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.