cousin, Brian Carlaw.
Brian made a half-movement toward him, and then looked at the
unconscious Charlotte Carlaw, made a comical grimace, and shook his
head. As Comethup went on up the stairs, still looking back at the
other in perplexity, Brian stepped forward softly and motioned to him
to come down again and join him there. Comethup nodded, and continued
his way upstairs. He conducted his aunt to her room, and then hurried
down again to Brian. That young man received him rapturously, and
airily plunged into an explanation.
"Dear old boy, you know you wrote to me, like the good fellow you
are, and told me where you were staying. I don't mind confessing that
at first I was wild with envy. Thought I, 'Paris is the place for
inspiration, for beauty, the very home of a poet.' And then I thought:
'No, my boy; you've got your work to do, and, gray skies or blue,
sunshine or rain, you must do it.' And I do assure you, old fellow,
that I went at it hammer and tongs; I did indeed. Can't we go into the
smoking room or somewhere and have a chat?"
Comethup led the way into a corner of the room and they sat down. He
began to be a little frightened at the business--a little afraid of
this harlequin cousin, who was forever springing upon him, and whose
presence he must keep secret.
"But then, while I worked," pursued Brian, "and I give you my word I
_did_ work, away went the money. You've no idea what it is in London;
you've had some one to provide everything for you--I had to provide for
myself. And then I found that the days of genius out-at-elbows are gone
past; genius must be well dressed now, and make something of a figure,
or he'll be mistaken for a beggar. It would take too long to explain,
but the thing has to be done; it's absolutely necessary. And so"--with
a smile and a shrug of his shoulder--"the money went."
"All of it?" asked Comethup, in a low voice.
"Most of it. I know it seems a lot, but there it is--or rather there it
isn't. Dear old boy"--he leaned affectionately nearer to Comethup--"I
suppose we poor devils who live by our wits don't take life quite in
the same way as a more sober citizen might do. I can't account for it,
but if you look back, as I have done, over the histories of any men
who've made anything of a stir in the world, you'll find they were
improvident, thriftless rascals, who never ought to have been trusted
with a penny. They ought to have been given two suits of clothes a
year, without any pockets, and fed by the state. It's a horrible
condition of things, that a man who's doing work that he hopes will
live should have to fight and beg for bread and butter. There, it's no
use moralizing; that's what I told myself two days ago in London, when
I'd come down to the last five-pound note. 'I'll go to Comethup,' said
I; 'Comethup is a dear good chap, with plenty of money and nothing to
do with it; Comethup knows what I'm going to do, and how I'm working,
and all my hopes and plans; Comethup won't see me fall to the ground.'
So here I am."
Poor Comethup sat for a moment in silence. He felt the delicacy and yet
at the same time the falseness of the position in which he stood. With
that feeling which was always strongest in him--the desire not to wound
any one's feelings--he was prompted now to put the matter as gently as
possible; but an explanation must be given, and given firmly. After a
moment's silence, he looked round at Brian with a troubled face; Brian,
for his part, was smiling and quite at ease.
"You see, Brian," he began, "I want to help you very much; I should
really feel much happier if you had the money altogether. But then
my aunt--_our_ aunt, I should say--has been very good to me, and has
never denied me anything. The money I lent you before was hers, and as
she--well, as she doesn't----"
"Doesn't like me, you mean," broke in Brian, with a laugh. "Oh, I know
that quite well; and I can assure you I haven't the least respect for
_her_. What were you going to say?"
"Well, as she doesn't like you, I couldn't, of course, tell her exactly
where the money had gone, although she wanted to know. I didn't tell
her quite the truth about it, and it made me feel frightfully mean. You
know, if the money were my own, you should have as much as you wanted
at any time; as it isn't, it doesn't seem quite fair to her, does it?"
"Nonsense! I don't see it in that light at all," replied Brian. "She'll
give you anything you like to ask, and she's got plenty, and you
have the satisfaction of knowing that you're helping a poor devil to
fame and fortune. My dear boy, it'll all be paid back some day, every
penny of it; there's not the least doubt about that. I've got my
chance now, but I shall lose it, as sure as fate, if I can't get some
money. Hang it all, old chap, you wouldn't leave me stranded in Paris
without a penny while you live on the fat of the land and drive about
in a carriage? You couldn't do it, Comethup; you're not that sort of a
fellow."
"But it isn't my money," said Comethup with a groan. "Don't you
understand that? I think she ought to know."
"Tell her, then," said Brian, with a short laugh, "and see what'll
happen. You know perfectly well that she'll refuse to allow you to
give me another penny; you admit she doesn't like me, and she doesn't
care whether I go to the dogs or not. What's the use of talking such
nonsense as that?"
"I suppose you're right," said Comethup, "and of course I can't let you
go about without any money, especially in a strange city. But I haven't
very much with me--only about twenty pounds--and I----"
"My dear boy, twenty pounds means more to me than you can understand;
it's a fortune. Twenty pounds will positively save me. You've been
used to such a lot that it doesn't seem much to you, but to me--ye
gods! twenty pounds banishes dull care and puts me on the high road to
fortune. And let me tell you this: I mean to be careful this time; I'm
working, as I've told you, and, until I see the results of my work, I
ask no more assistance from you or any one; to that I pledge my word."
Comethup handed over the money, and Brian gripped the hand that gave
it to him fervently for a moment. "Some day," he said, in a voice of
emotion, "some day you will understand more fully what you have done. I
don't know how to thank you, old chap."
"Oh, please don't say anything about that," replied Comethup hastily.
"Are you going back to London?"
"Oh, I shall stay in Paris for a day or two; it's just a good chance to
have a look round, and see what the wonderful place is like; I shall
do it cheaply, never fear. By the way," he added, as he rose from his
seat, "did I tell you that dad is over here? Followed me to London,
and we had an affecting reconciliation--tears and all that sort of
business. So as I was coming over here he said he'd come too; couldn't
bear to be parted from me. I suppose"--this with a laugh--"I suppose
I treated the dear old chap rather badly, and I'm glad to be friends
with him again; he's not a bad sort, take him altogether. Perhaps you'd
better not tell your aunt that we're here; she doesn't love either of
us. Good-bye. I won't ask you to save me again, old chap. Write and let
me know where you go, and when; the old address in London will find me.
Good-bye."
Comethup, in his bed that night, after much anxious thought came to a
resolution. He fully and firmly made up his mind not to write to Brian
again. Had the matter rested solely with himself, he could not have
formed such a resolve; but he thought of his aunt, and knowing that
it was impossible to tell her anything of the matter, he saw clearly
that his duty to her was to keep away from Brian. Boy though he was,
and great though his admiration was for his cousin, he yet saw clearly
enough into the matter to know that Brian would light-heartedly come to
him again and again without any thought of the future. It was with a
great sense of relief that he heard his aunt next morning declare that
they would leave Paris within a few days.
But his troubles were not at an end. Miss Charlotte Carlaw complained
that he was moody and silent, and strove in her own kindly fashion to
discover what was the matter. "I can see what it is," she said abruptly
one morning; "I'm the wrong sort of companion for you. I ought to have
known it; I should have been wiser than to tie you to the apron strings
of a blind old woman in this fashion. It's been a mistake, and you must
forgive me, boy. While I've been wanting to have you near me, I've
lost sight of the fact that you, being young and strong, would probably
want to be capering about the city alone and having a good time. Well,
I warned you what it would be before we started, and you see I was
right."
"No, indeed, aunt," said Comethup eagerly, "you are quite mistaken.
I'm sorry if I have seemed to be bothered about anything; but I'm not,
really, and you sha'n't have to complain again. I'm quite sure no one
could have a better time than I am having."
"Well, I'm not quite satisfied, and I'm afraid I've really been very
selfish about the matter. For Heaven's sake, boy, if there's anything
you want, or want to do, within reason, say what it is! Or if anything
is troubling you, you're surely not afraid of an old woman who's tried
to be your friend and who would give a great deal to save you any
sorrow?"
"Why, of course not," replied the boy quickly; "I'll tell you in a
moment if there's anything I want or--or if there's anything troubling
me. I'm glad you're going away from Paris, because I've got just a
little tired of it."
"We'll be off to-morrow," said Miss Carlaw, with decision. "Now, just
to please me, forget for an hour or two that I exist at all; off with
you where you will, and don't get into mischief. In fact, I'll give you
the day to yourself, and if you come near me at all I shall be very
angry. I can contrive to amuse myself alone for once. Here's money for
you; lunch well, dine well, do what you like. Off with you; I don't
want to hear your voice till nightfall."
Comethup somewhat reluctantly set off into the city. But it was a fine
day, and the brightness of everything about him--the moving people, the
life and animation of the city--all had their effect upon him. He was
quite glad to be alone for once; he seated himself on a bench in some
gardens in the sunshine and folded his arms and sat looking out at the
world before him through half-closed eyelids and with a smile about his
mouth, for he was very young, and the world seemed very fair.
He began to dream lazily about his old friends: wondered what the
captain was doing at that hour, and almost pictured him strolling
across the sandy wastes with 'Linda by his side. He was glad to think
of 'Linda; glad to remember her as he had seen her last, a pretty
girlish figure, at the gate of the captain's garden. With all the
bustle and noise of Paris about him, with strange tongues chattering
and strange figures moving past him, he seemed to see, in a vision, the
old place of his childhood in another atmosphere and another light;
held it, as it were, in a sacred and secret place in his remembrance--a
thing apart.
One of the figures that flitted vaguely before him stopped and appeared
to draw back a pace and then to advance. Comethup opened his eyes fully
and stared up at the figure. A familiar voice greeted him.
"My dear, dear nephew! How I have longed and hoped to see you! What has
my cry been these past days, since I learned that you were in Paris?
'Comethup,' and yet again 'Comethup.--Show me Comethup,' I said, 'and
let me look into his eyes, and I am a happy man!' And now my wish is
granted; more than all, I find you alone. My dear boy!" He grasped
Comethup fervently by the hand and sank upon the bench beside him.
"I heard you were in Paris," said Comethup; "Brian told me."
"Ah, that misguided boy! But still I love him. Who could help loving
him? We have had our differences; we have even used harsh words to each
other. But all that, I trust, is forgotten and forgiven. When I heard
that he was coming to Paris, and coming, above all things, to see you,
I said at once that I would go with him; my place was by his side, and,
as I have told you, I longed to see my nephew. Boy"--he looked with
affectionate sternness at Comethup--"you're not looking well."
"I--I'm very well, thank you; only a little tired."
Mr. Robert Carlaw shook his head plaintively. "Ah, the weight of
wealth, the responsibility of it! I am sometimes glad in my heart that
Providence saw fit to make me poor; I have known my sorrows, but I
have known my joys also. Wealth is a great responsibility. My dear
sister is well, I trust?"
"Oh, yes, she's quite well," said Comethup.
There was an awkward pause for some moments, and then Mr. Carlaw, with
something of an effort, turned toward his nephew. "My dear Comethup,"
he said, prefacing his speech with a hastily suppressed sigh, "Fortune
has been very good to you and has made you, if one may say so, her
favourite child; has taken you from an obscurity (which I am sure was
quite unmerited) and has placed you in affluence. If I did not think
you were wise beyond your years I should not speak to you as I do now;
but I know that Fortune has not blunted your sympathies, and that you
are still the generous-hearted boy I knew in years gone by. Comethup,
look well upon me"--he stuck his hands in the breast of his frock coat
and looked gloomily at the boy--"and tell me what I am."
Comethup looked at him in some amazement. "You--you're my Uncle Robert,
of course," he said.
"Call me Bob," said Mr. Carlaw, with some emotion. "My friends have
always called me Bob; had they called me by any other name it might
have been better for me. But Bob was a good fellow; Bob had his
hand in his pocket for a friend; Bob hadn't the slightest notion of
that simple word 'no'; in short, Bob, in the world's eyes, has been
going straight to the devil since he was breeched. Boy"--he laid
his hand on Comethup's arm, and Comethup felt that he trembled with
agitation--"boy, your Uncle Bob has finished his course; your Uncle Bob
is a bankrupt and an outlaw."
For a few moments Comethup was too much shocked to say anything; he
sat still, staring helplessly at his uncle, whose head was bowed in a
forlorn fashion. He murmured something at last about being very sorry,
and Mr. Carlaw felt for his hand and pressed it without looking at
him or speaking. Rallying a little presently, the forlorn one raised
his head and endeavoured to smile, and looked out hopefully upon the
prospect.
"Sunshine--and sympathy; what can a man want more? You're young,
Comethup, in the ways of the world--I had almost said simple; the world
will try to take advantage of you; will rob you with one hand while
it fawns upon you with the other. Beware of it; take your own path
straight through life, and trouble not about what any man may say.
It's the only way," he added gloomily; "would that I had remembered
it in time! For myself, although they have made me a beggar, I care
nothing; a crust of bread and a cup of water are all that I ask of
any man, and they will probably deny me those. But, my boy, I have
responsibilities--I have a son." Here his emotion appeared quite to
overmaster him for an instant, and Comethup felt very sorry for him
indeed. After a few moments he slapped his breast firmly and coughed,
blinked his eyelids, and looked upon the boy with a ghostly smile.
"I think Brian will make his way--will get on, I mean," said Comethup,
in the hope of encouraging him.
"Make his way! Get on! You are right; you are very right. The time will
surely come when his name will be echoed to the skies; when that which
is pent in his father and has found no proper outlet will appear in
the son, and gladden the father's heart. It is there; I have proudly
watched the beginnings of it; I have, in my poor way, fostered the
first trembling attempts. But what is the case--how do we stand? Again
comes in the damnable thought of money--money, without which we can do
nothing. Like those of commoner clay, we must live--we must eat--we
must have fire to warm us--a roof to shelter us. And here, at the very
outset of my son's career, I find myself a beggar."
He beat his foot restlessly upon the ground, and turned away his head
and bit his lip in the struggle to hide his feelings. Comethup in a dim
way began to be pretty certain what was coming, but he was desperately
sorry for the man, nevertheless.
"Now and then, in our dreary way through a horrible world, we come
upon one human soul that has sympathy--nay, that has a heart of gold;
it's rare, but still we find it. There is one such heart of gold in
this city to-day. Listen: my son came here practically penniless; we
looked into each other's eyes; we were big with hope, but still we were
penniless. Suddenly my son returns to me with money--with what is, to
us, a large sum. Delicacy forbids my asking whence it came; my son
informs me that a friend--I repeat the word with emphasis--a friend
has insisted upon helping him. His delicacy is as great as mine; he
refuses to say more, and I--well, I do not press him. But in my heart
I know--oh, my dear boy, let us drop parables; let me thank you as
one man may thank another. I am broken, friendless, an outcast; yet
my heart is still strong and true; my feelings, pray God, are those
of a gentleman. I may tramp the highways to-morrow without a crust,
but still I trust men may turn to look at me and say, 'There goes a
gentleman.'"
He said it with an air, even with something of the old flourish, and
Comethup was considerably impressed. After some silence, Mr. Robert
Carlaw got up, with a sigh, and turned toward his nephew and held out
his hand.
"This has done me good," he said. "I come into your fresh, buoyant,
rich young life; I touch again the things that might have been; I
renew, as it were, my youth. Our paths lie in different directions; you
sweep along the broad highway, and the dust--yes, the dust--of your
chariot wheels shall be flung over me as I walk. That is fate, that is
life. Good-bye!"
He took his nephew's hand in both his own for a moment, sighed heavily,
and turned away. In less than a minute he was back again. There was
hesitation in his manner and he shifted his feet uneasily, yet he spoke
with a desperate boldness.
"My dear friend, I--I have put off what I have to say--put it off in
the hope that I might not have to say it. My courage deserts me; it is
not easy for a man who has carried his head high before his fellows to
lower it and to beg. Do not misunderstand me," he added hastily, "'tis
not for myself; if it were for myself the petition should never be
urged. It is for another--it is for my son. Comethup, it is necessary,
in order that we may get our affairs somewhat straight, that we should
leave this city. My son has money, but he needs it for his work--he
may even need it for food. Can I go to him and say to him--can I, his
father, say it to him, 'Brian, I am penniless; I have not sufficient
money to bear me to my native land'? This may seem a mere matter of
cowardice; but, broken and outcast though I am, I would still carry
myself well in the eyes of my son; I would still have him say, 'This
is my father, of whom I am proud, and who has never shamed me yet.' It
is, I think, a natural thought, a natural wish. Frankly, as man to man,
will you help me to do that?"
Comethup felt that, under the circumstances, there was but one thing
to be done. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the money his
aunt had given him. "How much would you want, sir?" he asked slowly.
"Well, to be businesslike, may I say ten pounds?"
Comethup was rather glad he wanted no more, because the loss of that
sum would still leave something in his own pockets so that it might not
be necessary for him to apply to his aunt. He handed Mr. Robert Carlaw
the amount specified, and Mr. Carlaw shook hands with him many times
and blessed him, and finally walked away with a jaunty step.
Comethup dined sparingly, and wandered about the city for the greater
part of the day. He returned to the hotel in the evening, and found
his aunt sitting alone; he was informed that she had asked if he had
returned several times during the day.
"Well, young scapegrace!" she exclaimed as he entered, "I don't mind
confessing I've missed you horribly; and I suppose you've been tearing
round the city and flinging your money about, and making people wonder
who the young English gentleman is, and where he gets his money from,
and what he's doing alone in a wicked city, eh? Oh, you've been doing
the thing royally, I'll be bound."
Comethup thought of the modest dinner he had eaten in a small _café_,
and of how for the rest he had wandered about the streets in lonely
fashion for many hours; but there was a fiction to be kept up, and he
laughed and said he was afraid he had spent a great deal of money.
"Well, never mind; it won't do any harm, once in a way. You're inclined
to be a bit reckless, Prince Charming, but I suppose that's my fault.
Most of the money gone, eh?"
"I'm afraid so," said Comethup. He saw that this was the clearest
and best fashion to get out of the difficulty--to take to himself a
character for extravagance which he did not possess; it would save the
necessity for any explanation.
"Well, so that you've had a good time, I don't mind. I must find you
some more to-morrow; I only want you to enjoy yourself and to be
straightforward, and keep nothing from me."
Comethup awoke with a lighter heart the next morning--lighter, perhaps,
because Paris was to be left behind. He was glad to think that he had
got well over his difficulties; almost glad, too, to think that he had
seen the last of Mr. Robert Carlaw. Of his feelings toward Brian he
was not quite so certain; he pitied him very much, and hoped earnestly
that Fortune and Fame were indeed holding out their hands to him. But
he was but a boy, who had lived his simple life hitherto simply and
straightforwardly and well, with nothing to conceal. Now, for the
first time, with however good a purpose, he was deceiving one whom he
knew to be his greatest and most loyal friend--one but for whose loyal
assistance life could never have been to him the full and splendid
thing it had been.
But he had not seen the last of his uncle by any means. As he went down
the steps of the hotel, with his aunt leaning on his arm, toward the
vehicle which waited to take them to the station, a figure suddenly
sprang forward and thrust aside the servant who held the door. As the
unconscious Miss Carlaw stepped into the carriage her brother bent
his head reverently, appeared almost to be silently blessing her. The
wonderful Robert was evidently possessed with a deep gratitude for
which Comethup would scarcely have given him credit. It was, of course,
impossible for the boy to speak; he could only look entreatingly at the
man and beg him by signs to go away.
But Uncle Robert knew better than that. While the luggage was being
piled upon the vehicle he flung himself eagerly into the most menial
offices--the lifting of boxes and the final closing of the carriage
door; then, when all was completed, he actually climbed upon the box
seat beside the driver, folded his arms, and accompanied them to the
station.
At the station it was just as bad. Poor Comethup lived in torments
until the train actually steamed away, for Mr. Robert Carlaw got in the
way of porters and assisted them, to their astonishment, in disposing
of the luggage, and was altogether a very elegant and ridiculous
millstone round the boy's neck. Finally, as the train departed, he
stood in an attitude of deep dejection, with his hat in his hand,
watching them as they moved out of his sight.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BEGINNINGS OF A GENIUS.
The three years of wandering had stretched into four, and thence
into five. It would have been under ordinary circumstances a happy,
irresponsible time enough, for they took their journeyings haphazard,
staying in a place for months at a time if it pleased them, or but a
few days if they did not like it; they had every luxury and comfort
and convenience that money could purchase; they stayed always in the
best places and travelled in the best manner. Yet throughout it all
there had hung, floating before him wherever he went, an ever-growing
cloud of deceit and trickery about Comethup. Dread seemed to mark the
most cloudless day, and he never entered a strange city or village
without looking with anxious eyes at every passing tourist.
Throughout those five years it is safe to say that Comethup had never
been wholly free from the presence of Robert Carlaw and his son. First
the one and then the other; then both together; then the one, with a
piteous tale of the other's deceit; and the other, with a story of
how badly the one had treated him. Comethup never quite knew whether
they travelled in company or whether they merely kept touch with each
other's movements and met at intervals; at all events, they seemed to
know pretty clearly the route taken by Comethup and his aunt, and the
dates of their departure from various places. Indeed, Miss Carlaw and
her nephew were easy of identification, for they travelled in state;
and each was a noticeable figure and attracted attention in different
ways. The blind old woman, travelling through beautiful places for
pleasure, was a subject for sympathy; the handsome youth who was her
constant attendant, and who carried his grave face through so many
different scenes, and who appeared always so devoted to her, won the
admiration of many people whose names he never knew and to whom he
scarcely spoke.
Once or twice Comethup had felt with growing relief that the Carlaws,
father and son, were gone; a month or two would pass and nothing be
seen of them. And then one morning, in a strange city, the horizon
would be darkened to him by the swing of Uncle Robert's coat-tails;
or his day would be changed and troubled by the sudden appearance of
Brian, alert and eager and full of wild hopes as ever. The daring
and resource of Mr. Robert Carlaw knew no bounds. On more than one
occasion, in crowded streets, he actually walked on the farther side
of his sister, bending forward to glance at Comethup and to smile and
nod to him as though to assure the boy of his protection. On such
occasions Miss Carlaw would embarrassingly let fall some remark,
perhaps even touching Robert himself, all unconscious of the figure
that stalked beside her. With that air of protection large upon him, he
turned up in the most unexpected places, and his errand was always the
same.
As degrading things degrade a man, so Robert Carlaw lost something
of the old, reckless swagger--the fine air with which he had carried
himself before the world. He did not come less boldly on that account
when he made his shameful plea again and again to Comethup; but he came
to make it, in time, more as a matter of course--a something to which
he had the right. He must have had some small money of his own, or must
have begged and borrowed elsewhere during those years; all that he
squeezed out of Comethup could not have enabled him to travel as he did
or live in the style he did.
Once or twice, as has been said, father and son presented themselves
together; they had made up their differences and henceforth nothing was
to separate them; their interests went hand in hand, as did their hopes
and ambitions. On such occasions Mr. Robert Carlaw would announce, not
without emotion, that life held new purposes for him. Comethup even
saw him once turn up the sleeve of his coat and mutter something about
work. Brian would laugh and clap his father on the shoulder, and cry
that he was a good fellow and that they'd stand or fall together.
But in a day or two one or the other would make his appearance alone;
would tell his tale of the desertion of that being who should have held
to him, if only for the ties of blood; would plead that the deserter,
in a moment of forgetfulness or duplicity, had taken the available
capital, and would beg for further help. In one case it would be
the father whom Brian in a sudden fit of petulance had deserted; in
another case Brian would cry out upon his unnatural parent who had,
theoretically at least, cursed him, and left him to starve.
So the game had gone merrily on until Comethup had grown quite used to
it, and was only glad that he could keep the thing so successfully from
his aunt's knowledge. During those years Brian had not been altogether
idle; he had produced two slim books of verse, which had found
considerable favour with a certain section of the public, and which
had got him pretty considerably talked about, if no more. He declared
to Comethup that from a monetary standpoint the things were valueless;
that they brought him fame, but that he had discovered that a year or
two must elapse before he could really hope to live by his work.
"Unless," he added, "I make a sudden hit; that, of course, would make
a difference--would fling me to the top of the tree at a bound. Then,
old fellow, my first duty would be to repay every penny--oh, I've made
a careful calculation, and have got it all jotted down somewhere--every
penny I owe you. As a matter of fact, I may see something to-morrow
which will give me just the right thought--may write the thing red hot,
as it were--and make my fortune. And you'll have the satisfaction, dear
old boy, of knowing that--indirectly, of course--you've brought it
about."
But, although the books were produced, and although they were well
spoken of, and although Brian paid one or two flying visits to London
"to stir up the publishers," as he expressed it, it all seemed to
make no difference to the position of affairs so far as Comethup
was concerned, and that position remained unaltered. It practically
amounted to this: that Comethup was certain that within a given
time one of them or both would smilingly or tearfully appear in a
strange city without funds and dependent on his bounty. Under those
circumstances it became, of course, impossible to turn a deaf ear to
their entreaties, and they had to be relieved.
Comethup gained a reputation for reckless extravagance that he did
not in the least deserve. Personally, Miss Charlotte Carlaw was not
displeased, although she was sometimes puzzled to understand how he
spent his money, but she adhered to her principle and trusted him
absolutely, never questioning him upon anything about which he seemed
disinclined to speak. She had had her dearest wish realized in gaining
the love of this boy; he was devoted to her, and had been more than
a mere companion; he had been, as she had once suggested, eyes to
her--had made her darkened journey something so full of colour and
brightness that it became under his young influence more wonderful than
any journey she had ever taken before.
During those years Comethup had kept up something of a correspondence
with the old captain; had filled his own letters with glowing accounts
of the places he visited, and his impressions of them; and had received
from the captain, in return, such small news as he had to communicate
about his simple and uneventful life. In one of the letters, soon
after they had started for the Continent, the captain had corroborated
Mr. Robert Carlaw's account of his bankruptcy; had told--perhaps with
something of grim satisfaction--of the selling of all the beautiful
things contained in the house which Comethup had visited as a boy,
together with a full description of how Mr. Carlaw had stood outside
the house during the progress of the sale in an utterly dejected
attitude; and of how the poor gentleman had received a vast amount of
respectful sympathy on account of his ruin. Comethup, in reply to the
letter, had very properly expressed his sorrow; but in no subsequent
letter did he tell the captain of his frequent meetings with the father
and the son. He felt that it would be wiser to maintain absolute
silence in regard to the matter.
So nearly five years had slipped away, and Comethup, looking back as
over a crowded page across the track of their wanderings, could find
it in his heart to be very grateful for all that had happened; very
grateful, too, in his simple, unselfish fashion, that he had been able,
after all, to help the two who had so often pleaded to him. True, he
was a little frightened at the remembrance that Miss Charlotte Carlaw's
bounty had enabled four people to run about the Continent for some
years, instead of only two, as she had imagined. But that was done with
now, and he had already started with his aunt on the homeward journey,
and the two he pitied so much, and yet dreaded so much to see, were
left behind.
Instructions had been given, and all arrangements made, so that their
house was perfectly in order for their return. It seemed quite a
lifetime to Comethup Willis since he had left that house behind and
set out, a mere boy, on his travels with his aunt. Yet, despite all
the sunny places he had visited, it was good to get back to the gray
old city again; good to know that he was in sober England and within a
short journey of the old place where the captain lived, and where all
the hallowed associations of his own boyhood were gathered together.
There was much to be done in the first week of their return--friends
to visit, and many matters which required attention after so long an
absence. But at the end of the week Miss Carlaw called Comethup to
her one evening, when they were alone after dinner, and bade him sit
down near her. For quite a long time, while she rocked herself softly
over the head of her stick in the old fashion, she was silent; at last
she raised her head and turned her face toward him. He thought, as he
looked at her, how little change the years had wrought in her; save for
a few added lines, the face was the same strong, kindly one that he had
seen first as a little child.
"My boy," she began, "you know that to-morrow is an eventful day, don't
you? Or have you forgotten?"
Comethup laughed and blushed, and assured her that he had not forgotten.
"To-morrow you put aside boyish things--I think you did that some years
ago, but I am speaking in the legal sense--and you reach years of
discretion. I think you did _that_ also a few years since; I'm quite
sure you did. However, speaking by the text, you're a man to-morrow,
and can do as you like. You've done pretty much as you liked, you
dear rascal, for some considerable time, but I love you the better for
that. For the future I have no hold over you in any sense but that of
the affection which links us, and I think that is a strong tie. For
the rest, you have a right to go your own way. I have brought you up
to no profession, for reasons which I have explained before; you have
a smattering of several languages, and you know more of the world, I
think, and have certainly seen more of it, than most men of twice your
age. And I think that you've had rather a good time during the past
five years, eh?"
"Such a good time," replied Comethup, "that it all seems to have gone
by like a beautiful dream. When I was a little chap I remember the
captain used to tell me about all the wonderful places there were on
the earth, but I never thought that I should see them. I sha'n't be
likely to forget that but for you I should be a poor and shabby fellow,
who had never had the chance of putting his legs outside the little
town in which he was born. I don't forget that."
She put out her hand to stop him. "There, never mind all that; I've
been repaid a hundredfold. We won't talk of the past; that's done with.
What we have to consider is the future. Now, you know, Comethup, you're
just a little bit inclined to be extravagant--don't interrupt me, and
don't think that I'm blaming you--but I think you are extravagant, just
a _little_ bit. Probably the fault has been mine because I followed a
ridiculous practice of giving you large sums of money just whenever it
occurred to me that you wanted them. Of course, you were only a boy,
and the temptation to spend was a natural one. Now I think we'll follow
a different plan. I want you to be quite free and independent; I want
you to have money actually of your own, that you may use for your own
purposes. Therefore I've decided to put a sum in the bank for you,
and to give you your own cheque book, and let you look after your own
affairs. I trust you so completely that I think it is quite the best
thing to do. You know, or you ought to know by this time, that I'm a
very rich woman, and some day you'll have means. Live your own life and
please yourself, and you'll please me. Now kiss me and say good-night;
you'll wake up a man in the morning. Prince Charming goes upstairs for
the last time to-night."
He put his arm about her and kissed her gently. "Not for the last time,
dear aunt," he said; "the years have not changed me so much as that, I
hope."
She put up her hand and softly patted the hand that lay on her
shoulder. "No, no; God knows they have not! You're a good fellow,
Comethup; and, if I'm not in the way, I think I want to live a few more
years yet, old though I am, to find out whether you verify all my hopes
of you. Good-night; sleep well."
The next day Comethup entered into possession of all his new dignities:
interviewed the manager at his aunt's bank, and was solemnly
congratulated by that gentleman; cashed his first cheque, and felt
somehow that the coins were different from any that had jingled in his
pockets before. It was good, too, to feel that perfect new sense of
freedom which the mere turn of a day had given him; to breathe that
larger air of manhood which he felt was his to have and to hold. There
was quite a large dinner party that evening, for it was necessary, in
his aunt's opinion, that he should be shown, now that he had reached
manhood's estate, just as he had been shown when he first came into her
life.
A few days after, he timidly informed his aunt one morning that he
should like to visit the captain. "You know it's years since I have
seen him, and I----"
"My dear boy," said his aunt, "you're breaking through our compact.
Didn't I tell you you were to go where you liked, and when you
liked, and do what you liked? Go and see the captain, by all means.
But I think I'd write to him first; the sight of you--giant that
you are--would be too great a shock to him if you swept down on him
unexpectedly. Write to-day and go to-morrow; never hesitate about these
matters."
Comethup, in his impatience, sent a telegram instead, and started
off early the next morning, feeling more than ever the sense of that
glorious freedom which had come into his life. He had merely informed
the captain that he should arrive in the morning, and had not mentioned
the train. Finding, when half his journey was completed, that he would
have to wait some considerable time at an out-of-the-way station before
catching a train which would take him to his native place, he went on,
as he had done before, to Deal, and there ordered a carriage and went
the rest of the way by road.
It was a delightful feeling to lounge back in the carriage, on a
perfect summer day, with all the country spread in its glory about
him, and to know that this life--so rich and full and splendid, so
surrounded with every luxury and care and forethought--was to go on
and on, through all the years, with no pain or sorrow, with nothing
left to hope for beyond what he had secured. His wanderings abroad had
already taught him the width and wonder of the world, the pleasant
places that were in it, the happy people who laugh along its sunlit
ways. Altogether it was a bright and healthy and hopeful prospect that
stretched before him, and it was a bright and healthy and hopeful
youngster who looked upon the prospect.
The captain's cottage stood among its roses as of old; seemed only a
little smaller even than on the last occasion--a little more as though
it had sunk gently down, like a tired old man, and was unable to hold
itself quite so erect as before. Comethup walked up the path and stood
for a moment in the open doorway of the cottage, and there was the
captain.
He was standing in the middle of the little room, and he looked at
the young man for a long moment in silence; then, on an impulse, each
took a step forward and they clasped hands. Comethup noticed that the
captain, like the house, had sunk a little, that his shoulders were
bowed ever so slightly, and that his hands seemed thinner. But the
touch of the hand was as warm and firm as ever.
"My dear boy," he said slowly, "it's such a delight to see you! I
suppose the years seem longer when one is growing old; they would have
seemed longer still but for your letters. It's good of you to have
remembered an old man, and to have come down to see him."
"I'd have come before, only I couldn't very well get away," said
Comethup. "It's just as good to me to be back in the old place again;
no other place seems really like home."
The captain gave his hands a parting squeeze and let them go. "I
suppose," he said, in a more ordinary tone, "I suppose you'll be
content with your old room here?"
"Of course," said Comethup, laughing. "Why not? You wouldn't have me go
to the inn, would you?"
"Of course not," said the captain.
The portmanteau was brought in and the carriage dismissed. Lunch was
laid in the old simple fashion by Homer, with whom Comethup warmly
shook hands; and the young man chatted ceaselessly throughout the meal.
There were many things about which the captain was curious--things
which he had forgotten to mention in his short letters: as to the
standing and apparent strength of foreign armies, and their methods of
life and discipline. He nodded with supreme satisfaction on being told
that some of the foreign soldiers Comethup had seen were very small and
insignificant and very youthful.
"That's as it should be," replied the old man. "It's very evident that
in these things the foreigner is absolutely incapable of improving
himself. He may cook well, and he may know how to swing off his hat and
make a bow which is much too elaborate to have anything of sincerity
in it, but he can't breed fighting men; the thing is simply not to be
done. I'm glad to hear you bear out the impression I have so long had
concerning that matter. Now that one is--well, is not quite so strong
as in more lusty years; now that one finds the years creeping on, it
is easier to sleep calmly in one's bed when one knows that foreign
legions--taken in the lump--are as you describe them. Oh, we must never
forget, as I have before pointed out to you, my dear Comethup, that we
lie remarkably near the coast. You remember all the plans we used to
make, boy," he added less seriously, "when you were a little chap?"
"Yes, I remember well. I was a very little chap then."
"Yes, indeed. And now you tower above me, and your voice is deeper, and
your laugh stronger, and--well, I suppose we must expect changes. And
yet there's not much difference in you, Comethup," he added, looking
at him critically. "You've the same eyes, the same smile. And I'll be
bound you've the same heart. Yet it's a long time since you used to
trot by my side and get under my cloak on wet days."
