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.