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The Treasure Of Heaven
A Romance Of Riches
By
Marie Corelli
AUTHOR OF
"GOD'S GOOD MAN," "THELMA," "THE SORROWS OF SATAN," "ARDATH,"
"THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF," "FREE OPINIONS," "TEMPORAL POWER," ETC.
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1906
Copyright, 1906, by DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
Published, August, 1906
To Bertha
'A faithful friend is better than gold.'
Author's Note
By the special request of the Publishers, a portrait of myself, taken in
the spring of this year, 1906, forms the Frontispiece to the present
volume. I am somewhat reluctant to see it so placed, because it has
nothing whatever to do with the story which is told in the following
pages, beyond being a faithful likeness of the author who is responsible
for this, and many other previous books which have had the good fortune
to meet with a friendly reception from the reading public. Moreover, I
am not quite able to convince myself that my pictured personality can
have any interest for my readers, as it has always seemed to me that an
author's real being is more disclosed in his or her work than in any
portrayed presentment of mere physiognomy.
But--owing to the fact that various gross, and I think I may say
libellous and fictitious misrepresentations of me have been freely and
unwarrantably circulated throughout Great Britain, the Colonies, and
America, by certain "lower" sections of the pictorial press, which, with
a zeal worthy of a better and kinder cause, have striven by this means
to alienate my readers from me,--it appears to my Publishers advisable
that an authentic likeness of myself, as I truly am to-day, should now
be issued in order to prevent any further misleading of the public by
fraudulent inventions. The original photograph from which Messrs. Dodd,
Mead & Co. have reproduced the present photogravure, was taken by Mr. G.
Gabell of Eccleston Street, London, who, at the time of my submitting
myself to his camera, was not aware of my identity. I used, for the
nonce, the name of a lady friend, who arranged that the proofs of the
portrait should be sent to her at various different addresses,--and it
was not till this "Romance of Riches" was on the verge of publication
that I disclosed the real position to the courteous artist himself. That
I thus elected to be photographed as an unknown rather than a known
person was in order that no extra pains should be taken on my behalf,
but that I should be treated just as an ordinary stranger would be
treated, with no less, but at the same time certainly no more, care.
I may add, in conclusion, for the benefit of those few who may feel any
further curiosity on the subject, that no portraits resembling me in any
way are published anywhere, and that invented sketches purporting to
pass as true likenesses of me, are merely attempts to obtain money from
the public on false pretences. One picture of me, taken in my own house
by a friend who is an amateur photographer, was reproduced some time ago
in the _Strand Magazine_, _The Boudoir_, _Cassell's Magazine_, and _The
Rapid Review_; but beyond that, and the present one in this volume, no
photographs of me are on sale in any country, either in shops or on
postcards. My objection to this sort of "picture popularity" has already
been publicly stated, and I here repeat and emphasise it. And I venture
to ask my readers who have so generously encouraged me by their warm and
constant appreciation of my literary efforts, to try and understand the
spirit in which the objection is made. It is simply that to myself the
personal "Self" of me is nothing, and should be, rightly speaking,
nothing to any one outside the circle of my home and my intimate
friends; while my work and the keen desire to improve in that work, so
that by my work alone I may become united in sympathy and love to my
readers, whoever and wherever they may be, constitutes for me the
Everything of life.
MARIE CORELLI
Stratford-on-Avon
July, 1906
THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN
CHAPTER I
London,--and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a
warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up
from the clammy crowded streets,--London, with a million twinkling
lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a
dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and
tower upon tower,--with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as
though in self-defence against Heaven. Around and above it the deep sky
swept in a ring of sable blue, wherein thousands of stars were visible,
encamped after the fashion of a mighty army, with sentinel planets
taking their turns of duty in the watching of a rebellious world. A
sulphureous wave of heat half asphyxiated the swarms of people who were
hurrying to and fro in that restless undetermined way which is such a
predominating feature of what is called a London "season," and the
general impression of the weather was, to one and all, conveyed in a
sense of discomfort and oppression, with a vague struggling expectancy
of approaching thunder. Few raised their eyes beyond the thick warm haze
which hung low on the sooty chimney-pots, and trailed sleepily along in
the arid, dusty parks. Those who by chance looked higher, saw that the
skies above the city were divinely calm and clear, and that not a cloud
betokened so much as the shadow of a storm.
The deep bell of Westminster chimed midnight, that hour of picturesque
ghostly tradition, when simple village maids shudder at the thought of
traversing a dark lane or passing a churchyard, and when country folks
of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for
the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was
concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody,
was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was
incessant,--the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor
vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like
drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy
time of the morning or the afternoon. There had been a Court at
Buckingham Palace,--and a "special" performance at the Opera,--and on
account of these two functions, entertainments were going on at almost
every fashionable house in every fashionable quarter. The public
restaurants were crammed with luxury-loving men and women,--men and
women to whom the mere suggestion of a quiet dinner in their own homes
would have acted as a menace of infinite boredom,--and these gilded and
refined eating-houses were now beginning to shoot forth their bundles of
well-dressed, well-fed folk into the many and various conveyances
waiting to receive them. There was a good deal of needless shouting, and
much banter between drivers and policemen. Now and again the melancholy
whine of a beggar's plea struck a discordant note through the
smooth-toned compliments and farewells of hosts and their departing
guests. No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing
scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement, save where, far up
in the clear depths of space, the glittering star-battalions of a
wronged and forgotten God held their steadfast watch and kept their
hourly chronicle. London with its brilliant "season" seemed the only
living fact worth recognising; London, with its flaring noisy streets,
and its hot summer haze interposed like a grey veil between itself and
the higher vision. Enough for most people it was to see the
veil,--beyond it the view is always too vast and illimitable for the
little vanities of ordinary mortal minds.