They sat for some moments in silence, musing over those old times, and
then Comethup said quickly, with a flush on his face: "By the way, sir,
I am a selfish brute--I've never even asked how 'Linda is. You remember
little 'Linda?"
The captain smiled and shook his head. "Little 'Linda no longer," he
said. "The years don't fly on with you, boy, and stand still for every
one else. 'Linda is a woman."
"She was almost that when I was here before," replied Comethup. "And
does she--does she still live at the old house?"
The captain nodded gravely. "Yes," he said. "Her father's dead, you
know; I don't think I've mentioned that in writing to you. He was found
dead in bed one morning. He was a strange man. I only saw him once--let
me see, you were with me, Comethup?"
Comethup remembered the occasion on which he had seen the strong, hard
face of Dr. Vernier in the little circle of light among the books and
papers. "Yes, the night you carried 'Linda home; I remember it well.
But who looks after her now?"
"She lives there, in the care of the woman who has been her governess
so long; you remember that the woman came there almost immediately
after you found 'Linda in the garden. She seems devoted to the girl. I
think 'Linda has a little money, and the house is her own. I expect
you'll see her; she has grown into a very beautiful woman."
"I felt sure she would do that," said Comethup, and found himself
blushing the next moment at having expressed such an opinion.
"I think I told you in one of my letters that your Uncle Robert had
left here. Did you see anything of him or of Brian while you were in
London or after you'd gone abroad?"
"Once or twice," said Comethup, carelessly. "You know Brian has
published some poems; very good they were, too; some people made an
awful fuss about them. Brian is growing quite famous."
"Glad to hear it," replied the captain, grimly. "He's the sort of
fellow who would write poems; I'm told his father tried his hand at
that sort of thing once or twice. You know that your uncle ran through
every penny he possessed, don't you?"
"But he didn't have very much, did he?" said Comethup.
"He did, though; his fortune was very little short of that possessed by
your aunt. But he ran through the lot, married more, and settled down
here; and now he's got through that too. Oh, he's a bright fellow!"
They found much to talk about all that afternoon; but though Comethup
listened to the captain and delighted the captain's heart by his close
and clear descriptions of foreign places and foreign peoples, yet, if
the truth must be told, he spoke and listened almost mechanically. Once
or twice, while he talked, the very room in which he sat, and the quiet
figure of the captain, seemed to vanish completely, and in their places
was a dark and lonely garden, filled with the dead leaves of a year
before, and seeming in its desolation the very haunt of every cheerless
wind that blew nowhere else, and in the garden the figure of a child.
Heaven knows through how many places he had carried that remembrance,
in how many hours he had seen himself, a little child again, creeping
tremblingly into the garden in search for the ghost. The later
remembrance of the girl, as he had seen her when he left school, seemed
to have vanished; it was, in any case, far more hazy when he tried to
think of it than that earlier vision. Coming back after his wanderings
to the old town had only made the recollection a stronger one. All the
intervening years seemed to be swept aside, and his heart was melted
with pity for the lonely child.
Yet, strangely enough, the knowledge--forced upon him in spite of his
dreams--that she was a woman made him hesitate to speak of her to the
captain; still less to go and see her, as he might have done years
before. So he let the afternoon wear away, and the dusk of evening
was creeping over the town before he finally announced, with what
carelessness he could summon, that he thought he would take a walk. The
captain must have looked a little below the carelessness, for, with a
fine tact, for which he can not be sufficiently praised, he suggested
that he felt tired, and would sit by the window and smoke.
Coming to the entrance of the old garden, Comethup noticed that nothing
seemed changed. The gate, which had long ago fallen, was hidden a
little more deeply in the grasses and weeds, but for the rest it might
have been an enchanted castle, over which a spell had been thrown and
upon which the sunlight must never shine. Even on that warm summer
evening the place struck a chill upon him as he picked his way across
the fallen gate and went up the avenue. But here at last, as he reached
the house, there was a change. Lights gleamed from a window which he
always remembered to have seen shuttered; and presently, as he stood,
scarcely knowing whether to go up to the house or indeed what to do,
one of the long windows which opened on to a narrow balcony was pushed
open and a figure came through and stood, clearly outlined against the
light behind, above him.
He knew in a moment that it must be 'Linda, although her face was in
shadow. He made a half-movement toward her, and she started forward and
came to the edge of the balcony and leaned over.
"Who's down there?" she called in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
He went forward a little, so that the light from the room behind her
might fall upon his face; she peered down at him anxiously.
"Don't you know me?" he asked.
She did not reply, but turned and moved quickly to the end of the
balcony and ran lightly down a little flight of iron steps which led to
the ground. She came toward him, still without speaking, and with her
hands clasped. Coming quite close, she looked into his face. "Why, it's
Comethup!" she said, and let her hands fall to her side.
There was something in the tone in which she spoke which chilled
Comethup almost as much as the desolation of the place had done a few
minutes before; and yet he could scarcely have said what it was that
chilled him. There seemed, in her words and in her change of attitude,
some disappointment; she might almost have been expecting to find
another in the garden, and to have been unable altogether to conceal
her regret at finding her hope unfulfilled. But, even while that
thought was leaping through his mind, she had changed again, and was
smiling into his face and clasping his hand, so that he almost felt
that he had been mistaken and had misjudged her.
"Oh, how glad I am to see you!" she said quite naturally. "I've heard
from the captain about you often; you know he's never tired of talking
of you. And you know we haven't really met--you and I--since we were
children, for when you came here five years ago we only saw each other
for a day or two, and I scarcely remember what you were like, or what
we said to each other."
"That's just the thought I have of you," said Comethup. "I seem to have
known, somehow, just what you would look like as a woman; but it's
the little ghost in the garden--this garden--I remember best. Do you
remember that?"
She seemed to shudder a little as she looked about her. "Ah, the
ghost!" she said. "Yes, I remember that; I remember how you came
into the garden to find me. What a frightened baby I was then, to be
sure--what a frightened, desolate baby!" She linked her hand in his
arm and drew him with her along the path in between the trees. "Come,"
she said, "walk with me here, as you did when we were little mites.
Oh, it's good to see you again; it's good to look upon the face of a
friend." Something in her tones struck him to the quick; she seemed
almost on the verge of tears. "Have you no friends, then?" he asked
gently.
She looked up at him with a faint smile. "Well, the captain--and--and
Mrs. Dawson--my governess, you know. I think that's all. You've been
all over the world, haven't you?" she added suddenly.
"Not quite all of it," he replied, "but a great deal. It makes me
feel--well, like a blackguard, when I think that you've been here in
this dull house all this time--five years, isn't it?--while I've been
running about and having a good time. It doesn't seem fair, does it?"
She looked round at him again with a smile. "That's nice of you,"
she said. "But, you know, we can't all have the good things in this
world--can we? Still, I must confess it's been rather dull; one sees
the same houses and the same faces, and one does the same things day
after day, summer and winter, for years. I'm only glad to take things
as they come, and not to think. But I think sometimes--of course, I
don't know--I'd rather be desperately unhappy with some real sorrow
than just exist like this. If one had a real sorrow one could fight
it and live it down and do all sorts of things; but here"--she made a
little despairing gesture with her hand--"there's simply nothing to
fight, nothing to do."
"I'm dreadfully sorry," said Comethup. "You know," he added lamely,
"I've been wanting to come and see you, wanting to know something about
you, for a long time; only we've never been anywhere near England. But
now I shall be able to see a great deal of you, I hope; I shall be
coming down often to--to see the captain."
Her eyes flashed at him for a moment and then were turned away. "Yes,
to see the captain," she responded.
Some one appeared on the little balcony, and a voice summoned the
girl. 'Linda drew Comethup toward the house; at the foot of the steps
leading to the balcony she turned toward him. "I should be grateful if
you would come in, just for a little while. There's only Mrs. Dawson
there, and she's sure to remember you." She spoke almost in a tone of
humility; her eyes entreated him.
He followed her up the steps and into the room. The woman of whom she
had spoken was standing a little way from the window, and looked at
him keenly for a moment as he passed in. 'Linda stopped and laughingly
called Comethup to her remembrance, and the woman gave him her hand--a
little distrustfully, he thought. The room was very meanly furnished,
and a lamp stood on a table, with a work-basket--with half its contents
tumbled out--beside the lamp. Mrs. Dawson sat down and took up some
work and began to ply her needle industriously. 'Linda drew a chair to
the open window and signed to Comethup to sit near her.
They talked in low tones of many things, she questioning him eagerly
about his travels and the places he had seen, nodding with quick
sympathy when he described some scene which had caught his fancy, and
interposing a little sigh sometimes as she glanced about the room or
across to the silent figure sewing. "Here has been my world," she said
softly, "this and the garden; yet I have dreamed some dreams here too."
They were silent for some time, and Comethup, glancing up, suddenly met
the keen glance of Mrs. Dawson. She dropped her eyes in a moment, but
he had an uneasy feeling afterward that she constantly watched him. She
went from the room a few moments before he took his departure.
"When shall I see you again?" he asked as he held the girl's hand.
"I suppose you're staying with the captain? Well, I shall be there
every day, I've no doubt; you'll see far too much of me."
He laughingly assured her that that was impossible, ran down the steps
and waved his hand to her where she stood leaning over the balcony, and
went rapidly down the avenue. To reach the gate he had to take a sharp
turn, which drew him out of sight of the house; when within a few yards
of it a woman's figure came swiftly from among the trees, and Mrs.
Dawson, bareheaded and white-faced, confronted him.
He was on the point of holding out his hand and bidding her good-night,
when he saw that she had come there of set and serious purpose; she
was actually trembling in her eagerness to speak. He looked at her in
some astonishment, not knowing what to say or do; she stood resolutely
between him and the gate.
"Why do you come here like a thief, to whisper with her in the
darkness?" she asked. Her voice was suppressed and she glanced uneasily
in the direction of the house, as though fearful of being overheard.
"I don't come like a thief," said Comethup indignantly. "Why, I came
here to-night for the first time for five years, just to see her, and
she saw me from the balcony and came down."
"The first time for five years! Why do you lie to me? There are
things I can't tell you, but my eyes are keener for her, my hearing
stronger, all my senses more alive, than for any one else. That's
because--because I love her. Why do you lie to me? Do you think I
haven't seen you creep into the garden and call softly to her and
whisper with her in the shadows, and then creep away again--yes, like
a thief, I say? I've seen her sit by that window night after night
listening to catch the faintest sound; I've seen the light in her eyes
after you've left her. Tell me--in God's name, tell me!--what would you
do with her?" She came at him fiercely, with her hands held straight at
her sides and clinched, and with her head thrust forward at him.
"Look here, Mrs. Dawson," said Comethup helplessly, "you're making
some horrible mistake. I swear to you I haven't set foot in this town
for five years; I've been travelling all over Europe. I came down by
the train from London this morning, and walked round here to see her
to-night. You're making a mistake."
She came still nearer to him and looked into his eyes; perhaps she read
the truth there. She looked at him in perplexity for a moment, and
then, muttering something to herself, turned swiftly and began to make
her way back to the house. But Comethup sprang after her and caught her
arm.
"Stop!" he said. "You mustn't go like that. There's something here I
don't understand."
She tried to free herself from his grasp. "Oh, it doesn't matter. I--I
suppose I have made a mistake," she said uneasily.
"But it _does_ matter," said Comethup. "You say that some one meets
'Linda; oh, you must have been making a mistake."
"You will not tell her?" asked the woman eagerly. "She would be angry
with me; she would not understand. You will not tell her?"
"No, of course I won't say anything," said Comethup doubtfully, "but
I'm quite sure you've made a mistake."
"Good-night," said Mrs. Dawson, and set off at a rapid pace for the
house.
Comethup, walking home under the stars, remembered that 'Linda had
seemed, when first he saw her that night, to be expecting some one
else. He linked that remembrance and the words he had just heard
together, and was troubled.
CHAPTER XVIII.
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 accompanied them 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. Now look 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 one ever 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.
"_I_ had 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 thought anybody'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 one which 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--that I 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, _quite_ sure, 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 happy holidays 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 had walked 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 your
fault. 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 doggedly following. 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 say you 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, _you_ will 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.
Comforted by 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.
CHAPTER XIX.
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
Croesus?"
"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 was brought 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. Like the immortal village blacksmith, I can look
the whole world in the face again--well, not _quite_ the 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. "_This_ time! 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?" He had 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-man in 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 I don'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 suggested that 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.
"DEAR FRIEND IN NEED: I am, so to speak, breathing my native air;
but, although there is a popular belief to the effect that one's
native air is beneficial, I find it is wholly insufficient to
support existence. I am treated here with respect, not to say
reverence; my fame (such as it is) has preceded me, even to this
benighted spot, and the old place slaps itself upon the back
approvingly because it gave me birth; at the present moment I wish
it would give me something to eat. Providence, however, watches
over the weakest of its creatures, and I hear, by accident, that
you are staying within a hundred yards of me. Imagine my ridiculous
position: I am spoken of with bated breath as a wonder, shedding
lustre on all to whom I will deign to nod, yet I have not the
wherewithal to pay my bill, and, moreover, I am burdened. Come and
smile upon me--and see the Burden.
"Yours in distress,
"Brian."
Comethup gave a little sigh as he folded up the note and thrust it in
his pocket. "It's from my cousin," he said. "He's staying at the Bell;
he wants me to go over and see him."
"Is he ill?" asked the captain, shortly.
"No, I don't think he is ill; he doesn't say so."
"Well, I should have thought he might have troubled himself to walk
over here," said the captain, "without sending for you."
"Perhaps he wasn't quite sure of finding me in," said Comethup. "I
think I'd better run over and see him; he wants to see me. I'm sorry
to rush out again, sir, in this unceremonious fashion, but I won't be
long."
"That's all right, my boy," replied the captain. "Only you know my
prejudice against your cousin, and I'm not particularly glad to find
that he's down here."
Comethup deemed it wiser to make no answer; he put on his hat and went
off to the inn to find Brian. The little old-fashioned bar of the place
seemed unusually full that night, and much animated talk was going on.
As Comethup inquired for his cousin, a hush fell upon those in the
place, and curious looks were directed toward him. It was evident that
Brian's appearance had created something of the stir he had suggested.
Brian was in the most jovial humour, and came forward to greet him with
a cry of delight. There stepped forward another figure also--Mr. Robert
Carlaw--who grasped his hand warmly, and allowed a smile of relief to
break over features which had before worn a look of anxiety. Comethup
concluded that this must be the Burden referred to in the letter.
"My dear chap," began Brian boisterously, "I know you'll laugh when you
hear everything; you'll split yourself with laughter at our expense.
You know, another man in my position would see the grim side of it, the
sordid side; I only see the humorous one. Look at my respected dad; saw
you ever such a figure of melancholy? You must know that I made up my
mind to come down to my native place--I think I hinted something of the
sort when I saw you in London. I pined for old sights, and old sounds,
and familiar faces; I heard again the babble of the brooks of my
youth, the songs of the birds whose nests I robbed in boyhood's hour.
Well, I was just preparing to start when my wonderful parent put in an
appearance; we hadn't seen each other for a considerable period. 'Where
are you going?' says he. 'To the home of my birth,' says I. Then, like
the historic milkmaid, 'I'll go with you,' says he. And here we are."
"But, my son," interrupted Mr. Robert Carlaw gravely, "the worst has
yet to be told."
"The worst? The best, you mean; quite the best.--You know, my dear
Comethup, our preposterous fashion of taking life--a sort of childlike
belief that the ravens, or some other well-disposed persons, will feed
us. Well, you don't need to be told that my disgraceful parent and
myself discovered, when we arrived here, that we hadn't a sovereign
between us; and this, too, after we had, in the lightness of our
hearts, secured the best rooms that the place could afford."
"You forget, my dear Brian," interrupted his father, "that that was
_my_ suggestion. I considered it necessary, for the sake of your
reputation here."
"Yes, that's all very well," laughed Brian; "but we quite forgot, in
the innocence of our hearts, that these people knew that you had met
with disaster in the shape of bankruptcy. The consequence is that I
see that most terrible thing--the greed of gold--beginning to glitter
in their eyes. However, we're here, and we've got to make the best of
it. I suppose we must be fed, and I suppose these good people must be
paid. Therefore, as I say, Providence has been good to us and has sent
us"--he bowed with charming frankness toward his cousin--"Comethup."
The humour of the thing began to appeal to Comethup also. Perhaps it
was better that that side of the matter should strike him most clearly,
for the rest had become so much a matter of course, that Brian should
send to him when the slightest difficulty arose, that he had long since
ceased to wonder at it or to be surprised. It was evident that both
father and son regarded the thing not as a charity, but as their right;
whatever might have been their first feelings, custom had blunted them.
Comethup, for his part, could never quite divest his mind of the idea
that he was giving an alms, and he tried, therefore, always to carry
the business through as delicately. It was evident here that, in a
place where Brian's reputation must at all hazards be first considered,
there must be no thought of paying the bill directly; appearances must
be kept up, and father and son must sail out of their difficulties with
flying colours and in good attitudes. That was obviously a matter for
Comethup to arrange; it was evident that they waited for him to set
about the task.
"Do you intend to stay here long?" he began.
"About a week, I think," said Brian. "The truth is, I'm a little rusty,
and, despite all the delights of town, I sigh for the simplicity of the
country-side. Yes, I think about a week; by that time we shall both be
bored to death, or shall have had a violent quarrel----"
"My dear Brian!" interrupted his father.
"And shall have mutually cursed each other and gone our separate ways,
until the time arrives for another reconciliation. That's our gentle
method of getting through life. At the present moment we are amiability
itself; but how long it will last it is quite impossible to say. Do you
think we can manage a week here, Comethup? It's not a very expensive
place, and the wines, which are atrocious, are not at all dear. What do
you say?"
"Well, that's for _you_ to say," responded Comethup.
"Pardon me," interrupted his uncle, "it is for _you_ to say. In our
present embarrassed circumstances, we wait--I may say, with hopes which
are certain to be realized--we wait on the word of one who has ever
proved our friend. I say it not without emotion; I have recollections
of many occasions on which----"
Brian broke in boisterously. "Here, for Heaven's sake, don't start a
sermon, dad! Comethup doesn't want it, and it won't improve me; and
you, for your part, don't mean a word of it. Comethup quite understands
the circumstances--don't you, old chap?"
"Yes, yes," replied Comethup hurriedly. "I'm in rather--rather a hurry,
and if you will let me know----"
"How much we want?" Brian finished the hesitating sentence airily, and
Comethup was grateful to him. "Well, suppose you let us have--dad's
an expensive chap to keep, and I don't want to be forever worrying
you--suppose you let us have a hundred. I'll look after it myself,
and be strictly economical; and long before it's all gone my new book
will be out and I shall have made my fortune. This next volume will
certainly make my fortune--in an indefinable fashion, I feel sure of
it."
"Well, I haven't so much money with me, of course," said Comethup, "but
I can give you a cheque, and they'll clear it for you at the local bank,
if that will do."
"Excellently," exclaimed Brian. "What a wonderfully generous fellow
you are! Any one would think you had been sent expressly into the
world to come to my aid at stated intervals and lift all worry from my
shoulders. That you should be down here at this very hour--that's the
wonderful part of the business!"
Comethup wrote the cheque, and escaped as quickly as possible from their
thanks. Mr. Robert Carlaw found it necessary to open the door for him,
and even to accompany him down the stairs and through the bar, waving
aside haughtily some common person who stood in the way. Outside, in
the quiet moonlit street, he placed a hand on Comethup's shoulder and
looked at him and sighed.
"My dear nephew," he said, "fortune has not been good to me. True,
it has placed certain riches within my grasp; but Providence, on the
other hand, has cursed me with a temperament which compels me to do all
things greatly--on a large scale, as it were. I think I told you once
that I felt I was meant to cut a figure--to loom large in the eye of
the world. There are men cutting figures to-day who are but objects of
contempt; they are not fitted, physically or mentally, for the parts
they play. With me, it would have been different. I have, and I say
it in all seriousness, tact, discernment, and a certain refinement,
and--shall I say it?--delicacy, which all men do not possess. Yet I am
a most unhappy man; I am growing old--no, do not attempt to contradict
me; I feel that I am growing old--and I am compelled to seek my bread
in the most precarious fashion--to be dependent even on the whim of
my own son." He lowered his voice, and glanced toward the inn door.
"This money you have been generous enough to place in his hands--no
doubt he will spend it with what wisdom he can, but I--I shall see
nothing of it. And you must be aware that there are services rendered
to me daily--by servants and others in humble positions--for which a
gentleman must pay, if he would keep clear that distinction which is
necessary between class and mass. You grasp my meaning?"
Comethup nodded. "Forgive me," he said; "I had not thought of that.
Will you permit me----"
"You are ever generous, my dear nephew," murmured Mr. Robert Carlaw as
he thrust the flimsy banknotes into his waistcoat pocket. "Once more I
can hold up my head before my fellows; once more I can feel that I am
not wholly dependent on my son. Good-night, my dear friend; good-night!"
Comethup was halfway home when some curious feeling made him turn in
the direction of 'Linda's house. The town was quiet, and no one was
in sight in any of the streets through which he passed; he crept in
through the garden and went and stood under the balcony, looking up at
the house, which was in complete darkness. And as he looked there came
back to him the words she had uttered; not the words of comfort he had
tried so resolutely to hold before him, but those others which held a
vague fear for him, "What would you do if you found I did not love you?"
CHAPTER XX.
THE DESERTION OF A PARENT.
Comethup saw but little of his cousin during the week which followed.
Once or twice he met him, riding wildly about in some of the country
lanes on a horse he had hired, on which occasions he drew rein with a
shout, and generally announced that he was having "a splendid time,"
and that he would be able to go back to work feeling much better for
the holiday.
During that week, too, Comethup was left very much with the captain,
for 'Linda, without warning, broke several engagements she had made to
go out with them, pleading afterward that she had had headaches or that
there had been work to be done. One evening, as Comethup, after waiting
all day in the hope of seeing her, was making his way to her house he
met his cousin Brian swinging out through the gates. They stopped, in
mutual surprise, and then Brian linked his arm in that of the other and
began to lead him away.
"What a lucky meeting!" he exclaimed. "I was just wondering what I was
to do with myself all the evening, and how I was to pass the time until
I could decently go to bed. Come along. What shall we do?"
"I'm afraid you must excuse me," said Comethup. "I can't join you
to-night; I'm just going to see 'Linda."
"I've just seen her," said Brian, looking at him with a smile. "You
didn't tell me, you rogue, anything about the business."
"What business?" asked Comethup, a little coldly.
"Why, your engagement, of course. Well, I congratulate you. Our little
friend has certainly grown into a lovely woman, but she always gave
promise of that. My dear boy, you come in for all the good things; what
_have_ you done to deserve them?"
"Yes, I suppose I'm very lucky," said Comethup. He hesitated for a
moment, and then held out his hand. "Good-night!"
"Oh, but it's no use your going in now," said Brian; "she's gone to
bed; got a headache or something of the kind. You won't be able to see
her."
"Well, I'm going to the house at all events," said Comethup doggedly;
"I can at least inquire how she is. Good-night!"
"Good-night," said Brian, and shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
Comethup went through the garden, and stood under the balcony. A light
was burning in the room in which he had once sat with 'Linda, but the
long French windows were closed. He climbed the steps and walked to
the windows and looked in; Mrs. Dawson sat beside the table sewing. He
knocked upon the pane, and then thrust open the window and walked in.
She looked up quietly, letting her work rest under her hands in her
lap. For a moment neither of them spoke.
"'Linda?" he asked at last. "Where is she?"
"She's gone to her room," replied the woman, looking at him in some
surprise.
"But she can not have gone long, and I want to see her," said Comethup.
"She gave me strict instructions she was not to be disturbed."
"Ah! but she didn't know that I was coming to her. I must see her; I
haven't seen her all day, although she promised to meet me."
The woman rose slowly from her seat and laid her work on the table; she
came toward him, looking at him with a curious intentness. "You haven't
seen her all day? Then who was with her in the garden just now, and why
did she run in crying? I saw that, although she hid her face from me."
"I--I don't know," said Comethup, with a miserable pain beginning to
gnaw at his heart. "I suspect--I know you're mistaken, as you were
before, when you thought she met some one. But will you please go and
tell her that I am here, and that I should like to see her?"
Without another word Mrs. Dawson went out of the room, and he heard her
quick feet ascending the stairs. Within a few minutes she returned, and
stood just within the doorway of the room, looking at him. "She says
you must forgive her, but she can not see you to-night. She will see
you to-morrow. And she sends you her love."
With that he had to be content, and he went away through the garden
and through the streets back to the captain's cottage. All night long
he lay wide awake, turning over the matter in his mind, seeing again
Brian coming striding out of the garden, picturing in imagination an
interview between him and the girl which ended in tears for her. But
with the morning, just as he was thinking of getting up, came a little
rattle of pebbles at his window; he scrambled out of bed and looked
from behind the curtain. Below, in the garden, was 'Linda, smiling up
at him, and with that smile all the troublous doubts and fears of the
night were gone in a flash.
He nodded to her, and scampered through his dressing and ran down to
join her. She was in her most playful and bewitching mood; she caught
both his hands and danced round him like a happy child, and dragged
him into the house and kissed him before he had recovered breath to
greet her.
"There, see what a change the morning brings!" she cried, her eyes
dancing. "Last night I hated all the world, and hated myself most of
all; this morning the world is lovely, and I am lovely--_you_ might
have said that, sir!--and I'm going to be good for evermore, and never,
never give my dear boy the slightest cause for a heartache." Between
laughter and tears she kissed him again, and clung to him.
"But you never have given me cause for that," he said. "When I feel
your arms about me and your lips on mine--well, nothing that has
happened can matter at all; you seem to sweep everything else away. I
was a little disappointed yesterday that I did not see you, but this
more than makes up for it."
"And you're quite sure that you forgive me--that this _does_ make
up for it? Oh, my dear, I want you always to think of these best
moments of mine, and to forget all the bad ones. See, with this bright
morning I'll begin over again; I'll be so good, so tender, so devoted
to you that you shall never have cause to think badly of me; all my
moments shall be best moments from this hour; everything else shall be
forgotten. Here's the captain coming; kiss me again."
She was in the same mood during breakfast, and for all that long and
happy day. She strove, in a hundred ways, to blot out the memory of
pain she had caused him--strove, by her present tenderness, to cover
up past moments of petulance or anger. Yet there was in it all such
a striving, such a sense of trying to do that which should have come
naturally, without any striving, that even the good captain, simple
gentleman though he was, looked at her more than once in surprise, and
wondered what Comethup thought. But Comethup was blissfully happy, and
only found time to bitterly accuse himself more than once of having
been unjust in his thoughts toward her.
A second completely happy day followed that first one, and at the end
of it he walked home with her to her house, lingering with her until
the last moment to put off their parting. As they walked slowly under
the great trees toward the balcony, a man came strolling toward them,
with the glow of the cigarette he was smoking making a little point of
light in the darkness. The girl had had both hands locked on Comethup's
arm; she took the hands quickly away when they came face to face with
Brian. He stopped, pulled off his hat with a flourish, and laughed.
"I've been dreaming of romantic things," he said; "and lo and behold!
I step suddenly--an intruder, I fear--into the very heart of romance
itself. Happy lovers wandering in the starlight! Why, all the dreams I
have dreamed and all the poor verses I have scribbled are as nothing
to this; I have yet to learn the very first trick of my trade--love at
first hand. And who shall teach me?" He glanced, with a sort of comical
wistfulness, at the girl, who had drawn a little away from Comethup,
and whose eyes were fixed on the ground.
"Oh, you'll find some one to teach you, I've no doubt," said Comethup,
with a laugh. "What has brought you wandering here?"
"I came to see an old friend--'Linda," responded Brian. "Will she
forgive me if I suggest that, in these rose-coloured days, she is apt
to forget a poor fellow who was once her friend?"
The girl looked up quickly, with a flush on her face. "Indeed, I
forget none of my old friends," she said. "Why should you think that?"
Comethup, looking at her, saw in her eyes an appeal to the man, a look
half of defiance and of a resolution to keep firmly to her promise of
the previous day--half of a pity for him, and a fear of him or of what
he might say.
"Well, perhaps I don't quite think that," said Brian carelessly. "Only
it's been my experience through life to find that one is so easily
forgotten, so easily thrust out of remembrance, when one is penniless
and--helpless. You think that unjust, perhaps? There, I'm sorry. I'm
in a wrong mood to-night, and I've waited so long in this infernal
garden, on the chance of seeing an old friend, that I've got the
horrors. Good-night, happy lovers!"
He turned on his heel, and went swinging away down the avenue, singing
a song softly to himself as he went. The girl stood looking after him
for a moment--stood quite still until Comethup touched her arm and
recalled her to herself.
"Come, it's late," he said.
"Yes, it's late," she answered, almost mechanically. She did not put
her hand again on his arm as they walked toward the house, and, at the
foot of the steps leading to the balcony, when he would have drawn her
into his arms, she put out her hands and held him gently away from her.
"You have had kisses enough for one day," she said; "you will tire of
me if I yield always so easily. Good-night!"
He looked at her wistfully for a moment, and then raised her hands to
his lips and let her go. She ran up the steps and in through the window
without once looking round at him.
A letter from Miss Charlotte Carlaw, written in the stiff round hand
which the use of the writing frame demanded, awaited him at the
captain's cottage. She was suddenly possessed by an idea, she wrote,
to visit the old town and to make the acquaintance of 'Linda Vernier,
quite in an informal fashion, for herself. But she wanted her boy's arm
to lean upon, and she did not care to make the journey alone. Would
he come to town to fetch her? If he could tear himself away from his
sweetheart for so long, and would come to London the next day, he could
sleep in town that night and they could go down together on the day
following. She knew, she added, that the captain's house was a small
one, and would be glad, therefore, if Comethup would take rooms for her
at the best inn he could find.
Comethup, reproaching himself that he had of late left her so much
alone, showed the letter to the captain, who immediately proposed
to turn out of his own house for her accommodation. But Comethup
laughingly assured him that his aunt would never consent to that;
the only question was about the choice of an inn. To take her to the
Bell was clearly impossible, since Mr. Robert Carlaw and his son were
apparently firmly established there. Finally, it was decided to engage
rooms at a smaller place, the captain assuring the young man that the
accommodation, although limited, was of the best. The next morning
Comethup started for London.
Miss Charlotte Carlaw was filled with a pleasurable excitement at the
prospect of meeting the girl--talked of nothing else, in fact, on the
journey down. They came in the old fashion to Deal, and thence drove,
arriving at the inn late in the afternoon. It had been arranged that
Miss Carlaw, after tea and a rest, should proceed to the captain's
house for dinner; on this point the captain had firmly insisted, and
had spent two sleepless nights over a consideration of the courses.
There 'Linda was to meet her. Comethup had posted a letter to her
before leaving for London explaining his hurried departure, and begging
that she would meet his aunt, as suggested, at the captain's house.
Miss Carlaw, who had asked a casual question as to why rooms had not
been taken at the Bell, and had been informed that those she had
formerly occupied were engaged, presented herself punctually at the
hour appointed for dinner, supported by Comethup. The captain was in
something of a flutter, and kept trotting in and out of the room and
holding whispered consultations with Homer. 'Linda had not arrived,
and Comethup glanced more than once anxiously at his watch. At last
Miss Carlaw, seated in the chair of state and leaning her chin upon her
stick, faced round upon him a little impatiently.
"Punctuality is a virtue, my dear boy," she exclaimed, "and that
lady-love of yours is twenty minutes late. I can understand modesty
and shyness and all that kind of thing, although I don't think I ever
suffered with those complaints myself; but the captain's dinner is
spoilt, and I'm ravenously hungry. I think you had better go and look
for her."
Comethup gladly seized the opportunity. "Wouldn't it be better," he
said, as he was going out of the room, "if you went on with dinner?
'Linda will only feel a thousand times more nervous if she thinks you
have been waiting; whereas, if I bring her in quite in an ordinary
way--well, she won't feel so embarrassed."
"Oh, these lovers!" ejaculated Miss Carlaw. "Well, I suppose you're
right; so I'll ask the captain to have dinner in at once. And you're
both young--just make her run for it."
Comethup ran at top speed to the house, and went plunging through the
garden and up the steps to the balcony. Scarcely waiting to knock, he
flung open the long window and stepped into the room. Mrs. Dawson was
there, not sewing quietly as usual, but pacing up and down the room.
She stopped in her walk for a moment and faced him.
"'Linda!" he exclaimed. "Is she ready?"
"I have not seen her for some hours," replied the woman.
"Not seen her? But I----"
She took a note from the table and held it out to him. "I found this
here just now; it is addressed to you. I had been out, and came back
and found it here."
There seemed a dreadful silence about the house and in the room; the
very noise of the ripping of the envelope seemed to hurt him. He pulled
the letter out, and came forward to the light to read it. And this is
what he read:
"MY DEAR, DEAR BOY: If I had not been a coward, if I had been, in
anything, worthy of all your tenderness, your goodness, and your
love for me, I might have faced you, and told you what you will
here find written, and trusted to your mercy. I think now that if
you were here, and held my hands and looked into my eyes with those
deep, honest eyes of yours, I could not do what I must do--I could
not leave you. God knows what a long and bitter fight it has been;
how I have told myself, again and again, that you were the best man
on earth, and that nothing should change my love for you. Believe
that I meant that always; believe that I have tried, with prayers
and tears, to shut everything else out. When first I met you, after
we had grown to be man and woman, I carried something in my heart
of which I dared not speak--the love of another man. On the first
night that I ran down to meet you in the garden I thought he had
come back to me. Now he has come back indeed, and all my world is
changed, and I can cheat myself and you no longer. He is poor, and
friendless, and helpless, but he will one day be a great man; and
I, though I am but a poor, timid girl, can help him a little to
his greatness as no one else can possibly do. If I am a coward, in
running away and fearing to face you, forgive that, as you have
forgiven so much else. We go to London this afternoon; we shall be
married to-morrow. Something is tugging hard at my heart while I
write this; you have been always so good to me that I seem to see
you reading it. Forgive me; if you can find it in your big heart to
do that, you will not quite forget--
"Your friend,
"'LINDA."
He read it all through slowly, in a dazed fashion, and then quietly
folded the paper, pleating it up small in his fingers and staring down
at it. Mrs. Dawson had drawn nearer to him, and now laid her hand on
his arm. He looked round at her like some great helpless animal that
has been wounded, and can not understand why the blow should have been
struck.
"Something is wrong. What has happened?" she asked, in a quick whisper.
"She--she's gone!" he said. Then came the quick instinct, the very
dawning of a purpose he was to keep so clearly before him afterward,
that she must be protected; that her good name must be held high and
clear in all men's sight, that none might smirch it. He actually
forced a laugh to his lips as he thrust the paper into his pocket.
