THE PLEADING OF THE CAPTAIN.
For a moment or two the captain stared at Robert Carlaw in
astonishment. A hundred thoughts went dancing through his brain; he
wondered if the death of Brian might have something to do with 'Linda's
flight back to the old place. While he was framing some question in his
mind Mr. Carlaw broke out into a tempestuous explanation.
"Cut off--cut off--in what the world would term the midst of his sin;
robbed of life in the very flower of his manhood and his strength! Yet
what a life--and ye gods!--what a death! Even in that he was splendid;
even in that he fills the public eye. It was the very death that the
public would expect him to die; they'll catch their breath when they
read of it. Drowned--drowned on a moonlight night and with his arms
about a woman! Drowned--and with twenty thousand a year in his arms!
It's magnificent!"
He was weeping still, but his face literally shone with the joy and
pride of the thought; he dashed the tears away, and with the same
gesture waved his arms in triumph toward the sky.
"But when did this happen?" asked the captain. "And who was the woman?"
"It was all so like him," exclaimed Mr. Robert Carlaw, scarcely heeding
the other's question. "He worked on impulse; he lived his life on
impulse; he died on impulse. This last thing alone should make him
immortal. What other man would have had the courage? What other man
would have had the frank and splendid audacity? To desert his wife when
he felt that she was no longer what he needed; to----"
"So he deserted her, did he?" said the captain slowly.
"Yes; such minds do not stick at any conventional things. He
deserted her; he fled with another. The other was rich and--so I
understand--beautiful. She had a yacht waiting to carry her and her
poet away--think of the romance of it, think of the romance of it! They
reached the yacht, it appears, and set sail for their paradise under
a moonlit sky. Imagine the scene! Then, in the midst of it all comes
grim Fate in the shape of a lumbering coasting steamer and cuts them in
two. A survivor has already declared that he saw Brian Carlaw and the
woman go down locked in each other's arms. My poor boy--he has carried
himself well before the world to the last!"
"Do you know," asked the captain with some sternness, "that his wife is
here, within a few yards of us?"
"I was not aware of it," replied Mr. Carlaw, glancing about him. "My
sole reason for coming here--to this place of his birth--and at so
early a moment is because I feel that something should be done for him;
that they should understand the loss they and the world have sustained,
and should fitly mark their grief. From whom could the news come so
appropriately as from the father who loved him and sacrificed so much
for him? That is my real errand. But you say that she is here?"
"Yes," replied the captain; "she came here yesterday--I suppose when
she learned that he had deserted her. She must be told of this."
"Yes, I suppose she must," replied Mr. Carlaw hurriedly. "Of course,
she takes no real or great place in this sorrowful business; my son
stands alone, and the name of the lady with whom he died will naturally
and inevitably be linked with his. A few will be shocked; to the
majority, I trust, the position will appear appropriate. Personally, I
am sorry for the wife--but she does not touch the story."
"Thank God for that!" muttered the captain to himself. Aloud he said,
"I must tell her, and must see what is to be done for her, poor child!"
"Ah, I remember you as a man of a tender nature, my dear captain," said
Mr. Robert Carlaw, gazing at the sky. "For the present I have other
work on hand; it happens, on occasion, that the dead are more important
than the living. And in the glory of my dead son, I--his unfortunate
father--may chance to cut a figure at last." He started to whistle
as he turned away, but remembered himself in time, and walked with a
drooping head and a less jaunty step than usual. The captain looked
after him for a moment and then went toward the shoemaker's shop. He
knocked, and after some little delay was admitted by old Theed. The
captain stepped into the shop and jerked his head in the direction of
the inner room. "Is she sleeping?" he asked.
The old man nodded. "All day long," he said, "she has sat like one in
a dream, scarcely seeing me; a little time since she fell asleep, but
even now her dreams are troubled and she cries out strange things."
The captain paced up and down the little shop nervously for a minute or
two and then turned to the shoemaker. "I should like to see her," he
said. "I have something to say that must be told her at once--something
that should be told by a friend, lest she should hear it from any other
lips. I should like to see her."
Medmer Theed looked at him keenly; came nearer and laid a hand on his
arm. "Are they seeking her?" he asked in a whisper. "Will they trouble
her again?"