Amid all the din and turmoil of fashion and folly seeking its own in the
great English capital at the midnight hour, a certain corner of an
exclusively fashionable quarter seemed strangely quiet and sequestered,
and this was the back of one of the row of palace-like dwellings known
as Carlton House Terrace. Occasionally a silent-wheeled hansom,
brougham, or flashing motor-car sped swiftly along the Mall, towards
which the wide stone balcony of the house projected,--or the heavy
footsteps of a policeman walking on his beat crunched the gravel of the
path beneath, but the general atmosphere of the place was expressive of
solitude and even of gloom. The imposing evidences of great wealth,
written in bold headlines on the massive square architecture of the
whole block of huge mansions, only intensified the austere sombreness of
their appearance, and the fringe of sad-looking trees edging the road
below sent a faint waving shadow in the lamplight against the cold
walls, as though some shuddering consciousness of happier woodland
scenes had suddenly moved them to a vain regret. The haze of heat lay
very thickly here, creeping along with slow stealth like a sluggish
stream, and a suffocating odour suggestive of some subtle anaesthetic
weighed the air with a sense of nausea and depression. It was difficult
to realise that this condition of climate was actually summer in its
prime--summer with all its glowing abundance of flower and foliage as
seen in fresh green lanes and country dells,--rather did it seem a dull
nightmare of what summer might be in a prison among criminals undergoing
punishment. The house with the wide stone balcony looked particularly
prison-like, even more so than some of its neighbours, perhaps because
the greater number of its many windows were shuttered close, and showed
no sign of life behind their impenetrable blackness. The only strong
gleam of light radiating from the inner darkness to the outer, streamed
across the balcony itself, which by means of two glass doors opened
directly from the room behind it. Here two men sat, or rather half
reclined in easy-cushioned lounge chairs, their faces turned towards the
Mall, so that the illumination from the apartment in the background
created a Rembrandt-like effect in partially concealing the expression
of the one from the other's observation. Outwardly, and at a first
causal glance, there was nothing very remarkable about either of them.
One was old; the other more than middle-aged. Both were in
evening-dress,--both smoked idly, and apparently not so much for the
pleasure of smoking as for lack of something better to do, and both
seemed self-centred and absorbed in thought. They had been conversing
for some time, but now silence had fallen between them, and neither
seemed disposed to break the heavy spell. The distant roar of constant
traffic in the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis sounded in their
ears like muffled thunder, while every now and again the soft sudden
echo of dance music, played by a string band in evident attendance at
some festive function in a house not far away, shivered delicately
through the mist like a sigh of pleasure. The melancholy tree-tops
trembled,--a single star struggled above the sultry vapours and shone
out large and bright as though it were a great signal lamp suddenly lit
in heaven. The elder of the two men seated on the balcony raised his
eyes and saw it shining. He moved uneasily,--then lifting himself a
little in his chair, he spoke as though taking up a dropped thread of
conversation, with the intention of deliberately continuing it to the
end. His voice was gentle and mellow, with a touch of that singular
pathos in its tone which is customary to the Celtic rather than to the
Saxon vocal cords.
"I have given you my full confidence," he said, "and I have put before
you the exact sum total of the matter as I see it. You think me
irrational,--absurd. Good. Then I am content to be irrational and
absurd. In any case you can scarcely deny that what I have stated is a
simple fact,--a truth which cannot be denied?"
"It is a truth, certainly," replied his companion, pulling himself
upright in his chair with a certain vexed vehemence of action and
flinging away his half-smoked cigar, "but it is one of those unpleasant
truths which need not be looked at too closely or too often remembered.
We must all get old--unfortunately,--and we must all die, which in my
opinion is more unfortunate still. But we need not anticipate such a
disagreeable business before its time."
"Yet you are always drawing up Last Wills and Testaments," observed the
other, with a touch of humour in his tone.
"Oh well! That, of course, has to be done. The youngest persons should
make their wills if they have anything to leave, or else run the risk of
having all their household goods and other belongings fought for with
tooth and claw by their 'dearest' relations. Dearest relations are,
according to my experience, very much like wild cats: give them the
faintest hope of a legacy, and they scratch and squawl as though it were
raw meat for which they have been starving. In all my long career as a
solicitor I never knew one 'dearest relation' who honestly regretted the
dead."
"There you meet me on the very ground of our previous discussions," said
the elder man. "It is not the consciousness of old age that troubles me,
or the inevitable approach of that end which is common to all,--it is
merely the outlook into the void,--the teasing wonder as to who may step
into my place when I am gone, and what will be done with the results of
my life's labour."
He rose as he spoke, and moved towards the balcony's edge, resting one
hand upon its smooth stone. The change of attitude allowed the light
from the interior room to play more fully on his features, and showed
him to be well advanced in age, with a worn, yet strong face and
deep-set eyes, over which the shelving brows stooped benevolently as
though to guard the sinking vital fire in the wells of vision below. The
mouth was concealed by an ashen-grey moustache, while on the forehead
and at the sides of the temples the hair was perfectly white, though
still abundant. A certain military precision of manner was attached to
the whole bearing of the man,--his thin figure was well-built and
upright, showing no tendency to feebleness,--his shoulders were set
square, and his head was poised in a manner that might have been called
uncompromising, if not obstinate. Even the hand that rested on the
balcony, attenuated and deeply wrinkled as it was, suggested strength in
its shape and character, and a passing thought of this flitted across
the mind of his companion who, after a pause, said slowly:--
"I really see no reason why you should brood on such things. What's the
use? Your health is excellent for your time of life. Your end is not
imminent. You are voluntarily undergoing a system of self-torture which
is quite unnecessary. We've known each other for years, yet I hardly
recognise you in your present humour. I thought you were perfectly
happy. Surely you ought to be,--you, David Helmsley,--'King' David, as
you are sometimes called--one of the richest men in the world!"
Helmsley smiled, but with a suspicion of sadness.
