Two Maiden Aunts Part 19

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 sunshine 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 sunshine, 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 midshipman jump headlong over the side of the _Mermaid_, and knew that his pursuit of the other ship 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.'

'A gentleman wants to see Miss Wyndham,' said Patty at the door.

'Miss Wyndham cannot see any one to-night,' said Mr. Crayshaw, impatiently.

'Oh yes, I can,' said Angel rising, 'only I don't know who it can be.

Where is he, Patty?'

'I showed him into the dining-room, Miss Angelica; he came on here from the cottage, he says.'

Angel went out of the room and across the hall to the dining-room; the front door was open, and across the still meadows the church bells were ringing, for the news of a victory in the Peninsula had reached the village that evening. Angel wondered as she listened if there were many in England who heard through the joyous peal the sound of a bell tolling for some one whose life or death meant more to them than victory or defeat.

'G.o.d help them all!' she whispered to herself, for she was one of those whose tender sympathy grows wider at the touch of their own sorrow.

The dining-room was almost dark. Patty had put a candle on the table, but its rays hardly reached the end of the room. The shutters were not closed, and outside it was starlight, as it had been on that Christmas night when she and G.o.dfrey and the captain looked at the Plough shining over the homes of Oakfield. The strange visitor was standing by the table. He turned when Angel came in and gave a great start as he saw her standing there in the doorway, dressed as she had been when G.o.dfrey saw her first, in a white gown with black ribbons, and with the chain round her neck on which she always wore the miniature of her brother.

He did not speak, so she said:

'You wished to see me, sir?'

'Yes,' began the stranger hurriedly; 'you are Miss Wyndham, I am sure--Miss Angelica Wyndham. I came--I wished--I once knew some relatives of yours in the West Indies.'

'My brother,' said Angel, faltering a little. Was this a friend of Bernard's come to ask for G.o.dfrey?--and G.o.dfrey was gone.

'Your brother, yes; I knew him very well.'

'He was killed in a rising of the slaves nine years ago,' said Angelica.

'I know his death was reported,' said the stranger; 'there were many killed, and some--some who had marvellous escapes, and returned to find their friends dead, or believed to be dead, and themselves perhaps forgotten.' Something more in the tone than in the words thrilled Angel strangely. She began to tremble.

'Please tell me what you mean,' she said, and she tried to see her visitor's face, but his back was to the light and he stood in deep shadow.

'Some of those supposed to be lost came back,' he said, and his voice faltered too.

Angel put out her hand.

'You have something to tell me,' she said, leaning back against a high carved arm-chair.

The next moment his arm was supporting her, his voice, hoa.r.s.e and broken, was in her ear.

'Angelica--Angel, do you not understand? Can you remember, can you forgive, do you think? I never guessed that you would care. I thought only to bring trouble if I came. Will you try and forgive me now?'

Angel stood half stunned for a minute leaning against his shoulder, and then suddenly the thought of what might have been swept over her, a bitterness of grief which she had never known before seemed to crush her down. She burst out into pa.s.sionate crying, such tears as she had never shed.

'Oh, Bernard! Oh, Bernard!' she sobbed, 'we have not got him for you; if you had come--if you had come before--but he is not here any more.'

There was a sound of doors opening, of voices outside; the peal of the church bells rose and fell on the breeze. Angel felt herself drawn into her brother's arms. His voice sounded above her:

'Angel, don't cry so; look up, dear, listen--there are wonders on sea as well as on land; you must listen and hope, and----'

But at that moment there was a shriek in the hall--Betty's voice, and then a clamour of crying and laughing and questioning, a door burst open, a pair of arms round Angel's neck, a curly head against her cheek, and over all the triumphant tones of Kiah Parker's voice as he stumped with his wooden leg upon the floor.