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.