"Neither kings nor rich men hold special grants of happiness," he
answered, quietly: "Your own experience of humanity must have taught you
that. Personally speaking, I have never been happy since my boyhood.
This surprises you? I daresay it does. But, my dear Vesey, old friend as
you are, it sometimes happens that our closest intimates know us least!
And even the famous firm of Vesey and Symonds, or Symonds and
Vesey,--for your partner is one with you and you are one with your
partner,--may, in spite of all their legal wisdom, fail to pierce the
thick disguises worn by the souls of their clients. The Man in the Iron
Mask is a familiar figure in the office of his confidential solicitor. I
repeat, I have never been happy since my boyhood----"
"Your happiness then was a mere matter of youth and animal spirits,"
interposed Vesey.
"I thought you would say that!"--and again a faint smile illumined
Helmsley's features. "It is just what every one would say. Yet the young
are often much more miserable than the old; and while I grant that youth
may have had something to do with my past joy in life, it was not all.
No, it certainly was not all. It was simply that I had then what I have
never had since."
He broke off abruptly. Then stepping back to his chair he resumed his
former reclining position, leaning his head against the cushions and
fixing his eyes on the solitary bright star that shone above the mist
and the trembling trees.
"May I talk out to you?" he inquired suddenly, with a touch of
whimsicality. "Or are you resolved to preach copybook moralities at me,
such as 'Be good and you will be happy?'"
Vesey, more ceremoniously known as Sir Francis Vesey, one of the most
renowned of London's great leading solicitors, looked at him and
laughed.
"Talk out, my dear fellow, by all means!" he replied. "Especially if it
will do you any good. But don't ask me to sympathise very deeply with
the imaginary sorrows of so enormously wealthy a man as you are!"
"I don't expect any sympathy," said Helmsley. "Sympathy is the one thing
I have never sought, because I know it is not to be obtained, even from
one's nearest and dearest. Sympathy! Why, no man in the world ever
really gets it, even from his wife. And no man possessing a spark of
manliness ever wants it, except--sometimes----"
He hesitated, looking steadily at the star above him,--then went on.
"Except sometimes,--when the power of resistance is weakened--when the
consciousness is strongly borne in upon us of the unanswerable wisdom of
Solomon, who wrote--'I hated all my labour which I had taken under the
sun, because I should leave it to the man that should be after me. And
who knows whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?'"
Sir Francis Vesey, dimly regretting the half-smoked cigar he had thrown
away in a moment of impatience, took out a fresh one from his
pocket-case and lit it.
"Solomon has expressed every disagreeable situation in life with
remarkable accuracy," he murmured placidly, as he began to puff rings of
pale smoke into the surrounding yellow haze, "but he was a bit of a
misanthrope."
"When I was a boy," pursued Helmsley, not heeding his legal friend's
comment, "I was happy chiefly because I believed. I never doubted any
stated truth that seemed beautiful enough to be true. I had perfect
confidence in the goodness of God and the ultimate happiness designed by
Him for every living creature. Away out in Virginia where I was born,
before the Southern States were subjected to Yankeedom, it was a
glorious thing merely to be alive. The clear, pure air, fresh with the
strong odour of pine and cedar,--the big plantations of cotton and
corn,--the colours of the autumn woods when the maple trees turned
scarlet, and the tall sumachs blazed like great fires on the sides of
the mountains,--the exhilarating climate--the sweetness of the
south-west wind,--all these influences of nature appealed to my soul and
kindled a strange restlessness in it which has never been appeased.
Never!--though I have lived my life almost to its end, and have done all
those things which most men do who seek to get the utmost satisfaction
they can out of existence. But I am not satisfied; I have never been
satisfied."
"And you never will be," declared Sir Francis firmly. "There are some
people to whom Heaven itself would prove disappointing."
"Well, if Heaven is the kind of place depicted by the clergy, the
poorest beggar might resent its offered attractions," said Helmsley,
with a slight, contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. "After a life of
continuous pain and struggle, the pleasures of singing for ever and ever
to one's own harp accompaniment are scarcely sufficient compensation."
Vesey laughed cheerfully.
"It's all symbolical," he murmured, puffing away at his cigar, "and
really very well meant! Positively now, the clergy are capital fellows!
They do their best,--they keep it up. Give them credit for that at
least, Helmsley,--they do keep it up!"
Helmsley was silent for a minute or two.
"We are rather wandering from the point," he said at last. "What I know
of the clergy generally has not taught me to rely upon them for any
advice in a difficulty, or any help out of trouble. Once--in a moment of
weakness and irresolution--I asked a celebrated preacher what suggestion
he could make to a rich man, who, having no heirs, sought a means of
disposing of his wealth to the best advantage for others after his
death. His reply----"
"Was the usual thing, of course," interposed Sir Francis blandly. "He
said, 'Let the rich man leave it all to me, and God will bless him
abundantly!'"
"Well, yes, it came to that,"--and Helmsley gave a short impatient sigh.
"He evidently guessed that the rich man implied was myself, for ever
since I asked him the question, he has kept me regularly supplied with
books and pamphlets relating to his Church and various missions. I
daresay he's a very good fellow. But I've no fancy to assist him. He
works on sectarian lines, and I am of no sect. Though I confess I should
like to believe in God--- if I could."
Sir Francis, fanning a tiny wreath of cigar smoke away with one hand,
looked at him curiously, but offered no remark.