The captain looked at him, doubtful what to say or how much to leave
unsaid. "The man who has troubled her so long," he replied at last,
"is dead, and will trouble her no more. But she must be told."
There were a dignity and a firmness in his tones which mastered the
more ignorant man; without a word he pushed open the inner door and
motioned to the captain to enter. As the captain stepped through, the
old shoemaker would have followed, but the captain gently signed to him
to keep back, and closed the door and was left in the room alone with
'Linda. She was still sleeping, and he set the light he carried on a
little table near the bed, and quite simply and noiselessly went upon
his knees and bowed his head in his hands and muttered a little prayer
to himself.
"God of the little children," he breathed, "who hast sent back to me
this child whom I loved in my old age, teach me, in thy infinite mercy,
how best to tell her, out of a heart that loves her, what her sorrow
is; teach me how best to comfort her."
He rose from his knees and seated himself beside the bed, and laid a
lean old hand on the white one which lay near it. She stirred softly
in her sleep and opened her eyes and looked at him--looked at him for
some moments without recognition. Then, slowly and without turning her
gaze from him, she drew nearer until she had crept quite into his arms,
until her face was hidden on his breast. And so for a long time they
remained in silence.
"Little one," he said at last, "you have not forgotten your old friend,
you have not forgotten the old days. A long, long time has passed
between, but in your hour of need you have crept back quite naturally
to us to find a haven here. There, don't tremble; nothing shall harm
you; nothing shall come near you. You were a child when I knew you
before; dream that you are a child again."
She clung to him, weeping. "Oh, that I might!" she whispered. "If I
might go back and see with the clearer eyes I have now; if I might know
what I know now and make atonement!"
"The time must come when we all cry that, child," he said. "The time
must surely come when the bravest and the best of us would be glad
if we might begin again, seeing the way before us with clearer eyes.
Listen: are you strong enough lying here in your old friend's arms--are
you strong enough to hear what I shall say to you?"
She looked up at him wonderingly and grasped his hand more closely, but
he dared not look at her.
"There was a man whom you loved, a man you called husband--ah, don't
shudder; don't weep like that, or you'll break my heart, child! Because
you loved him he holds a better place in my thoughts than he could ever
otherwise have done; because you loved him I must bear him kindly in my
remembrance."
"Oh, if I might atone, if I might atone!" she whispered, and hid her
face again.
The captain did not understand; he went on in the same gentle tones:
"There comes a time for every man and every woman when all blame and
all praise are as nothing to them, and pass them over; when their
little lives fade out and are judged by the standard of something we
do not understand; a time when they pass beyond our censure and we can
afford to think lightly of their mistakes. 'Linda, do you understand?"
She looked up at him; her brows wrinkled a little as she watched his
face, but she did not speak.
"He left you without thinking what might happen, careless of what
sorrow the world held for you. But you can afford to forgive that now;
in time you may even learn to forget it. Your prayers or your tears can
not reach him any more."
"I understand," she whispered. "You mean that he--he is dead?"
"Yes. He is dead. He died quite suddenly and painlessly."
She was silent for a long time; he had expected that she would cry
out--had fully anticipated a painful scene; but this apathy was more
disconcerting than anything could have been. After a time, without
looking up at him, she asked softly: "And Comethup? What of Comethup?"
"He is well, I believe," said the captain, trying to hide his
astonishment. "I have not heard from him for some time." The worthy
gentleman was at a loss to understand the strangeness of her demeanour;
he cast about in his mind for a clew to guide him, but could find none.
"You know that he has left his home--that he has been cast out into the
world?" she asked.
The captain forgot everything in his new astonishment. "What do you
mean?" he asked. "I had heard nothing about this. I don't understand."
"Not now--not now," she whispered. "Some other time you will know all
about it and will judge me as you should. Leave me alone now; I want to
think. Kiss me"--she turned up her face to his--"and don't think hardly
of me, dear old friend, if you can help it."
He kissed her and softly patted her cheek, lingered a moment, and then,
as he saw her lying with closed eyes, stole out of the room, shutting
the door behind him. With scarcely a word to Medmer Theed he went out
of the shop and into the street, and walked back to his own place.
