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.