"There--there's nothing wrong, nothing wrong at all; you needn't look
so frightened. It's only--only a little love story--a love story none
of us guessed. Curious, isn't it? She tells me here as--as an old
friend, that she's run away--there, don't cry out--she's run away to
get married. That's all."
"To get married! But who is the man? Are you sure that he----"
A sterner light came into Comethup's eyes. "Yes," he said, "I am quite
sure. They will be married at once. You must be very fond of her," he
added gently, "to take the matter so much to heart. But I suppose any
one could get fond of her quite easily. And you've been with her a
number of years."
The woman looked at him with a forlorn expression of countenance, and
clasped her hands and began to weep, not with any violence but in a
hopeless, helpless way that was more terrible than anything else could
possibly have been. The secret she had borne so long, the story of that
shameful flight which she had been compelled at first to keep from
her child, and later had kept for her own sake, seemed to weigh more
heavily now than it could have done at any other time. She had seen the
child grow to girlhood, and then to womanhood; had been content with
what tenderness she could win from her, in her position as a tried and
faithful friend, fearing to jeopardize even that small happiness by any
avowal of the true relationship between them.
Comethup left her, and went slowly out through the garden again. He had
forgotten everything but that one thought--that she was gone--forgotten
that, within two hundred yards of him, his aunt and the captain awaited
his arrival, and would look for an explanation. In quite an aimless way
he got into the streets, and walked until he found himself outside the
Bell Inn. Scarcely knowing what he did, he went up the stairs, turned
the handle of the door, and walked into the room in which he had seen
Brian and his father. Mr. Robert Carlaw was standing by the fireplace,
looking into the glass; he turned round sharply as Comethup entered the
room.
"Brian has gone, I hear?" said Comethup, in a low voice.
Mr. Robert Carlaw flung out his hands with a despairing gesture. "It
is true, sir. With that base ingratitude which has ever been his chief
characteristic he has deserted me in the hour of my need. More than
all, he has taken with him the whole of the money you were generous
enough to place in our hands, and which I was foolish enough to leave
in his keeping."
"That's well," said Comethup half to himself. "I'm glad he's got some
money."
"Glad, sir! And pray what is to become of _me_?" exclaimed Mr. Carlaw.
"Have I lavished the tenderest care upon him for years past; have I
sacrificed everything to him; have I raced, in my declining years,
through strange and vile places of the earth, in order to be near him
and to protect him; have I done all this to be deserted now, at the
last, for a wretched jade----"
"Stop!" said Comethup quickly. "I'm afraid you don't quite understand
the situation. There is no question of any 'wretched jade,' as you
describe her. Brian has merely decided to marry the sweetest and best
girl that there is in the world. I don't think you're quite wise to
talk in that fashion, and I don't think I'd do it if I were in your
place. I've no doubt you'll see Brian again shortly. At the present
moment, as he has been, well, let us say compelled to take the money
for necessary expenses, perhaps you will allow me to replace what you
consider you have lost."
"You are very good, my dear nephew; you are always more than generous.
Forgive me if I spoke in haste. But consider the position: my son,
who is just entering, as I might say, into his kingdom, who has the
ball, as it were, at his feet, to marry a girl like this, whom no one
knows and who has never been heard of! Why, it's shocking--positively
terrible! With his face, and his figure, and his talents he might
easily have gone one better than his poor old father, and been snapped
up by a duchess. Such things _have_ occurred."
"I dare say," said Comethup wearily. "I just--just called here to see
you. I only heard a little while ago that Brian had left."
"He left a note for me," said Mr. Carlaw, "informing me coolly that he
purposed getting married to-morrow, and that, as he wanted money for
current expenses, he'd taken what there was, and had no doubt that I
should 'fall on my feet.' Fall on my feet, indeed!--a fine expression
to use to a father! What did he think was going to become of me?"
"I suppose he remembered that I was still in the town," replied
Comethup quietly. "When do you return to London?"
"Immediately; it is useless for me to stay here. I must discover my
erring boy; I can not rest until I have effected a reconciliation with
him."
Comethup was glad to bring the interview to an end. He left Mr. Robert
Carlaw smilingly fingering a cheque, and came out into the cool night
air. Even then he did not care to go back to the cottage; he wandered
on, stumbling now and then like a man half asleep, and came back
presently to the broken gates of the garden in which he had walked so
often with her. In the darkness of it he almost fancied that there
hovered the white figure of the child he had seen as a boy; he almost
thought he heard the piteous, pleading, childish voice calling to him
from among the trees. He laid his arms against one of the trees, and
rested his head upon them, and remained there in the solitary place for
quite a long time. He did not weep; the bitterness of the thing lay too
deep for tears. Young though he was, he looked up at the stars that
were peeping through the branches, and wondered how he should live and
what he should do, and how the world would go on, now that she had left
it empty. He took the letter out of his pocket and put it to his lips,
for she had written it, and there was some small consolation even in
that.
How should he tell them? That was his next thought; how to get the
miserable business explained, so that it might afterward be set aside
and forgotten and done with. He waited for some time outside the
captain's cottage, debating what to do, and finally crept in cautiously
and stood just within the doorway of the room, and beckoned to the
captain. His aunt sat with her back to him, and was quite unaware of
his presence.
The captain stared at him for a moment as though he had been a ghost,
then rose, and, with a muttered word of apology to Miss Carlaw, came
out to him. Not a word was said until they stood outside in the little
garden, with the cottage door closed and the two men looking into each
other's eyes.
"She's gone!" said Comethup; and for the first time, with his old
friend's hand in his, his fortitude gave way and he turned his head
aside. "She's gone away, this afternoon, with the man she loves--gone
to be married. You see, sir, I made a mistake--put her in a false
position, as it were. But, of course, it is all right now--and she's
gone to be married."
The captain stood perfectly still for nearly a minute without speaking;
then he said slowly, "And the man--who is the man?"
"My cousin, Brian. I suppose I ought to have known from the very first
that she must love him, and not me. You see, he's such a different sort
of fellow----"
"Thank God for that!" murmured the captain, under his breath.
"And now all we have to think about is how to tell my aunt. You see,
it's rather a foolish business: we've brought her down here under false
pretences, as it were, and there'll be such a lot to explain, won't
there? And I want, for a little time at least, to forget all about it,
just as though it hadn't happened. Shall we go in and tell her?"
"Yes, I suppose we must," said the captain. "You know her better than I
do; but I think she will understand, and will not trouble you with many
questions."
They passed together into the cottage. Miss Charlotte Carlaw must have
heard the sound of the voices outside, and must have recognised that
something was wrong. She sat quite still, with her hands resting on
her stick, but her face wore a curiously anxious expression. Comethup
crossed to the window and stood there, at some distance from her,
wondering how he should begin. She waited for some moments, and then
turned piteously toward the captain, and from him to her nephew.
"Will no one speak? What has happened? Comethup, my dear boy----"
"There's been a mistake," said Comethup, speaking in slow, steady
tones. "I suppose we all make mistakes some time or other in life, and
I've read somewhere that a man makes them most of all when he's in
love. So you see, aunt, _I've_ made a mistake; have dreamed a poor,
foolish dream; have pictured to myself something that didn't exist.
The lady I--I thought I was in love with was all the time secretly in
love with some one else, and to-day they've gone away to be married.
Please don't speak to me; please let me explain. And I want you, first
of all, to remember that it is not her fault, and never has been; the
blunder has been mine, in cheating myself into the belief that she
cared for me. It really isn't her fault, and I"--he gave a queer little
laugh--"I'm quite happy, and I say, with all my heart, 'God bless her
and her husband!'"
Miss Charlotte Carlaw's perception must have been keener even than the
captain had imagined. At the first, when Comethup began his blundering
explanation, she had shown signs of a rising indignation, but as the
pitiful recital went on her face changed, and her head was bowed slowly
over the top of her stick. The captain stole quietly from the room,
and the old woman raised her head at last and held out her hand toward
her nephew. "My dear boy," was all she said, but in the words was a
sympathy so great that he could scarce restrain his tears. He did
not feel strong enough to go near her yet, and so he said, with what
lightness he could call into his voice:
"Shall we have dinner?"
"Is there nothing more you wish to say to me?" she asked. "Oh, my
dear boy, is there nothing you wish to say? You speak as lightly as
though----"
"And think as lightly, I hope," he replied. "I've made--made a blunder;
that's all."
She dropped her stick, and stretched out both hands to him. He stepped
forward then and took the hands and kissed her. "O Comethup!" she
whispered, "I never wanted eyes so much as I want them to-night. I want
to see your face!"
CHAPTER XXI.
GENIUS AND THE DOMESTIC VIRTUES.
In all the time which followed, Miss Charlotte Carlaw never
once alluded to the scene of that evening. That, with womanly
instinct, she drew her own conclusions is certain; that, in her own
characteristically fierce fashion, she cursed the girl for a fool and a
jilt is equally certain; but to Comethup she strove in every possible
fashion to teach him to forget the mishap, to take his mind as much as
possible from the sorry business. She could not cheat herself into the
belief that she succeeded; her quick senses told her that the added
tenderness in his voice and an additional gentleness in his manner were
but the outcome of all that he suffered in silence.
They returned to town on the day following 'Linda's flight, and two
days after that a letter was forwarded to Comethup by the captain--an
impudent, paltry thing, which yet gave him some small satisfaction.
"MY DEAR YOUNG CROESUS: The race is not always to the swift, nor
the battle to the strong. I've no doubt that at the present moment
you are thirsting for my blood, and pouring out threats against
me; yet I should be glad, for the sake of our old friendship and
because I am grateful for certain services you have rendered
me, that we might still be friends. You can't have everything in
this world; and once upon a time, when probably you didn't know
any better, you stole my birthright. At the present moment I have
stolen what was never yours. It was a mere girlish infatuation on
her part, and one which you should have been wise enough never to
take seriously. You wouldn't see that you were in the way, and you
forced me to adopt the only course possible. I am convinced of one
thing, and that is, that my new life with her will give me just
that stimulus which has somehow been wanting in all my efforts. We
were married on the day following our flight to London, so that you
need not, in your innocence, blush for me or for her. We are going
into the country for what is technically known as the honeymoon,
and then we return to town and I start seriously to work. I will
let you know my address.
"Yours sympathetically,
"BRIAN CARLAW."
He tore the letter up and went about his daily life, determined, if
possible, now that the matter was ended, to shut it all out of his
mind. Miss Carlaw, with the same kindly object in view, proposed a
flight to the Continent, and, believing that it would please her to
go, he gladly fell in with the suggestion. They were absent nearly two
months.
As they travelled with much the same state they had adopted on their
former journeyings--putting up at the best hotels and staying in the
largest cities--they were easily to be traced. This Comethup was soon
to discover, for one night in Rome, after a solitary ramble through
the streets, a note was handed him as he entered his hotel; he was
informed that it had been left by a gentleman, who would return in half
an hour. He tore it open, and discovered that it was written hurriedly
in pencil and was signed by Robert Carlaw, that the writer begged for a
few moments' conversation with him on a matter of emergency. Comethup
hesitated for a moment, and then strolled out into the streets again,
lingering about near the entrance of the hotel. He had no desire to
meet his aunt, and then arouse her suspicions by leaving her again.
In a little while he saw Mr. Robert Carlaw approaching him, swinging
along with something of the old jaunty step, and setting his hat a
little more rakishly on his head as he approached his destination.
Yet there was, with all his jauntiness, a certain lack of confidence
about the man--in his movements and in his glances--which may have been
inspired by the needy life he had led. Comethup stood watching him as
he neared the hotel entrance, and saw that he did not turn boldly in,
but lingered for a moment outside, looking in furtively. As Comethup
walked toward him a look of relief stole over his face, and he went
toward the young man with both hands outstretched. Comethup grasped
one of the hands, and his own was immediately covered by the other and
warmly pressed.
"My dear young friend," exclaimed Mr. Robert Carlaw, "how good it is to
set eyes once again upon you! May I dare say that I have hungered for a
sight of you? I trust you have not waited long here for me?"
"No," said Comethup. "But I thought that if you wished to see me we
might talk here more easily than in the hotel."
"True--true," murmured his uncle; "you are ever considerate. And I, who
am, and have been for a long time, nothing but a houseless wanderer,
a wretch who dare not meet the eye of his tailor, to say nothing of
his butcher and his baker, I seem to shun the lighted halls of luxury,
and to choose, as befitting my own fallen fortunes, the darker ways of
life. But enough of me." He made a dramatic gesture, sighed, and linked
his arm in that of the young man and strolled on with him.
"You're in no fresh trouble, I hope," said Comethup. He longed to speak
of 'Linda, to ask if she were happy, to be certain that all was well
with her.
"_Fresh_ trouble!" ejaculated Mr. Carlaw. "Would that any trouble
which I suffered could, in any sense of the word, be termed 'fresh'!
They are all too old and stale for that. I am buried to the neck in
them, am forever struggling to the lips in a horrid sea of them,
expecting to be drowned every moment. Once or twice a generous fellow,
who shall be nameless"--he squeezed Comethup's arm--"has thrown, to
carry the metaphor further, a life-line to me, and has drawn me ashore
for a space. But ill fortune has thrust me back again in time, and
each time I seem to sink deeper than ever. But enough of myself; I
am the emissary of others." He said it with an air as though he felt
it conferred a distinction upon him that he was not on this occasion
personally begging.
"Of others?" inquired Comethup, looking round at him.
"Yes; it is not for myself I plead. I do not know, by the way, that
I have ever really pleaded for myself; your generosity has merely
anticipated my necessities. Mine is a nature which, foolishly enough
from the world's point of view, places self last; it has ever been my
way. But I have taken this journey, on the present occasion, because
I can not see those who are dear to me--my flesh and blood, so to
speak--perishing, while the world looks on with careless eyes. I am a
father, and I feel the responsibilities more than might be imagined. I
have watched my son's career; I have seen men prick their ears at the
mention of his name and nod sagely; I have----"
Comethup was too impatient to hear more of the preamble. He seemed to
scent disaster in the very air, and broke in upon the other's slow
words impatiently. "Yes, yes; but tell me at once what you mean, why
you are here, and what's happened. Of course, if Brian is in want, you
know that I shall be only too glad to----"
"My dear nephew, you anticipate my meaning at once. It is only the
truly generous soul that can see deep into the heart of distress, as
it were, in a moment. I will not disguise from you the fact that these
young people, who have rashly, but with a very beautiful confidence in
Providence, I think, entered upon a union which naturally increases
expenses--I will not disguise from you the fact that they are in
want--that we all are in want. I--I have recently, from motives of
economy, taken up my residence with them, and that close intimacy has
enabled me to see clearly that which my son's natural pride has kept
from my knowledge. Sir, I can bear it no longer. I said to myself,
'These young people shall not suffer before my eyes. I will sacrifice
everything for them; I will humble my pride; I will approach our former
benefactor.' And I am here."
"I'm dreadfully sorry to hear what you say," replied Comethup. "Of
course I had no idea that Brian would be in such straits as you
describe. I shall be returning to England within a few days; perhaps I
shall be able to see him. In the meantime, perhaps you will allow me to
give you--I beg your pardon, lend you--a sum of money, and you can then
hasten back to them. I trust they are not--not in actual want?"
"Their credit, up to the moment, has, I rejoice to say, remained good;
but even that is on the point of exhaustion, and after that--well,
I tremble. So you see, when it came to a crisis I informed my son
that I would seek you. With the natural hesitation of a proud man, he
refused at first to listen to such a suggestion; but I prevailed, took
sufficient for my journey, on the most economical principles, and, as I
said before, here I am."
"I have only a little over thirty pounds with me," said Comethup, "but,
as I shall be returning to London immediately, that will suffice for
your present need. You return to England at once?"
"To-morrow morning," replied Mr. Robert Carlaw, thrusting the money
into his breast pocket. "To-night I shall sleep soundly, for the first
time for many weeks; I do not sleep soundly when I am troubled about
those who are near and dear to me. Yes, I return to-morrow morning."
They parted, and Comethup went slowly back to the hotel. No mention
had been made by his aunt about any probable date of return; they had
merely wandered from city to city as the whim took them, Miss Carlaw
having always in her mind the desire to teach him forgetfulness.
Therefore, when he went to her that night and stated, with what
carelessness he might, that he should like to return to London at once,
she was naturally somewhat startled. Even while he was speaking and
urging excuses for no longer remaining abroad she was casting about in
her mind to discover the real reason of this step he contemplated; she
began at last to fear that she understood the reason only too well.
"Come, my dear boy, what ails you? What's the reason of this sudden
change of plan? There's nothing troubling you, is there? You've had
no--no letters, no bad news, to worry you? Won't you tell me?"
To tell her was, of course, impossible. Even if he could have kept
back that former story of all the money he had paid away, he could not
now explain that this girl, who had left him for another, was in want,
and that he, the man she had cast aside, was to relieve her. That, of
course, could never be explained--would never be understood. Although
his aunt had scarcely mentioned the matter to him, he felt, from
something she had once said, that she knew the story of the marriage,
and knew that Brian was 'Linda's husband. Probably the captain had
told her. But Comethup saw clearly before him that there was but one
course he could adopt--that of silence. He could not bear to think
that any action of 'Linda's, or of those belonging to her, should be
misunderstood.
"No, of course I have had no bad news. What should make you think that?
Only I am a little tired of travelling, and you know London is always
delightful; I've heard you say that. My dear aunt, I know you only
undertook this journey because you thought I should like it. Won't you
go back to please me also?"
"Ah! you're keeping something from me; there's something hidden away in
your heart that you won't tell me. There! I'm not inquisitive--no more
than the rest of my sex; but I'd like to give you a word of warning,
boy. You've not been happy lately--oh, I know!--although you haven't
said a word about it; I'm too fond of you not to notice every little
sign. My dear boy, there's something I never meant to refer to; it's a
story that's best left alone. Comethup, you're not--not hungering after
her still, are you?"
"No," he replied.
"And you're not making this sudden journey to London after her?
Remember, you must put that out of your mind; I say _must_ advisedly,
because there's no other word to use in the matter. You can't blink the
thing away, my dear: she belongs to some one else, and you've done with
her. If you don't recognise that, it only means disaster for both of
you. With a man and a woman in such a situation there are two things
for the man to do: if he can't run away _with_ her, then, by the Lord,
he must run away _from_ her!"
"But I am not going to London to see her," said Comethup. "I'm afraid
you're magnifying the matter; she is married, happily married, and all
the other is forgotten and done with. Won't you understand that?"
"Yes, if you tell me so. I am very glad, for your sake, to hear you say
it. And, if it pleases you, we'll set off for London at once."
One thought was uppermost in Comethup's mind--that he must not see
'Linda. In the first place, he felt pretty certain that the fact of his
having been appealed to on her own and her husband's behalf had not
been revealed to her; and, in the second, he was not quite sure yet
that he could bear to meet her. That she must, at all costs, be kept
from want and suffering he had fully determined; all the bright hopes
and dreams he had had, even from his boyhood, concerning her were swept
aside and done with--things that never had been. The fortune that had
been placed in his hands and which had seemed once so wonderful was now
nothing, save that by its aid, in an indirect fashion and without her
knowledge, he could benefit her; he was glad to think that he still
possessed that power at least. For his wanderings had not changed him.
Solitary for the most part, except for the companionship of the strange
old woman who loved him and would have done so much to help him, he
had seen, in every place he visited, the face of the girl always before
him; had gone over, in imagination, words she had spoken to him; had
lived again through scenes of those brief half-happy weeks in which he
had thought she loved him.
Within an hour of reaching London he had set off for Brian's lodgings;
he had found a brief note awaiting him, giving the address. He
discovered it to be in a cheerless and shabby quarter of town; it was
obvious, from the style of the house, that they had no real home of
their own yet, but were living in furnished apartments. He wandered
up and down the street, in the dusk of the evening, for a long time,
wondering what he should do, or how it would be possible to meet Brian
without also seeing 'Linda. He had almost made up his mind, in despair
of anything better, to ring the bell and inquire for his cousin, when
the door of the house he was watching opened and 'Linda came out. He
was on the opposite side of the street, standing back in the shadow of
a doorway, and he saw her distinctly--saw, with something of a stab at
his heart, that she seemed thinner, and that some of the old elasticity
of her step was gone.
He watched her hungrily till she had turned the corner, and then
crossed the road and rang the bell. He was shown, by a weird-looking,
tired-eyed little servant-maid, into a room on the first floor; it was
empty, but in a few moments a door leading to a farther room was opened
and Brian came in. There was none of the old frank, joyous fashion of
greeting about him; he merely nodded, and thrust his hands into his
pockets and walked across to the fireplace.
"Well," he said, "so you've found me out at last, have you? You've been
long enough about it."
"I came to you as soon as I could," said Comethup. "You know I've been
abroad, and I----"
"Abroad! What do you want to fling that in my face for? Here,
some cursed fortune thrusts me, penniless, into a wretched London
lodging-house in a slum, and you flaunt it in the best hotels all
over Europe. Where's the justice of it? In God's name"--he swung
round fiercely, and made a step toward the other--"how does the world
expect me to work, why does it demand the best of me, under such
circumstances?"
"Don't be unreasonable," said Comethup slowly. "I met your father in
Rome, and sent him hurrying back to you."
"The damned old scoundrel! Do you know that I've never even seen him?
When I could stand it no longer, I suggested he should go and find you,
and he promised faithfully to come back the moment--well, the moment he
got anything. How much did you give him?"
"A little over thirty pounds," said Comethup.
"And a fine time he's having with it, I'll be bound. Never trust your
own flesh and blood, say I. Fancy your own father leaving you to
starve!"
"Well, I shouldn't trouble about that now," said Comethup. He had been
looking round the shabby room, with its absence of anything homelike,
save for a few flowers in a cheap vase on a little table and some
needlework in a little basket. He trembled at every footfall on the
stairs, and was only anxious to get away before she returned. "You know
I've always plenty of money, and if you will let me----"
"Oh! don't beat around the bush. What do you suppose I sent to you for?
It's easy enough to come in, well fed and well dressed--I'll warrant
you drove here in style----"
"I don't think I'd say that, if I were you," said Comethup quietly.
His hands were gripped closely behind him, and one foot was beating
restlessly on the carpet. "You know I've always been ready to--to lend
you anything in my power. There's only one thing I'd like to say, and
that is, I should be grateful if you wouldn't say anything about it to
any one else--to 'Linda, for instance."
"You needn't fear that; I've got my pride--possibly more of it than
you possess. There! I don't want to quarrel with you; only I suppose
I've got a little soured when I could see no prospect of anything
coming in. And money does go so devilish fast in London! Why, that
hundred I had--you remember when I left poor old dad stranded without
a halfpenny--it's all gone long since. Poetry is not a paying game, my
boy, and these days people don't seem to believe in a poet who's hidden
away in dingy rooms like this. You see, I can't ask any one to see
me; the people I knew have lost sight of me, and I am in daily dread
of being shelved altogether. A poet must remember his social duties,
like every one else. While I go on at this rate I shall never make a
splash--never do anything."
"Yes, you'll do well enough in time," said Comethup, glancing uneasily
toward the door. "As you want me to put the thing bluntly," he added
with a little laugh, "perhaps I may say that I've brought some money
with me, and that more shall be forthcoming when that's gone--until, of
course, you've been able to make your 'splash,' as you term it, and can
repay it."
"Oh! of course, that will be all right; it's bound to come sooner or
later. That's just the point; the things are talked about enough, and
if I could once thrust my head in at society's door and talk about them
myself, I should be a made man. How much can you spare me?"
"Well, I don't spend much myself, and I thought perhaps--say two
hundred?"
"By Jove, you're a good fellow! Pass it over. I must trump up a story
to 'Linda about a sudden remittance from the publishers; women like to
know the ins and outs of things."
"Is--is she well?" asked Comethup carelessly, as he held out the notes
to the other.
"Oh, yes, she's well enough," replied Brian. "Like most of her
delightful sex, she's possessed of a temper, and so am I, so that we
don't always pull together nicely in harness. But she's very fond of
me, and I--yes, I'm very fond of her. But, I say, you'd better be
going, hadn't you?"
"Yes, I think I'll go," replied Comethup. He picked up his hat, and
looked for a moment round the room; he did not know when, if ever, he
should see it again, and it was a wonderful place to him, poor though
it was, because she lived there.
Brian went to the door, to ascertain if the coast was clear, and
Comethup, shaking him hurriedly by the hand, ran downstairs and got
into the street. Even then for a long time he could not leave the
place, lingering unhappily up and down on the other side of the street,
waiting to catch a glimpse of her again.
He saw her come back presently and enter the house, saw lights gleam in
the room he had left, and a little later still saw them both come out
and the girl link her arm in Brian's, and watched them go off together
in high spirits. Walking sadly a long way behind them, he saw Brian
hail a cab at the end of the street and put her in and jump in himself;
saw the cab drive away westward.
CHAPTER XXII.
A SECOND DESERTION.
Now that they were once again established in London, Miss Charlotte
Carlaw made up her mind that they would entertain and be entertained;
that the Prince Charming, who had burst, so to speak, upon her
acquaintances as a mere child, should, now that his education and his
travels were completed, appear before them as a man. She set about the
business with characteristic energy. He was regarded, as he had always
been, as the head of the house, and, although Miss Charlotte Carlaw
very rarely went out, Comethup knew that it pleased her that he should
accept invitations, even though his doing so must leave her alone. So
it happened that he went about a great deal.
It was at a big house one night in the following year that he met
'Linda. It was the house of a woman who liked to call about her every
little shining light, in whatever particular sphere they might be,
and make much of them for a while, and then drop them as hurriedly.
Comethup had seen Brian at the end of one of the rooms, with a group
about him; had had time to notice, as he passed unobserved, that Brian
was talking at a great rate, and looking handsomer than ever. Several
women were in the group, and he heard their bright laughter as he
passed.
Quite alone in an alcove he stumbled suddenly upon the girl. It was the
first time they had met since that night in the old garden, which now
seemed so many miles away. She was very simply but very beautifully
dressed. As she glanced up at him, with almost a frightened look, he
overcame his momentary hesitation, held out his hand quite naturally,
and smiled as she had seen him smile when a boy. He thought her glance
changed almost to one of gratitude; he sat beside her and tried to get
some natural phrase to his lips, and to still the heavy beating of his
heart.
"I--I saw Brian--just now," he said. "I had no idea you would be here,
although I might have known."
"You see, I'm not so lucky as Brian; he seems to know every one, or
else they want to know him, and I get left a little out in the cold."
"That's a shame," he replied. "I'm afraid we're in the same boat; no
one wants to have much to do with a dull fellow like me. So it's rather
lucky I came across you, isn't it?"
She nodded slowly; her head was bowed a little, so that he could
scarcely see her face. Presently, when she raised it and looked at
him, it shook him to the depths to see that her eyes were full of
tears. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked, in a low voice. "Oh!
forgive me. I ought not to have said that; but it seems so hard to sit
here and talk commonplaces, as though we had just been introduced--so
hard, when I remember all that--all that has gone before. Wouldn't it
have been kinder if you had walked past me just now, without knowing
me? I should have deserved that; this hurts me a thousand times more."
"Why should I behave to you like that?" he asked, with a smile. "If
we must go back to that old story, for Heaven's sake let us look on
the best side of it! If any one is to blame about the matter, I am the
sinner. I like best--you won't mind my saying this, I am sure!--I like
best to think of all the splendid times we had, when we were little
mites, with the captain, you know; and I like to think, if that will
please you, that, when we got a little older--well, we played at love,
as we played at so many things before, although the captain didn't help
us there, did he?"
She looked up at him quickly, with the ghost of a smile flitting across
her face, and made a movement as though she would have stretched out
her hand to him. But she stopped, and he went on again more easily:
"So now, you see, the game is ended, as so many other games we played
ended in their good time. Let that suffice. It's good to see you again,
and to know that you are happy, and that all things are going well with
you, little friend. Come, tell me about yourself."
Their eyes met, and held each other's for one long moment; then he
turned his away. Perhaps in that look she understood, in a dim fashion,
for the first time, all that this man had lost, all that she had
snatched from him; perchance she saw something greater here than had
before touched her life. But, moving to his mood, she began to talk
quickly, almost gaily:
"Oh, yes, Brian is doing splendidly, and making heaps of money. You
know we've left the first place in which we lived long ago, and have
got a beautiful little house in Chelsea--you'll come and see us, won't
you?--and a great many clever people come there to see him, and then we
go out a great deal. Oh, you've no idea how different it all seems from
the quiet old days before--before I was married. But I suspect you've
heard how well Brian is getting on?"
He had heard it, indeed. Sitting beside her there, he wondered what
she would have thought if she had known that the little house in
Chelsea, the full, ever-varying life she led, the very dress that
brushed against him, were all purchased with his money. He wondered
what she would have thought had she known that this husband of hers
swept gaily along the pathway of life which Comethup cleared for him,
coming without the faintest hesitation, again and again, to his cousin
when former supplies were exhausted, never stopping for an instant
to consider the justice or the injustice of the matter, but taking
everything as his right, almost without thanks; whining about his hard
lot, or railing at Fate, according as the mood was with him, yet living
always at the fullest pressure, with not even a passing thought for
the morrow. For one brief moment, perhaps, a perfectly natural thought
flashed into his mind to tell her, to let her see clearly the shame of
the thing, to understand what this man she loved really was. But the
thought was gone almost before it had entered his mind, and he felt
himself flushing angrily that it should ever have been there at all.
Instead, he looked round at her, and answered her question.
"Oh, yes, I've heard all about it, and I'm very glad for your sake. I
suppose Brian is working very hard?"
"Not very hard just now. He tells me that in his profession he has to
look out always for fresh ideas, that unless he meets a great many
people and sees a great many different phases of life he can't expect
to give expression to the best that's in him. That's what he says; I
dare say you know what he means."
"Yes, I think I know what he means," said Comethup slowly. "I suppose
one mustn't judge a poet by ordinary standards. You see, I'm such an
idle dog, and I just manage to stroll through life in--in the sunshine,
and so I don't quite understand what that other life--the life of
a genius--means. By the way, I'm thinking of going down to see the
captain; have you any message for him?"
Her face was turned away; she did not answer for a moment. "What does
he think of me?" she asked at last, in a low voice.
"Nothing but the best, I can assure you," he replied. "You've always
been, and always will be, his little 'Linda, the child he knew so many
years ago. Why should he think badly of you?"
"If you're quite sure--well, give him my love; say that I think of him
often and often; that in moments when I am alone I dream that I am in
his garden again, among the roses; that I am still a little child, with
my arms about him. And say--say that I am quite, quite happy. Will you
remember that?"
"Every word," said Comethup. He felt he could not trust himself to say
anything more, or even to look into her eyes again; he got up and said
hurriedly and awkwardly that he supposed he should see her again, and
so left her. The rooms were very full, and Brian was talking away to a
new group as Comethup got out of the place and went into the street.
All the misery was back upon him in fullest strength; all the old
unsatisfied longings, the dreams he had dreamed, the hopes he had
cherished, had swept down upon him like a flood with the touch of her
hand, the glance of her eyes. It had not seemed so bitter a thing
when he had merely to think of her, to picture her in this situation
or in that in a wholly intangible form; to see her face to face was a
different matter, needing a stronger courage. He asked himself, again
and again, that question which is inevitable in some men's lives: why
Fate had given him so much, and yet stripped away from him that which
was worth more than all he had received. Yet, through it all, she stood
out as some one far above him; some one he had loved, in a foolish,
vain fashion, in some far-off time, without any hope that she could
love him in return. Whichever way his thoughts turned and returned, and
swept hither and thither, there was not anywhere any blame for her.
He could not sleep that night; he paced his room hour after hour,
turning old forgotten things over in his mind--things which would
have been so much better left alone. He was roused after a little
time by a light tap at the door, and Miss Charlotte Carlaw came in, a
strange-looking figure, with a dressing-gown wrapped about her and a
shawl thrown over her head. He stood still, and she came slowly across
to him and fumbled for his hands and took them. "My boy, my boy," she
said, "what has happened? what is wrong?"
He did not answer; he drew her arm through his, and they began to walk
up and down the room together, she with one hand gently touching his
arm as if to soothe him.
"Dreams, dreams, dreams!" he broke out at last. "Oh! if a man might
sleep soundly and forget everything that's gone, forget words that were
uttered, and the clasp of hands that have touched his, and--and other
things besides!"
"I know, I know," she whispered. "But there's something, God or devil,
I don't know which it is, that won't let us forget anything. The best
and the worst of us, boy, have had to go through it, and I think we
come in time to find that we're glad we can't forget, however bitter
the remembrance may have been at first. The years soften things, dear,
and show them in a better and a kindlier light, and we learn our
difficult lesson with many tears and much smudging of the slate of
life; but we learn it all the same, and we grow to laugh at the end,
when the lessons are put away and the long day is finished. You haven't
learned that yet, Comethup, and you don't think now you can; but you
will, Heaven knows you will--Have you seen her again?"
"To-night," he muttered.
"Well, you talked with her, I suppose?"
"Yes. Oh, forgive me; it didn't seem to matter so much before, but
now----"
"Is she happy?" asked the old woman.
"Yes, she seems very happy."
"That's well; that's better than I expected. Come, boy, I don't want to
preach to you; I am something of a blundering old sinner myself--I'm
the last person to preach to any one. But I know something of what life
is, and I've learned the best way to get through it. I suppose you'll
be bound to meet her sometimes; that's the sort of devilish game Fate
plays with us. The things we most want to see are kept out of our
sight, and those we would be glad to avoid are thrust under our very
noses. But don't see her more than you can help, and try to think--it's
a bit hard to do so, I admit--but try to think that the world holds
something else than one woman, and something better than dreams and
regrets. Face it, boy. Move about and see people and interest yourself
in other matters. I won't do you the injustice to say that you will be
able to forget; I'm afraid you won't do that. But at least you'll grow
to look at the matter in a different way, and to think it wasn't so bad
after all; I'm quite sure you will."
They paced up and down the room together for a little time longer,
Miss Carlaw occasionally drawing his hand up to her lips or against
her cheek, and sometimes softly crooning a few bars of an old song, as
though to a child in pain or trouble. Presently, quite briskly, she
took him by the shoulders, and drew his head down that she might kiss
him, and felt her way out of the room. And, after a time, he crept to
bed and slept more soundly than he had hoped to do.
A couple of days after that he went down to see the captain. It was his
first visit since the night of 'Linda's flight, and he almost feared
on his journey down that the captain might refer to the matter in some
way and tear wider the old wound. But he might have known the little
gentleman better, for no word was said on the subject during the whole
of his stay, which lasted some days. With a melancholy desire, however
to reopen the wound himself, Comethup let his feet stray one night,
soon after his arrival in the old town, toward the neglected garden of
the house in which she had lived--it seemed so much easier to think
there, even to think calmly, than in any other place.
There seemed always to be dead and drifting leaves in that garden, at
whatever time of the year; a different atmosphere was there from that
found anywhere else. He walked all round the house, lingering among the
trees, as he had lingered when a boy, almost thinking he saw sometimes
the flutter of her childish frock going on before him. The place seemed
deserted; not a light gleamed from any window.