"You said I might talk out to you," continued Helmsley--"and it is
perhaps necessary that I should do so, since you have lately so
persistently urged upon me the importance of making my will. You are
perfectly right, of course, and I alone am to blame for the apparently
stupid hesitation I show in following your advice. But, as I have
already told you, I have no one in the world who has the least claim
upon me,--no one to whom I can bequeath, to my own satisfaction, the
wealth I have earned. I married,--as you know,--and my marriage was
unhappy. It ended,--and you are aware of all the facts--in the proved
infidelity of my wife, followed by our separation (effected quietly,
thanks to you, without the vulgar publicity of the divorce court), and
then--in her premature death. Notwithstanding all this, I did my best
for my two sons,--you are a witness to this truth,--and you remember
that during their lifetime I did make my will,--in their favour. They
turned out badly; each one ran his own career of folly, vice, and
riotous dissipation, and both are dead. Thus it happens that here I
am,--alone at the age of seventy, without any soul to care for me, or
any creature to whom I can trust my business, or leave my fortune. It
is not my fault that it is so; it is sheer destiny. How, I ask you, can
I make any 'Last Will and Testament' under such conditions?"
"If you make no will at all, your property goes to the Crown," said
Vesey bluntly.
"Naturally. I know that. But one might have a worse heir than the Crown!
The Crown may be trusted to take proper care of money, and this is more
than can often be said of one's sons and daughters. I tell you it is all
as Solomon said--'vanity and vexation of spirit.' The amassing of great
wealth is not worth the time and trouble involved in the task. One could
do so much better----"
Here he paused.
"How?" asked Vesey, with a half-smile. "What else is there to be done in
this world except to get rich in order to live comfortably?"
"I know people who are not rich at all, and who never will be rich, yet
who live more comfortably than I have ever done," replied
Helmsley--"that is, if to 'live comfortably' implies to live peacefully,
happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a
real 'living' time. And by this, I mean 'living,' not with the rush and
scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just
for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a
God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of
every creature. This is what I believed--once--'out in ole Virginny, a
long time ago!'"
He hummed the last words softly under his breath,--then swept one hand
across his eyes with a movement of impatience.
"Old men's brains grow addled," he continued. "They become clouded with
a fog through which only the memories of the past and the days of their
youth shine clear. Sometimes I talk of Virginia as if I were home-sick
and wanted to go back to it,--yet I never do. I wouldn't go back to it
for the world,--not now. I'm not an American, so I can say, without any
loss of the patriotic sense, that I loathe America. It is a country to
be used for the making of wealth, but it is not a country to be loved.
It might have been the most lovable Father-and-Mother-Land on the globe
if nobler men had lived long enough in it to rescue its people from the
degrading Dollar-craze. But now, well!--those who make fortunes there
leave it as soon as they can, shaking its dust off their feet and
striving to forget that they ever experienced its incalculable greed,
vice, cunning, and general rascality. There are plenty of decent folk in
America, of course, just as there are decent folk everywhere, but they
are in the minority. Even in the Southern States the 'old stock' of men
is decaying and dying-out, and the taint of commercial vulgarity is
creeping over the former simplicity of the Virginian homestead. No,--I
would not go back to the scene of my boyhood, for though I had something
there once which I have since lost, I am not such a fool as to think I
should ever find it again."
Here he looked round at his listener with a smile so sudden and sweet as
to render his sunken features almost youthful.
"I believe I am boring you, Vesey!" he said.
"Not the least in the world,--you never bore me," replied Sir Francis,
with alacrity. "You are always interesting, even in your most illogical
humour."
"You consider me illogical?"
"In a way, yes. For instance, you abuse America. Why? Your misguided
wife was American, certainly, but setting that unfortunate fact aside,
you made your money in the States. Commercial vulgarity helped you
along. Therefore be just to commercial vulgarity."
"I hope I am just to it,--I think I am," answered Helmsley slowly; "but
I never was one with it. I never expected to wring a dollar out of ten
cents, and never tried. I can at least say that I have made my money
honestly, and have trampled no man down on the road to fortune. But
then--I am not a citizen of the 'Great Republic.'"
"You were born in America," said Vesey.
"By accident," replied Helmsley, with a laugh, "and kindly fate favoured
me by allowing me to see my first daylight in the South rather than in
the North. But I was never naturalised as an American. My father and
mother were both English,--they both came from the same little sea-coast
village in Cornwall. They married very young,--theirs was a romantic
love-match, and they left England in the hope of bettering their
fortunes. They settled in Virginia and grew to love it. My father became
accountant to a large business firm out there, and did fairly well,
though he never was a rich man in the present-day meaning of the term.
He had only two children,--myself and my sister, who died at sixteen. I
was barely twenty when I lost both father and mother and started alone
to face the world."
"You have faced it very successfully," said Vesey; "and if you would
only look at things in the right and reasonable way, you have really
very little to complain of. Your marriage was certainly an unlucky
one----"
"Do not speak of it!" interrupted Helmsley, hastily. "It is past and
done with. Wife and children are swept out of my life as though they had
never been! It is a curious thing, perhaps, but with me a betrayed
affection does not remain in my memory as affection at all, but only as
a spurious image of the real virtue, not worth considering or
regretting. Standing as I do now, on the threshold of the grave, I look
back,--and in looking back I see none of those who wronged and deceived
me,--they have disappeared altogether, and their very faces and forms
are blotted out of my remembrance. So much so, indeed, that I could, if
I had the chance, begin a new life again and never give a thought to the
old!"
His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right
hand clenched itself involuntarily.
"I suppose," he continued, "that a kind of harking back to the memories
of one's youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become
almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away
the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,--watching the
fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to
my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody--'Angels
ever bright and fair.' As I said to you when we began this talk, I had
something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?"
Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and
shook his head in the negative.
"You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous," went on Helmsley,
"when I tell you that it was merely--love!"
Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in
astonishment.
"Love!" he echoed. "God bless my soul! I should have thought that you,
of all men in the world, could have won that easily!"
Helmsley turned towards him with a questioning look.
"Why should I 'of all men in the world' have won it?" he asked.
"Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for
themselves--only for what they can give to their professing lovers."
His ordinarily soft tone had an accent of bitterness in it, and Sir
Francis Vesey was silent.