There, pacing up and down the little parlour, he turned over many
things in his mind, and wondered again and again in a vague fashion
what he should do; above all things, what he should do in regard to
'Linda.
To leave her with the old shoemaker was obviously out of the question,
and yet what else was to be done? The captain felt here at once the
helplessness of his mere manhood; saw that, whatever delicacy he might
possess, it was quite unequal to such an occasion as this. "It wants a
woman," muttered the captain to himself; and so started on a new train
of thought.
The result of that particular train of thought was that the captain,
after passing a sleepless night, set off early the next morning for
London, and presented himself within a few hours at the door of Miss
Charlotte Carlaw's house. He sent up his card and was at once admitted
and taken into the old woman's presence. She turned her head toward
him as he entered the room, and smiled a welcome and held out her hand.
The captain took the hand in his courtly fashion and hoped that she was
well.
"Oh, in better health than I ought to be, I've no doubt," replied the
old woman. "And what brings you to town? Have you come like all the
rest to upbraid me for my harshness--to cry out his virtues to me? have
you come for that? Because, if you have, you will be wiser to save your
breath and say nothing."
"Let me begin by saying that I know nothing of the matter," replied
the captain, "and that that is not my errand. I have certainly learned
in an accidental manner that Comethup no longer lives here; but I have
heard so much within the past few days that my poor old brain is in a
whirl, and I can think of nothing coherently."
"Well, while you collect your thoughts," replied Miss Carlaw, "I can
tell you in a few words what has happened. You were fond of the boy
just as I was; believed in him, I think, just as I did--which shows
we were both fools in that sense at least. In a word, he has been
steadily--or unsteadily--spending my money for years past in riotous
living--ever since he was a boy, in fact; and now, to crown it all,
has borrowed a large sum of money on the understanding that he is my
heir and can pay it back when I am dead. When I'm dead--you hear that?
That's the bitterest part of all; I'd have forgiven anything but that."
"There's been some horrible blunder," said the captain, shaking his
head sturdily. "I know Comethup, have seen him grow up since he was
a little child, and I can't believe that it's possible. There's some
mistake."
"I wish I could think so," replied Miss Carlaw. "But there's no doubt
about it; he has admitted it. However, we won't talk about it any more;
I swore never to talk about it again. What do you want with me?"
"Stay a moment," urged the captain. "Won't you tell me what has become
of him or where he is?"
"I don't know," she replied, turning away. "He's done with so far as
I am concerned; in fact, he never really lived. We'll speak of him no
more, please." Then in a moment she lost that gentler tone and swung
round upon him fiercely. "In God's name, man, have some mercy! If my
face tells you nothing of what I have suffered, the agony of loneliness
that has been mine during these past weeks, then at least let my lips
tell you. I always liked you; I believe you to be a good and honourable
gentleman. Perhaps I can say to you what I might not to another. He has
spoiled my life, old though I am, just as he has spoiled his own; can't
you see that I couldn't take him to my heart again? He refused all
explanations of what had been done with the money; stubbornly refused
to say a word about it.--There, let's have done with it. Tell me what
you came here for."
The captain saw that it was useless to pursue the subject; he sighed
and turned to that newer matter. "I must speak of him again for a
moment, although indirectly. Do you remember a most unhappy occasion,
when you came to visit me in the hope of meeting a girl to whom the boy
was to be married?"
"Yes, I remember. What of it?"
"Whatever his after sins may have been, he behaved, as regards that
matter, with a delicacy and a consideration for the woman who had
betrayed him which was, to my simple thought, wonderful. Even if, as
you say, he is worthless, he had that one merit of loving her sincerely
and strongly through everything; of that I am convinced. She fled with
his cousin Brian and they were married. At the present moment she is
destitute."
The captain paused and looked at her intently to see the effect of his
words; she merely nodded to him to proceed.
"Her husband--a worthless fellow, I fear--appears to have deserted her
for another woman, and within a few hours of his desertion to have been
drowned at sea. She has come back to her old home and is living under
the protection of a strange old creature, a shoemaker, who loved her
and cared for her when she was a little lonely child. Beyond that man
and myself she hasn't a friend in the world; there is no one to whom
she can turn. She is hallowed forever in my sight because poor Comethup
loved her; she is set apart from all other women on that account. She
is very young and, as I have said, helpless and hopeless. Dear old
friend"--the captain made a movement toward her--"I want you to help
me."