At last he became conscious that there really was some one moving
before him in the garden, flitting about among the trees, gliding into
shadows, and keeping as much as possible out of sight. The place had
seemed ghostly enough before, but now a little chill fear crept into
his heart and stopped his feet; immediately the movement among the
trees ceased also.
In some alarm Comethup, with a hasty glance behind him, called out
hurriedly to know who was there. The movement began again, and a figure
came slowly from between the trees and approached him in a sidelong,
hesitating fashion. Comethup, summoning his courage, made a hasty step
forward and was confronted by old Medmer Theed, the shoemaker.
"Why, how you startled me!" exclaimed the young man. "Why are you
dodging and hiding among the trees like this?"
The old man came nearer to him and laid a thin, knotted hand on his
arm. "To watch for her, to wait for her," he whispered. "See"--he waved
his other hand toward the dark old house--"it's all silent and empty
now, nothing to be seen. But she'll come back, she'll come back--just
as the other child might have come; I wait for her as I waited for the
other. But all my dreams have confused me. I don't know which is alive
and which is dead, or whether both are alive or both dead, or whether
there was only one, after all. But she'll come back, and so I wait
for her. Sometimes I dream that she has come back already, after I've
gone to my bed; and I wake with a start, thinking I hear her knocking,
knocking at the door. But there's no one there and the street is empty.
But she'll come back here."
"But why should she come back?" asked Comethup sadly. "She is in London
with her husband, happily married. Didn't you know that?"
The old man laughed a little scornfully. "Happily married!" he echoed.
"Does a child weep when it is happy? are there tears in a woman's eyes
when all is well with her?"
"Yes, of course, sometimes," replied Comethup. "But why do you ask?"
"Listen. She was sent to me as a tiny child, straight from the arms of
God, to comfort me when--when all my dreams were wrong. I have watched
her grow up; have seen the sunlight gladly follow her across the
doorway and across the floor of my shop when she flitted in--brighter
than any sunlight--and sat beside me. The time came when she came
to me less and less often; when she would only flit in sometimes,
bringing the sunlight, and put her arms about my neck and her cheek
against mine, and whisper a word or two and run away again. But I loved
her--she was sent to me, she belonged to me. Mine was the charge to
watch over her, and I watched for a long, long time. I saw her grow
to girlhood; I saw her become a woman--just as the other had grown;
and then began the time when I must watch her indeed. I have lain
here among the trees many and many a night, only that I might see the
light burning calmly in her window. And then the time came when I saw
something else."
"Go on," said Comethup in a low voice.
"I saw _him_ come--come like a thief in the night, calling softly to
her; whispering softly, with his arms about her. See"--he stretched out
his arms and shook them stiff and hard before Comethup--"I am strong;
much labour has made me strong. I wish now that I had caught him by his
white throat and turned his smiling face up to the stars and held him
so until he died."
"For shame!" cried Comethup. "Why should you kill him? She loved him,
and they are married."
"Yes, it was because I thought she loved him that I hesitated,"
whispered the old man, dropping his hands to his sides. "And yet she
came always as though with her love there was half a fear of him, as
though he smiled and beckoned to her and drew her against her will. He
didn't love her, and she will come back here; she will be glad to come
back. And so I watch for her night after night."
Without any further words he slipped away again among the trees and was
soon lost to sight. Comethup hesitated a moment, but feeling it would
be useless to go after him or to argue further with him, he went out of
the garden and took his way back to the captain's. Another thought had
occurred to him in regard to the old house, and he mentioned the matter
to the captain that night as they sat together.
"By the way, sir," he said, "do you remember a woman--a Mrs. Dawson, I
think--who used to live with--with 'Linda at her father's old house!
What has become of her? I noticed to-night," he added, with what
carelessness he might, "that the place appears to be shut up and empty;
I happened to pass that way."
The captain looked at him keenly and sympathetically for a moment. "She
has gone away," he said at last. "She came to me immediately before
leaving here; she seemed to know no one in the place except myself, and
she had a vague idea that I had been kind to 'Linda in some way, and
that it was necessary for her to thank me. In her agitation she let
fall a remark which led me to question her; and I heard for the first
time her melancholy history. As we are all interested, my dear boy,
in anything that touches our little friend 'Linda, you might as well
know it; although, for that matter, we are neither of us likely to see
the woman again, and it will be better--in fact, it was her wish--that
'Linda should know nothing about it. It seems that this woman, who was
known merely as Mrs. Dawson, was really 'Linda's mother."
"Her mother!" echoed Comethup. "But why was the matter kept secret,
and why did she masquerade under another name and in the capacity of a
dependent?"
"Soon after her marriage it appears that she fled with a lover, leaving
the child behind. From what I once saw of Dr. Vernier, I am not very
much disposed to lay any heavy sentence upon her; besides, God forbid
that I should judge any human creature, especially a woman! However,
the lover died, and the mother traced her husband out and begged
that she might see her child. With a cruelty which one can scarcely
understand, he permitted her to remain in the house with the child
strictly on the understanding that her identity was not to be revealed.
To that stipulation she seems loyally to have conformed. Of course, as
you may readily suppose, when the girl had grown up and her father was
dead, the wretched mother naturally shrank from telling her daughter
the shameful story, and lived on as before. Now, of course, in a moment
her child is swept away from her and she can do nothing. In fact,
rightly or wrongly, I advised her for 'Linda's sake to say nothing. And
where she has gone I really don't know."
"A pitiful story," said Comethup after a pause. "We have, as you say,
to think of the girl and of her new position; she has gone out of this
woman's life, and I suppose--well, it seems rather hard, doesn't it?"
"Not so hard as it might have been. She believes that her daughter is
happily married, and----"
"Believes!" echoed Comethup.
"I beg your pardon; I should have said she knows she is happily
married. And that is something of a comfort to her. I think she
despaired long since of ever being able to reveal herself to her
daughter. And you think that our little 'Linda is really happy?"
"Why, of course she is. She married the man she loved," said Comethup
quietly.
"Well, I suppose she did," said the captain. "And Brian, I understand,
is doing well?"
"Oh, yes, he's doing well enough," replied Comethup, turning away.
He wandered again in the garden of her old house the next night. Medmer
Theed may have been lurking among the trees, but he did not see him.
Coming out, when it was very late, into the street, he found the old
captain pacing up and down before the gate, with his long military
cloak about him, and his hands clasped under it behind his back. They
walked on slowly down the road together. It seemed almost a natural
thing that he should be there, and for some time Comethup said nothing.
At last, looking round, he said slowly, "I suppose you think I'm a
fool, sir?"
"God forbid!" said the old man, staring straight in front of him as he
walked. "A man's got to fight this sort of thing out alone, and with
what strength God may give him. Come home, boy; to-morrow--oh, it hurts
me to part from you--but to-morrow you must go to London."
"Yes, I think you're right. All this place is full of memories of her;
I hear her voice--as child or woman--wherever I turn; her light feet
tread all the road beside me where I walk; the very moon shines as
calmly down upon me as when we walked together--lovers. Don't think
I'm saying anything against her; perhaps I've even been coward enough
to hug my pain a little, because the pain has been so sweet. Give me
your hand, old friend; I promise--there, I'll swear if you like--that
I'll try to put it all aside. I can't forget it; that's quite another
matter; but I'll put it away from me and be a little braver about it.
There's my hand on it."
"That's well," said the captain, gripping his hand. "I'm sorry to send
you away, but I think you know it's best, don't you?"
"Yes, you're right. I must find some work to do; I have been an idle
dog too long. Come, let's go home."
Yet even in London he could not keep away from her; he thought of her
when he woke in the morning, and breathed her name when he lay down
to rest at night. He found his way one night to the little house they
had taken in Chelsea; longed to go in, in a natural fashion, yet dared
not trust himself. Once or twice he turned resolutely to go away,
and then came back again, and lingered still. At last, when it was
getting late, the door was opened and he saw, from his position on the
opposite side of the street, his Uncle Robert Carlaw standing within
the hall, lighting a cigar; saw him set his hat at the proper angle,
and come swinging out into the street. Comethup had no particular wish
to meet him, and only wondered a little, in his own mind, under what
circumstances he had returned to his son's house. He was just walking
away in good earnest, when Mr. Robert Carlaw crossed the street,
recognised him, and came breathlessly after him. Comethup faced about
and pretended not to notice the other's outstretched hand.
"Ah! my dear boy, I see we do not meet on the old cordial footing.
Well, it has been my fate through life to be misjudged; to be met
with scorn when I craved only sympathy; to have every action of mine
misunderstood, every word misinterpreted. Don't turn away from me, I
beg; let me explain, let me appeal to you."
Comethup had stopped, and stood looking at him coldly. "There certainly
seems to be the need for some explanation," he said. "I suppose you
will not deny that you deceived me; that the money I placed in your
hands, at your request, to help Brian and--and his wife, never reached
them?"
"My dear nephew, a moment; I crave only a moment. I left you that night
in Rome, with the full intention of returning to them and flinging the
whole before them and crying: 'See! the wolf is no longer at the door;
your father has saved you!' That was my full intention. But alas! I was
tempted; tempted not for my own sake, but for theirs. The money was but
a small amount--you will admit it was small, my dear nephew--and I saw
the opportunity to increase it. I turned aside on my journey at one of
those gambling hells which should, if I had my way, be swept off the
face of Europe to-morrow; I turned aside and staked that small sum for
them. I felt that I might be able to take them perhaps ten times the
amount. But, alas! I lost all."
"As you might have expected," said Comethup. "Fortunately for them, I
returned within a day or two after you, and----"
"So I have heard, so I have heard," exclaimed Mr. Robert Carlaw.
"Bless you, my young friend, bless you! For myself, how I contrived
to reach London I scarcely know; but I _did_ reach it, and after some
weeks of fear and trembling I at last approached my son and threw
myself upon his mercy. I--in fact, we are quite reconciled, and I have
taken up my abode with him."
"So I observe," said Comethup.
"But to-night, sir, to-night even that must cease. The crowning piece
of ingratitude has at last been reached; the son for whom I have done
so much, sacrificed so much--the son of whom I have been, as I felt,
justly proud--has deserted me."
"Deserted you?" cried Comethup, catching his arm. "What do you mean?"
"Gone, sir--fled! He has lulled me into a feeling of false security;
led me to believe that I could end my days in the bosom of his family,
surrounded by men of culture and refinement, who would naturally
appeal to those finer instincts in me which have had so long to remain
dormant, and then in a moment he has gone and ruined my prospects."
"Why the devil don't you speak plainly?" cried Comethup, roused at
last, and shaking him fiercely by the arm. "What do you mean? Do you
mean that he has deserted his wife?"
"Not only has he deserted her, my dear nephew, but he has had the
audacity to leave her to my care"--he struck himself on the breast--"to
_my_ care--an old man who has toiled for him through a long and
cheerless life, and who might, but for the ingratitude of him and
others, have been something of a figure in the world. But he has
reckoned, sir, without knowing what I really am."
"What do you mean?" asked Comethup slowly.
"I mean, my dear nephew, that that is a game at which two can play.
Does he think that a man of my position is to be left to starve with a
mere chit of a girl? No, sir; he took this responsibility upon himself,
and it has nothing to do with me. I absolutely refuse to accept it."
Comethup took him suddenly by the shoulders and looked steadily into
his eyes; Mr. Robert Carlaw's eyes shifted a little before the steady
gaze of the other. "Do you mean to say that you're going to desert her
too, eh?" asked Comethup.
"My dear nephew, there's no question of desertion----"
"Answer me, yes or no. I didn't want to talk about it, but you may
perhaps remember that you've depended upon me for some years past.
Leave her now, and, as surely as there's a God above us, I'll leave you
to starve! Now, how's it to be?"
"But, my dear nephew, think of the position."
"My dear uncle, I have thought of the position. When did Brian go, and
where has he gone?"
"I believe he has gone to Paris, and, as generally happens in such
cases, there's a woman in the matter."
Comethup nodded grimly and glanced across at the house which Mr. Robert
Carlaw had just left; he seemed to mutter something between his teeth.
"To Paris. Well, I dare say I can find him. In the meantime you go back
and you stay with her. Does she know anything about this?"
"My dear boy, if there's one thing I dislike more than another, it's
a scene with a woman--tears, and all that kind of thing. As that
scapegrace son of mine had not seen fit to mention the matter, I
thought it scarcely devolved upon me."
"Exactly," replied Comethup. "And so you were going to creep out and
leave her there--alone in uncertainty--to starve, for aught that you
cared! Now, go back to her. Tell her nothing about this, except that
Brian has been called away on business; I dare say your conscience
will stretch to the extent of that lie. As regards pecuniary matters,
I think you know you may safely leave them with me; but about that you
will say nothing to her. For the rest I pledge you my word that if I
can find Brian he shall be back here within a week. Now, go back to
her, and hold your tongue!"
Mr. Robert Carlaw commenced a protest, at first with something of
bluster and then whiningly; but Comethup pointed sternly to the house,
and at last, with a shrug of his shoulders, the uncle turned away and
left the nephew standing looking after him. In a moment, however,
he came rapidly back again. "My dear boy!" he exclaimed, "you won't
leave us in the lurch? There are, of course, things to pay, and--and a
position to be kept up, and I----"
"I won't leave you in the lurch; you may be sure of that. Go back to
her."
He watched Mr. Robert Carlaw re-enter the house, and then turned away
and walked homeward with a rapid step.
CHAPTER XXIII.
COMETHUP DRIVES A BARGAIN.
It scarcely occurred to Comethup until after he had started on his
chase what a mad business it all really was. He was in a mood more than
once to turn back, to let this cousin take his own path; the feverish
desire was upon him to be with 'Linda--even, perhaps, by reason of the
other's desertion, to creep a little nearer into her life. But that
thought was a blasphemy. After all, this man who had left her was the
one man she loved, the one man she ever would love; if Comethup would
play the part he had set himself, the part of loyal friend, he must
bring that man back.
He had made a careless, half-jesting excuse to his aunt, and had stated
that he would be back again within a few days. And now, in Paris, he
wondered how he should set about his quest, or in what quarter of
the city he should discover the runaway. He had no clew. Brian knew
Paris well, and it was impossible to say where he would take up his
abode, especially if, as his father had hinted, he had a companion.
However, the search had to be made, and it was begun within an hour of
Comethup's arrival in the city.
For two long days and nights he scarcely rested, going to every place
of amusement, from the highest to the lowest; scanning the faces of
people who passed him in the streets; standing at the doors of theatres
and dancing-halls, and watching every one wherever the life of the city
beat most thick and fast. And at last his patience was rewarded.
He was sitting in a _café_ late on the afternoon of the third day,
miserably turning over the matter in his mind and almost giving up the
business as hopeless; he had a paper in his hand, but had not read a
line of it. Suddenly, from the street where the lamps were beginning
to gleam, Brian Carlaw came swinging in and took a seat near the door.
Comethup raised the paper so as to hide his own face, and peered round
it at his cousin. He was glad, for one thing, to find him alone; but
he felt that it would be impossible to broach the subject in a public
place, or even to confront him. For the present he must merely watch
and be careful that his quarry did not again escape him.
Brian proved to be in a restless mood. After but a few minutes, and
when he had only half consumed the refreshment he had ordered, he
looked at his watch and got up and went out. Comethup dropped the
paper, and followed him. Brian walked rapidly, evidently having a
settled destination in view; at last he turned in at the door of a
small hotel in a side street, and the door closed behind him.
Comethup waited for some moments and then followed him; discovered
from the servant the number of Brian's room, and ran up the stairs.
Without pause of any kind he knocked sharply at the door, turned the
handle, and went in. His cousin had divested himself of his coat and
waistcoat, and was evidently preparing to dress for the evening; he
turned round quickly on hearing the movement at the door, and looked
in astonishment at his visitor. Then gradually a smile stole over his
face, and he cried out to Comethup with great cordiality:
"Why, my dear boy, what on earth does this mean? How did you discover
me? I thought I was hidden from all the world."
"Yes," said Comethup, "I suppose you did. I have been searching for you
for nearly three days. I followed you home just now."
Something in his voice caused Brian's face to change; the mirthful
light went out of it, and his lips, so pleasantly smiling a moment
before, became a hard, thin line. He advanced a little from the
dressing table where he had been standing, and looked at the other with
a frown. "What the devil should you follow me for? What do you want?"
Comethup backed away to the door, turned the key in the lock, and
dropped the key in his pocket. His voice was very cool and steady when
he spoke, only in his own ears it sounded as though some one else were
speaking far away. "There's something I want to say to you--something
that must be said now. Are you listening?"
"Damn your impudence!" cried the other. "You were always a
crack-brained fellow. What's your game now, that you force your way
into my room like this and lock me in? Do you want to murder me?"
"I am not quite sure," said Comethup, with a strange little laugh. "It
might come to that, perhaps; it depends upon yourself--Come away from
that bell"--for Brian had made a dash at the white electric button in
the wall--"or, by God, I'll strangle you before any one can get this
door open! And I'm a stronger man than you are; I've had a better
training."
Brian came back to the dressing table in a sidelong, furtive fashion,
watching Comethup narrowly. "Well, what do you wish? I don't want to
have a scene, and I may tell you that I have no time to waste. I'm
going out."
"Not yet," replied Comethup. "You've lots of time before we catch the
night train."
"The night train!" echoed Brian. "What the devil do I want with the
night train?"
"To take you back to London," said Comethup calmly. "I'm just going to
explain, and it will be well for you to listen quietly. I know that
it's quite useless to appeal to you; I've learned that long since. So
now I'll put it more brutally, and tell you what you _must_ do."
"Go on," said Brian sneeringly; "when one deals with a madman I suppose
the best way is to humour him; at least I've always been told so."
"I don't want to say anything about myself; that would be rather out of
place," began Comethup in his slow, soft voice. "But I want to speak of
some one else--of your wife. I heard, quite by accident, that you had
deserted her; left her, for aught that you cared, to starve; that you
had come here after another woman. I suppose you won't--won't think it
worth while to deny all that?"
"Why should I? You seem to have got the story pretty accurately. What's
it to do with you?"
"Everything," replied Comethup. "That's what has brought me here. You
don't suppose I'd be racing about Paris for two or three days after
_you_ for the pleasure of the thing, do you? I said I wasn't going to
speak about myself, but I find I must. This girl, 'Linda, the sweetest
and brightest it was ever a man's good fortune to win--this girl loves
you; would give, I think, her immortal soul for you. Yet, at a whim,
a caprice, you fling her aside, careless whether you break her heart,
or----"
"Break her heart! Hearts are not so easily broken; even I can tell you
that, although I am a poet. Besides, what the devil's her heart got to
do with you?"
"More than you can understand. I think I'd give everything I have
in the world to spare her any pain. I'm afraid you can't understand
what that feeling is. I'd give my very soul to save her from tears
or sorrow, to prevent any one of her ideals from being shattered.
If I could die and know that in dying I gave her any greater
happiness--well, my life wouldn't be worth an hour's purchase from
this moment--Oh, I forgot; you don't understand all that. But there's
one thing you shall understand: you're going back with me to London
to-night."
"Indeed? You seem to have made up your mind about that. If you take so
deep an interest in 'Linda, why the devil don't you let me go my own
way and--well, look after her yourself?"
The words were nothing; it was the horrible smile that played about
Brian's lips--the sneering suggestion that he knew of the love in the
other man's mind, and triumphed in the knowledge; it was all this that
maddened Comethup. With a cry he threw himself upon the other and
forced him to his knees, and kept a grip upon his throat sufficient to
stifle the life out of him had he kept it there long. "You coward! I've
bandied words with you too long; I've told you things that are as far
from your ken as the knowledge of the stars. Get up"--he dragged him to
his feet and flung him off--"and get on that coat! I'll waste no more
time in talking. I won't lose sight of you until I see you in your own
home."
"Well, and if I refuse?" said Brian sullenly, glaring at the other like
a creature at bay.
Comethup laughed quietly and glanced round the room; buttoned his coat
swiftly and came at his cousin slowly, steadily, without once taking
his eyes from the eyes that shifted uneasily before his. "Why, if
you refuse, I'll kill you! Don't think that's a threat merely; we're
near the top of this house, and I can choke the life out of you long
before any one breaks in this door, or even before you can give the
alarm. Understand--I'm desperate; I've staked everything on this, and
I won't hesitate. Now, as we stand man to man, I'll tell you what you
may have guessed before. I love your wife; to me she's higher even
than the angels. And my love has this quality--that life and death and
heaven and hell are nothing, mere words, compared with my love for her,
compared to what that love would make me do. It's a madness, isn't
it, friend Brian, that a man may love a woman so well that he would
kill another man rather than see her trust in that other betrayed? She
thinks nothing of me. How should she? If I killed you, she would never
cease to revile my memory and hold you up as a martyr; there's where
the madness comes in. But that would be best for her, better than that
she should find you out. Do you understand me?"
Brian looked at him curiously for a few moments and then began to laugh
in a foolish, half-nervous fashion, as though he had suddenly been
confronted with something he did not understand, and scarcely knew what
attitude to take toward it. "Well, you're more mad than I thought you
were," he said at last. "Suppose I go back to London, do you think I'm
going to settle down in that dull house all my days? I tell you I'm
made of different stuff. I want life, movement, music, laughter about
me; a dull old dog like you can't understand that."
"You shall have them all," said Comethup eagerly. "Come, I'll make no
one-sided bargain; let's understand one another. I've shown you my
hand, shown you the reason for this thing I'm doing. Don't think I'm
doing it for your sake; you needn't flatter yourself to that extent.
In all these things I put her first--her happiness is the great thing.
Now, if I ask you to take up again a life which you say is distasteful,
I'll take upon myself to make it sweet. You shall have what money you
want; I have a large income now, and when--God forgive the thought, but
you force me to say it--when my aunt dies I shall be a very rich man.
If you do this thing, I swear to you you shall never need money; that's
all it's in my power to do, as a complete outsider, for the woman I
love. She won't ever know it, and you--well, you can keep her happy."
"Oh, yes, I can do that," said the other easily. "You talk of your love
for her; you know you might strive all your days, you poor beggar,
and never come nearer her heart; might spend every farthing you have
in the world on her, and she would scarcely feel grateful to you.
That's where I've got the pull of you. She's grateful to me if she can
win a smile from me at any hour of the day; she's so wrapped up in me
that the simple words 'my dear,' flung carelessly to her, are more to
her than the most impassioned love-speech could be from you or any
one else. I don't know what it is"--he went on with a laugh, tossing
his hair back from his forehead--"but I have that power over women; I
may even flout and insult them, and, by God! I think they like me the
better for it.--Well, I don't see the fun of risking starvation if it
can be avoided, and, after all, you're pretty safe. I'll go back to
London; but mind, I hold you to your word. If you care so much for her
happiness, by the Lord, you shall pay for it!"
"I'll pay you what you like," said Comethup quietly. "But one word
more: what brought you over here? Who's the woman?"
"What a dear old moralist you are!" exclaimed Brian, laughing. "I
suppose you're afraid I may be deserting some one else, eh? Well, let
me tell you for your comfort that she's rich; that she's taken a fancy
to me, held up a beckoning finger, and I--well, I followed. I dare say
she'd have dropped me in a month or two, when she found that her poet
was like most other men, so perhaps it's as well that you've rescued
me. And, when I come to think of it, it will be quite in keeping with
my character that I should rush away at a moment's notice, without even
an apology. You see, we poor devils are always supposed to do the most
unexpected things--never anything proper or regular, you know. Upon
my word, now I come to think of it, this will be better than dangling
after her. She'll think all the more highly of me."
"Let us hope so," said Comethup. "Now, as I think we understand each
other clearly, I'll leave you; I'll come to you in time for us to
catch the train. I must get my things from the hotel." He moved toward
the door, hesitated a moment, and then came back again. "On second
thoughts, I _won't_ leave you. Pack up your things and come with me
now; we can dine together."
"I see, you don't trust me?" said Brian with a sneer.
"Frankly, I don't; you've scarcely given me reason to do so. And the
game is too desperate for me to run any risks."
Brian shrugged his shoulders and began to get his things together.
He stopped once or twice and glanced rebelliously at his cousin; but
Comethup sat on the side of the bed, with his hands on his hips,
looking steadily at him--a figure not to be reasoned with, or argued
out of anything he had determined upon.
The dinner at Comethup's hotel passed in silence until almost the
finish; then Brian, warmed by wine, looked up at the man opposite, and
shook his head at him rallyingly, and spoke in his most charming and
playful manner: "My dear old boy, when I'm dead you shall write my
biography, the whole amazing business--'pon my word, you shall!"
"No," said Comethup, shaking his head; "I don't think--I'm quite sure I
couldn't do that."
"Why not?"
"Well, you see," replied Comethup gravely, "you've done so many things
I don't understand; I might--might misinterpret them. Employ some one
who doesn't know you."
They crossed to England together and went on to London. Comethup
left his own luggage at the London terminus and would have parted
there with Brian; but the latter had a devilish scheme in his head--a
well-contrived and carefully-thought-out piece of cruelty--the only
revenge of which he was capable for his defeat. "I'm not going to leave
you here," said Brian; "you've got to come on to the house with me,
come in with me, and see your work concluded. By God! I'm not going
to have the thing half done; you've undertaken it, and you shall see
it through to the bitter end. Oh, yes, you shall see the touching
reconciliation between husband and wife; you shall stand, figuratively,
with uplifted hands to bless them."
"I--I'd rather not," said Comethup hastily. "Why not meet her in
quite the usual fashion, and--and make what excuses you will for your
absence?"
"Not a bit of it. I'm not going to let you off so easily. I shall say
we met in Paris and travelled over together. I tell you you sha'n't get
out of it."
"Do you insist?"
"I do. You shall find, friend Comethup, that you don't have things all
your own way; we don't part until you leave me safely in the bosom of
my family. You can't trust me, you know," he added sneeringly.
They drove together to the house. But for that hidden side of the
picture the return of the prodigal would have been a matter for
laughter. Mr. Robert Carlaw was in the hall, affected almost to tears;
he haughtily brushed aside the servant who would have assisted with the
luggage, and valorously staggered under its weight himself, murmuring
between gasps, "My son, my beloved son!" Comethup would have made his
escape, but Brian caught him by the arm and dragged him into the room
where 'Linda was. She started up and ran to her husband; he took her
with excessive tenderness into his arms, casting a side glance at his
cousin.
"Why, my darling," he cried, "you hug me as though you feared you had
lost me altogether. Surely you know my erratic behaviour by this time?
I had to rush off to Paris on business--business that admitted of no
delay.--Kiss me again, my love; why, you're almost crying!--and in
Paris I met Comethup--dear old moral Comethup in Paris; think of it! So
we travelled home together. Oh, you needn't be ashamed of your tears or
your joy before Comethup; _he_ doesn't mind--do you, old chap?"
With his arm about her he drew her down beside him on a settee, and
looked past her at Comethup with a smile of triumph in his eyes; held
her closer and closer yet, with little tender caresses for her hands
and her hair, that each might be a stab for the man who stood looking
on.
"And I have some good news for you, my sweetheart. In Paris I conducted
my business so well that I made quite a lot of money; we'll be able
to live in glorious style. We'll give up this stuffy house--what do
you think of that, friend Comethup?--and we'll have a better one, and
more servants; and, by Heaven! you shall drive a carriage. We'll give
dinners, and go out, and mix with people; you shall be the best-dressed
woman in London. What do you think of _that_, old Comethup?"
"Oh, but I don't want all those things," said 'Linda softly, nestling
to him. "So that I have you it would not matter, even if we were poor."
"Nonsense, my darling! there's no talk of poverty; I tell you we're
rich." He burst into a roar of laughter. "By 'Jove! I'd no idea that
poetry could ever pay so well. But there, while we are spooning and
thinking about ourselves, we're forgetting old Comethup. I dare say
he'll want to be going?"
"Yes," said Comethup slowly, "I think I'll be going. Good-night,
'Linda, good-night!"
He was crossing the little hall when Brian dashed out of the room after
him, closing the door behind him. He came up to Comethup with his face
completely changed, with the hard look upon it which it had worn during
their interview in the hotel at Paris.
"Look here, you know," he said quickly, "let's have no misunderstanding
about this. A bargain's a bargain; I've fulfilled my part, now it's
your turn."
"I'm not likely to forget," replied Comethup.
"Well, we want money at once. I'm going to take you at your word. You
want to see this comedy played out, and, by Heaven! you'll have to pay
for staging it. It's a fair bargain: you have the fun of looking on,
and I've got to play. Did I play my part well to-night?"
Comethup looked at him for a moment and made a movement as though he
would strike him; then let his hand fall and turned away. "Almost too
well," he said.
"Ah, there I don't agree with you; one can't play a part too well.--So
I shall expect to hear from you--say, to-morrow?"
"Yes, you shall hear from me to-morrow."
Mr. Robert Carlaw was hovering about near the hall door with a look
of expectancy on his face, and a hand darting out to seize Comethup
if possible. But Comethup was in no mood to be stopped; he thrust
him aside and went out, and walked rapidly down the street. "'Linda,
'Linda, my poor 'Linda!" he whispered. "God grant he plays his part
well to the end!"
CHAPTER XXIV.
UNCLE ROBERT HAS AN INSPIRATION.
The pretty comedy to which Brian had referred had been running with
something of regularity for over six months; the staging of it had
been a more costly matter than Comethup had believed possible. His own
expenses were small enough--indeed, he cut them down to the lowest
figure; but Brian had seen in him an inexhaustible mine, from which he
could demand whatever he wanted at any moment, light-heartedly enough.
To do Brian justice, he had no knowledge of what the actual sum was on
which his cousin had to depend, nor, indeed, did he care. He held the
younger man strictly to his bargain--even threatened desertion, at the
slightest remonstrance on Comethup's part against reckless expenditure.
'Linda had no suspicion of the true state of affairs; she knew that
there was always plenty of money, that they went out a great deal,
that many well-known and clever people came to their house, that their
doings when they went into the country or abroad were chronicled for
all the world to read. Brian, _her_ Brian, of whom she was so fond and
so proud, had produced another book of verses, and the people she met
talked to her about them, even quoted lines of them; they sometimes
coupled her husband's name with the names of certain wondrous young
poets of bygone days. It was a never-failing source of delight that he
had, on an impulse, dedicated this last book "To the Woman who stands
always most near to Me." She knew what that meant; she kissed the dear
lines on the printed page again and again because she was so proud to
think that all the world knew what it meant, and knew to whom the poet
referred.
If, sometimes, at her own house or in the houses of others she met a
tall, grave-faced man who said little to any one and who generally
lounged in doorways or in out-of-the-way corners; if sometimes--indeed,
very often--she glanced at him to find his eyes looking wistfully at
her; if, in the dead of night, when she could not sleep sometimes,
she had a sudden remembrance of him and of his loneliness, and of the
old garden far away, where they had whispered together, it was all so
fleeting--just a little breath of pain, as it were, across the perfect
happiness of her days--that she forgot it at once and was glad to
think that he must have left his sorrow behind him long ago, and have
ceased to trouble about what could never be. In those months she was so
supremely happy and her life was so crowded that she could not bear to
think that any one else was unhappy through any mistake of hers, and so
dismissed the matter at last, feeling sure that he too had dismissed it
long since.
Of late, finding that he had but to ask to receive at once, Brian had
carried the game on even more recklessly than before. He had long
since demanded--almost immediately after the return from Paris--that
an account should be opened in his name at a bank into which he could
pay the sums received from Comethup; he felt, he said, that it looked
so much better to write cheques for what was wanted. But a thousand
pounds per annum will not stretch sufficiently to cover everything, and
the moment arrived when Comethup was informed that his own account was
considerably overdrawn. And there were still two months to wait before
Miss Charlotte Carlaw would pay in anything more.
For himself it did not matter, although even he would be put to it
for small personal expenses. But he sat in trembling fear that Brian
might make a demand upon him any day, a demand which for the first
time he would be unable to meet. While he was puzzling helplessly over
the matter the demand arrived, borne by Mr. Robert Carlaw, who wore
a troubled countenance. He had of late been the go-between of the
cousins; he still lived in his son's house, and was chiefly useful in
entertaining dull visitors and performing petty offices for which Brian
had no time nor inclination.
His method when seeking Comethup was a simple one: he did not care to
go near the house, but caught the first small boy on whom he could lay
hands and gave him a few coppers to take a note to the house, addressed
to Comethup. The note was invariably couched in the same pitiful
strain, imploring his dear nephew to grant him an interview in the
street, where he was humbly waiting with despair tugging heavily at his
heart.
"My dear, dear boy," he exclaimed fervently on this occasion, "how
can I thank you? If, like Brian, I were a poet I could compare you
to the sun at midday, to the blessed rain from heaven upon a parched
earth. Not being a poet, although I once had some pretensions in that
direction, I am compelled to say 'Bless you, my dear boy, bless you!'"
"Well," said Comethup, as they paced slowly down a side street, "what's
the matter?"
"My dear boy, we are on the verge of ruin," exclaimed Mr. Robert
Carlaw. "Why should I disguise the fact from you? Why should I hide
from you, who know the whole deplorable circumstances, the miserable
truth? This morning a letter has arrived, threatening a distraint
upon our goods unless a large sum of money be paid by to-morrow.
Think of it, a distraint upon our goods! The horror, the disgrace of
it!" he exclaimed, smiting his forehead with one hand and waving the
other despairingly. "That is our cursed temperament--my son's and
mine--that we can go on through the world like happy children, laughing
in the sunshine, picking the brilliant flowers of life, heedless of
everything; when a storm comes and the wind howls--you follow my
metaphor?--we are lost, absolutely lost. Others were born to face the
world and its trials, to make a stubborn fight of it if necessary; we
are exotics, my son and I, under an open sky, and we perish miserably.
In point of fact, we are on the eve of perishing miserably at this
moment."
"I am sorry," replied Comethup slowly, "but on this occasion I can't
help you."
Mr. Robert Carlaw stopped and touched his arm, and peered anxiously
into his face, "Can't help us?" he cried, "What do you mean?"
"I mean that I have no money; that it's all gone, and that I sha'n't
have any more for perhaps another two months. I've already drawn more
than was due to me at the bank."
"But, my dear boy," whimpered his uncle, "what is to become of us,
what is to become of _me_? Think of the position: you have taught
me to be dependent upon you, to look to you for the supply of those
little comforts--not to say luxuries--which are necessary to a man of
my position. I have felt so--so safe! Fortune has not been good to me;
Fortune has stripped me of everything; and then, at the last moment,
melting a little toward me, has pointed to you and has said in effect:
'Go to Comethup; our dear Comethup will assist you.' And I have come to
you accordingly. My dear nephew, what is to become of us?"
Comethup faced about and looked at him contemptuously. "Yes, I know,
you've come to me for everything; have relied upon me for everything.