"Had I remained poor,--poor as I was when I first started to make my
fortune," he went on, "I might possibly have been loved by some woman,
or some friend, for myself alone. For as a young fellow I was not
bad-looking, nor had I, so I flatter myself, an unlikable disposition.
But luck always turned the wheel in my favour, and at thirty-five I was
a millionaire. Then I 'fell' in love,--and married on the faith of that
emotion, which is always a mistake. 'Falling in love' is not loving. I
was in the full flush of my strength and manhood, and was sufficiently
proud of myself to believe that my wife really cared for me. There I was
deceived. She cared for my millions. So it chances that the only real
love I have ever known was the unselfish 'home' affection,--the love of
my mother and father and sister 'out in ole Virginny,' 'a love so sweet
it could not last,' as Shelley sings. Though I believe it can and does
last,--for my soul (or whatever that strange part of me may be which
thinks beyond the body) is always running back to that love with a full
sense of certainty that it is still existent."
His voice sank and seemed to fail him for a moment. He looked up at the
large, bright star shining steadily above him.
"You are silent, Vesey," he said, after a pause, speaking with an effort
at lightness; "and wisely too, for I know you have nothing to say--that
is, nothing that could affect the position. And you may well ask, if you
choose, to what does all this reminiscent old man's prattle tend? Simply
to this--that you have been urging me for the last six months to make my
will in order to replace the one which was previously made in favour of
my sons, and which is now destroyed, owing to their deaths before my
own,--and I tell you plainly and frankly that I don't know how to make
it, as there is no one in the world whom I care to name as my heir."
Sir Francis sat gravely ruminating for a moment;--then he said:--
"Why not do as I suggested to you once before--adopt a child? Find some
promising boy, born of decent, healthy, self-respecting
parents,--educate him according to your own ideas, and bring him up to
understand his future responsibilities. How would that suit you?"
"Not at all," replied Helmsley drily. "I _have_ heard of parents willing
to sell their children, but I should scarcely call them decent or
self-respecting. I know of one case where a couple of peasants sold
their son for five pounds in order to get rid of the trouble of rearing
him. He turned out a famous man,--but though he was, in due course, told
his history, he never acknowledged the unnatural vendors of his flesh
and blood as his parents, and quite right too. No,--I have had too much
experience of life to try such a doubtful business as that of adopting a
child. The very fact of adoption by so miserably rich a man as myself
would buy a child's duty and obedience rather than win it. I will have
no heir at all, unless I can discover one whose love for me is sincerely
unselfish and far above all considerations of wealth or worldly
advantage."
"It is rather late in the day, perhaps," said Vesey after a pause,
speaking hesitatingly, "but--but--you might marry?"
Helmsley laughed loudly and harshly.
"Marry! I! At seventy! My dear Vesey, you are a very old friend, and
privileged to say what others dare not, or you would offend me. If I had
ever thought of marrying again I should have done so two or three years
after my wife's death, when I was in the fifties, and not waited till
now, when my end, if not actually near, is certainly well in sight.
Though I daresay there are plenty of women who would marry me--even
me--at my age,--knowing the extent of my income. But do you think I
would take one of them, knowing in my heart that it would be a mere
question of sale and barter? Not I!--I could never consent to sink so
low in my own estimation of myself. I can honestly say I have never
wronged any woman. I shall not begin now."
"I don't see why you should take that view of it," murmured Sir Francis
placidly. "Life is not lived nowadays as it was when you first entered
upon your career. For one thing, men last longer and don't give up so
soon. Few consider themselves old at seventy. Why should they? There's a
learned professor at the Pasteur Institute who declares we ought all to
live to a hundred and forty. If he's right, you are still quite a young
man."
Helmsley rose from his chair with a slightly impatient gesture.
"We won't discuss any so-called 'new theories,'" he said. "They are only
echoes of old fallacies. The professor's statement is merely a modern
repetition of the ancient belief in the elixir of life. Shall we go in?"
Vesey got up from his lounging position more slowly and stiffly than
Helmsley had done. Some ten years younger as he was, he was evidently
less active.
"Well," he said, as he squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, "we
are no nearer a settlement of what I consider a most urgent and
important affair than when we began our conversation."
Helmsley shrugged his shoulders.
"When I come back to town, we will go into the question again," he said.
"You are off at the end of the week?"
"Yes."
"Going abroad?"
"I--I think so."
The answer was given with a slight touch of hesitation.
"Your last 'function' of the season is the dance you are giving
to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a
vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had
turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French
window, was just about to enter the room beyond.
"Yes. It is Lucy's birthday."
"Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?"
"Just twenty-one."
And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the
window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to
follow.
"She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he
entered. "Now, why----"
"Why don't I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley,
with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she
might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I
have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for
her parents or for any of her family connections. When I first took a
fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside
place on the Sussex coast,--I thought her a pretty little creature, and
have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets
and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are
suitable to her age and sex, I have no other intentions concerning her."
Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent
drawing-room in which he now stood,--a drawing-room more like a royal
reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern
house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to
himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his
somewhat severely featured countenance.
"Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that," he said. "I think--I
really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the
matrimonial market!"
Helmsley's deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen
and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn.
"Poor Lucy!" he murmured. "She is very unfortunate in her mother, and
equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but
bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it's too late for him to
try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl
and a pretty one,--but now that she has grown from a child into a woman
I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do
something for herself in finding a good husband."
Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like
inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in
a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:--
"Well--good-night! or rather good-morning! It's past one o'clock. Shall
I see you again before you leave town?"
"Probably. If not, you will hear from me."
"You won't reconsider the advisability of----"
"No, I won't!" And Helmsley smiled. "I'm quite obstinate on that point.
If I die suddenly, my property goes to the Crown,--if not, why then you
will in due course receive your instructions."
Vesey studied him with thoughtful attention.
"You're a queer fellow, David!" he said, at last. "But I can't help
liking you. I only wish you were not quite so--so romantic!"
