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?”