I've had a thousand a year from my aunt, and, as God's my witness, I
haven't spent fifty of it. It's all gone to feed you, and your son,
and"--he paused, and a gentler expression came over his face--"yes, and
'Linda. Well, I suppose it's all right; you'd got to be fed and kept
going somehow, and it was easier for me to do it than it would have
been for any one else. But now, here's an end of it. I'd help you if I
could--you know that but I simply can't. It's impossible for me to go
to my aunt, even if I could bring myself to do it; she'd want to know
where the money had gone, would want to know a thousand things I can't
tell her. I tell you things have come to a deadlock; you've drained
me--you and Brian--and you can drain me no further."
Mr. Robert Carlaw walked slowly up and down the street with his head
sunk upon his breast in profound thought; Comethup paced slowly at his
side. After a time the elder man raised his head and thumped his chest,
and spoke in a tone of renewed hopefulness.
"In a crisis of this kind, my dear nephew, despair is useless; we see
before us a certain situation, and that situation has to be faced. In
this world we are beings of one of two orders--we are either men or
mice. If we are mice we submit to be crushed"--he stamped his heel
vigorously on the pavement--"while if we are men we face the situation
boldly and rise superior to it. In this case we are men; we refuse to
be crushed. For myself I would not care; ever the sport of fortune as
I have been, I yet may cut a figure in the world, even though it be a
ragged one; 'The Vagabond' has always been my favourite song. But my
heart is torn at the thought of others. I dare not return and see them
hold out empty hands to me and cry for bread and tell them I have but a
stone. My dear boy, it is not to be done; vagabond I may be, but I am
still, I trust, a gentleman, and my heart beats true to those of my own
flesh and blood. Think, my boy, think of Brian and of his young wife,
and then tell me, if you will, that I am to go back to them and bow my
head before them and say, 'Behold me; I have failed!'"
"But, my dear uncle," exclaimed Comethup in despair, "what am I to do?
Show me any way, and I'll adopt it gladly."
"My dear nephew," said Mr. Robert Carlaw, with his chin resting
meditatively in his hand, "there _is_ a way, and an easy one, for a man
in your position. Come, let us face facts: you are your aunt's heir; if
she died to-morrow--may Heaven spare her for many years!--you would
have every penny she possesses. Such is your good fortune. Now, my dear
nephew, it has been my most sorry fate to have to deal on occasion with
the shady side of life; I have had, I may say, to get through it as
best I could, and in the easiest possible fashion. Your path has been
different; you have gone along in the sunshine, with some one else to
clear the way for you; hence, you know nothing of these matters. But
let me tell you this, my dear boy"--he tapped a persuasive forefinger
on Comethup's arm--"that there are men in this city to-day, personally
known to me, who would be willing at a moment's notice to advance any
sum you might name within reason to a man with your prospects. Don't
mistake me," he added hurriedly. "I am not urging that you should do
anything dishonourable. Frankly, the thing amounts to this: you go
to A. upon my introduction; A. says in effect: 'What! is this Mr.
Willis, the favourite nephew of Miss Charlotte Carlaw? And he is in
want of money, just to tide him over until such time as he may, in the
indefinite future, come into his fortune? Nothing easier,' says A. 'How
much does Mr. Willis want?' And there, my boy, the thing's done. Do you
follow me?"
"Yes, I follow you," said Comethup slowly. "And so you want me to use
her name, the name of a woman who's been the best friend ever a man
had; you want me to look out so eagerly for dead men's shoes--or a dead
woman's, it doesn't matter which--that I am to sell them before she's
finished wearing them? No, you've made a mistake, Uncle Bob; I don't
intend to do it. You and Brian have been living at my expense at the
rate of over a thousand a year; to put it plainly, you've had every
penny, or nearly every penny, that I've ever possessed since I was a
boy. I don't mind that, but the thing has got to stop. Beyond what I
have I won't go; you've been welcome to all that, and I don't mind. But
I'll go no further."
Mr. Robert Carlaw sighed and began to ponder the matter again; he was
not quite certain of his cards, at least of those he could safely
play; but he had a vague feeling that there was one trump card in his
possession which might well be risked. The matter was desperate, and he
resolved to play desperately.
"Well, you know best," he said. "Frankly, I honour you--honour you
for the noble position you take up at such a moment. When I consider
your simplicity, your clear and beautiful nature, I feel like a modern
Mephistopheles whispering temptation into your ear. But in this, as in
all other matters, a man must look at a thing from his own standpoint,
or from the standpoint of those who most nearly concern him. Doubtless
you are right; let us say no more about it. The crash has come, and
we must meet it. I have met worse blows than this, and Brian, being
the son of his most unfortunate father, must learn to meet them too;
doubtless it will be a salutary lesson to him. Men have strong hands
and, I trust, stout hearts; if it rested with Brian and myself alone I
would not mind; but there is some one else to consider, some one weak
and helpless who knows nothing of any tragedy which may be impending
over her." He sighed again and shook his head with an air of deep
dejection.
"You mean 'Linda?" said Comethup, without looking at him.
"I refer to that sweet girl. I am a man of quick and strong
imagination; a moment ago I seemed to have a sudden mental picture of
that child when she first learned the position in which we stand, when
she----"
"But she mustn't learn it," cried Comethup hurriedly.
Mr. Robert Carlaw shook his head again. "My dear young friend,
a wife's place is by her husband; when the crash falls she will
unhesitatingly--oh, I know the nobility of her character--she will,
I say, unhesitatingly place her hand in that of her husband and will
say, 'Together we have been prosperous, together we will bow our heads
before the storm.' Poor child, poor child, that it should come to this!"
"I--I'm afraid I had lost sight of her," said Comethup. "Of course
she doesn't understand, doesn't know any of the circumstances; I'd
forgotten that. She's gone on, day by day, believing that all this
money came from him; proud of him; glad that the world, as she thought,
should shower its gold upon her clever husband, upon the man she loves.
Yes, I'd forgotten all that." He spoke as if to himself, without
noticing his companion. He saw in a moment that this thing he had built
up for her sake was in danger of being swept away; that she might be
left stripped and trembling in a desert, with all that had made her
life perfect torn away from her. He thought of her proud and happy face
when he had seen her but a little time since with her husband; saw
again, far away from the street in which he walked, a little lonely
child in a garden; heard himself, as a boy, tell the old captain that
he meant to look after her. Comethup Willis was of the stuff of which
the fabled knights might have been made--one who simply and earnestly
and splendidly set before him a task to be done and did it without
wavering or turning aside. His own pain, his own longing counted for
nothing; the child of the old days seemed to be stretching out her
hands to him and crying to him, as she had done years before when they
had first met; the cry was not to be resisted.
He looked up with a start and found the eyes of Mr. Robert Carlaw fixed
upon him. "You say that it is possible--honourably--to get an advance
from some one?" he asked.
"The easiest thing in the world. Of course, there will be interest to
be paid, and--and I've no doubt that the interest will be somewhat
high; but that is a mere matter for arrangement. As I have said, the
fact of your aunt's wealth is well known; the further fact that she
has refused to have anything to do with any of her relatives but
your fortunate self is equally well known. My dear nephew, in this
world of ours if a man has anything substantial behind him it is
the easiest thing in the world for him to get what he wants. I can
take you to a man this very hour, if necessary, who will conduct the
business for you. And, let me tell you another thing: for the future
it is my fixed intention to insist upon it that there shall be no
further extravagance. We must not run the risk of another crisis of
this character. In a little time we shall be able to pull ourselves
straight, to repay this money, and so--if I may suggest so much--put
your conscience at rest. Whatever money is advanced can be paid back,
and my good sister will know nothing of the transaction."
"You are sure there is no other way?" asked Comethup.
Mr. Robert Carlaw spread out his hands with an air of charming
frankness. "Suggest one, my dear nephew, and I will instantly give you
my opinion concerning it. Candidly, I can see no way so simple or so
easy."
"Very well," said Comethup in a low voice. "Let's go at once and get it
over."
They drove to an office in a quiet court in the city, and there
Comethup was left in an outer room, where a solitary clerk was busily
writing, while Mr. Robert Carlaw had a private interview with the
accommodating gentleman who was so willing to lift other people's
troubles away from them. "It will be best for me just to--to pave the
way, as it were," he had said when they reached the place.
That necessary formality over, Comethup was shown in, and found a bland
and smiling gentleman, of a somewhat pronounced type of features,
anxious to shake him at once with much fervour by the hand. His uncle
had, it appeared, with that consideration which characterized him,
put the whole matter so fairly and clearly before this gentleman that
the money was at Comethup's instant disposal; indeed, it seemed such
an ordinary and simple piece of business that Comethup's mind was
considerably lightened. There were papers to be signed, and it appeared
that Mr. Robert Carlaw had suggested, in order to avoid troubling his
dear nephew again, that the loan should be for a thousand pounds. The
rate of interest, as he had said, was extremely high, but then the
circumstances were peculiar; and in order that there might be no
misunderstanding the interest for one year was deducted from the amount
of the cheque, so that the cheque itself was very, very far short of
the sum which had been named.
However, the thing was rapidly concluded, and uncle and nephew were
ushered out of the office. When once the money had been placed in Mr.
Robert Carlaw's hands Comethup laid a detaining hand on his shoulder.
"Look here, you know," he said, with some sternness, "let us have no
nonsense about this matter. I am sorry to refer to it, but on a former
occasion--in Rome, you remember--when I put money into your hands it
never reached its destination."
"My dear sir," said Mr. Carlaw, bridling, "do you imagine----"
"I imagine nothing," replied Comethup quietly; "I am merely speaking of
what occurred. This is a different matter, and I think--yes, I'm quite
sure--that I'd better go home with you."
Mr. Robert Carlaw shrugged his shoulders, but submitted to being thrust
into a hansom with Comethup close at his elbow. At the corner of the
street in which Brian lived the cab was dismissed, and they walked down
the street together. Some fifty yards from the house Comethup stopped
and nodded to his uncle to go on alone. That gentleman shook hands with
him effusively, and went on and ran up the steps leading to the door,
with a brisk air; waved a hand to his nephew, and disappeared. Comethup
waited about for some time and finally went home.
Now, the mind of Mr. Robert Carlaw was divided between two sets of
emotions during the next day or so. In the first place, he was honestly
glad to have got so neatly out of an impending trouble; while, on the
other hand, he fretted and chafed when he thought of the hand which had
lifted the trouble from him. He had never ceased to think bitterly of
the boy who had, as he considered, stepped into his son's place; had
never ceased to occupy his mind with schemes, however wild and futile,
which might turn the tables. And thus it happened that an idea came to
him, so wild and daring that at first he rejected it; but it grew and
grew, and shaped itself, until at last it seemed in all points and from
every aspect so extremely beautiful that he wondered, almost in an awed
fashion, what special providence could have guided him to it.
The theatrical nature of the man, glorying in big effects and surprises
and flourishes, compelled him to carry out the business secretly; and
then, when he had brought it to a successful issue, to declare the fact
triumphantly. Accordingly he said nothing to Brian about the matter,
but went out early and returned home late in the pursuit of his object.
And that object was to gain a private interview with his sister, Miss
Charlotte Carlaw.
The opportunity came at last. He had watched the house for some days in
the hope of seeing Comethup leave it; had haunted corners and doorways,
waiting for his chance. At last, one evening he saw the young man come
out in evening dress and enter the waiting carriage and drive away
alone. Mr. Carlaw readily conjectured that he was going to a dinner
party, and after waiting for a few minutes longer he walked up to the
house and rang the bell.
"Will you inform Miss Carlaw," he said in his sweetest manner to
the servant, "that a gentleman wishes to see her on urgent private
business? I will not give my name; Miss Carlaw knows me quite well. Oh,
and say that I regret to trouble her at such an hour."
The man carried the message and presently returned to say that Miss
Carlaw would see him. He was ushered into a room where she sat in
solitary state at dinner. She turned her head inquiringly toward the
door as he softly entered. There was no need for him to speak, for she
knew him instantly. The frown on her face was not encouraging.
"Well, brother Bob, what do _you_ want?" she asked sharply. "And what's
the mystery, that you can't send up your name like an honest creature?
Afraid I shouldn't see you, eh?"
"My dear Charlotte," replied Mr. Carlaw, "you always appear to do me
an injustice in your thoughts. It is, perhaps, late in the day now to
attempt to change your opinion of me; yet I venture to suggest that you
will be surprised to learn that my errand to-night is undertaken--may
I say it?--in pure unselfishness, and with the desire to do a
fellow-creature a service."
"Yes, I should certainly be very much surprised to hear _that_, Bob,"
replied his sister with a shrewd smile. "You're not generally taken in
that way; but it's never too late to mend, you know. You can sit down.
I'm all alone, as you see; my boy has gone out."
Mr. Robert Carlaw sighed heavily and seated himself. "I am very glad,"
he began, "to find you alone; what I have to say is of a private and
confidential character, and--forgive me, I beg--somewhat painful. In
fact, it would have been impossible for me to speak before my nephew."
"I don't understand you," replied the old woman. She was frowning
again, but seemed to be listening very intently. "I have no secrets
from my boy."
"Ah, my poor sister; the gods have not been good to you. Blinded by
nature, you have, I fear, also been blinded by something stronger than
nature--love. You say you have no secrets from the boy; that does not
necessarily imply that he has none from you. Do you follow me?"
"No, I don't. If you've anything to say about Comethup, why, in the
devil's name, can't you say it before his face? You never did do things
in a straightforward, honest fashion; there was always something
crooked about you. If you've heard anything about my boy, or against
him, I'll tell you to begin with that it's a pack of lies, and whatever
it is I won't hear it! I'm keen enough and I know enough of the world
to know what the boy's worth; he's not of your stamp, and never will
be, please God!"
"There, you observe," said Mr. Carlaw, addressing the furniture, "the
absolute accuracy and beauty of my reasoning. I told you that you were
blinded by love. What I have heard comes from no third party; I love
and esteem my nephew so well that had any one dared to breathe a word
against him, that person would have felt the weight of my displeasure.
I am, I trust, my dear sister, still a gentleman, whatever my worldly
position may be, and I do not carry idle tales. I came to you to-night
because it is my earnest wish, as I just now hinted, to help that young
man----"
"I have no doubt he'd be immensely obliged to you if he heard you say
so," broke in Miss Carlaw, "but I think he can do without your help."
"I fear not," replied her brother sadly. "I risk your displeasure--your
anger--I know, in saying what I am about to say, but my duty is clear,
and I _must_ speak. Will you pardon me for saying that into whatever
pitfalls our dear nephew has plunged the fault is not, perhaps,
entirely his own?"
Miss Charlotte Carlaw got up from her chair and came round the table
with the aid of her stick and stopped exactly opposite her brother.
"Pitfalls? What are you talking about? You've come here to say
something; why the devil can't you say it? I suppose I'm bound to
listen to you; a fellow of your sort must tell his lies in some ear
or other if he can't gain the attention of the one he first seeks.
Now"--she rapped her stick furiously on the floor--"out with it! What
have you to say about my boy?"
"My dear Charlotte, you are, I observe, as impatient as ever. My sole
desire was to break the matter gently to you, in order, if possible, to
save you any unnecessary pain."
"Pain? What should pain me?" Yet her voice and her face were a little
troubled as she spoke.
"My dear Charlotte, I know your generous nature, and I know--or I can
guess--how lavishly you have dealt with this boy. It has been my good
fortune to meet him once or twice, or perhaps I should say to see him
in the distance; for we move, as you are aware, in different spheres.
I have seen the richness of his dress; I have observed that he never
appears to be in want of money."
"I don't do things by halves," said Miss Carlaw with a little touch of
pride. "I said I would look after the boy, and I've done it. But what
has all this to do with you--or with what you have to say?"
"Everything, my dear sister, everything. I suppose--forgive the
question, but it is necessary--I imagine he has a large personal
income?"
"He has," replied the old woman shortly. "A thousand a year."
Mr. Robert Carlaw lifted his hands in amazement. "A thousand a year!
Incredible! And even that does not satisfy him."
"Not satisfy him! What do you mean?"
"To put the matter plainly, my dear Charlotte, circumstances which I
need not detail took me recently into a certain quarter of the city.
I may state--not without a blush, for I'm still a gentleman--that my
condition of life is such that I am compelled sometimes to resort to
various shifts by which to raise money. You have not had to do that;
fortune has been kinder to you than to others. In this case I had gone
to visit a money-lender. Do I pain you?"
"Go on," said Miss Carlaw quietly. She had backed away from him a
little and was standing beside the fireplace, with one hand reaching up
and resting on the high mantelshelf.
"Imagine my surprise, my distress, when I met in such a place your
nephew, Comethup Willis!"
"Comethup at a money-lender's! Either you're mad or you think I am,
brother Bob. Or have you suddenly gone blind, like your sister?"
"Alas! my dear Charlotte, I was never more wide-awake in my life, and
never did I speak in more sober earnestness. I said nothing to the
young man at the time, but the money-lender being a friend, I carefully
and cautiously questioned him. And then I discovered the whole
disgraceful business." Mr. Robert Carlaw rose to his feet and began to
pace excitedly about the room.
"Keep still, man, keep still!" cried Miss Carlaw furiously, "and get on
with your story."
"The man, who, like the rest of his kind, makes the most of his
opportunities, informed me that he had advanced a large sum of money
to young Mr. Willis. On my inquiring, naturally enough, what security
he had asked, he told me that Mr. Willis had informed him that he was
heir to the whole of Miss Charlotte Carlaw's large fortune, and that he
supposed that fact was security enough. The man evidently thought so,
for he had advanced your misguided nephew the sum of a thousand pounds
at a ruinous rate of interest."
Miss Carlaw stood perfectly still for a long time; all expression
seemed to have died out of her face. When at last she spoke her voice
appeared to have changed, to have aged in some strange fashion.
"Brother Bob," she said, "we are of the same blood, you and I, and
whatever our later quarrels may have been we've played together as boy
and girl. I pray you, Bob, in mercy to me, tell me that this is some
hideous jest. I'll forgive you; I swear I'll even laugh at you, if only
you'll tell me that you've come here, knowing my love for this boy, to
play a cruel joke on me, and then to go away and laugh at it. Brother
Bob, tell me you're making fun of me." The appeal was piteous enough to
have melted any heart, but brother Bob merely shook his head and sighed
again more heavily than before.
"Alas! my dear Charlotte, it is no jest. To say that I was
thunderstruck would be to put the matter mildly; and I can well imagine
what your feelings must be. What he does with this money is more
than I can say; I can give a shrewd guess, but I may be doing him an
injustice, so I won't say what that guess is. But it is certainly true
that he has raised this money in the fashion I have explained to you.
If you still believe that I am guilty of such atrocious bad feeling as
to jest with you on a subject of such a nature, I beg that you will
yourself ask him."
"Yes, I shall certainly ask him," replied Miss Carlaw.
"That is wise, that is just," replied her brother. "Perhaps I might
suggest that it would be better not to mention my name in the matter.
After all, I am not concerned in it in any way, and being a man of
peace I do not desire to have this young man's enmity. He will probably
believe that you have heard it through some business channel of which
he knows nothing."
"Oh, you needn't fear that I shall mention your name. If he admits it,
the fact that I know it is sufficient. Have you anything more to say?"
"Nothing, beyond the hope that you will not deal hardly with him. He is
young, thoughtless, headstrong; he has been brought up extravagantly,
and----"
"With plenty to be extravagant upon," said Miss Carlaw, with something
of a return of her old manner. "Well, brother Bob, I suppose you'll
go home to-night in triumph; you'll go home and laugh because an old
fool has been blind in a double sense; because she's been fooled as
thousands of women have been fooled before, eh? Oh, you need have no
mercy; go and tell all your friends, every one who knows you, tell all
the world that I have warmed something in my bosom until at last it has
stung me. Tell 'em all."
"Indeed, my dear sister," said Mr. Carlaw, "you do me a grave
injustice. You spoke just now, not without emotion, of our childish
years; my heart goes out to you to-night more than it has ever done. I
may say that, having seen much of men and women in this queer world of
ours, I feared something of this from the beginning; I felt that the
boy had not that strength of character, if I may so term it, necessary
to take his place with any dignity in an exalted sphere. Humbly he
might have done well; the best of us are likely to have our heads
turned."
"There, that will do; I'm quite capable of abusing him myself, if
necessary, without your help. I suppose I ought to thank you for what
you've told me to-night, but I'm afraid I can't quite do that. I wish,
in my heart of hearts, I might have died five minutes before you came
in, for then his kiss was warm upon my old cheek, and I--God help
me!--I believed in him. There, don't speak to me. Go away, please; I
want to be alone."
Mr. Robert Carlaw quietly took his way out of the room and out of the
house. As he walked home he looked up at the night sky and smiled
softly to himself, and felt that the world was good and that Providence
had been specially kind to him.
"Women are strange creatures," he muttered to himself, "and when
they've been upset or have had something rudely torn away from them
they do remarkable things. Years ago, my dear Charlotte, you rejected
my offspring and put Master Comethup Willis in his place. I may be
wrong, but I think now, with the swing of the pendulum, it is ten
thousand chances to one that you will restore Brian to your favour; and
then our begging days are over, and all our fortunes will be made. And
I shall have made them."
CHAPTER XXV.
THE FALL OF PRINCE CHARMING.
Miss Carlaw stood for a long time in the same attitude after her
brother had left her; the whole hideous thing had come upon her so
unexpectedly and with such force that she was like one stunned. She
began presently to pace about the room, moaning once or twice to
herself as she walked, and then again stopping suddenly with a new
light on her face and a smile about her lips. But those latter moments
were rare and fleeting; they came to her only when she felt for an
instant that the story she had heard was a hideous invention, and that
her faith in Comethup might still remain unshaken.
After a long, long time her heart leaped suddenly at the sound of
wheels and the opening of a door; then died down again at the thought
of the interview before her. She heard his footstep in the hall, and
then knew by the opening of the room door that he was coming to her as
he always did. She stood stiff and rigid to receive him.
The sound of the voice she loved so well almost shook her resolution to
be stern with him, almost broke her into an appeal. She knew that in
another moment his arm would be about her shoulders in the old boyish
fashion, and she cried out in an agony, "Stop! Stay where you are.
Don't come near me!"
He stopped dead; so suddenly quiet was he that she almost fancied he
had stopped breathing. Then the tension was over; he gave a quick
little gasp and said hurriedly, "What's the matter?"
"Years ago, Comethup, when I first saw you in the house wherein your
father lay dead, I drove a bargain with you--a bargain which, child
though you were, you were fully capable of understanding. Do you
remember it now?"
"Yes, of course." His heart was beating thickly, and he had a dim and
miserable feeling that he knew what was coming.
"I fear you may have forgotten it. I asked for your love and your
confidence; swore that I would be your friend if you dealt with me
openly and squarely through all things and at all times. Have I kept my
word?"
"God knows you have!" he replied in a low voice.
"Have you kept yours?--Ah! you are silent on that point. I ask you
to-night if you have anything to tell me--anything to say to me?"
He raised his head and looked at her; even made a step toward her with
his arms stretched out. Then the arms fell to his sides again and he
simply answered, "Nothing."
Miss Charlotte Carlaw's face hardened suddenly. "Then the talking must
be done by me," she said. "I reminded you just now of our compact when
you were a child; perhaps it will be well to remind you of the penalty
for breaking that compact. I swore to you then, and I meant it, that if
you ever deceived me, ever proved yourself to be anything but the boy I
believed you to be, I'd cast you out and you might starve. I meant it
then, and, by the Lord, I'll keep my word! It has come to my knowledge
to-night that you have done what, in my eyes, is a shameful and
disgraceful thing; that, trading on the fact that you believed yourself
to be my heir, you have borrowed a large sum of money; have used the
bounty and generosity of a foolish old woman who believed in you, and
so have actually drawn money which you can not possess until after my
death. Will you deny that? Is it true?"
"Yes, it's true," said Comethup.
She gave a long sigh, turned away from him, leaned her arm against the
side of the fireplace, and laid her old face against the arm and began
to cry helplessly. It was the most pitiful sight imaginable, and yet
he could do nothing to comfort her, dared not even go near her. In
a dim, forlorn fashion he seemed to see passing before him all that
had happened in that very room--the riotous feasts, when he had been
a child--the sound of merry laughter; he even seemed to see himself
as he had once stood on the table, singing a foolish song, with the
captain watching him silently; he could hear his own childish treble,
could feel again the old woman's hand grasping his ankle. And now the
room was empty and the generous-hearted old creature, the giver of the
feast, who had craved only for his love in return for all her bounty,
was crying hopelessly over her shattered idol.
Presently she ceased her weeping and turned upon him with a certain sad
fierceness of manner. "Have I ever denied you anything, boy? Was I so
much in your way or had you given me so little of your love that you
must long for the time when you could step into possession? O God! for
the dream I have lost! Why, you're worse than any murderer--for the
things you have killed in me to-night! I honestly believe that that is
the unpardonable sin--to kill some trusting fellow-creature's belief in
you."
"Don't, don't!" he cried; "you'll break my heart!"
"And what of mine; did you think nothing of that? I swear to you that
if you had come to me and had told me that you were in want or in
difficulties I'd have helped you if I'd had to mortgage everything I
possessed. Your income has been a large one; it passes my comprehension
to know what you've done with the money; I'm quite afraid to think.
However, that's all done with; I'll never believe in any human creature
again. I believed in you with all my heart and soul; I saw in you, or
thought I did, something better and truer than in any one else. Now I
find my mistake. Thinking over it now, I see what a fool I've been. I
remember those days on the Continent when we were travelling about, and
when your money went more rapidly than I could put it in your hands.
I didn't mind then; I thought you didn't know the value of it, but
would learn in time. Now your chance to learn is gone. You and I part
to-night!"
He stood there dumb, knowing that he could say nothing to her, knowing
that he dare not plead for himself. Indeed, he did not think of himself
at that time; he found himself dimly wondering what was to become of
'Linda when this last sum of money was exhausted. He had never foreseen
such a crisis as this. The fashion in which he had supplied Brian and
his father with funds, beginning as it had done in his boyhood, had
grown to be such a natural thing that he had ceased to be surprised
at it, or, indeed, to think about it very much at all. He put himself
clearly and quietly outside the question; his heart only ached
desperately for this old woman who was destined to be left alone again
after all these years, despite all her goodness to him. He stood still
for a few moments watching her, and then turned quietly and went toward
the door.
She called after him: "Have you nothing to say to me?"
He came back slowly. "Oh, my dear," he said in a broken voice, "what
shall I say to you? To thank you for all that you've done, all that I
seem so shamefully to have misused, would sound like a mockery. After
all, all that you say is good and fair and just; I have lied to you
and deceived you and broken my bargain; I can't say anything more than
that. Deep as my gratitude is, I wish--O God, how much I wish!--that
you had left me as you found me when I was a little child. I suppose I
wasn't fit or strong enough to take the position you meant for me."
"I suppose not. And you won't tell me what you've done with all this
money?"
"No, I can't tell you that," he replied. Before him again he seemed to
see the face of 'Linda--'Linda, whose fool's paradise he had created,
and who lived in it contentedly, knowing nothing of what it was founded
upon. In his own steadfast, single-hearted way he knew that that secret
must be kept, and kept to the end for her sake.
"Well, if you won't, you won't," said the old woman, with a sudden
return of her hardness of manner. "I suppose it doesn't matter now.
But, since you refuse all explanations, so I refuse to have anything
to do with you further, or with any trouble you have created. You
have borrowed this money under the belief that you were my heir, but
you've reckoned without me. Here, to-night, under the very roof where
I first gave you all your honours, I strip them from you. Those who
lent you the money may get it back as they can; I'll encourage no
such business as that. I'll warrant they'll pull long faces when they
find they've been misled. Yes, I strip everything from you. The boy
I loved, the Prince Charming I worshipped, is dead--never has been
at all. Another--a creature I don't know and don't understand, a
stranger to me--has taken his place. Prince Charming has gone--God help
me!--forever."
He turned then and went quietly out of the room. When at the door he
looked back for a moment she was seated in her chair with her hands
resting on the top of her stick, and her face bowed on the hands; she
was rocking herself to and fro in the fashion he remembered so well.
He stole up to his room, struck a light, and looked round that happy
place of his boyhood for a long time; then presently closed the door,
went down the stairs, put on his hat, and left the house, taking
nothing with him, but going out as quietly and as steadfastly to begin
the world again as though he had been merely starting for a quiet
half-hour's walk. He had not the faintest idea of what to do or where
to go; there was no one to whom he could turn, for even the captain
would not understand, and must never be told. Prince Charming, as the
old woman had said, was dead; it would surely be wiser that he should
be forgotten also.
CHAPTER XXVI.
BRIAN PAYS HIS DEBTS.
Mr. Robert Carlaw, having once started that beautiful and simple
scheme which he had devised, felt that something more was necessary
for its completion; the first bold stroke had been given, but other
bold strokes would be needed. Accordingly, he set about the matter
delicately; sent copies of Brian's books of verse to the old woman,
in order, as it were, to prepare the way for the entry of the poet
himself into the position which had been so long usurped by another.
He had decided not to tell his son anything about the matter until the
business had been successfully concluded and Miss Charlotte Carlaw was
ready to open her arms to her new heir.
But when day after day went by and then week after week, and there came
no response from his sister, he began to be possessed with doubts
and fears; wondered if, after all, he had snatched away the one means
of living left open to them all, and had failed to discover another.
He told himself, however, with a knowing shake of the head, that he
knew women better than that; he counted on the fact of Miss Carlaw's
desperate loneliness should she have discarded Comethup. Perplexed and
troubled and trembling, Mr. Carlaw at last made up his mind to seek his
sister and endeavour to learn the true position of affairs.
He was admitted without delay to her presence, and found her standing
in the same room and in the same attitude as when he had last seen her,
almost as though she had not moved since. But her face was worn, and
lines appeared upon it which he did not remember to have seen before;
for the rest she was as upright and dignified as ever.
"Well, brother Bob," she said, with some bitterness, "have you brought
me any other fine news? Do you come again, in pure unselfishness, with
the desire solely to help a fellow-creature? Come, let's know what you
want. Out with it."
"My dear sister," began Mr. Carlaw, "when last I saw you, on a
memorable and a painful occasion, I went away with the horrible fear
tugging at my heart that it would have been wiser had I said nothing;
that the probability was that you would behave--quite naturally, I
admit--somewhat harshly to a foolish and headstrong youth. That fear
has haunted me ever since, and haunts me still."
"Well, I'm afraid it will have to continue haunting you, brother Bob,"
replied Miss Carlaw dryly. "If you want to know full particulars of the
matter I can tell you in a dozen words. I asked my nephew whether the
statement was true or false; he admitted that it was true. He left my
house that night."
Mr. Robert Carlaw, remembering his sister's affliction, felt it safe to
indulge in a smile of satisfaction; but his tones when he spoke were
tinged with sadness. "My dear Charlotte," he said, "this is quite what
I feared. Will you not permit me to plead for the boy, to suggest----"
"Not a word," broke in Miss Carlaw fiercely. "I don't know why you come
here, unless you want to triumph over a lonely old woman; but I want to
hear nothing more about the matter. The boy is done with, and I won't
listen to the pleading of an archangel about him. Have you anything
more to say?"
Mr. Carlaw hesitated for a few moments and then began his petition
lamely. "My dear sister, I will not, of course, say anything further
about the unhappy matter if you do not desire to have it spoken about.
Perhaps I may say that, more than anything else, my heart has been
touched for you; my sympathy has gone out to you in this hour of your
loneliness more than you would think possible."
"I was lonely for a good many years, brother Bob, and it didn't seem to
affect you much. Come, deal squarely with me; what is it you want to
say?"
"My dear Charlotte, you are ever impatient; but that is characteristic
of you, and I think I love you for it--I'm quite sure I do. I was going
to suggest, if I might be permitted to do so, that having been used for
so long to young society you will naturally feel the desire for that
sort of society very strongly. In a word, my dear sister, you want to
be taken out of yourself, as it were."
"Well, go on," said Miss Carlaw, who was listening intently.
Thus encouraged, her brother proceeded more glibly: "Now, it has seemed
to me that if you could receive visits from--may I say it?--from those
who are interested in you, those whose society is cheerful, whose lives
are fresh and sweet and unspotted from the world, it would have a
beneficial effect upon you. Now, for example, my son Brian----"
She burst suddenly into a peal of bitter, scornful laughter; the man
stopped and looked at her angrily. "You're a bad pleader, brother Bob,"
she said; "you don't do the thing well at all. So this is your idea,
is it? You think that as I have got rid of one who seemed all the world
to me, and who seemed to take the first place in my heart--you think,
because of that, you'll suggest a substitute." She stamped her foot and
rapped her stick upon the ground. "No, a thousand times no! I tried
with one; thought him the best there was on earth; I'll try no more.
Still less should I be disposed to put in his place one who comes of
such a stock as you. It's a pretty idea, brother Bob; 'pon my word,
it's a fine idea! But it won't do; from this moment forward I've done
with everything and every one. I thought I could find love and truth in
the world; I've failed to find them, although God knows I've tried hard
enough. Therefore I have the right to say that I don't believe they
exist; and I _shall_ say it, and take my way through life accordingly.
Now, I ask only one thing and I intend to have it; and that one thing
is--to be left alone, to be troubled no more with any of you!"
"But, my dear sister, be reasonable; think for a moment of----"
"Think!" she echoed bitterly. "Do you imagine that I haven't thought
and thought and thought until my brain reels; until all my past days,
good and bad, file before my darkened eyes like a long-drawn-out
procession that never ends? Is it possible for you, I wonder, to
understand all that this thing means to me? Is it possible for you
to know how I wander through the empty rooms of this place and hear
his voice again as I heard it when he was a child? Heavens, man! do
you know what it is to have set up something to worship, to have had
nothing else in all your life that was quite so fine and splendid, and
then to be told quite suddenly that you've been dreaming; that it never
existed, that you've been cheating yourself all the time and have got
to unlearn all the pretty fable you've taught yourself? And then you
think I could fill his place; you imagine I could start all over again
with the chance of being cheated afresh? I know now what was meant when
it was written that a rich man couldn't enter into heaven; I suppose
it applies equally well to a rich woman. This was my heaven, more than
a paradise; and my accursed wealth has driven me out of it and closed
it to me forever! If I had been poor, he might have clung to me and
cared for nothing else, but the money stood in the way. Well, I ought
to have known; I'm old enough to have learned my lesson before this.
Now, brother Bob, let's put an end to this; go your way and I'll go
mine. That's my final word."
He knew that she meant it; saw in one horrible moment that he had
lost, and that to plead with her would be of no more use than to fling
himself against a rock. Coming out into the streets he walked along
with his hat tilted on the back of his head, staring before him in a
dazed fashion as he went.
"My dear Bob Carlaw," he muttered to himself, "you've most decidedly
made a horrible mess of things. You've killed the goose that laid the
golden eggs, with a vengeance. I thought this was going to be the
smartest thing I'd ever done. Worst of all, there's Brian to be faced,
and Brian's temper is positively devilish. This comes of trying to help
others; if I'd fought for my own hand through life I believe I should
really have cut a figure in the world, after all."