"Romantic!" Helmsley looked amused. "Romance and I said good-bye to each
other years ago. I admit that I used to be romantic--but I'm not now."
"You are!" And Sir Francis frowned a legal frown which soon brightened
into a smile. "A man of your age doesn't want to be loved for himself
alone unless he's very romantic indeed! And that's what you do
want!--and that's what I'm afraid you won't get, in your position--not
as this world goes! Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
They walked out of the drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase,
and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show
Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not
immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and
sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many
letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one
window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze
through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy
work of his hand and pen, Helmsley looked up and saw the bright star he
had watched from the upper balcony, peering in upon him steadily like an
eye. A weary smile, sadder than scorn, wavered across his features.
"That's Venus," he murmured half aloud. "The Eden star of all very young
people,--the star of Love!"
CHAPTER II
On the following evening the cold and frowning aspect of the mansion in
Carlton House Terrace underwent a sudden transformation. Lights gleamed
from every window; the strip of garden which extended from the rear of
the building to the Mall, was covered in by red and white awning, and
the balcony where the millionaire master of the dwelling had, some few
hours previously, sat talking with his distinguished legal friend, Sir
Francis Vesey, was turned into a kind of lady's bower, softly carpeted,
adorned with palms and hothouse roses, and supplied with cushioned
chairs for the voluptuous ease of such persons of opposite sexes as
might find their way to this suggestive "flirtation" corner. The music
of a renowned orchestra of Hungarian performers flowed out of the open
doors of the sumptuous ballroom which was one of the many attractions of
the house, and ran in rhythmic vibrations up the stairs, echoing through
all the corridors like the sweet calling voices of fabled nymphs and
sirens, till, floating still higher, it breathed itself out to the
night,--a night curiously heavy and sombre, with a blackness of sky too
dense for any glimmer of stars to shine through. The hum of talk, the
constant ripple of laughter, the rustle of women's silken garments, the
clatter of plates and glasses in the dining-room, where a costly
ball-supper awaited its devouring destiny,--the silvery tripping and
slipping of light dancing feet on a polished floor--all these sounds,
intermingling with the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes
played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of
confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the
host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant
scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he
knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,--a touch
of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own
home.
"I feel," he mused, "like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance
for a few minutes, just to see the fun!"
He smiled,--yet was unable to banish his depression. The bare fact of
the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with
overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had
purchased,--this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured
friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women
whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,--the thousand
precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey
through life,--must all pass out of his possession in a few brief years,
and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them
or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then--darkness. The
lights gone out,--the music silenced--the dancing done! And the love
that he had dreamed of when he was a boy--love, strong and great and
divine enough to outlive death--where was it? A sudden sigh escaped
him----
"_Dear_ Mr. Helmsley, you look so _very_ tired!" said a woman's purring
voice at his ear. "_Do_ go and rest in your own room for a few minutes
before supper! You have been so kind!--Lucy is quite touched and
overwhelmed by _all_ your goodness to her,--no _lover_ could do more for
a girl, I'm _sure_! But really you _must_ spare yourself! What _should_
we do without you!"
"What indeed!" he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the
speaker, a cumbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced
costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully
intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. "But I am not at all
tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I assure you! Don't trouble yourself about me--I'm
very well."
"_Are_ you?" And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity.
"Ah! But you know we _old_ people _must_ be careful! Young folks can do
anything and everything--but _we_, at _our_ age, need to be
_over_-particular!"
"_You_ shouldn't call yourself old, Mrs. Sorrel," said Helmsley, seeing
that she expected this from him, "you're quite a young woman."
Mrs. Sorrel gave a little deprecatory laugh.
"Oh dear no!" she said, in a tone which meant "Oh dear yes!" "I wasn't
married at sixteen, you know!"
"No? You surprise me!"
Mrs. Sorrel peered at him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly
dubious air. She was never quite sure in her own mind as to the way in
which "old Gold-Dust," as she privately called him, regarded her. An
aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what
are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was
necessary--or so Mrs. Sorrel thought--to deal with him delicately and
cautiously--neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted
seriousness. One's plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to
be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circumspection.
And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful giggle at
Helmsley's half-sarcastically implied compliment with its sarcastic
implication as to the ease with which she supported her years and
superabundance of flesh tissue. She merely heaved a short sigh.
"I was just one year younger than Lucy is to-day," she said, "and I
really thought myself quite an _old_ bride! I was a mother at
twenty-one."
Helmsley found nothing to say in response to this interesting statement,
particularly as he had often heard it before.
"Who is Lucy dancing with?" he asked irrelevantly, by way of diversion.
"Oh, my _dear_ Mr. Helmsley, who is she _not_ dancing with!" and Mrs.
Sorrel visibly swelled with maternal pride. "Every young man in the room
has rushed at her--positively rushed!--and her programme was full five
minutes after she arrived! Isn't she looking lovely to-night?--a perfect
sylph! _Do_ tell me you think she is a sylph!"
David's old eyes twinkled.
"I have never seen a sylph, Mrs. Sorrel, so I cannot make the
comparison," he said; "but Lucy is a very beautiful girl, and I think
she is looking her best this evening. Her dress becomes her. She ought
to find a good husband easily."
"She ought,--indeed she ought! But it is very difficult--very, very
difficult! All the men marry for money nowadays, not for love--ah!--how
different it was when you and I were young, Mr. Helmsley! Love was
everything then,--and there was so much romance and poetical sentiment!"
"Romance is a snare, and poetical sentiment a delusion," said Helmsley,
with sudden harshness. "I proved that in my marriage. I should think you
had equally proved it in yours!"
Mrs. Sorrel recoiled a little timorously. "Old Gold-Dust" often said
unpleasant things--truthful, but eminently tactless,--and she felt that
he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she
gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music
just then ceased, and her daughter's figure, tall, slight, and
marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the
ballroom and came towards her.