Miss Charlotte Carlaw, whose face was working strangely, turned her
head away from him and beat one foot restlessly on the floor. "Why
should I do that?" she asked at last in a low voice.
"Because you're a woman," replied the captain eagerly; "because--deny
it if you will--you can't shut out the thought of this boy we both love
from your heart; because this girl in her loneliness may appeal to
you in your loneliness, may give in time a kinder thought of him. You
must not try to persuade me that you are so hard as you would have me
believe. If you will not let me plead for the boy himself, let me plead
for the woman he loved and lost--the woman who is friendless."
She was silent for a long time and presently sat down in her old
attitude with her hands resting on her stick and her forehead on her
hands. And the captain watched her.
"You are a good man," she said at last, without raising her head.
"There's never a day, never an hour when I do not think of him, and
yet I can not call him back to me. But if you think--and you know so
much better than I can hope to do--that it would be right and just for
me to take this girl--that it would be better for her and better for
me--then I'll do it. And don't boast of your feelings, sir," she added,
raising her head with something of a return of her old manner, "because
I have my feelings too; perhaps I'll even take her more warmly to my
heart because he loved her. Lord! captain, what a blundering set of
people we all are from the time we blunder into life till the time we
blunder into the grave! I suppose I can leave all the arrangements in
your hands; I seem somehow to have lost something of my old sense of
power, something of my old strength lately; I want some one on whom I
can rely. You will tell me what to do, won't you?"
"If I might suggest," said the captain, "I think the best thing for you
to do would be to come down to her; to see her and take her away with
you. Will you do that?"
"I will do whatever you think best," she replied. And so the matter was
settled.
The captain felt that the hardest part of his mission had yet to be
performed; but he went home that very night and presented himself
without delay before 'Linda. To his surprise, however, he found that
she was perfectly passive, and willing to fall in with any suggestions
he made. He told her that this old lady was quite blind and very
lonely; that she had loved Comethup very dearly; that she wanted the
girl's companionship and help. At the same time the captain delicately
suggested that it would be wiser for 'Linda to say nothing about
Comethup in any way; he hinted that the point was a sore one with Miss
Carlaw. 'Linda was silent for some time, and then she looked up at him
quietly.
"I have done so much harm in my life," she said, "although I hoped
only to do good! If you think--if you really think that I may do any
good--that I may make any atonement--I will do as you wish. I have
trodden my own wilful path so long, I will tread any other you point
out to me."
"I think this is best," said the captain gently.
Miss Charlotte Carlaw came down the next day and the captain conducted
her to Medmer Theed's shop. The carriage in which she had arrived was
left standing in the street outside the old archway, and the captain,
without a word, guided her through the shop and opened the inner door
and led her through. Then he came out and closed the door, and left
the two women alone. He had previously prepared the shoemaker for what
was to happen, and the old man had accepted it without question and
appeared satisfied that she should go. As the captain stood waiting in
the little shop, Medmer Theed sat on his bench, hammering softly at the
leather, as of old.
In the room within Miss Charlotte Carlaw had paused for a moment with
her hands stretched out gropingly. 'Linda came timidly toward her.
"Where are you, child?" asked the old woman; and then their hands met
and they drew close together. Perhaps it was the touch of a woman's
hand that 'Linda needed just then; she suddenly found herself drawing
close to the strange old figure, and for the first time her tears began
to flow.
"Let's make a new beginning, child," said Miss Carlaw softly. "And, for
both our sakes, will you promise me never to speak of what is past and
ended, never to refer to any one we both knew? Will you promise that?"
"Yes, I promise," whispered the girl.
They came out together presently into the shop; the captain stood
waiting to conduct them to the carriage. Medmer Theed still hammered
softly on his leather. The girl went up to the shoemaker and put an
arm about his neck and whispered his name; he looked up at her with a
vacant expression, and she kissed him and murmured some broken words
of thanks. He nodded his head slowly and went on with his work. He was
still hammering when the carriage drove away, the captain standing
bareheaded in the street, looking after them.