He kept his miserable secret for some weeks, hoping that an event would
occur which would render it unnecessary for the matter to be disclosed
at all, trusting in that Providence which in a vague fashion he had
alternately blessed and cursed all his days. There was a forced gaiety
about him at this time; he burst into unnatural snatches of song at the
most inopportune and unexpected moments, as though to keep his spirits
up and to assure his doubting mind that all was well. But the crash
came when Brian, finding that funds were running low, airily suggested
to his father that the usual appeal should be made to Comethup Willis.
Mr. Robert Carlaw, in coward fashion, put off the matter for a day or
two; and then, when concealment was no longer possible, blurted out
the truth, not without tears. He implored his son, his dear son, to
remember that he had at all times been a fond and indulgent parent,
and that he had in this as in all other things acted for the best. He
urged, moreover, that they should not yet despair; his eccentric sister
might restore Comethup to her favour, or might, best of all, look with
kindly eyes upon Brian and his young wife. Their credit was good, owing
to the costly manner in which they had lived. There was still time, the
trembling man argued, in which to look about them and make up their
minds what to do.
To say that Brian was stunned by the intelligence would be to put
the matter mildly. In characteristic fashion he had gone on from day
to day, complacently confident that the next would bring all that he
needed to make life pleasant; and here in a moment he saw the whole
thing stripped away from him--saw in imagination the pleasant prospect
upon which he had so long gazed closed in by the hard, dull wall of
privation, against which he might beat his hands in vain. He had lived
in luxury like a spoiled child, ministering to his every whim and
caprice, happy and flattered and careless of everything and every one
about him. When at last he fully grasped what had happened, his fury
and violence were greater even than his father could have imagined; he
cursed that long-suffering man roundly, cursed every circumstance of
what he termed his poverty-stricken existence, and ended his outburst
by whimpering feebly, like a child thrust out suddenly in the cold and
the darkness.
Left alone, the natural cowardice of the man took a new form. It had
never been his habit to bear the burdens of life--that was a matter
which might more easily be left to others; he determined he would not
bear this one. To justify his conduct had never been necessary; he
had been fortunate in seeing always the easiest path to travel, and
had immediately taken it, even though such an action involved the
stepping over some one else to reach it. Consequently there was no
thought in his mind now of the sufferings or troubles which might be
incurred by any one near to him. Brian Carlaw was the one person to be
considered, and Brian Carlaw must not starve. If any justification were
necessary, he told himself with something of pride that he had a work
to perform--a work for which the world asked and waited; he owed a duty
to the world and must perform it at whatever cost. This being the case,
when his first anger was gone he looked about for a means of escape.
Difficulties were closing in about him, and he must get away from the
net while yet there was time.
So it happened that, not for the first time in the history of this
amazing pair, Mr. Robert Carlaw found himself one day again deserted.
Brian had gone, leaving behind him a letter to his father written in
quite his best and airiest fashion, and urging that gentleman to break
the news to the deserted wife.
Mr. Robert Carlaw was, not unnaturally, annoyed; he felt that his son's
action savoured of base ingratitude when it was remembered that the
father had tried to do so much. "And the worst of it is," he muttered
to himself as he read the letter, "that he's left the woman on my
hands. That's the coolest part of the business."
'Linda, all unsuspecting, greeted him with a smile as he entered the
room; for he went to her at once, ready to blurt out the matter without
preface or disguise of any kind. He felt that he was the deeply injured
party, and it was convenient that she should be there that he might
pour out his wrongs to her.
"You look troubled," she said gently. "Is anything the matter?"
"Matter! The most infernal, disgraceful, and degrading business
that has ever come to my knowledge. 'How sharper than a serpent's
tooth!'--well, I've found out what _that_ means. Here am I, who have
sacrificed myself, sacrificed everything on earth, for the sake of an
ungrateful rascal who deserts me at a moment's notice. And then you ask
me if anything is the matter!"
She had risen from her chair and was looking at him with a troubled
expression, with the fingers of one hand trembling nervously at her
throat. In the storm of words she had caught only one or two; one of
them she had caught particularly. "Deserted!" she whispered. "I don't
understand you."
"Well, there's not much mystery about it, I should think," he cried
brutally. "Brian has gone."
She looked at him in silence for a moment with a sudden fear whitening
her face; then a little laugh crept to her lips and trembled there,
as though she would cheat herself with the thought that the man was
jesting. "But where has he gone?" she asked lightly. "Have you been
quarrelling with him again?"
"Quarrel? There has been no question of quarrelling. The fellow has
simply sneaked away and left me--I mean us--in the lurch. I suppose you
know what it means when rats desert the sinking ship, don't you? Well,
we are sinking, and away goes the first rat."
She came swiftly across to him and caught him by the arm and looked
into his face. "Do you mean what you say? Where is Brian? I won't
believe--oh, I'll go and find him!"
Halfway to the door his voice arrested her. "You may shriek the house
down and you won't find him. He's miles away. Egad! when I come to
think of it"--Mr. Robert Carlaw scratched his chin and smiled--"he's
a pretty cool hand. And I'm not sure that it isn't what his poor old
father would have done under the circumstances." He turned over the
letter he held in his hands and looked at it. "And the phrasing is
beautiful, quite the sort of thing that would grace his biography, you
know."
She came back slowly from the door and pointed to the letter. "Is that
from Brian?" she asked in a whisper.
"Yes," he replied, still looking at it with a fond smile.
"May I see it? What does he say?"
"Well, I don't think it's wise for you to see it all," replied Mr.
Carlaw. "But he sends a message to you which will probably explain
matters more clearly than I could do." He turned to the letter and
presently came upon the passage he wanted. "Ah, here we are. 'Tell
her that I think, under all the circumstances, she will have no great
cause to regret me. It is a question which has been discussed on many
occasions, and as regards the solution of which I am still in doubt:
Whether men of genius should marry? It is, perhaps, a little late in
the day to raise the point; but my duty to a world which demands of me
my best compels me to gain experience of both sides of every question.
I have tried the one with no very definite success, and as I hold
that ordinary laws and rules do not govern the man who is beyond all
laws, so I feel that I have a perfect right to take my life again into
my own hands and to shape it anew. You may tell her, if you think it
necessary, that I leave her as free, from my point of view, to contract
any other alliance as I shall feel on my part. In a word, I'--I don't
think, on the whole," added Mr. Carlaw, folding up the letter, "that it
is necessary for you to hear any more."
The face she turned to him almost frightened him; the change in it in
the past few minutes was pitiful. "Then there is something else?" she
asked. "Haven't I the right to know that also?"
Mr. Robert Carlaw shrugged his shoulders. "As you will," he said.
"To put it in a few words, my son Brian, with that irresponsibility
which has ever characterized him, and which I believe characterizes
most men of brilliant parts, has taken this sudden journey--well, not
unaccompanied. Do you follow me?"
She nodded and her lips moved, although no sound came from them.
"I felt you would," responded Mr. Carlaw. "You see, the lady--for she
is a lady, in that sense--has long cherished a great admiration for him
and for his work; she is extremely wealthy and I am not----"
He stopped suddenly and made a step toward her, for she had cried out
and had closed her eyes and had swayed blindly toward a chair. But
she waved him off as he came near her, and sat down quietly, staring
straight in front of her.
"You see, the question remains," went on Mr. Robert Carlaw airily,
"what are _we_ to do? Personally, I am a Bohemian, a wanderer--some
might even say a wastrel; a cup of water and a crust will suffice for
me, and I am happy. Frankly, I prefer wine and well-cooked dishes, but
in an emergency the simpler fare will do for me. But to be reduced,
as we are now, to beggary in a moment--well, it's trying to a man's
nerves."
"Are we reduced to beggary?" she asked in a low voice, and in a tone
which suggested that that was the smallest part of the matter.
"Of course we are; but for that we should probably still have my erring
son among us. The money being gone, and the source from which it was
derived gone also, my poor boy lost his head. You see, it has been
a maxim of mine throughout life to walk in the softest and shadiest
places in search of the brightest flowers, and I rather fear that my
poor son has caught the trick of the business from me. Finding that the
sun has gone out in one quarter, he naturally turns to another where it
is still shining, and where fresh flowers nod to him in a new breeze,
as it were. Really, I suppose we ought not to blame him."
"And he has left--left me nothing in the world?" she asked. "Not that
that matters in the least; but I don't quite understand what you mean."
"Well, my dear child, no man can perform impossible feats; Brian had
nothing to leave you, and therefore was helpless in the matter. Oh, I
don't think you should blame Brian for that. Having nothing, he could
leave nothing; there's the whole thing in a nutshell."
She looked at him with a puzzled expression; the greater sorrow had
slipped away for a moment, while these commonplace things were forced
upon her. "But Brian told me we were very rich, or at least that we had
a good income; he told me he made a lot of money with his books."
"Ah, my child, when a man's in love he'll say or do anything. After
all, Brian's desire was a laudable one; his wish was to keep you
from sorrow or want. His own income was small, decidedly small;
the--remainder came from another source."
"Another source," she echoed. "I seem indeed to have been living in
some world from which I am rudely awakened. What was this mysterious
income which has gone on so long and seemed inexhaustible, and yet has
suddenly ceased? What was it?"
"Well, I suppose, now that the thing is ended, you may as well know
everything; it can not matter very much. My nephew, whom I believe
you know--of course you know him--has been generous enough, having
a large private income of his own far beyond his wants, to provide
Brian with--well, with considerable sums--really, I believe, out of an
admiration he possessed for Brian's work. That's the whole matter."
"Oh, my God!" She had risen suddenly to her feet and was covering
her face with her hands; the man stood still, somewhat amazed,
watching her. Presently she took her hands away, and he saw with more
amazement that her face was wet. She came toward him quickly, and had
a difficulty at first in getting out her words; some of the phrases
were broken into by little hysterical laughs. "Of course, all this
comes--comes as something of a surprise--almost a shock--to me. You've
told it all--all so suddenly that I haven't been able to think of
it--to get it clearly. Tell me one thing: how long has this robbery
been going on?"
"Robbery! Really, my dear child, you use the wrong term. There has been
no question of robbery; all the payments that have been made have been
made freely and willingly."
"Yes, I can believe that," she said softly, and covered her face again.
"But how long has it been going on?"
"Well, I believe we were in temporary difficulties soon after my young
nephew left school. My eccentric sister--generous soul--had placed
large sums of money in the boy's hands, while we were actually on the
verge of starvation. Comethup came to our rescue; he has been coming to
our rescue periodically ever since."
"Then this house, these pictures, the carriage in which I ride, this
dress"--she struck herself fiercely on the breast--"all were bought
with--with his money? Is that so?"
"Practically, that _is_ so. You see, poetry, however good and however
conducive to fame, is practically a drug in the market; there is no
great income to be made from it. Consequently, other means of support
became necessary and were fortunately at hand. I don't suppose Brian's
personal income has been a tenth part of what we have been spending.
That's the melancholy fact. And now everything has gone from us."
"Then I understand that we--these payments have ceased?" she said
slowly.
"Entirely ceased. My poor nephew is no longer in a position to assist
us; he has lost his aunt's favour, and like ourselves has been cast
upon an unsympathetic world."
"Do you know how that happened?" she asked drearily.
Mr. Robert Carlaw decided under the delicate circumstances to lie.
"No," he replied, "I do not know. My worthy sister is, as I have
suggested, eccentric, and one never knows from hour to hour what whim
or fancy may seize her. No, I am not aware of the circumstances."
"So what I'm to understand is this: that the man who has helped us
so long being now himself a beggar, we are reduced to beggary; and
Brian"--her voice broke and she turned her head away--"Brian seeks some
one else who can support him. Are those the facts?"
"Crudely, those are the facts," replied Mr. Carlaw. "I have been told
that it is useless to attempt to govern genius by the ordinary laws to
which smaller humanity is subject, and so we must take my misguided son
as we find him and make the best of him. From the world's point of
view he has, like his unfortunate parent, gone to the devil--but the
world in his case will not, I think, judge him hardly. The question
that remains for us is, What shall we do?"
"What shall we do?" she echoed, starting up and facing him scornfully.
"What shall we do? Hide ourselves--hide ourselves from the sight of
every honest man and every honest woman! Creep through desert places
where no one can see us; keep out of the sight of those who might glean
the faintest idea of our story. What shall we do? You have carried a
brave face to the world while your hands were filled with money wrung
from a generous-hearted boy, who did it--God help us all!--from a
motive you wouldn't understand if you knew it. And you ask me what
we shall do! You are an old man, and I a woman suddenly grown old;
you have but few years before you--I, unfortunately, may have a long
lifetime. Yet, if I could live through all the ages, and could get that
best gift that man or woman may claim, the loss of memory, I could not
wash out the stain of this thing. That is absolutely unforgivable. That
I should have been kept in ignorance of it; that I should have taken
the hand of this good fellow in friendship and smiled into his eyes
while he fed and clothed me! Have you sunk so low that you can't feel
that--can't understand it? Can you stand there and smile at me, knowing
that you've stripped from me everything that made my life--my love--my
self-respect--my very honour? And then you ask me what I shall do!"
Mr. Robert Carlaw was somewhat abashed. He had expected to meet
tears and lamentations; he had not thought that she would look upon
the matter in this light, or that she could find it in her heart to
address such words to him. "I beg, whatever you do," he said somewhat
nervously, "I beg that you will do nothing rash; that you will think
seriously of the position and review it with calm deliberation.
Frankly, I am in that position that it is impossible for me to assist
you; if I obtain the cup of water and the crust to which I have
referred I shall consider myself fortunate."
"I want help from no one," she replied. "I only want to go away and
hide myself."
"As you will," he replied, and shrugged his shoulders and left her.
He reflected, as he went to his own room, on the ingratitude of all
created beings, and of women in particular, and decided after much
thought that his best plan for his own future self-preservation would
be to follow Brian and endeavour to get again into his good graces. He
saw with some penetration that Brian was the only man now left who had
any money at his command.
She sat for a long time after he had left her, trying to get the whole
terrible business into an ordinary compass in order that she might
understand it. It was a thing so gigantic and so terrible and so
unexpected that it was difficult for her to realize it completely. All
that she had ever hoped and prayed for--all her world, in fact--had
been swept away in an instant; she wanted, as she had said, to go and
hide herself and strive to forget it. Left alone with all her dreams
shattered, with the man in whom her faith had been centred standing
before her in a mental picture, debased and fallen and degraded, she
dared not look upon the world--scarcely dared to think about the matter.
It was quite late in the evening when, taking nothing with her, and
glancing to right and left like a guilty thing that fears to be seen,
she crept out of the house and away into the streets. In the hours that
had passed since she had heard the story she had prayed once or twice
for death; had hoped that some sudden madness might come upon her which
should cut off the years as by a magician's knife, and leave her, a
little lonely child again, in the garden of her father's house. And
with that prayer came a new thought--a sudden wish to see the place
again.
It was impossible that her mind could be left entirely blank or her
heart quite vacant; with everything that she had believed in and
trusted stripped away from her, her thoughts went back to Comethup, and
raised him a silent, splendid figure blessing and helping her through
all these years during which she had flouted him and set him aside.
Beside that splendid figure the man she had dreamed she loved faded
into nothingness; she felt that, if only for an hour, she must get back
to the old place, where she had broken his heart and left him; must get
back, if only to cry her own heart out.
She had a little money with her, and was fortunate in catching the last
train, which would take her to within a few miles of the old town.
Fatigue meant nothing to her; she alighted at Deal and set out to walk,
hurrying along the road and whispering his name as she ran, and crying
incoherently to him to forgive her.
The town was dark and silent when she reached it. She was in a mood to
sit down and cry--half from weariness, half from delight at being in
the old familiar streets again. She hastened on toward the garden and
went in, swaying a little from weakness as she passed over the fallen
gate and up the dreary avenue. There, under the balcony where she had
parted from him, she stood still, looking up at the deserted house and
weeping bitterly. And suddenly from among the shadows of the trees
there stole out the figure of a man.
He came forward slowly with his arm stretched out; as the moonlight
fell upon his face she saw that it was the old shoemaker, Medmer Theed,
and that he was smiling upon her. The sight of one friendly face in
that dark and desolate garden struck a chord in her that had not been
wakened before; she caught his hands and burst into a sudden passion of
tears.
The old man drew her gently to his breast, and laid her head there
and whispered soothingly to her. "My child, my baby!" he said. "They
shall not harm you. I knew you would come back; I have waited here so
long--so long! Yet the nights have been full of dreams of you; the wind
has whispered your name among the trees; the birds seeking their nests
have cried to me, 'She will come back; when all else desert her, she
will come back to you.' And see, they were right, and all the waiting
is ended. Just as I dreamed that she came back to me--she who died--so
the child I loved has returned, and all my watching is over."
"Take me away! Take me away, and hide me," she cried, clinging to him.
"Yes, yes, they shall not find you, child. The dreams have come true
at last, or almost true. They shall not find you; we will hide you
safely in the old place you knew as a child, and I will watch over you.
Come--they shall not find you."
Unresisting, she submitted to be half led, half carried from the garden
and along the deserted streets to the old man's house. There, with his
arm still fast about her, he unlocked the door and led her in and took
her to an inner room; with the gentleness of a woman he laid her down
there and covered her up. In a few moments, from sheer weariness, she
was fast asleep.
It happened that night that Captain Garraway-Kyle, feeling restless and
lonely, had thrown his old-fashioned military cloak about him and had
gone for a long walk. Coming back very late he paused for a moment near
the old archway through which the shop of the shoemaker was reached,
and after a moment's hesitation passed through and stopped before
the shop. The captain was a man of few friends, and had been in the
habit, since his first conversation with old Medmer Theed, of going to
the place sometimes in the evening for the sake of company. On this
occasion, feeling for some indefinite reason more lonely even than
usual, and seeing a light gleaming through the shutters, he knocked
softly at the door. In a moment it was opened, and he saw the old man,
bearing a candle, standing within the doorway. The captain civilly
wished him good-evening and made as if to enter in the ordinary way.
For the moment, however, the old shoemaker barred his entrance; then,
stepping aside, with a grunt, he somewhat churlishly admitted him.
"It's very late, I'm afraid," said the captain, "but I saw a light, and
guessed you were not in bed. Are you alone?"
"Of course," replied Theed. "What did you expect? Am I not always
alone?"
"Why, of course," replied the captain somewhat surprised at his tone.
"Like yourself, I am a lonely man, and am glad sometimes to find
a fellow-creature to whom I can talk." He had entered the little
low-roofed shop by this time and had seated himself upon a bench. "Why,
it's quite cold to-night, isn't it?" he added.
He had spoken in his usual quick, rather highly pitched voice, and
suddenly the shoemaker raised a warning forefinger, and glanced toward
the door at the back of the shop. "Hush!" he whispered softly.
The captain looked at him in amazement. "I--I'm very sorry," he said,
lowering his voice. "I had no idea that there was any one in here."
"Yes, sleeping," whispered the old man eagerly. "When the winds sang of
her in the trees, and the trees bent to each other to whisper of her
coming, she came suddenly to me in the old place where I had waited so
long; she came weeping, as I had dreamed she would come, and crying to
me to take her away and hide her. And so I brought her here, that none
may find her."
"I don't understand," said the captain in a startled whisper. "Who is
it?"
"She came to me as a little child; was sent to me by God for my
comfort. Often and often she has sat where you sit now while I worked,
and has made the dreams I dreamed about her more real than my waking
life. But they shall not find her--they shall not find her."
"'Linda!" whispered the captain, and caught the other's arm. "What
brings her here; what is the meaning of it?"
"I do not know; I have not asked," replied the shoemaker. "I know only
that she came weeping, as I had dreamed she would come; weeping as that
other child who grew to be a woman must have wept, as all women are
born to weep. But she is safe now; they shall not find her again."
"Let me see her," whispered the captain, rising from the bench on which
he sat and approaching the door of the inner room. "Remember, I loved
her too; let me see her."
For a moment old Medmer Theed stood jealously before the door; then
drew aside somewhat reluctantly, and pushed it open and signed to the
captain to follow him. Treading cautiously, they went in and stood
beside the little rough bed on which she lay. She was still sleeping
soundly, and as the captain bent over her he saw that there were traces
of tears still on her face. After a few moments they came out again
into the shop.
The captain felt that nothing could be done that night; he knew nothing
of what story she had to tell or of what had happened. Perplexed and
troubled, he bade the old shoemaker good-night, and set off for his
cottage. Medmer Theed barred the door and then, after glancing in
again for a moment to see that his charge was safely sleeping, laid
himself down across the threshold of the room and rested there all
night, although he scarcely slept at all. Every slightest noise in the
street seemed to his excited imagination the sound of pursuit, and he
half sprang up more than once, watchful and eager to defend her. When
day came at last he did not unfasten the shop as usual, but left the
shutters still closed, so that the only lights in the place were two
long streams of sunlight which poured through certain round holes in
them. His work was left untouched, and he hovered about between the
inner room and the shop, pressing food upon 'Linda and treating her in
every way with more than a woman's tenderness.
'Linda for her part sat throughout the day with her chin propped in
her palms, thinking. How much she reviewed in those hours it would be
impossible to say; in what new and better light she saw many events she
had not fully understood before. Everything had been torn from her;
she had to start her life again, to build up new hopes and new dreams
and new beliefs; but she could not do that yet. Years seemed to have
passed since the previous day; she had for the first time in her life
taken great strides within a few hours--been shaken suddenly to an
understanding of what her life had been as she had never understood it
at any other time.
The captain came down to the shop during the day, but finding it closed
he hesitated to knock and went away again. In truth, the captain was
puzzled what to do: to leave her alone with the strange old creature
Medmer Theed, to leave her to face and fight against the desperate
trouble which had driven her there, seemed impossible; and yet as the
captain had never seen her since the day of her flight with Brian, he
hesitated now to intrude upon her sorrow. However, when night again
came on, he set out for the shoemaker's shop, determined at least to
gain some tidings of her or to learn that she was well.
He had a curious feeling as he walked along that some one was following
him, even trying, in a half-hesitating fashion, to overtake him. As he
turned in at the old archway the one who followed had evidently made up
his mind, for the steps drew nearer, and before the captain could turn
his head a hand was laid on his shoulder. He stopped and looked round,
and recognized by the dim light of the lamp above them the features of
Mr. Robert Carlaw.
"Pray pardon me," said that gentleman in a curiously subdued tone.
"I have taken the liberty of following you for some distance; I was
not quite sure as to your identity, and one does not care to accost a
stranger in the street and meet with a rebuff."
"You wish to see me?" asked the captain coldly.
"My dear sir," replied the other, "I am in such a state of mind at
the present moment that I really don't know what I am doing or what I
am saying. I have a dim notion that duty has brought me here, and the
thought of duty has always been paramount with me. Sir"--he struck an
attitude and slapped himself with one hand on the breast--"I am in a
state verging on distraction!"
The captain looked at him critically; he almost thought for a moment
that the man had been drinking. But he was still more astonished when
he caught the gleam of tears in his faded eyes. "I fear you are in
trouble," said the captain gently.
"Trouble!" echoed the other. "I want a new word to describe my
feelings, an entirely new word. My son could have found the word or the
phrase, and my son is dead!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE PLEADING OF THE CAPTAIN.
For a moment or two the captain stared at Robert Carlaw in
astonishment. A hundred thoughts went dancing through his brain; he
wondered if the death of Brian might have something to do with 'Linda's
flight back to the old place. While he was framing some question in his
mind Mr. Carlaw broke out into a tempestuous explanation.
"Cut off--cut off--in what the world would term the midst of his sin;
robbed of life in the very flower of his manhood and his strength! Yet
what a life--and ye gods!--what a death! Even in that he was splendid;
even in that he fills the public eye. It was the very death that the
public would expect him to die; they'll catch their breath when they
read of it. Drowned--drowned on a moonlight night and with his arms
about a woman! Drowned--and with twenty thousand a year in his arms!
It's magnificent!"
He was weeping still, but his face literally shone with the joy and
pride of the thought; he dashed the tears away, and with the same
gesture waved his arms in triumph toward the sky.
"But when did this happen?" asked the captain. "And who was the woman?"
"It was all so like him," exclaimed Mr. Robert Carlaw, scarcely heeding
the other's question. "He worked on impulse; he lived his life on
impulse; he died on impulse. This last thing alone should make him
immortal. What other man would have had the courage? What other man
would have had the frank and splendid audacity? To desert his wife when
he felt that she was no longer what he needed; to----"
"So he deserted her, did he?" said the captain slowly.
"Yes; such minds do not stick at any conventional things. He
deserted her; he fled with another. The other was rich and--so I
understand--beautiful. She had a yacht waiting to carry her and her
poet away--think of the romance of it, think of the romance of it! They
reached the yacht, it appears, and set sail for their paradise under
a moonlit sky. Imagine the scene! Then, in the midst of it all comes
grim Fate in the shape of a lumbering coasting steamer and cuts them in
two. A survivor has already declared that he saw Brian Carlaw and the
woman go down locked in each other's arms. My poor boy--he has carried
himself well before the world to the last!"
"Do you know," asked the captain with some sternness, "that his wife is
here, within a few yards of us?"
"I was not aware of it," replied Mr. Carlaw, glancing about him. "My
sole reason for coming here--to this place of his birth--and at so
early a moment is because I feel that something should be done for him;
that they should understand the loss they and the world have sustained,
and should fitly mark their grief. From whom could the news come so
appropriately as from the father who loved him and sacrificed so much
for him? That is my real errand. But you say that she is here?"
"Yes," replied the captain; "she came here yesterday--I suppose when
she learned that he had deserted her. She must be told of this."
"Yes, I suppose she must," replied Mr. Carlaw hurriedly. "Of course,
she takes no real or great place in this sorrowful business; my son
stands alone, and the name of the lady with whom he died will naturally
and inevitably be linked with his. A few will be shocked; to the
majority, I trust, the position will appear appropriate. Personally, I
am sorry for the wife--but she does not touch the story."
"Thank God for that!" muttered the captain to himself. Aloud he said,
"I must tell her, and must see what is to be done for her, poor child!"
"Ah, I remember you as a man of a tender nature, my dear captain," said
Mr. Robert Carlaw, gazing at the sky. "For the present I have other
work on hand; it happens, on occasion, that the dead are more important
than the living. And in the glory of my dead son, I--his unfortunate
father--may chance to cut a figure at last." He started to whistle
as he turned away, but remembered himself in time, and walked with a
drooping head and a less jaunty step than usual. The captain looked
after him for a moment and then went toward the shoemaker's shop. He
knocked, and after some little delay was admitted by old Theed. The
captain stepped into the shop and jerked his head in the direction of
the inner room. "Is she sleeping?" he asked.
The old man nodded. "All day long," he said, "she has sat like one in
a dream, scarcely seeing me; a little time since she fell asleep, but
even now her dreams are troubled and she cries out strange things."
The captain paced up and down the little shop nervously for a minute or
two and then turned to the shoemaker. "I should like to see her," he
said. "I have something to say that must be told her at once--something
that should be told by a friend, lest she should hear it from any other
lips. I should like to see her."
Medmer Theed looked at him keenly; came nearer and laid a hand on his
arm. "Are they seeking her?" he asked in a whisper. "Will they trouble
her again?"
The captain looked at him, doubtful what to say or how much to leave
unsaid. "The man who has troubled her so long," he replied at last,
"is dead, and will trouble her no more. But she must be told."
There were a dignity and a firmness in his tones which mastered the
more ignorant man; without a word he pushed open the inner door and
motioned to the captain to enter. As the captain stepped through, the
old shoemaker would have followed, but the captain gently signed to him
to keep back, and closed the door and was left in the room alone with
'Linda. She was still sleeping, and he set the light he carried on a
little table near the bed, and quite simply and noiselessly went upon
his knees and bowed his head in his hands and muttered a little prayer
to himself.
"God of the little children," he breathed, "who hast sent back to me
this child whom I loved in my old age, teach me, in thy infinite mercy,
how best to tell her, out of a heart that loves her, what her sorrow
is; teach me how best to comfort her."
He rose from his knees and seated himself beside the bed, and laid a
lean old hand on the white one which lay near it. She stirred softly
in her sleep and opened her eyes and looked at him--looked at him for
some moments without recognition. Then, slowly and without turning her
gaze from him, she drew nearer until she had crept quite into his arms,
until her face was hidden on his breast. And so for a long time they
remained in silence.
"Little one," he said at last, "you have not forgotten your old friend,
you have not forgotten the old days. A long, long time has passed
between, but in your hour of need you have crept back quite naturally
to us to find a haven here. There, don't tremble; nothing shall harm
you; nothing shall come near you. You were a child when I knew you
before; dream that you are a child again."
She clung to him, weeping. "Oh, that I might!" she whispered. "If I
might go back and see with the clearer eyes I have now; if I might know
what I know now and make atonement!"
"The time must come when we all cry that, child," he said. "The time
must surely come when the bravest and the best of us would be glad
if we might begin again, seeing the way before us with clearer eyes.
Listen: are you strong enough lying here in your old friend's arms--are
you strong enough to hear what I shall say to you?"
She looked up at him wonderingly and grasped his hand more closely, but
he dared not look at her.
"There was a man whom you loved, a man you called husband--ah, don't
shudder; don't weep like that, or you'll break my heart, child! Because
you loved him he holds a better place in my thoughts than he could ever
otherwise have done; because you loved him I must bear him kindly in my
remembrance."
"Oh, if I might atone, if I might atone!" she whispered, and hid her
face again.
The captain did not understand; he went on in the same gentle tones:
"There comes a time for every man and every woman when all blame and
all praise are as nothing to them, and pass them over; when their
little lives fade out and are judged by the standard of something we
do not understand; a time when they pass beyond our censure and we can
afford to think lightly of their mistakes. 'Linda, do you understand?"
She looked up at him; her brows wrinkled a little as she watched his
face, but she did not speak.
"He left you without thinking what might happen, careless of what
sorrow the world held for you. But you can afford to forgive that now;
in time you may even learn to forget it. Your prayers or your tears can
not reach him any more."
"I understand," she whispered. "You mean that he--he is dead?"
"Yes. He is dead. He died quite suddenly and painlessly."
She was silent for a long time; he had expected that she would cry
out--had fully anticipated a painful scene; but this apathy was more
disconcerting than anything could have been. After a time, without
looking up at him, she asked softly: "And Comethup? What of Comethup?"
"He is well, I believe," said the captain, trying to hide his
astonishment. "I have not heard from him for some time." The worthy
gentleman was at a loss to understand the strangeness of her demeanour;
he cast about in his mind for a clew to guide him, but could find none.
"You know that he has left his home--that he has been cast out into the
world?" she asked.
The captain forgot everything in his new astonishment. "What do you
mean?" he asked. "I had heard nothing about this. I don't understand."
"Not now--not now," she whispered. "Some other time you will know all
about it and will judge me as you should. Leave me alone now; I want to
think. Kiss me"--she turned up her face to his--"and don't think hardly
of me, dear old friend, if you can help it."
He kissed her and softly patted her cheek, lingered a moment, and then,
as he saw her lying with closed eyes, stole out of the room, shutting
the door behind him. With scarcely a word to Medmer Theed he went out
of the shop and into the street, and walked back to his own place.
There, pacing up and down the little parlour, he turned over many
things in his mind, and wondered again and again in a vague fashion
what he should do; above all things, what he should do in regard to
'Linda.
To leave her with the old shoemaker was obviously out of the question,
and yet what else was to be done? The captain felt here at once the
helplessness of his mere manhood; saw that, whatever delicacy he might
possess, it was quite unequal to such an occasion as this. "It wants a
woman," muttered the captain to himself; and so started on a new train
of thought.
The result of that particular train of thought was that the captain,
after passing a sleepless night, set off early the next morning for
London, and presented himself within a few hours at the door of Miss
Charlotte Carlaw's house. He sent up his card and was at once admitted
and taken into the old woman's presence. She turned her head toward
him as he entered the room, and smiled a welcome and held out her hand.
The captain took the hand in his courtly fashion and hoped that she was
well.
"Oh, in better health than I ought to be, I've no doubt," replied the
old woman. "And what brings you to town? Have you come like all the
rest to upbraid me for my harshness--to cry out his virtues to me? have
you come for that? Because, if you have, you will be wiser to save your
breath and say nothing."
"Let me begin by saying that I know nothing of the matter," replied
the captain, "and that that is not my errand. I have certainly learned
in an accidental manner that Comethup no longer lives here; but I have
heard so much within the past few days that my poor old brain is in a
whirl, and I can think of nothing coherently."
"Well, while you collect your thoughts," replied Miss Carlaw, "I can
tell you in a few words what has happened. You were fond of the boy
just as I was; believed in him, I think, just as I did--which shows
we were both fools in that sense at least. In a word, he has been
steadily--or unsteadily--spending my money for years past in riotous
living--ever since he was a boy, in fact; and now, to crown it all,
has borrowed a large sum of money on the understanding that he is my
heir and can pay it back when I am dead. When I'm dead--you hear that?
That's the bitterest part of all; I'd have forgiven anything but that."
"There's been some horrible blunder," said the captain, shaking his
head sturdily. "I know Comethup, have seen him grow up since he was
a little child, and I can't believe that it's possible. There's some
mistake."
"I wish I could think so," replied Miss Carlaw. "But there's no doubt
about it; he has admitted it. However, we won't talk about it any more;
I swore never to talk about it again. What do you want with me?"
"Stay a moment," urged the captain. "Won't you tell me what has become
of him or where he is?"
"I don't know," she replied, turning away. "He's done with so far as
I am concerned; in fact, he never really lived. We'll speak of him no
more, please." Then in a moment she lost that gentler tone and swung
round upon him fiercely. "In God's name, man, have some mercy! If my
face tells you nothing of what I have suffered, the agony of loneliness
that has been mine during these past weeks, then at least let my lips
tell you. I always liked you; I believe you to be a good and honourable
gentleman. Perhaps I can say to you what I might not to another. He has
spoiled my life, old though I am, just as he has spoiled his own; can't
you see that I couldn't take him to my heart again? He refused all
explanations of what had been done with the money; stubbornly refused
to say a word about it.--There, let's have done with it. Tell me what
you came here for."
The captain saw that it was useless to pursue the subject; he sighed
and turned to that newer matter. "I must speak of him again for a
moment, although indirectly. Do you remember a most unhappy occasion,
when you came to visit me in the hope of meeting a girl to whom the boy
was to be married?"
"Yes, I remember. What of it?"
"Whatever his after sins may have been, he behaved, as regards that
matter, with a delicacy and a consideration for the woman who had
betrayed him which was, to my simple thought, wonderful. Even if, as
you say, he is worthless, he had that one merit of loving her sincerely
and strongly through everything; of that I am convinced. She fled with
his cousin Brian and they were married. At the present moment she is
destitute."
The captain paused and looked at her intently to see the effect of his
words; she merely nodded to him to proceed.
"Her husband--a worthless fellow, I fear--appears to have deserted her
for another woman, and within a few hours of his desertion to have been
drowned at sea. She has come back to her old home and is living under
the protection of a strange old creature, a shoemaker, who loved her
and cared for her when she was a little lonely child. Beyond that man
and myself she hasn't a friend in the world; there is no one to whom
she can turn. She is hallowed forever in my sight because poor Comethup
loved her; she is set apart from all other women on that account. She
is very young and, as I have said, helpless and hopeless. Dear old
friend"--the captain made a movement toward her--"I want you to help
me."
