Two Maiden Aunts Part 12

G.o.dfrey sat upright, and Angel could feel rather than see his wide eyes fixed upon her.

'Him! That man that got me out of the tub! he whispered, in an almost awe-struck voice; 'is that Kiah's captain? And I never knew.'

'You'll see him again,' Angel said, tucking him up fondly; 'he is coming to see us, he told Aunt Betty so.'

G.o.dfrey was silent for fully a minute. Then he said, doubtfully:

'But why did he say that? Because he must know how brave he is.'

'I don't think that really brave, good people ever think much of themselves,' said Angel thoughtfully.

'Why don't they?'

'I think,' said Angelica, turning over the thought in her slow deliberate way, 'I think, G.o.dfrey, it is because they expect more of themselves. It is like going up a mountain, the higher you get the further you see, and you see heights above you and don't feel as if you had got very far. When people begin to be a little brave and good they see better what real courage and goodness mean, and they aren't satisfied with themselves.'

G.o.dfrey had drawn her face down on to the pillow beside him.

'I suppose he knows a great deal about being brave,' he said. 'Do you think he does what he doesn't like when it's right?'

'Yes, G.o.dfrey dear, I expect he does.'

'So do you, don't you? I know you didn't like whipping me; I know what your face is like when things hurt you. Dear little Aunt Angel, you sha'n't make that face any more for me; you're beginning at the right end of being brave, I suppose. I didn't know before you could be brave, but I thought it was all killing Frenchmen. Tell me something: do women have to do that, what you said about leaving the world better?'

'Oh yes, G.o.dfrey,' whispered Angel. It was easy to talk, she felt, here in the dusk, with the soft cheek pressed against hers. 'Even if they can't do any great work themselves, perhaps they can help those who do.'

'Like you and Aunt Betty and me. I'm your little oak-tree, like G.o.dpapa G.o.dfrey's, and you planted me and you look after me. And you'd like me to come up brave and be a great captain and win a battle one day. Would you mind if the Frenchies shot my leg off, like Kiah's?'

'I should have to try to be proud, G.o.dfrey; it would be very hard.'

'Then you'd be brave again, wouldn't you--braver than me, because I don't know that I should mind if I was as nice as Kiah? And p'r'aps the King would want me to have a medal, and I should say, "No, please, not for me, your Majesty"; and he'd say, "Who for, then?" and I should say, "For my maiden aunts."'

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter V tailpiece]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter VI headpiece]

CHAPTER VI

CHRISTMAS AT OAKFIELD

'Round the world and home again, That's the sailor's way.'--WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

Captain Maitland did call at the cottage, as he had said, the very day after G.o.dfrey's adventure. Angel and Betty felt a little alarmed, for they never had any visitors except the vicar of the parish of which Oakfield was an outlying hamlet. They sat up rather straight on the company chairs in the parlour, and Penelope, who had kept the visitor waiting at the door while she put on her best cap, brought in a bottle of gooseberry wine and a plate of sweet biscuits, for the cake which Angel had hoped would be ready against the time when the captain called was still in the oven. Perhaps it was the disappointment about the cake that upset Penny's ideas, for she never looked where she was going as she came in with the tray, and the consequence was that she stumbled over the round footstool with two wool-work doves sitting in a wreath of roses. It was a dreadful moment, while Penny came staggering forward with the gooseberry wine slipping off the tray, until she went full tilt into the arms of the captain, who had sprung to his feet, and managed very adroitly to catch the tray in one hand and hold up Penny with the other, while the sweet biscuits hailed upon him like bullets.

Poor Penny turned and ran, with her cap over one ear, too much abashed even to see what damage was done, and Betty felt that if only the floor would open under her it would be a comfort. Only for half a moment.

Then the captain turned round and said, with a most comical expression:

'I can't drink this whole bottle by myself. May I pour you out a gla.s.s?'

Betty could do nothing but burst out laughing, and Angel, in spite of her dismay, joined in, and as to Captain Maitland, he laughed out more heartily than any of them, and from that moment there was no more stiffness between them. The captain, though he seemed quite old to G.o.dfrey, and indeed to his aunts too, was not thirty, for he had attained his promotion rapidly for courage and coolness in an encounter off the French coast. He had the frank cheery manners of a sailor too, so that it was not difficult to feel at home with him; besides, as Betty said afterwards, where was the use of pretending they didn't remember that he had had Penny in his arms, and that he had been on his knees under the table picking up the sweet biscuits?

He would be at home for about a fortnight, he said; he had not been to Oakfield for nearly seven years, not since his mother's death; and Angel thought the bright sunburnt face looked a little wistful, and felt sorry for him having no one to welcome him. But he smiled again directly as he said how glad he was to find the place so little changed; and then he asked if he might see the garden, he remembered being brought there when he was a very little boy; did the clove pinks still grow in the border under the yew hedge? So they all went out together, and the captain had forgotten nothing and greeted Miss Jane as an old friend; there had been a s.h.i.+p in the squadron off the Spanish coast, he said, whose figurehead always reminded him of her. And he remembered the view from the paddock, and missed the big elm that had been blown down two winters ago, and said what a good thing it was the storm had spared Sir G.o.dfrey's tree; it would be a misfortune indeed if anything happened to that, but it seemed all right at present, as stout a heart of oak as the Admiral's flag-s.h.i.+p. And he heard that Cousin Crayshaw was coming down for Christmas, and said he remembered him and should do himself the honour of calling upon him. And then they all walked with him to the end of the lane.