"Dearest child!" she exclaimed effusively, "are you not _quite_ tired
out?"
The "dearest child" shrugged her white shoulders and laughed.
"Nothing tires me, mother--you know that!" she answered--then with a
sudden change from her air of careless indifference to one of coaxing
softness, she turned to Helmsley.
"_You_ must be tired!" she said. "Why have you been standing so long at
the ballroom door?"
"I have been watching you, Lucy," he replied gently. "It has been a
pleasure for me to see you dance. I am too old to dance with you myself,
otherwise I should grudge all the young men the privilege."
"I will dance with you, if you like," she said, smiling. "There is one
more set of Lancers before supper. Will you be my partner?"
He shook his head.
"Not even to please you, my child!" and taking her hand he patted it
kindly. "There is no fool like an old, fool, I know, but I am not quite
so foolish as that."
"I see nothing at all foolish in it," pouted Lucy. "You are my host, and
it's my coming-of-age party."
Helmsley laughed.
"So it is! And the festival must not be spoilt by any incongruities. It
will be quite sufficient honour for me to take you in to supper."
She looked down at the flowers she wore in her bodice, and played with
their perfumed petals.
"I like you better than any man here," she said suddenly.
A swift shadow crossed his face. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that
Mrs. Sorrel had moved away. Then the cloud passed from his brow, and the
thought that for a moment had darkened his mind, yielded to a kinder
impulse.
"You flatter me, my dear," he said quietly. "But I am such an old friend
of yours that I can take your compliment in the right spirit without
having my head turned by it. Indeed, I can hardly believe that it is
eleven years ago since I saw you playing about on the seashore as a
child. You seem to have grown up like a magic rose, all at once from a
tiny bud into a full blossom. Do you remember how I first made your
acquaintance?"
"As if I should ever forget!" and she raised her lovely, large dark eyes
to his. "I had been paddling about in the sea, and I had lost my shoes
and stockings. You found them for me, and you put them on!"
"True!" and he smiled. "You had very wet little feet, all rosy with the
salt of the sea--and your long hair was blown about in thick curls round
the brightest, sweetest little face in the world. I thought you were the
prettiest little girl I had ever seen in my life, and I think just the
same of you now."
A pale blush flitted over her cheeks, and she dropped him a demure
curtsy.
"Thank you!" she said. "And if you won't dance the Lancers, which are
just beginning, will you sit them out with me?"
"Gladly!" and he offered her his arm. "Shall we go up to the
drawing-room? It is cooler there than here."
She assented, and they slowly mounted the staircase together. Some of
the evening's guests lounging about in the hall and loitering near the
ballroom door, watched them go, and exchanged significant glances. One
tall woman with black eyes and a viperish mouth, who commanded a certain
exclusive "set" by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose
house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel
sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a
patronising hand upon her shoulder.
"_Do_ tell me!" she softly breathed. "_Is_ it a case?"
Mrs. Sorrel began to flutter immediately.
"_Dearest_ Lady Larford! What _do_ you mean!"
"Surely you know!" And the wide mouth of her ladyship grew still wider,
and the black eyes more steely. "Will Lucy get him, do you think?"
Mrs. Sorrel fidgeted uneasily in her chair. Other people were
listening.
"Really," she mumbled nervously--"really, _dear_ Lady Larford!--you put
things so _very_ plainly!--I--I cannot say!--you see--he is more like
her father----"
Lady Larford showed all her white teeth in an expansive grin.
"Oh, that's very safe!" she said. "The 'father' business works very well
when sufficient cash is put in with it. I know several examples of
perfect matrimonial bliss between old men and young girls--absolutely
_perfect_! One is bound to be happy with heaps of money!"
And keeping her teeth still well exposed, Lady Larford glided away, her
skirts exhaling an odour of civet-cat as she moved. Mrs. Sorrel gazed
after her helplessly, in a state of worry and confusion, for she
instinctively felt that her ladyship's pleasure would now be to tell
everybody whom she knew, that Lucy Sorrel, "the new girl who was
presented at Court last night," was having a "try" for the Helmsley
millions; and that if the "try" was not successful, no one living would
launch more merciless and bitter jests at the failure and defeat of the
Sorrels than this same titled "leader" of a section of the aristocratic
gambling set. For there has never been anything born under the sun
crueller than a twentieth-century woman of fashion to her own
sex--except perhaps a starving hyaena tearing asunder its living prey.
Meanwhile, David Helmsley and his young companion had reached the
drawing-room, which they found quite unoccupied. The window-balcony,
festooned with rose-silk draperies and flowers, and sparkling with tiny
electric lamps, offered itself as an inviting retreat for a quiet chat,
and within it they seated themselves, Helmsley rather wearily, and Lucy
Sorrel with the queenly air and dainty rustle of soft garments habitual
to the movements of a well-dressed woman.
"I have not thanked you half enough," she began, "for all the delightful
things you have done for my birthday----"
"Pray spare me!" he interrupted, with a deprecatory gesture--"I would
rather you said nothing."
"Oh, but I must say something!" she went on. "You are so generous and
good in yourself that of course you cannot bear to be thanked--I know
that--but if you will persist in giving so much pleasure to a girl who,
but for you, would have no pleasure at all in her life, you must expect
that girl to express her feelings somehow. Now, mustn't you?"
She leaned forward, smiling at him with an arch expression of sweetness
and confidence. He looked at her attentively, but said nothing.
"When I got your lovely present the first thing this morning," she
continued, "I could hardly believe my eyes. Such an exquisite
necklace!--such perfect pearls! Dear Mr. Helmsley, you quite spoil me!
I'm not worth all the kind thought and trouble you take on my behalf."