Miss Charlotte Carlaw, whose face was working strangely, turned her
head away from him and beat one foot restlessly on the floor. "Why
should I do that?" she asked at last in a low voice.
"Because you're a woman," replied the captain eagerly; "because--deny
it if you will--you can't shut out the thought of this boy we both love
from your heart; because this girl in her loneliness may appeal to
you in your loneliness, may give in time a kinder thought of him. You
must not try to persuade me that you are so hard as you would have me
believe. If you will not let me plead for the boy himself, let me plead
for the woman he loved and lost--the woman who is friendless."
She was silent for a long time and presently sat down in her old
attitude with her hands resting on her stick and her forehead on her
hands. And the captain watched her.
"You are a good man," she said at last, without raising her head.
"There's never a day, never an hour when I do not think of him, and
yet I can not call him back to me. But if you think--and you know so
much better than I can hope to do--that it would be right and just for
me to take this girl--that it would be better for her and better for
me--then I'll do it. And don't boast of your feelings, sir," she added,
raising her head with something of a return of her old manner, "because
I have my feelings too; perhaps I'll even take her more warmly to my
heart because he loved her. Lord! captain, what a blundering set of
people we all are from the time we blunder into life till the time we
blunder into the grave! I suppose I can leave all the arrangements in
your hands; I seem somehow to have lost something of my old sense of
power, something of my old strength lately; I want some one on whom I
can rely. You will tell me what to do, won't you?"
"If I might suggest," said the captain, "I think the best thing for you
to do would be to come down to her; to see her and take her away with
you. Will you do that?"
"I will do whatever you think best," she replied. And so the matter was
settled.
The captain felt that the hardest part of his mission had yet to be
performed; but he went home that very night and presented himself
without delay before 'Linda. To his surprise, however, he found that
she was perfectly passive, and willing to fall in with any suggestions
he made. He told her that this old lady was quite blind and very
lonely; that she had loved Comethup very dearly; that she wanted the
girl's companionship and help. At the same time the captain delicately
suggested that it would be wiser for 'Linda to say nothing about
Comethup in any way; he hinted that the point was a sore one with Miss
Carlaw. 'Linda was silent for some time, and then she looked up at him
quietly.
"I have done so much harm in my life," she said, "although I hoped
only to do good! If you think--if you really think that I may do any
good--that I may make any atonement--I will do as you wish. I have
trodden my own wilful path so long, I will tread any other you point
out to me."
"I think this is best," said the captain gently.
Miss Charlotte Carlaw came down the next day and the captain conducted
her to Medmer Theed's shop. The carriage in which she had arrived was
left standing in the street outside the old archway, and the captain,
without a word, guided her through the shop and opened the inner door
and led her through. Then he came out and closed the door, and left
the two women alone. He had previously prepared the shoemaker for what
was to happen, and the old man had accepted it without question and
appeared satisfied that she should go. As the captain stood waiting in
the little shop, Medmer Theed sat on his bench, hammering softly at the
leather, as of old.
In the room within Miss Charlotte Carlaw had paused for a moment with
her hands stretched out gropingly. 'Linda came timidly toward her.
"Where are you, child?" asked the old woman; and then their hands met
and they drew close together. Perhaps it was the touch of a woman's
hand that 'Linda needed just then; she suddenly found herself drawing
close to the strange old figure, and for the first time her tears began
to flow.
"Let's make a new beginning, child," said Miss Carlaw softly. "And, for
both our sakes, will you promise me never to speak of what is past and
ended, never to refer to any one we both knew? Will you promise that?"
"Yes, I promise," whispered the girl.
They came out together presently into the shop; the captain stood
waiting to conduct them to the carriage. Medmer Theed still hammered
softly on his leather. The girl went up to the shoemaker and put an
arm about his neck and whispered his name; he looked up at her with a
vacant expression, and she kissed him and murmured some broken words
of thanks. He nodded his head slowly and went on with his work. He was
still hammering when the carriage drove away, the captain standing
bareheaded in the street, looking after them.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MEDMER MELTS A SILVER SPOON.
It was a clear, crisp November evening, with a touch of frost in the
air, and the captain sat in his little parlour before a tiny fire,
staring into the coals. Behind him on the table a candle, burning in
a tall, old-fashioned candle-stick, threw a giant round-shouldered
shadow of the captain on the wall and part of the ceiling of the room.
Two years had gone by since the captain stood outside Medmer Theed's
shop and watched the carriage roll away--two years during which he had
aged a little more, and had gone but little beyond the confines of his
garden.
To-night he sat and stared into the coals and thought a little
wistfully of the past, and wondered a little what had become of the
figures that had acted out their lives in close contact with his--some
of them, indeed, in that very room. He thought of the tiny child
hugging a puppy in its arms, standing outside his gate looking up at
him with big, frightened eyes; remembered sunny Sunday mornings when
that child had sat beside him in the big pew in church. He sighed at
last, and moved restlessly in his chair and turned his head to look
round the familiar room.
There was a sudden sound of hesitating steps upon the gravel outside,
and then a cautious lifting of the latch. The captain twisted in his
chair and rose to his feet, picked up the candle from the table, and
opened the door of the room. In the shadows of the little hallway he
saw a man standing.
"Who's there?" cried the captain, raising the light above his head.
The man came forward slowly until he stood within a yard of the light
and raised his head. The captain staggered back a step into the room.
"Forgive me," said the man huskily. "I have wandered outside this old
place for an hour, fearing to come in, but now----I suppose you don't
care to--to take my hand?"
The captain had put down the candle hurriedly, and had the man by both
hands and was dragging him in a feeble, excited fashion into the room.
"Comethup--my boy--my boy!" he said, over and over again.
He got his visitor into a chair near the fire and began to chafe his
half-frozen fingers and to put back the long hair from his face as
though he had been tending a child. And while he did so Comethup looked
steadily and smilingly at him, and the little captain smiled back at
Comethup.
"This is very good of you, sir," said Comethup at last, in something of
the old boyish voice. "I might have known you wouldn't turn from me,
however bad you might think I had been. And isn't it good just to get
back to the old room again? I've been so happy in this old room! What a
little chap I was when I first came to you! Do you remember? And what a
lot has happened since then--what a lot has happened!"
"Where have you been all this time, boy?" asked the captain, still
chafing the other's fingers. "Why have you never been near me?"
Comethup shook his head and smiled drearily. "No, I couldn't do
that," he said. "I've had something of a fight for it, you know,
with no weapons to fight with. Look at me"--he indicated his shabby,
travel-stained dress by a gesture--"look at me; I'm little better than
a tramp, you know. Why--God bless your simple heart, sir--I'm even in
hiding."
"In hiding?" echoed the captain.
"Yes. You know I borrowed a lot of money, and told the people from whom
I borrowed it that I was my aunt's heir. Well, it turned out I wasn't;
they haven't been able to get their money back, and I haven't been able
to pay the interest. There are writs out against me, I believe, and all
sorts of things. Oh, what a muddle it's been, every bit of it!"
"But what are you going to do?" asked the captain.
"Well, if you'll let me, I'd like to rest here just for to-night; and
to-morrow, before the sun is up, I'll be far away again. I'm going
abroad, going to try and make a fresh start."
"Is there no other way?" asked the captain.
"None. I've got to live somehow, and I must start in a new world, with
a clean slate. But don't let us talk any more about myself; tell me all
that has happened in this long time. Poor Brian is dead, I understand."
"Yes, he's dead," replied the captain slowly, "and is a greater man in
death than he was in life. Do you know that they've raised a statue to
him in this town, the place of his birth?"
"Yes, I heard of that," replied Comethup. "I saw the statue only this
evening. It's curious that they should have stuck it up on the old
walls where we used to play together when we were boys, isn't it? It
was half dark when I saw it, but it looks very fine, and they've caught
his attitude to the life."
"Yes, it's quite like him," replied the captain. "They made a great
fuss of it at the time; it was raised by public subscription. He seems
to have had a great many admirers."
"Tell me of the others," said Comethup. "What of--of 'Linda; is she
well?"
"Yes, very well. She has been living since her husband's death with
Miss Carlaw, your aunt; so you understand she wants for nothing."
"Thank God for that!" said Comethup fervently. "You've taken quite a
load off my mind. I've thought of her a thousand times and feared that
she might be in want and that I might not be able to help her. And my
aunt, does she--does she still think badly of me?"
"I'm afraid so," said the captain.
"Well, I gave her every reason to do so. There--don't ask me anything
about it, because I can't tell even you; there are some things, you
know, that one has to keep quite to one's self. It's good to know that
_you_ don't think so very badly of me; that you are willing to take
me by the hand again just as though all this had never happened." He
got up from his chair and laid his hand on the captain's shoulder. "If
you'll let me sleep in the little room in which I slept as a child
I'll be grateful to you. And let us say good-bye here for the last
time. Long before you're awake in the morning, old friend, I shall be
gone. And I pray you, for the sake of the love you had for me so long
ago, don't think of me as you see me to-night--poor and broken and an
outcast; but remember only the child you played with years and years
ago; remember only the boy you were proud of when you used to come and
see me at school. Will you do that?"
"Boy or man, it makes no difference," said the captain; "I can only
think of you as I have thought of you always--as one who is nearer to
my heart than any I have met on my journey through life."
Before he could be prevented Comethup had caught the old man's hands
and had carried them swiftly to his lips. "Thank you," he whispered;
"God bless you! I can go now with a lighter heart than I have carried
for a long time. Good-bye, old friend, good-bye!"
They gripped hands once more, and Comethup, crying lightly that he knew
the way, stumbled out of the room and went swiftly upstairs, leaving
the captain standing alone.
The captain sat down and tried to resume his thoughts. But everything
seemed to have been tumbled about and thrust into fresh directions by
the arrival of Comethup. After a little time the old man got up and
reached down his heavy cloak and put on his hat and went softly out.
The night was fine; only the slow chiming of the hour from the church
clock struck upon his ears. He walked through the garden and out into
the deserted streets.
Going along with bent head, pondering deeply, he was brought to a
sudden recollection of his surroundings by hearing some one falter
his name; he looked up with a start and saw 'Linda before him. So
surprising had been the coming of the other visitor that he was
scarcely startled to see her suddenly there before him; he did not even
ask her the reason for her presence.
"I was coming to see you," she whispered as she held his hand. "I have
been trying to make up my mind to come to you all the afternoon."
"Are you here alone?" he asked.
"Yes, quite alone. We are going abroad to-morrow, and I craved
permission to come down to the old place once again. We may not be
returning for years. I wanted--oh, can't you understand?--I wanted just
to creep back here again for an hour or two; to visit the old scenes,
perhaps even to dream some of the old dreams. And so I took a little
room at the inn here, where no one seems to remember me, and I am going
away quite early in the morning. Miss Carlaw is coming down to Deal
to-morrow and I am to drive from here to meet her, and from there we
start on our travels. But I felt I could not go away from the old place
without seeing my old friend."
The captain thought of the man who slept at his cottage, and decided at
once that 'Linda must be kept away from there. "I am afraid," he said,
"that we shall have to say our farewells here. It is very late, and
when a lady"--he threw a little light laughter into his tones--"when a
lady is staying at an inn she must keep regular hours. I'm glad, for
your sake, that you are going abroad. Come, let me take you back again."
She seemed a little surprised at his apparent coldness, but took the
arm he offered and walked on with him. Very little was said, but near
the door of the inn she stopped for a moment, with both hands clasped
on his arm, and looked away past him down the street. When at last she
spoke her voice was very soft and tender, and trembled a little.
"It may be a long, long time before I see you again, dear old friend,
and as this is to be our farewell there is something--something I would
like to say to you. I seem again to-night to be a little child, just as
I was in those old days when you put your cloak about me and hushed my
weeping in your arms. I have given you, I fear, cause to think badly
of me. Will you think better of me if I tell you that I would be glad
to be a child again, weeping in the rain, if only I might do some of
the things I have tried to do so much better? Something else I must say
before I leave you. There was a man--a dear, good fellow--who loved
me; I have thought of him--oh, believe me--with tears, many and many a
night when I have lain awake. I fear there is no heaven I can reach; I
am afraid that every gate of any paradise that might be mine will be
closed against me because I deserted him when he most needed me. Even
you--good, kind friend that you are--even you don't know everything.
There is an image of stone over there"--she flung out her arm with a
passionate gesture--"I saw it this afternoon, with its smiling face
raised to the sky; I would that my hands were strong enough to tear
it down! It mocks me where it stands--mocks the pain that rages in
my heart. If you should ever see the man who loved me--the better
man--will you tell him from me, now that it is too late, that I learned
to love him with all my heart and soul; that I would that I might crawl
to his feet and kiss them, and tell him so. Will you tell him that?"
"If I see him," said the little captain, "I will tell him."
She kissed him hurriedly and hugged him in the old, passionate,
childish fashion, and ran into the inn. He waited for a few moments
and then turned away. He was too upset by the events of the strange
night to care to go back to his own cottage; more than all, he feared,
in a vague fashion, to meet Comethup. With his hands clasped behind
him under his cloak he walked on, scarcely knowing where he went, and
found himself presently turning in under the archway which led to the
shoemaker's shop. He dared not think, dared not bring himself to the
realization of the fact, that these two people were in the same town,
almost within cry of each other, this night. He wanted to get away from
the thought of it; wanted desperately to talk to some one. He saw a
light gleaming through the shutters of Medmer Theed's shop, and after
hesitating for a moment knocked at the door.
He heard the bolt drawn inside, and the door was cautiously opened
and the old man appeared, looking out at him. He was dressed only in
his shirt and trousers, and with his unkempt gray hair tossed about
his head looked a stranger, wilder figure even than usual. Seeing the
captain, he held the door wider open and beckoned to his visitor to
enter.
"Come in, come in," he said in a mysterious whisper, "but let no one
else come near." He had closed the door by this time and shot the bolt.
"You, who love her, have a right to be here; for we work together, you
and I, for love of her, don't we?"
"Of course," said the captain, looking at him a little uneasily and
wondering what he meant. "You are at work late to-night," he added.
"Yes, very late, and with strange work." He suddenly caught the captain
by the arm and drew nearer to him. "Hush! Do you know that _he_ has
come back?"
"I don't understand you," said the captain. "Who has come back?"
"The man who wronged her, the man they thought was dead. If they had
wanted to keep him dead why did they thrust him up there for all men
to see? why did they put him there against the sky to laugh at her and
mock her and torture her afresh? Listen, and I'll tell you something.
Just as I watched for her, night after night, through storm and rain
and starlight, till she came to me, so I have watched for him, night
after night, through storm and rain, till he has come back too. I tell
you they can not kill him; he is here to work harm to her still, to
wring fresh tears from her. At night, when all men sleep, he comes down
and prowls round here searching for her, waiting for her. I've seen
him."
The captain shook his hand off half angrily, half fearfully. "What
madness is this?" he cried. "The man is dead and can trouble her no
more; that is but an image of stone, the work of men's hands. The man
lies in his grave, miles away from here."
Medmer Theed shook his head obstinately and laughed. "You don't know,"
he said, "you don't know. My dreams have taught me more than you could
learn. Dead or not, I tell you that his spirit has come back, and waits
there at night to work fresh evil to her. And that's where my dreams
and my love for her shall help me."
He laid his hand again on the captain's arm and drew him into the inner
room. A bright fire burned in the little grate, and thrust into the
very heart of it was a small crucible; the captain, drawing nearer, saw
that the handle of an old-fashioned spoon projected above the edge of
it.
"Why, what are you doing?" he asked.
The shoemaker chuckled and softly stirred the fire. "There is but one
way to kill a spirit," he whispered, looking up at his companion. "Lead
or iron or steel won't do; it wants finer stuff. Silver's the stuff.
You are a man of war, and might bring a regiment against him in vain;
but this little silver bullet, if it can but reach him, will put an
end to his mischief forever. See"--he pulled open a drawer in a little
table and took out an old-fashioned, heavy-barrelled pistol and a
small instrument, shaped almost like a pair of pincers, for moulding
bullets--"I am all prepared. The silver is good, the pistol aims truly.
He shall not trouble her any more."
The captain, glancing at him in perplexity, saw in his eyes a madness
of determination he had not seen in any face before; he understood that
whatever wild thought was in the old man's brain it would be useless to
attempt to combat it. After lingering for some minutes, during which
time the little mass of silver in the bottom of the crucible gradually
increased in bulk, he bade the old man good-night, and went out. As he
looked back from the doorway he saw the wild old figure still bending
over the fire, laughing softly and muttering incoherent things.
CHAPTER XXIX.
COMETHUP LEARNS THE TRUTH.
Quite early in the morning, almost before the gray dawn had come
stealing across the sky, 'Linda left the inn and set out swiftly for
the outer walls of the town. Some of the old glamour of the romantic
personality of the dead man was still upon her, some faint pride in
him still remained. She wanted to see that statue which had been raised
to him, and of which she had caught a glimpse as she drove into the
town on the previous day; she wanted to see it when no one else was
there, to carry away in her memory the thought of him as he stood thus
and looked in all men's eyes, and so perhaps to wipe away the memory of
the poorer, meaner thing she knew him to have been.
A white, heavy mist was blowing across the marshy lands from the sea;
as she came up upon the grass-grown old walls the mists were floating
and flowing about the statue, hiding and showing it by turns. She went
close and looked up at it for a long time.
The sculptor had been happy in striking the characteristic attitude of
the man. The figure stood with one hand lightly planted on the hip and
the other hanging by the side; the head was thrown back and the face,
with the old daring, wilful smile upon it, turned toward the sky. It
was strange to see him there, high above her, on the very spot where
they had wandered and played together as children. She turned away at
last and began slowly to retrace her steps, looking back once or twice
at the silent figure above her.
Suddenly she heard quick steps behind her and, turning sharply, saw
the figure of a man looming out of the mist. The man came nearer with
a half-stealthy movement that frightened her. She was on the point of
crying out, and had stopped, scarcely knowing what to do, when the man
overtook her in a stride or two, and peered into her face and cried her
name. With a great feeling of relief she put out her hand to him.
"Old Medmer Theed!" she exclaimed. "Dear old friend, you startled me
for a moment; I could not distinguish you in this mist."
He paid no heed to what she said; he did not even notice the hand she
held out to him. "So he draws you here still," he muttered half to
himself. "It is as I thought; his power is still as great as ever.
See"--he leaned toward her and peered into her face--"your face is
white and there are tears in your eyes. But it shall end, child; he
shall trouble you no more."
She remembered afterward that he kept one hand behind him, as though
he held something in it--something he did not wish her to see. Fearing
that some strange, wild thought such as had troubled him in the old
days was troubling him again, she spoke soothingly to him and smiled.
"Indeed, there is nothing to trouble me," she said lightly; "all my
troubles are ended."
"Then why do you come here?" he asked suspiciously. "Why should you
come here except to meet him? and why should you weep when you meet
him?"
"I don't understand," she said, looking at him with a puzzled
expression. "I have not come here to meet any one; no one is awake yet,
save ourselves."
"Ah! he comes only when others sleep," muttered the old man. "I was
here but yesterday and saw him creeping round here, and watching and
waiting. And he has drawn you to him."
"Tell me what you mean!" she cried. "What have you seen?"
He pointed to the statue towering above them through the mist, and
lowered his voice to a whisper. "I have seen his spirit--the spirit of
him they think dead--come down in lonely hours and wait here for you."
"Oh, no, no!" she cried, startled. "This is only one of your dreams;
people can not come back from the dead. Forget all about it, I beg of
you; believe me, it is only one of your dreams."
For answer he suddenly gripped her arm and pointed, with the hand that
had been behind him, in the direction of the statue; she saw that he
held something in that hand, although she could not see clearly what it
was. "Then what is that?" he cried. "See, there he is, waiting still!"
With a cry he sprang forward and dropped on one knee in the roadway,
and pointed with his arm. Another figure had appeared from beyond the
statue and was standing before it, looking up at it--the tall figure
of a man. While 'Linda glanced from the figure back to the old man
kneeling in the roadway, she was stunned by a sudden loud report and
a blinding flash that seemed to scatter and drive away the mist; and
then, in a moment, the figure before the statue turned swiftly round
and stumbled and flung up its arms and fell prone before it. She ran to
it and, scarcely knowing what she did, turned it over and looked down
at the face. And it was the face of Comethup!
She had a dim, wild, despairing hope that she might be dreaming; that
the gray morning and the stone figure at the foot of which she knelt,
and the man whose head was propped upon her arm, and the wild old
figure standing weeping and beating its breast beside her might all be
shadows in a dream she would wake to forget. But when she heard the
voice of the man in her arms she knew that it was all true.
"'Linda! God is very merciful--and all the world he builds for us is
very, very right--and very sweet. But a moment ago, as I stood there,
with nothing to hope for--hold me closer and look into my eyes--I
prayed for death. And see--in a moment it comes--swiftly, too. I
don't--don't understand, but it's all--all very right, isn't it?"
"Dear," she whispered, "can't we do anything? Tell me--you are not--not
really hurt?"
He smiled up at her with the smile she knew and remembered so well. "We
must not--must not lie to each other now," he said, "because there is
so little time. I am dying----No, don't turn your face away; keep your
arms tight about me. He did not--did not know; don't let them--harm
him. Quick--there is little time; tell me--why you are here. Have you
left her?"
"I am going--going abroad with her. I came here to see the old place
again for the last time."
"God is very good," he whispered, closing his eyes. "I might have
died--without seeing you." He stirred a little in her arms and tried
weakly to thrust her away. "Now, you--you must go; you must leave me,
dear. You must go--back to her."
"No, no," she cried, holding him closer. "I will not leave you now."
"You must--you must. And take him with you. Hide him; don't let them
harm him. Oh, why torture me now? Do me this one--one last service.
Go back--back to her; keep this from her. Tell her--some day--that I
died--you need not--tell her--anything else. Will you go?"
"I can not, I can not!" she cried, weeping.
"You must--or you will undo--all I have tried--so hard to do. Don't
you understand?" He raised his eyes to the statue above them.
"See--he smiles above us. You must leave me here. Here is my--resting
place--here my fitting--monument. Leave me--here." His eyes were
closing again; his hands were groping for hers.
She bent nearer to him, kissed him on the lips, and whispered: "Listen.
I will do all you wish, because--because I love you. Can you hear me?"
He smiled and gripped her hands more tightly. Bending to him again, she
caught the whisper as she touched his lips: "God--is very good." And
then his eyes closed, and he died.
For a little time she sat holding him in her arms; then
resolutely--remembering her promise--she got up and laid him gently
at the foot of the statue, and caught the old man by the hand and ran
down the hill toward the town. All was quiet. She noticed, as they
went along swiftly, that the old man, who still carried the pistol in
his hand, had lost the old strong dominant look from his face and was
weak and passive as a child. She took the pistol from him, shuddering
a little as she touched it, and hid it in her dress; took him to the
door of his shop and thrust him in, and bade him, as she left him,
be silent and to tell no one of his dreams. As she came out into the
little street again, shaking from head to foot and striving to master
her tears, the old man ran after her. He was smiling foolishly.
"I dreamt there was blood upon him; but that--that was long ago, wasn't
it?"
"Yes, yes; long ago," she whispered hurriedly. "Go back, and tell no
one your dream."
Fortunately she had ordered a carriage very early, that she might drive
to Deal in time to meet Miss Carlaw. She kept her veil down as she
entered the inn and got away from it as quickly as possible, refusing
anything to eat. She scarcely dared speak to any one lest she should
betray her agitation. Safely in the carriage at last, she knew that
she must pass almost within sight of the spot where the statue stood
with the dead man lying at its foot; it seemed horrible to have to go
away and leave him there--dead--to be found by strangers. And then,
with another burst of tears, she remembered how he had smiled as he
died, and how she had promised to keep all knowledge of it from the old
woman. Humbled and broken and afraid, she clasped her hands before her
face and prayed silently for strength to keep that promise to him at
least. She was grateful to think, for the first time, when she reached
Deal that her companion was blind and could not see her face. Miss
Carlaw, guessing perhaps that her visit to the old place had awakened
sorrowful memories, said but little to her and left her to herself
when, after reaching Dover, they took the night boat for Calais.
And while most of the passengers were asleep 'Linda crept on deck and
stole to the side of the vessel and dropped the heavy, old-fashioned
pistol into the sea.
CHAPTER XXX.
AUNT CHARLOTTE ATTENDS A CELEBRATION.
"You have not yet told me why you returned so suddenly to England,"
said 'Linda.
She was seated on a low stool beside Miss Charlotte Carlaw's chair;
her head was resting against the old woman's knee. Miss Carlaw, leaning
in her old attitude on her stick, had been silent for some time.
The two women had returned only the day before, quite suddenly and
unexpectedly, from the Continent.
"Well, there were several reasons, my child," she said. "I've been
growing older within these past few months--older not only in years but
in my outlook on life, I think. You'll laugh, perhaps, when I say it,
but I've gone through many, many years of my life in a sort of wild
hurry, striving to get out of it--out of every hour of it--the most
that could be squeezed. If I had my time to come again, I think--no,
I am quite sure--that I should linger a little by the roadside, as
it were; perhaps in that way I should see more of it, and should
understand more clearly the meaning of it all. The nearer we come to
the finish of it, child, the more clearly do we understand that it is
not for us to judge; not for us, in our petty fashion, to say what is
right or what is wrong. Only at the end, when we go to Him who sent
us here, carrying in our hands the poor little fruits of what we have
done, can we know how sadly we have blundered, how much there is that
we might have done better. Look at me, 'Linda; I started without eyes,
but even that should not have blinded me to all the better things I
passed by. And so, before it is too late, I want to do one little thing
that I have left undone; I want in all humility to make some reparation
to you."
"Reparation? To me?"
"Yes, to you. There was a time--a long while ago--when I thought hardly
of you, because I thought you had deceived some one I loved. Well,
perhaps you judged him better than I did; perhaps, after all, I was the
poor fool who was deceived, and you--out of that love which teaches a
woman more than anything else can do--found the better man, after all.
You remember I came to you, pitying your loneliness, when he died,
and I have been more than recompensed by your love and devotion to me
since."
"You have been very, very good to me," said 'Linda in a low voice. "But
for you I might have been left destitute."
"There, there, we won't talk of that," said the old woman. "You know,
since we have been abroad our good old friend the captain has written
to us more than once. He mentioned in one of his letters to me about
the statue which had been erected to your husband. I don't want to
trouble you with sad memories, but it has occurred to me that you might
like to go again to the place where he was born and to the place where
they love and remember him so well. Help me to be unselfish, child, for
I fear that I have selfishly tried to thrust out of your memory any
thought of him. I know you loved him, and he was, perhaps, a better man
than I judged him to be. Will you forgive me if I have misjudged him?"
"Indeed, I have nothing to forgive," replied 'Linda.
"Ah, you say that out of your good heart; but I reproach myself very
much that I have not been gentler with you--that I have not considered
your grief a little more. Now, listen to me. The captain told me in
his letter--you remember you read it to me--he told me that on the
anniversary of Brian Carlaw's birth there was going to be a great
celebration; that the people of the little town were going to put
wreaths and flowers at the foot of the statue; that many celebrated
people who had known and loved and admired him in life would be there
to show their respect for his memory. And that has brought me back to
England."
'Linda sat quite still, listening. Before her mental vision passed a
picture of a man lying dying at the foot of that statue; a man who had
willingly and cheerfully given all he possessed in life for her; a man
who had thought that God was good because the woman who had cast him
aside kissed his lips at the last.
"And so, my dear child," went on the unconscious old woman, "I have
made up my mind that we will go down there at the time of this
celebration, and you shall take your place as you should by the
memorial of the man you loved. That is only fair and just and right;
that has brought me back to England. Come, tell me that it will make
you happy to go back to the old place again, to feel some pride--as you
must feel--in the man whom all others are honouring."
"I--I think--I fear the journey would be too much for you," said
'Linda, striving to steady her voice. "Indeed, you must not do this for
my sake."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Carlaw. "I've set my heart upon it, and I
shall be bitterly disappointed if you don't carry out my wishes. You
must be proud of him, and it will take the keenest edge off your sorrow
and make you think kindly of him if you go. I am going to have my own
way in this, I can assure you. We'll go down together to the grave of
the man you love, for I suppose they buried him there?"
'Linda did not answer. A sudden new thought had come into her head--a
thought that brought a quick flush to her cheek and filled her eyes
with tears. "It shall be as you wish," she said after a pause.
The celebration of which the captain had written--the anniversary of
Brian Carlaw's birth--was three days later; the two women went down
late on the day before, and secured rooms at the inn at which Miss
Charlotte Carlaw had previously stopped. Early the following morning,
after they had breakfasted, they set out on foot for the place; for
Miss Carlaw had said: "We'll have no ostentation about the matter; and
we'll get there early, before the other people arrive."
Their walk was a short one; the old blind woman, leaning on 'Linda's
arm, was led through a gate and then found her feet walking softly on
grass; on the sweet summer air the scent of roses was borne pleasantly.
"A sweet and pleasant place," she murmured as they walked on.
They went some little distance farther and then 'Linda stopped. "This
is the place," she whispered. "The man I loved sleeps here." The arm on
which Miss Carlaw leaned seemed to tremble, and she thought that the
girl was weeping.
"How very quiet it all is!" said Miss Carlaw in a hushed voice. "I
can only hear the twitter of the birds and the rustle of the wind in
the leaves. The people, where are the people? Has no one arrived yet?
Please remember that I am blind, dear; you must be eyes for me?"
"No; the people are not here; we are quite alone," said 'Linda.
"But the statue; describe the statue to me."
"It is a statue that only I can see," said 'Linda slowly; "ever since
he died I have seen it towering to the very heavens, putting me to
shame. It is the statue of a great and good man--a man so splendid
in one purpose and one hope and one faith that all other men sink
into nothingness beside him. And in the eyes--oh, can I ever forget
them?--in the eyes there is a light of such love, such goodness, such
forgiveness, that they burn forever into my soul, until I try to close
my own to shut the light of them out."
Miss Carlaw, wondering and trembling, made a sudden step forward and
stumbled over something; she recoiled and caught 'Linda's arm. "What
place is this?" she whispered. "That was a grave I stumbled upon. Where
have you brought me?"
"To the grave of the man I loved," said 'Linda, weeping. "There is no
statue here--not even a headstone; no crowds come here to worship. The
only wreath upon the grave is that of a few humble flowers twined by
the hands of an old soldier who loved him. This is the grave of the man
I loved--the grave of Comethup Willis."
Miss Charlotte Carlaw began to tremble and her hands went up
falteringly to her lips. "What is this? What do you mean? Why have you
brought me here?"
"To right a wrong--to tell an old, sad story that should have been told
long since. Sit down here; it is a quiet place, wherein he wandered
as a little child; he sleeps soundly now beside those who loved him.
You thought that he was wild and reckless, that he spent your money
shamefully, that he traded upon the fact that he might one day expect
it all. Do you know on whom that money was spent?"
"No, no; tell me," faltered the old woman.
"For years and years he was robbed by the man I thought the best on
earth, and by that man's father. When he was but a boy, travelling
with you on the Continent, those two--father and son--were following
him from place to place, preying upon him--living upon him. They had
nothing of their own. The very money that enabled Brian to fly with me
and to marry me--oh, the bitter, bitter shame of it!--was wrung from
the man who loved me. I had nothing, and Brian earned scarcely anything
at all; I lived in a fool's paradise. The very dress I wore, the food
I ate, everything was bought with his money. You have told me how he
borrowed a large sum of money, and how you discarded him for it. That
money was borrowed when extravagance had taken all that Comethup had
and when he feared I might come to want. I have tried to tell you this
again and again, although I only knew it from your lips a few weeks
ago; they kept me in ignorance until the very last of what the true
facts of the case were."
There was a long pause. Miss Charlotte Carlaw was rocking herself to
and fro and moaning fitfully. "Is this--is this true?" she asked at
last in a whisper.
"Yes, it's all true," said 'Linda.
"And is he dead? Can I never--never take him in my arms again; never
whisper to him how sorry I am? Tell me, how did he die?"
"He died quite--quite suddenly. He was killed. He was mistaken for--for
some one else by a man who was mad, a man who mercifully forgot all
about it afterward and whose crime was never discovered. But you will
like to know that he died in my arms, that I was able to tell him at
the last what had been in my heart so long--that I loved him. I was
able to kiss him--and he died in my arms, smiling, and saying that
God was very good. I have written--a long time ago--and told his old
friend the captain all this, so that the captain might think well of
him. And that is all."
The old woman was kneeling beside the grave. "Oh, my boy, my boy,"
she whispered; "dear Prince Charming, if you can hear me now, forgive
an old woman who loved you with all her heart and soul, and who did
not understand until it was too late.--And, oh, most merciful God,"
she added, raising her face toward the sky, "I thank thee that Prince
Charming lives again--that thou hast given him back to me!"
All was quiet and restful about them; the birds twittered softly among
the branches, and the scent of the roses floated to them from the
garden of the little cottage against the wall of the church--the roses
among which poor Comethup had wandered and dreamed his dreams as a
little child.
THE END.
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W. C. RUSSELL.
41. _Passion's Slave._ By R. ASHE-KING.
42. _The Awakening of Mary Fenwick._ By B. WHITBY.
43. _Countess Loreley._ By R. MENGER.
44. _Blind Love._ By W. COLLINS.
45. _The Dean's Daughter._ By S. F. F. VEITCH.
46. _Countess Irene._ By J. FOGERTY.
47. _Robert Browning's Principal Shorter Poems._
48. _Frozen Hearts._ By G. W. APPLETON.
49. _Djambek the Georgian._ By A. G. VON SUTTNER.
50. _The Craze of Christian Engelhart._ By H. F. DARNELL.
51. _Lal._ By W. A. HAMMOND, M. D.
52. _Aline._ By H. GRÉVILLE.
53. _Joost Avelingh._ By M. MAARTENS.
54. _Katy of Catoctin._ By G. A. TOWNSEND.
55. _Throckmorton._ By M. E. SHAWELL.
56. _Expatriation._ By the author of Aristocracy.
57. _Geoffrey Hampstead._ By T. S. JARVIS.
58. _Dmitri._ By F. W. BAIN, M.A.
59. _Part of the Property._ By B. WHITBY.
60. _Bismarck in Private Life._ By a Fellow-Student.
61. _In Low Relief._ By M. ROBERTS.
62. _The Canadians of Old._ By P. GASPÉ.
63. _A Squire of Low Degree._ By L. A. LONG.
64. _A Fluttered Dovecote._ By G. M. FENN.
65. _The Nugents of Carriconna._ By T. HOPKINS.
66. _A Sensitive Plant._ By E. and D. GERARD.
67. _Doña Luz._ By J. VALERA. Translated by Mrs. M. J. SERRANO.