'Do you know,' Betty said as they turned, back, 'I keep on forgetting that he is Kiah's captain, and yet I like to think he is.'

Angel and G.o.dfrey felt much the same. It did seem so impossible that this cheery, simple man, who had laughed over the gooseberry wine, and been so interested in the garden, could be the hero who would perhaps be in the history books of the future. Why, they had been talking the whole time, telling him about the great gale which had blown the elm down, when he knew what a storm at sea was like, with waves mountains high, and mighty s.h.i.+ps and brave men swallowed up among them, and he had asked about the bees and the best way of layering pinks as if he really cared to know. Could he have room in his thoughts for such simple things when strife and danger and bloodshed and the life-and-death struggle of nations were familiar to him?

As Betty said, they found it hard to believe, and yet it was very nice to think of, and seemed to mean that being a hero need not take one quite away from everything that other people loved and cared about, just as the good Admiral Collingwood noted on the eve of a great sea-fight that it was his little Sarah's birthday, and remarked while the French were pouring their broadside into his s.h.i.+p that his wife would be just going to church. And gentle Angel said to herself that perhaps after all, when G.o.dfrey was a great man, he might be her G.o.dfrey still if he could manage to copy Captain Maitland. And, meanwhile, she felt very glad and thankful on her boy's account for the captain's coming; for here at last, she said to herself, was what she had wanted so long, some one whom he could look up to and admire and try to copy. What a happy thing it was that he should have learnt from his first hero that lesson that the beginning of victory is the conquest of self.

Cousin Crayshaw was to arrive two days before Christmas, and G.o.dfrey and his aunts had been busy decorating the cottage with holly for the occasion. Cousin Crayshaw was not a particularly interesting visitor certainly, but Betty, from the top of the stepladder, told G.o.dfrey, with all the more emphasis because she didn't quite feel it herself, that they ought to be very thankful they had somebody to welcome.

Martha said that welcoming kept people's hearts warm. The two aunts and the nephew all had their own delightful Christmas secrets, and there was much whispering and great excitement and solemn taking of pennies out of G.o.dfrey's money-box when Pete went to the county town with some hay. It was a very serious matter, for of course he could not consult the aunts, and he felt very important when he ran down to meet Pete, and waited at the end of the lane, jingling the pennies and listening to the sound of approaching cart-wheels. Peter saw the little figure waiting, and jumped down at once.

'Anything I can do in town for you, Master G.o.dfrey?' he asked.

'Yes,' said G.o.dfrey, very seriously, 'I am going to give you some money to spend, Pete, to spend on presents. I want two very beautiful presents for two ladies, and a little one that would suit an old nurse.'

'Certainly, sir,' said Pete gravely.

G.o.dfrey jingled his pennies thoughtfully.

'There's a good deal of money,' he remarked. 'Perhaps there might be some over.'

'Very true, sir,' said Pete with much seriousness. G.o.dfrey considered again. Then that happy Christmas feeling which makes our hearts widen to all the world got the best of it:

'If there should be any over, Pete,' he said, 'I should like you to choose another present.'

'I shall be proud to do my best, sir. Would the present be for a lady or a gentleman, sir?'

'For a gentleman, Pete. A gentleman not very young and not at all handsome, that doesn't care much about nice things or pretty things, so it mustn't be an ornament; and that only reads the paper, so it mustn't be a story-book; and that doesn't like any games, so it mustn't be anything to play with. Do you think you could do that, Pete?'

'I'd try, Master G.o.dfrey. It 'd be a useful thing, now, the gentleman would fancy?'

'Yes, certainly useful,' said G.o.dfrey decidedly; 'and rather cheerful too, if you could manage it, for Cousin Cray--I mean the gentleman--isn't a very cheerful gentleman, and I thought perhaps a present might make him a little more cheerful for Christmas.'

'And I'm to spend all this money, Master G.o.dfrey?'

'Yes, all,' said G.o.dfrey generously, pouring his pennies into Pete's hand; 'you're not to bring back one.'

'I do like giving presents,' he went on, as Pete counted the money and put it in his big leathern purse. 'If I had a lot more money I know what I'd do. I'd tell you to choose a present for a gentleman that is one of the very bravest, best people in the world, a gentleman that likes s.h.i.+ps and fighting and gardens and flowers, and is always kind to every one except people he ought to kill; but I should think it would take nearly a hundred pounds to buy a present that would be good enough for him. Good-bye, Pete; I shall try and run round to the Place before lessons to-morrow to see what you've got.'

But G.o.dfrey had not to wait till next morning, for just before his bed-time Penny came to the parlour door to say that Peter was in the kitchen and asking for the young master.