Part 19 (1/2)

Nancy for answer began to cry.

'O Miss Angel, you won't be angry, will you?' she sobbed; 'Patty said I mustn't come, but I couldn't help it, miss.'

'We like you to come, dear,' Angel began gently; but Nancy went on between her sobs:

'It's him--the captain--he's come home, Miss Angel.'

'The captain! When did he come?' cried both the sisters together.

'Last night,' said Nancy, wiping her eyes; 'and, Miss Angel, he's not like the captain a bit now; he looks quite, quite old, and Pete and father they a'most carried him in from the chaise; and do you know, he can't see, he won't be able to see for ever so long, perhaps never.

And they told me not to tell you because it'd make you sadder. And this morning he asked me about you, and I said, should I fetch you, and he said, ”No, no, you wouldn't want to see him”; but somehow I couldn't help it, and I've come, and, Miss Angel, I'm sure if you saw him you wouldn't be angry with him.'

'Angry!' said Angel, laying her heap of black work down on the arbour seat, 'angry with just the one person we want to see, G.o.dfrey's best friend, the last person who saw him! You were quite, quite right to come, Nancy dear. Betty, will you----'

'Come this minute? Of course I will,' said Betty, rising in her old impulsive way. 'Cousin Crayshaw's out, but we can't wait for him, can we, Angel?'

'No, I don't think we can,' said Angel; and in a few minutes the two were walking down the road to the Place, with Nancy, crying still but half-triumphant, between them.

And on the bench outside the house, in Kiah's old place, where G.o.dfrey had first settled to be a sailor, Captain Maitland sat, all alone and not feeling the spring suns.h.i.+ne which fell about him. He hardly knew why he had chosen that place, only just to-day he felt as if, as Nancy said, he had grown old like Kiah, only with none of Kiah's cheery content. His eyes were bandaged from the happy light, but he knew just how it all looked, and he said to himself that it was only he who had changed, not the beautiful, happy world; for he had loved the suns.h.i.+ne, this merry-hearted sailor, and the joy and the beauty of the fair earth, and the stir and the work and bustle of life, and he felt as if it were not himself but some other man who sat here in the darkness at the door of his old home, and as if all his hopeful courage were gone and would never come back. The doctors had told him that he would recover his sight with time and patience; but just now he felt as if he couldn't look forward, only back to that moment which would be before him all his life, the moment when the French brig went down, and he saw his youngest mids.h.i.+pman jump headlong over the side of the _Mermaid_, and knew that his pursuit of the other s.h.i.+p must not be stayed for the sake of one life, and so went on his way, with Angel's white face before his eyes and the sound of Betty's voice in his ears. It was only a few minutes before the shot came which stretched him, blinded and unconscious, on the deck, but they were the sort of minutes in which a man grows old; and when he came to himself, helpless and weak and bewildered, to be told that G.o.dfrey Wyndham had never been seen since the fight, he felt as if the time before were part of another life.

He was wondering sadly this morning why he had hurried home before the doctors wished him to travel; he had been restlessly anxious to get to Oakfield, and now he scarcely knew why. How could he meet Angelica and Betty, when he had come back safe, only useless and helpless, and the boy they had trusted to him, the boy who was the light of their eyes and the joy of their hearts, would never come back to them any more?

And then suddenly a voice sounded close to him; he had been too much taken up with his own thoughts to hear the steps on the path till they were beside him.

'Oh! Captain Maitland'--it was Betty's eager tones--'it is dreadful to see you like this; but you'll be able to see again soon, won't you?'

The captain rose to his feet and stood trembling as he had never trembled before the French guns. And even in the darkness he knew that it was Angel's hand that touched him.

'Please sit down,' she said gently, 'please don't stand. Why did you not let us know? Nancy had to fetch us.'

'How could I?' he said, turning away his face from her, 'how could I, when I would give all the world to be where he is and he here?'

'Oh, we know,' said Betty's earnest voice, 'we both remember what you said, that we mustn't over-rate your power to save him. You don't think we're thinking anything like that, you surely know us better?

Angel, Angel, can't you explain?'

'I'm sure Captain Maitland understands,' said Angel very quietly; 'and now he will tell us all about what we most want to hear, we and Cousin Crayshaw and Penny and all--what n.o.body else can tell us.'

And the captain said 'Yes' as he had said 'Yes' when Angel and Betty fetched him home to help them at supper on the evening before G.o.dfrey went away.

They were all together at the Place that evening, after the captain's story had been told. In spite of the sunny days, the spring nights were chilly, and they gathered round the wood fire in a little panelled room which had been old Mrs. Maitland's sitting-room. It had been scarcely used since, and the lady's things--her favourite chair and her little work-table and her big basket--were still in their places as she had left them, waiting, Martha used to say, like the stores of linen, till the captain brought home his bride. It was Martha who had thought that the big room, which was so full of memories of that merry Christmas party, would seem cold and dreary, and had carried the lamp into the little parlour. And there round the fire they sat together, Betty at Mr. Crayshaw's feet, with his hand caressing her bright hair, and Angel on her low chair beside them, and the captain opposite, with his eyes shaded from the light. Only this evening he had been talking quite hopefully about the time when he would be fit for work again.

And they talked about G.o.dfrey too, Angel being the one to begin, and for once it was she who led the talk, and dwelt quite quietly and naturally on old days--on G.o.dfrey's first coming home, and the day when he had first heard Kiah's stories and settled to be a useful sailor.

And she spoke freely as she had never done before of hers and Betty's fears and misgivings about his education.

'Don't you remember that first day, Betty, how you said you could never be a maiden aunt? And afterwards, when we knew he was set on being a great sailor, I was more afraid still, for I couldn't think how I was ever to teach him.'

'And little enough help from those who should have been the first to help you,' sighed Mr. Crayshaw.

'Oh no, no--I didn't mean that. Only, you see, we had more to do with him than any one. But Martha was so good, she told us not to worry too much, only to do our best and trust about him. Do you know, I think if I had known then that he would die like this, such a brave, good little officer, I should have felt quite glad and thankful.'