68. _Pepita Ximenez._ By J. VALERA. Translated by Mrs. M. J. SERRANO.
69. _The Primes and their Neighbors._ By R. M. JOHNSTON.
70. _The Iron Game._ By H. F. KEENAN.
71. _Stories of Old New Spain._ By T. A. JANVIER.
72. _The Maid of Honor._ By Hon. L. WINGFIELD.
73. _In the Heart of the Storm._ By M. GRAY.
74. _Consequences._ By E. CASTLE.
75. _The Three Miss Kings._ By A. CAMBRIDGE.
76. _A Matter of Skill._ By B. WHITBY.
77. _Maid Marian, and Other Stories._ By M. E. SEAWELL.
78. _One Woman's Way._ By E. PENDLETON.
79. _A Merciful Divorce._ By F. W. MAUDE.
80. _Stephen Ellicott's Daughter._ By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
81. _One Reason Why._ By B. WHITBY.
82. _The Tragedy of Ida Noble._ By W. C. RUSSELL.
83. _The Johnstown Stage, and Other Stories._ By R. H. FLETCHER.
84. _A Widower Indeed._ By R. BROUGHTON and E. BISLAND.
85. _The Flight of a Shadow._ By G. MACDONALD.
86. _Love or Money._ By K. LEE.
87. _Not All in Vain._ By A. CAMBRIDGE.
88. _It Happened Yesterday._ By F. MARSHALL.
89. _My Guardian._ By A. CAMBRIDGE.
90. _The Story of Philip Methuen._ By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
91. _Amethyst._ By C. R. COLERIDGE.
92. _Don Braulio._ By J. VALERA. Translated by C. BELL.
93. _The Chronicles of Mr. Bill Williams._ By R. M. JOHNSTON.
94. _A Queen of Curds and Cream._ By D. GERARD.
95. _"La Bella" and Others._ By E. CASTLE.
96. "_December Roses._" By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
97. _Jean de Kerdren._ By J. SCHULTE.
98. _Etelka's Vow._ By D. GERARD.
99. _Cross Currents._ By M. A. DICKENS.
100. _His Life's Magnet._ By T. ELMOLIN.
101. _Passing the Love of Women._ By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
102. _In Old St. Stephen's._ By J. DRAKE.
103. _The Berkeleys and their Neighbors._ By M. E. SEAWELL.
104. _Mona Maclean, Medical Student._ By G. TRAVERS.
105. _Mrs. Bligh._ By R. BROUGHTON.
106. _A Stumble on the Threshold._ By J. PAYN.
107. _Hanging Moss._ By P. LINDAU.
108. _A Comedy of Elopement._ By C. REID.
109. _In the Suntime of her Youth._ By B. WHITBY.
110. _Stories in Black and White._ By T. HARDY and Others.
110-1/2. _An Englishman in Paris._
111. _Commander Mendoza._ By J. VALERA.
112. _Dr. Paull's Theory._ By Mrs. A. M. DIEHL.
113. _Children of Destiny._ By M. E. SEAWELL.
114. _A Little Minx._ By A. CAMBRIDGE.
115. _Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon._ By H. CAINE.
116. _The Voice of a Flower._ By E. GERARD.
117. _Singularly Deluded._ By S. GRAND.
118. _Suspected._ By L. STRATENUS.
119. _Lucia, Hugh, and Another._ By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
120. _The Tutor's Secret._ By V. CHERBULIEZ.
121. _From the Five Rivers._ By Mrs. F. A. STEEL.
122. _An Innocent Impostor, and Other Stories._ By M. GRAY.
123. _Ideala._ By S. GRAND.
124. _A Comedy of Masks._ By E. DOWSON and A. MOORE.
125. _Relics._ By F. MACNAB.
126. _Dodo: A Detail of the Day._ By E. F. BENSON.
127. _A Woman of Forty._ By E. STUART.
128. _Diana Tempest._ By M. CHOLMONDELEY.
129. _The Recipe for Diamonds._ By C. J. C. HYNE.
130. _Christina Chard._ By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
131. _A Gray Eye or So._ By F. F. MOORE.
132. _Earlscourt._ By A. ALLARDYCE.
133. _A Marriage Ceremony._ By A. CAMBRIDGE.
134. _A Ward in Chancery._ By Mrs. ALEXANDER.
135. _Lot 13._ By D. GERARD.
136. _Our Manifold Nature._ By S. GRAND.
137. _A Costly Freak._ By M. GRAY.
138. _A Beginner._ By R. BROUGHTON.
139. _A Yellow Aster._ By Mrs. M. CAFFYN ("IOTA").
140. _The Rubicon._ By E. F. BENSON.
141. _The Trespasser._ By G. PARKER.
142. _The Rich Miss Riddell._ By D. GERARD.
143. _Mary Fenwick's Daughter._ By B. WHITBY.
144. _Red Diamonds._ By J. MCCARTHY.
145. _A Daughter of Music._ By G. COLMORE.
146. _Outlaw and Lawmaker._ By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
147. _Dr. Janet of Harley Street._ By A. KENEALY.
148. _George Mandeville's Husband._ By C. E. RAIMOND.
149. _Vashti and Esther._
150. _Timar's Two Worlds._ By M. JOKAI.
151. _A Victim of Good Luck._ By W. E. NORRIS.
152. _The Trail of the Sword._ By G. PARKER.
153. _A Mild Barbarian._ By E. FAWCETT.
154. _The God in the Car._ By A. HOPE.
155. _Children of Circumstance_. By Mrs. M. CAFFYN.
156. _At the Gate of Samaria._ By W. J. LOCKE.
157. _The Justification of Andrew Lebrun._ By F. BARRETT.
158. _Dust and Laurels._ By M. L. PENDERED.
159. _The Good Ship Mohock._ By W. C. RUSSELL.
160. _Noemi._ By S. BARING-GOULD.
161. _The Honour of Savelli._ By S. L. YEATS.
162. _Kitty's Engagement._ By F. WARDEN.
163. _The Mermaid._ By L. DOUGALL.
164. _An Arranged Marriage._ By D. GERARD.
165. _Eve's Ransom._ By G. GISSING.
166. _The Marriage of Esther._ By G. BOOTHBY.
167. _Fidelis._ By A. CAMBRIDGE.
168. _Into the Highways and Hedges._ By F. F. MONTRÉSOR.
169. _The Vengeance of James Vansittart._ By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL.
170. _A Study in Prejudices._ By G. PASTON.
171. _The Mistress of Quest._ By A. SERGEANT.
172. _In the Year of Jubilee._ By G. GISSING.
173. _In Old New England._ By H. BUTTERWORTH.
174. _Mrs. Musgrave--and Her Husband._ By R. MARSH.
175. _Not Counting the Cost._ By TASMA.
176. _Out of Due Season._ By A. SERGEANT.
177. _Scylla or Charybdis?_ By R. BROUGHTON.
178. _In Defiance of the King._ By C. C. HOTCHKISS.
179. _A Bid for Fortune._ By G. BOOTHBY.
180. _The King of Andaman._ By J. M. COBBAN.
181. _Mrs. Tregaskiss._ By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
182. _The Desire of the Moth._ By C. VANE.
183. _A Self-Denying Ordinance._ By M. HAMILTON.
184. _Successors to the Title._ By Mrs. L. B. WALFORD.
185. _The Lost Stradivarius._ By J. M. FALKNER.
186. _The Wrong Man._ By D. GERARD.
187. _In the Day of Adversity._ By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
188. _Mistress Dorothy Marvin._ By J. C. SNAITH.
189. _A Flash of Summer._ By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD.
190. _The Dancer in Yellow._ By W. R. NORRIS.
191. _The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt._ By A. MORRISON.
192. _A Winning Hazard._ By Mrs. ALEXANDER.
193. _The Picture of Las Cruces._ By C. REID.
194. _The Madonna of a Day._ By L. DOUGALL.
195. _The Riddle Ring._ By J. MCCARTHY.
196. _A Humble Enterprise._ By A. CAMBRIDGE.
197. _Dr. Nikola._ By G. BOOTHBY.
198. _An Outcast of the Islands._ By J. CONRAD.
199. _The King's Revenge._ By C. BRAY.
200. _Denounced._ By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
201. _A Court Intrigue._ By B. THOMPSON.
202. _The Idol-Maker._ By A. SERGEANT.
203. _The Intriguers._ By J. D. BARRY.
204. _Master Ardick, Buccaneer._ By F. H. COSTELLO.
205. _With Fortune Made._ By V. CHERBULIEZ.
206. _Fellow Travellers._ By G. TRAVERS.
207. _McLeod of the Camerons._ By M. HAMILTON.
208. _The Career of Candida._ By G. PASTON.
209. _Arrested._ By E. STUART.
210. _Tatterley._ By T. GALLON.
211. _A Pinchbeck Goddess._ By Mrs. J. M. FLEMING (A. M. KIPLING).
212. _Perfection City._ By Mrs. ORPEN.
213. _A Spotless Reputation._ By D. GERARD.
214. _A Galahad of the Creeks._ By S. L. YEATS.
215. _The Beautiful White Devil._ By G. BOOTHBY.
216. _The Sun of Saratoga._ By J. A. ALTSHELER.
217. _Fierceheart, the Soldier._ By J. C. SNAITH.
218. _Marietta's Marriage._ By W. E. NORRIS.
219. _Dear Faustina._ By R. BROUGHTON.
220. _Nùlma._ By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
221. _The Folly of Pen Harrington._ By J. STURGIS.
222. _A Colonial Free-Lance._ By C. C. HOTCHKISS.
223. _His Majesty's Greatest Subject._ By S. S. THORBURN.
224. _Mifanwy: A Welsh Singer._ By A. RAINE.
225. _A Soldier of Manhattan._ By J. A. ALTSHELER.
226. _Fortune's Footballs._ By G. B. BURGIN.
227. _The Clash of Arms._ By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
228. _God's Foundling._ By A. J. DAWSON.
229. _Miss Providence._ By D. GERARD.
230. _The Freedom of Henry Meredyth._ By M. HAMILTON.
231. _Sweethearts and Friends._ By M. GRAY.
232. _Sunset._ By B. WHITBY.
233. _A Fiery Ordeal._ By TASMA.
234. _A Prince of Mischance._ By T. GALLON.
235. _A Passionate Pilgrim._ By P. WHITE.
236. _This Little World._ By D. C. MURRAY.
237. _A Forgotten Sin._ By D. GERARD.
238. _The Incidental Bishop._ By G. ALLEN.
239. _The Lake of Wine._ By B. CAPES.
240. _A Trooper of the Empress._ By C. ROSS.
241. _Torn Sails._ By A. RAINE.
242. _Materfamilias._ By A. CAMBRIDGE.
243. _John of Strathbourne._ By R. D. CHETWODE.
244. _The Millionaires._ By F. F. MOORE.
245. _The Looms of Time._ By Mrs. H. FRASER.
246. _The Queen's Cup._ By G. A. HENTY.
247. _Dicky Monteith._ By T. GALLON.
248. _The Lust of Hate._ By G. BOOTHBY.
249. _The Gospel Writ in Steel._ By ARTHUR PATERSON.
250. _The Widower._ By W. E. NORRIS.
251. _The Scourge of God._ By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
252. _Concerning Isabel Carnaby._ By ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER.
253. _The Impediment._ By DOROTHEA GERARD.
254. _Belinda--and Some Others._ By ETHEL MAUDE.
255. _The Key of the Holy House._ By ALBERT LEE.
256. _A Writer of Books._ By GEORGE PASTON.
257. _The Knight of the Golden Chain._ By R. D. CHETWODE.
258. _Ricroft of Withens._ By HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE.
259. _The Procession of Life._ By HORACE A. VACHELL.
260. _By Berwen Banks._ By ALLEN RAINE.
261. _Pharos, the Egyptian._ By GUY BOOTHBY.
262. _Paul Carah, Cornishman._ By CHARLES LEE.
263. _Pursued by the Law._ By J. MACLAREN COBBAN.
264. _Madame Izàn._ By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED.
265. _Fortune's my Foe._ By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
266. _A Cosmopolitan Comedy._ By ANNA ROBESON BROWN.
267. _The Kingdom of Hate._ By T. GALLON.
268. _The Game and the Candle._ By RHODA BROUGHTON.
269. _Dr. Nikola's Experiment._ By GUY BOOTHBY.
270. _The Strange Story of Hester Wynne._ By G. COLMORE.
271. _Lady Barbarity._ By J. C. SNAITH.
272. _A Bitter Heritage._ By JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
273. _The Heiress of the Season._ By Sir WILLIAM MAGNAY, Bart.
"In their 'Town and Country Library,' as it is known familiarly, the
Messrs. Appleton have been remarkably successful both in preserving a
good standard and in the matter of popularity. Presumably this is one
of the very few efforts of the kind which have been successful for
more than a few months. And we think the secret of continued success
lies in the discrimination used in selecting tales that are clean,
pure, and withal of interest to the average reader's intelligence; and,
furthermore, to the fact that the editors have been using American
stories more and more frequently."--_New York Mail and Express._
"The percentage of excellence maintained throughout has been
extraordinary. It is probably within bounds to say that no other list
of legitimate fiction can show so many names of the first rank as
judged by popularity. From time to time in this manner new and powerful
pens are introduced."--_Rochester Herald._
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
BOOKS BY ANTHONY HOPE.
The King's Mirror.
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"Mr. Hope has never given more sustained proof of his cleverness than
in 'The King's Mirror.' In elegance, delicacy, and tact it ranks
with the best of his previous novels, while in the wide range of its
portraiture and the subtlety of its analysis it surpasses all his
earlier ventures."--_London Spectator._
"Mr. Anthony Hope is at his best in this new novel. He returns in some
measure to the color and atmosphere of 'The Prisoner of Zenda.' ... A
strong book, charged with close analysis and exquisite irony; a book
full of pathos and moral fiber--in short, a book to be read."--_London
Chronicle._
"A story of absorbing interest and one that will add greatly to the
author's reputation.... Told with all the brilliancy and charm which we
have come to associate with Mr. Anthony Hope's work."--_London Literary
World._
The Chronicles of Count Antonio.
With Photogravure Frontispiece by S. W. Van Schaick. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"No adventures were ever better worth recounting than are those of
Antonio of Monte Velluto, a very Bayard among outlaws.... To all those
whose pulses still stir at the recital of deeds of high courage, we may
recommend this book.... The chronicle conveys the emotion of heroic
adventure, and is picturesquely written."--_London Daily News._
"It has literary merits all its own, of a deliberate and rather deep
order.... In point of execution 'The Chronicles of Count Antonio' is
the best work that Mr. Hope has yet done. The design is clearer, the
workmanship more elaborate, the style more colored."--_Westminster
Gazette._
The God in the Car.
New edition, uniform with "The Chronicles of Count Antonio." 12mo.
Cloth, $1.25.
"'The God in the Car' is just as clever, just as distinguished in
style, just as full of wit, and of what nowadays some persons like
better than wit--allusiveness--as any of his stories. It is saturated
with the modern atmosphere; is not only a very clever but a very strong
story; in some respects, we think, the strongest Mr. Hope has yet
written."--_London Speaker._
"A very remarkable book, deserving of critical analysis impossible
within our limit; brilliant, but not superficial; well considered, but
not elaborated; constructed with the proverbial art that conceals, but
yet allows itself to be enjoyed by readers to whom fine literary method
is a keen pleasure."--_London World._
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
BOOKS BY E. F. BENSON.
Mammon and Co.
12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"Eminently readable."--_London Athenæum._
"Entertaining and amusing."--_London Academy._
"A novel of mark. Its character drawing is vigorous, its dialogue
vivacious."--_Literature._
"Mr. Benson writes from intimate knowledge and the inside. He is a part
of the very society which he openly censures.... His novel stands out
as a strong bit of work in which he is very much at home. Its brilliant
sayings and clever epigrams give it a finish and polish which are even
more effective than the setting itself. What is more, Mr. Benson sees
with a great deal of heart the tragedy of human experience and writes
of it feelingly."--_Boston Herald._
Dodo.
A Detail of the Day. 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
"'Dodo' is a delightfully witty sketch of the 'smart' people of
society.... The writer is a true artist."--_London Spectator._
The Rubicon.
12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
"The anticipations which must have been formed by all readers of 'Dodo'
will in no wise be disappointed by 'The Rubicon.' The new work is well
written, stimulating, unconventional, and, in a word, characteristic.
Intellectual force is never absent, and the keen observation and
knowledge of character, of which there is abundant evidence, are aided
by real literary power."--_Birmingham Post._
"_A BOOK THAT WILL LIVE._"
_DAVID HARUM._ A Story of American Life. By EDWARD NOYES WESTCOTT.
12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"Mr. Westcott has done for central New York what Mr. Cable, Mr. Page,
and Mr. Harris have done for different parts of the South, and what
Miss Jewett and Miss Wilkins are doing for New England, and Mr. Hamlin
Garland for the West.... 'David Harum' is a masterly delineation of
an American type.... Here is life with all its joys and sorrows....
David Harum lives in these pages as he will live in the mind of the
reader.... He deserves to be known by all good Americans; he is one of
them in boundless energy, in large-heartedness, in shrewdness, and in
humor."--_The Critic._
"Thoroughly a pure, original, and fresh American type. David Harum is
a character whose qualities of mind and heart, eccentricities, and
dry humor will win for his creator notable distinction. Buoyancy,
life, and cheerfulness are dominant notes. In its vividness and force
the story is a strong, fresh picture of American life. Original and
true, it is worth the same distinction which is accorded the _genre_
pictures of peculiar types and places sketched by Mr. George W. Cable,
Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, Miss Wilkins, Miss
Jewett, Mr. Garland, Miss French, Miss Murfree, Mr. Gilbert Parker, Mr.
Owen Wister, and Bret Harte.... A pretty love story also adds to the
attractiveness of the book, that will be appreciated at once by every
one who enjoys real humor, strong character, true pictures of life, and
work that is 'racy of the soil.'"--_Boston Herald._
"Mr. Westcott has created a new and interesting type.... The character
sketching and building, so far as David Harum is concerned, is
well-nigh perfect. The book is wonderfully bright, readable, and
graphic."--_New York Times._
"The main character ought to become familiar to thousands of readers,
and will probably take his place in time beside Joel Chandler Harris's
and Thomas Nelson Page's and Miss Wilkins's creations."--_Chicago
Times-Herald._
"We give Edward Noyes Westcott his true place in American
letters--placing him as a humorist next to Mark Twain, as a master of
dialect above Lowell, as a descriptive writer equal to Bret Harte, and,
on the whole, as a novelist on a par with the best of those who live
and have their being in the heart of hearts of American readers. If the
author is dead--lamentable fact--his book will live."--_Philadelphia
Item._
"True, strong, and thoroughly alive, with a humor like that of Abraham
Lincoln and a nature as sweet at the core. The spirit of the book is
genial and wholesome, and the love story is in keeping with it.... The
book adds one more to the interesting list of native fiction destined
to live, portraying certain localities and types of American life and
manners."--_Boston Literary World._
"A notable contribution to those sectional studies of American life
by which our literature has been so greatly enriched in the past
generation.... A work of unusual merit."--_Philadelphia Press._
"One of the few distinct and living types in the American
gallery."--_St. Louis Globe-Democrat._
"The quaint character of 'David Harum' proves to be an inexhaustible
source of amusement."--_Chicago Evening Post._
"It would be hard to say wherein the author could have bettered the
portrait he sets before us."--_Providence Journal._
"Full of wit and sweetness."--_Baltimore Herald._
"Merits the heartiest and most unequivocal praise.... It is a pleasure
to call the reader's attention to this strong and most original novel,
a novel that is a decided and most enduring addition to American
literature."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._
BOOKS BY GRAHAM TRAVERS.
_WINDYHAUGH._ A Novel. By GRAHAM TRAVERS, author of "Mona Maclean,
Medical Student," "Fellow Travellers," etc. 12mo, cloth, $1.50.
"'Windyhaugh' shows an infinitely more mature skill and more subtle
humor than 'Mona Maclean' and a profounder insight into life. The
psychology of Dr. Todd's remarkable book is all of the right kind;
and there is not in English fiction a more careful and penetrating
analysis of the evolution of a woman's mind than is given in Wilhelmina
Galbraith; but 'Windyhaugh' is not a book in which there is only one
'star' and a crowd of 'supers.' Every character is limned with a
conscientious care that bespeaks the true artist, and the analytical
interest of the novel is rigorously kept in its proper place and is
only one element in a delightful story. It is a supremely interesting
and wholesome book, and in an age when excellence of technique has
reached a remarkable level, 'Windyhaugh' compels admiration for its
brilliancy of style. Dr. Todd paints on a large canvas, but she has a
true sense of proportion."--_Blackwood's Magazine._
"For truth to life, for adherence to a clear line of action, for
arrival at the point toward which it has aimed from the first, such
a book as 'Windyhaugh' must be judged remarkable. There is vigor and
brilliancy. It is a book that must be read from the beginning to the
end and that it is a satisfaction to have read."--_Boston Journal._
"Its easy style, its natural characters, and its general tone
of earnestness assure its author a high rank among contemporary
novelists."--_Chicago Tribune._
"We can cordially eulogize the splendid vitality of the work, its
brilliancy, its pathos, its polished and crystalline style, and its
remarkable character-painting."--_New York Home Journal._
_MONA MACLEAN, Medical Student._ 12mo, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
"A high-bred comedy."--_New York Times._
"'Mona Maclean' is a bright, healthful, winning story."--_New York Mail
and Express._
"Mona is a very attractive person, and her story is decidedly well
told."--_San Francisco Argonaut._
"A pleasure in store for you if you have not read this volume. The
author has given us a thoroughly natural series of events, and drawn
her characters like an artist. It is the story of a woman's struggles
with her own soul. She is a woman of resource, a strong woman, and her
career is interesting from beginning to end."--_New York Herald._
_FELLOW TRAVELLERS._ 12mo, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
"The stories are well told; the literary style is above the average,
and the character drawing is to be particularly praised.... Altogether,
the little book is a model of its kind, and its reading will give
pleasure to people of taste."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._
"'Fellow Travellers' is a collection of very brightly written tales,
all dealing, as the title implies, with the mutual relations of people
thrown together casually while traveling."--_London Saturday Review._
BOOKS BY FRANK T. BULLEN.
The Log of a Sea-Waif.
Being Recollections of the First Four Years of my Sea Life.
Illustrated. Uniform Edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
The brilliant author of "The Cruise of the Cachalot" and "Idylls of
the Sea" presents in this new work the continuous story of the actual
experiences of his first four years at sea. In graphic and picturesque
phrases he has sketched the events of voyages to the West Indies, to
Bombay and the Coromandel coast, to Melbourne and Rangoon. Nothing
could be of more absorbing interest than this wonderfully vivid
account of foks'l humanity, and the adventures and strange sights and
experiences attendant upon deep-sea voyages. It is easy to see in this
book an English companion to our own "Two Years before the Mast."
Idylls of the Sea.
12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
"The 'deep-sea wonder and mystery' which Kipling found in Frank T.
Bullen's 'Cruise of the Cachalot' is appreciable again in this literary
mate's new book, 'Idylls of the Sea.' We feel ourselves tossed with him
at the mercy of the weltering elements," etc.--_Philadelphia Record._
"Amplifies and intensifies the picture of the sea which Mr. Bullen
had already produced.... Calm, shipwreck, the surface and depths of
the sea, the monsters of the deep, superstitions and tales of the
sailors--all find a place in this strange and exciting book."--_Chicago
Times-Herald._
The Cruise of the Cachalot.
Round the World after Sperm Whales. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"It is immense--there is no other word. I've never read anything that
equals it in its deep-sea wonder and mystery, nor do I think that any
book before has so completely covered the whole business of whale
fishing, and, at the same time, given such real and new sea pictures. I
congratulate you most heartily. It's a new world you've opened the door
to."--_Rudyard Kipling._
"Written with racy freedom of literary expression and luxuriant
abundance of incident, so that 'The Cruise of the Cachalot' becomes a
story of fascinating vividness which thrills the reader and amuses him.
The volume is no less enthralling? than 'Two Years before the Mast,'
and higher praise can not be accorded to a story of the sea.... A book
of such extraordinary merit seldom comes to hand."--_Philadelphia
Press._
BOOKS BY CY WARMAN.
Snow on the Headlight.
A Story of the Great Burlington Strike. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
"Mr. Warman holds a unique position among our tellers of tales, since
he alone is a practical railroad man, who knows the work, and has done
it, in all its details."--_New York Mail and Express._
"Plenty of close-range photographs, interior views, of the great
Burlington strike are to be found in Cy Warman's book."--_Philadelphia
Times._
"It has the great virtue of being a plain story plainly told by one
who knows. Whatever other impression it may convey to the reader, it
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through that half the tale--and perhaps the worst half--is left untold,
yet such as stands in print is sufficient, and to the reader who
cares for something more than the superficial adventurous incident of
the book it will not be without its instructive influence."--_Denver
Republican._
"Told with all the freshness and vividness of an
eyewitness."--_Philadelphia Call._
"Will be read with interest by all railroad men."--_Galesburg (Ill.)
Mail._
The Story of the Railroad.
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"Far more interesting than the average novel.... Mr. Warman's volume
makes us hear and feel the rush of modern civilization. It gives us
also the human side of the picture--the struggles of the frontiersman
and his family, the dismay and cruel wrath of the retreating savage,
the heroism of the advance guard of the railway builders, and the
cutthroat struggles of competing lines. He does not deal greatly with
statistics, but the figures he uses help make up the stunning effect of
gigantic enterprise. There is not a dull page in the book."--_New York
Evening Post._
"Intensely interesting--a history that reads like a romance, and
compared with whose marvelous story indeed most modern romances will
seem spiritless and tame."--_Charleston News and Courier._
"Worthy to stand on the same shelf with Hough's Story of the
Cowboy."--_Milwaukee Journal._
MISS DOUGALL'S BOOKS.
_THE MORMON PROPHET._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"A striking story.... Immensely interesting and diverting, and as a
romance it certainly has a unique power."--_Boston Herald._
"In 'The Mormon Prophet' Miss Lily Dougall has told, in strongly
dramatic form, the story of Joseph Smith and of the growth of the
Church of the Latter-Day Saints, which has again come prominently
before the public through the election of a polygamist to Congress....
Miss Dougall has handled her subject with consummate skill.... She
has rightly seen that this man's life contained splendid material for
a historical novel. She has taken no unwarranted liberties with the
truth, and has succeeded in furnishing a story whose scope broadens
with each succeeding chapter until the end."--_New York Mail and
Express._
"Mormonism is not ordinarily regarded as capable of romantic treatment,
but in the hands of Miss Dougall it has yielded results which are
calculated to attract the general public as well as the student
of psychology.... Miss Dougall has handled a difficult theme with
conspicuous delicacy; the most sordid details of the narrative are
redeemed by the glamour of her style, her analysis of the strangely
mixed character of the prophet is remarkable for its detachment and
impartiality, while in Susannah Halsey she has given us a really
beautiful study of nobly compassionate womanhood. We certainly know of
no more illuminative commentary on the rise of this extraordinary sect
than is furnished by Miss Dougall's novel."--_London Spectator._
"Miss Dougall may be congratulated both on her choice of a subject
for her new book and on her remarkably able and interesting treatment
of it.... A fascinating story, which is even more remarkable and more
fascinating as a psychological study."--_The Scotsman._
_THE MADONNA OF A DAY._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
"An entirely unique story. Alive with incident and related in a fresh
and captivating style."--_Philadelphia Press._
"A novel that stands quite by itself, and that in theme as well as
in artistic merit should make a very strong appeal to the mind of a
sympathetic reader."--_Boston Beacon._
_THE MERMAID._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
"The author of this novel has the gift of contrivance and the skill
to sustain the interest of a plot through all its development. 'The
Mermaid' is an odd and interesting story."--_New York Times._
_THE ZEIT-GEIST._ 16mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
"One of the most remarkable novels."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._
TWO SUCCESSFUL AMERICAN NOVELS.
_LATITUDE 19°._ A Romance of the West Indies in the Year of our Lord
1820. Being a faithful account and true, of the painful adventures of
the Skipper, the Bo's'n, the Smith, the Mate, and Cynthia. By Mrs.
SCHUYLER CROWNINSHIELD. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"'Latitude 19°' is a novel of incident, of the open air, of the sea,
the shore, the mountain eyrie, and of breathing, living entities,
who deal with Nature at first hand.... The adventures described are
peculiarly novel and interesting.... Packed with incidents, infused
with humor and wit, and faithful to the types introduced, this book
will surely appeal to the large audience already won, and beget new
friends among those who believe in fiction that is healthy without
being maudlin, and is strong without losing the truth."--_New York
Herald._
"A story filled with rapid and exciting action from the first page to
the last. A fecundity of invention that never lags, and a judiciously
used vein of humor."--_The Critic._
"A volume of deep, undeniable charm. A unique book from a fresh, sure,
vigorous pen."--_Boston Journal._
"Adventurous and romantic enough to satisfy the most exacting
reader.... Abounds in situations which make the blood run cold,
and yet, full of surprises as it is, one is continually amazed by
the plausibility of the main incidents of the narrative.... A very
successful effort to portray the sort of adventures that might have
taken place in the West Indies seventy-five or eighty years ago....
Very entertaining with its dry humor."--_Boston Herald._
_A HERALD OF THE WEST._ An American Story of 1811-1815. By J. A.
ALTSHELER, author of "A Soldier of Manhattan" and "The Sun of
Saratoga." 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"'A Herald of the West' is a romance of our history which has not
been surpassed in dramatic force, vivid coloring, and historical
interest.... In these days when the flush of war has only just
passed, the book ought to find thousands of readers, for it teaches
patriotism without intolerance, and it shows, what the war with Spain
has demonstrated anew, the power of the American people when they are
deeply roused by some great wrong."--_San Francisco Chronicle._
"The book throughout is extremely well written. It is condensed, vivid,
picturesque.... A rattling good story, and unrivaled in fiction for its
presentation of the American feeling toward England during our second
conflict."--_Boston Herald._
"Holds the attention continuously.... The book abounds in thrilling
attractions.... It is a solid and dignified acquisition to the
romantic literature of our own country, built around facts and real
persons."--_Chicago Times-Herald._
"In a style that is strong and broad, the author of this timely novel
takes up a nascent period of our national history and founds upon it a
story of absorbing interest."--_Philadelphia Item._
"Mr. Altsheler has given us an accurate as well as picturesque
portrayal of the social and political conditions which prevailed in
the republic in the era made famous by the second war with Great
Britain."--_Brooklyn Eagle._
BOOKS BY GILBERT PARKER.
Uniform Edition.
The Seats of the Mighty.
Being the Memoirs of Captain Robert MORAY, sometime an Officer in the
Virginia Regiment, and afterwards of Amherst's Regiment. Illustrated,
$1.50.
"Another historical romance of the vividness and intensity of 'The
Seats of the Mighty' has never come from the pen of an American. Mr.
Parker's latest work may without hesitation be set down as the best he
has done. From the first chapter to the last word interest in the book
never wanes; one finds it difficult to interrupt the narrative with
breathing space. It whirls with excitement and strange adventure....
All of the scenes do homage to the genius of Mr. Parker, and make 'The
Seats of the Mighty' one of the books of the year."--_Chicago Record._
"Mr. Gilbert Parker is to be congratulated on the excellence of his
latest story, 'The Seats of the Mighty,' and his readers are to be
congratulated on the direction which his talents have taken therein....
It is so good that we do not stop to think of its literature, and the
personality of Doltaire is a masterpiece of creative art."--_New York
Mail and Express._
The Trail of the Sword. A Novel. $1.25.
"Mr. Parker here adds to a reputation already wide, and anew
demonstrates his power of pictorial portrayal and of strong dramatic
situation and climax."--_Philadelphia Bulletin._
The Trespasser. $1.25
"Interest, pith, force, and charm--Mr. Parker's new story possesses
all these qualities.... Almost bare of synthetical decoration, his
paragraphs are stirring because they are real. We read at times--as we
have read the great masters of romance--breathlessly."--_The Critic._
The Translation of a Savage. $1.25.
"A book which no one will be satisfied to put down until the end has
been matter of certainty and assurance."--_The Nation._
Mrs. Falchion. $1.25.
"A well-knit story, told in an exceedingly interesting way, and holding
the reader's attention to the end."
The Pomp of the Lavilettes. 16mo. Cloth, $1.25.
"Its sincerity and rugged force will commend it to those who love and
seek strong work in fiction."--_The Critic._
By S. R. CROCKETT.
Uniform edition. Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.50.
_THE STANDARD BEARER._ An Historical Romance.
"Mr. Crockett's book is distinctly one of _the_ books of the year. Five
months of 1898 have passed without bringing to the reviewers' desk
anything to be compared with it in beauty of description, convincing
characterization, absorbing plot and humorous appeal. The freshness and
sweet sincerity of the tale are most invigorating, and that the book
will be very much read there is no possible doubt."--_Boston Budget._
"The book will move to tears, provoke to laughter, stir the blood, and
evoke heroisms of history, making the reading of it a delight and the
memory of it a stimulus and a joy."--_New York Evangelist._
_LADS' LOVE._ Illustrated.
"It seems to us that there is in this latest product much of the
realism of personal experience. However modified and disguised, it
is hardly possible to think that the writer's personality does not
present itself in Saunders McQuhirr.... Rarely has the author drawn
more truly from life than in the cases of Nance and 'the Hempie';
never more typical Scotsman of the humble sort than the farmer Peter
Chrystie."--_London Athenæum._
_CLEG KELLY, ARAB OF THE CITY. His Progress and Adventures._
Illustrated.
"A masterpiece which Mark Twain himself has never rivaled.... If
there ever was an ideal character in fiction it is this heroic
ragamuffin."--_London Daily Chronicle._
"In no one of his books does Mr. Crockett give us a brighter or more
graphic picture of contemporary Scotch life than in 'Cleg Kelly.' ...
It is one of the great books."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._
_BOG-MYRTLE AND PEAT._ Third edition.
"Here are idylls, epics, dramas of human life, written in words that
thrill and burn.... Each is a poem that has an immortal flavor. They
are fragments of the author's early dreams, too bright, too gorgeous,
too full of the blood of rubies and the life of diamonds to be caught
and held palpitating in expression's grasp."--_Boston Courier._
"Hardly a sketch among them all that will not afford pleasure to the
reader for its genial humor, artistic local coloring, and admirable
portrayal of character."--_Boston Home Journal._
_THE LILAC SUNBONNET._ Eighth edition.
"A love story, pure and simple, one of the old fashioned, wholesome,
sun-shiny kind, with a pure-minded, sound-hearted hero, and a heroine
who is merely a good and beautiful woman; and if any other love
story half so sweet has been written this year it has escaped our
notice."--_New York Times._
"The general conception of the story, the motive of which is the growth
of love between the young chief and heroine, is delineated with a
sweetness and a freshness, a naturalness and a certainty, which places
'The Lilac Sunbonnet' among the best stories of the time."--_New York
Mail and Express._
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