Tears started to her eyes, and her lips quivered. Helmsley saw her
emotion with only a very slight touch of concern. Her tears were merely
sensitive, he thought, welling up from a young and grateful heart, and
as the prime cause of that young heart's gratitude he delicately forbore
to notice them. This chivalrous consideration on his part caused some
little disappointment to the shedder of the tears, but he could not be
expected to know that.
"I'm glad you are pleased with my little gift," he said simply, "though
I'm afraid it is quite a conventional and ordinary one. Pearls and girls
always go together, in fact as in rhyme. After all, they are the most
suitable jewels for the young--for they are emblems of everything that
youth should be--white and pure and innocent."
Her breath came and went quickly.
"Do you think youth is always like that?" she asked.
"Not always,--but surely most often," he answered. "At any rate, I wish
to believe in the simplicity and goodness of all young things."
She was silent. Helmsley studied her thoughtfully,--even critically. And
presently he came to the conclusion that as a child she had been much
prettier than she now was as a woman. Yet her present phase of
loveliness was of the loveliest type. No fault could be found with the
perfect oval of her face, her delicate white-rose skin, her small
seductive mouth, curved in the approved line of the "Cupid's bow," her
deep, soft, bright eyes, fringed with long-lashes a shade darker than
the curling waves of her abundant brown hair. But her features in
childhood had expressed something more than the beauty which had
developed with the passing of years. A sweet affection, a tender
earnestness, and an almost heavenly candour had made the attractiveness
of her earlier age quite irresistible, but now--or so Helmsley
fancied--that fine and subtle charm had gone. He was half ashamed of
himself for allowing this thought to enter his mind, and quickly
dismissing it, he said--
"How did your presentation go off last night? Was it a full Court?"
"I believe so," she replied listlessly, unfurling a painted fan and
waving it idly to and fro--"I cannot say that I found it very
interesting. The whole thing bored me dreadfully."
He smiled.
"Bored you! Is it possible to be bored at twenty-one?"
"I think every one, young or old, is bored more or less nowadays," she
said. "Boredom is a kind of microbe in the air. Most society functions
are deadly dull. And where's the fun of being presented at Court? If a
woman wears a pretty gown, all the other women try to tread on it and
tear it off her back if they can. And the Royal people only speak to
their own special 'set,' and not always the best-looking or
best-mannered set either."
Helmsley looked amused.
"Well, it's what is called an _entree_ into the world,"--he replied.
"For my own part, I have never been 'presented,' and never intend to be.
I see too much of Royalty privately, in the dens of finance."
"Yes--all the kings and princes wanting to borrow money," she said
quickly and flippantly. "And you must despise the lot. _You_ are a real
'King,' bigger than any crowned head, because you can do just as you
like, and you are not the servant of Governments or peoples. I am sure
you must be the happiest man in the world!"
She plucked off a rose from a flowering rose-tree near her, and began to
wrench out its petals with a quick, nervous movement. Helmsley watched
her with a vague sense of annoyance.
"I am no more happy," he said suddenly, "than that rose you are picking
to pieces, though it has never done you any harm."
She started, and flushed,--then laughed.
"Oh, the poor little rose!" she exclaimed--"I'm sorry! I've had so many
roses to-day, that I don't think about them. I suppose it's wrong."
"It's not wrong," he answered quietly; "it's merely the fault of those
who give you more roses than you know how to appreciate."
She looked at him inquiringly, but could not fathom his expression.
"Still," he went on, "I would not have your life deprived of so much as
one rose. And there is a very special rose that does not grow in earthly
gardens, which I should like you to find and wear on your heart,
Lucy,--I hope I shall see you in the happy possession of it before I
die,--I mean the rose of love."
She lifted her head, and her eyes shone coldly.
"Dear Mr. Helmsley," she said, "I don't believe in love!"
A flash of amazement, almost of anger, illumined his worn features.
"You don't believe in love!" he echoed. "O child, what _do_ you believe
in, then?"
The passion of his tone moved her to a surprised smile.
"Well, I believe in being happy while you can," she replied tranquilly.
"And love isn't happiness. All my girl and men friends who are what they
call 'in love' seem to be thoroughly miserable. Many of them get
perfectly ill with jealousy, and they never seem to know whether what
they call their 'love' will last from one day to another. I shouldn't
care to live at such a high tension of nerves. My own mother and father
married 'for love,' so I am always told,--and I'm sure a more
quarrelsome couple never existed. I believe in friendship more than
love."
As she spoke, Helmsley looked at her steadily, his face darkening with a
shadow of weary scorn.
"I see!" he murmured coldly. "You do not care to over-fatigue the
heart's action by unnecessary emotion. Quite right! If we were all as
wise as you are at your age, we might live much longer than we do. You
are very sensible, Lucy!--more sensible than I should have thought
possible for so young a woman."
She gave him a swift, uneasy glance. She was not quite sure of his mood.
"Friendship," he continued, speaking in a slow, meditative tone, "is a
good thing,--it may be, as you suggest, safer and sweeter than love. But
even friendship, to be worthy of its name, must be quite unselfish,--and
unselfishness, in both love and friendship, is rare."
"Very, very rare!" she sighed.
"You will be thinking of marriage _some_ day, if you are not thinking of
it now," he went on. "Would a husband's friendship--friendship and no
more--satisfy you?"
She gazed at him candidly.
"I am sure it would!" she said; "I'm not the least bit sentimental."
He regarded her with a grave and musing steadfastness. A very close
observer might have seen a line of grim satire near the corners of his
mouth, and a gleam of irritable impatience in his sunken eyes; but these
signs of inward feeling were not apparent to the girl, who, more than
usually satisfied with herself and over-conscious of her own beauty,
considered that she was saying just the very thing that he would expect
and like her to say.
"You do not crave for love, then?" he queried. "You do not wish to know
anything of the 'divine rapture falling out of heaven,'--the rapture
that has inspired all the artists and poets in the world, and that has
probably had the largest share in making the world's history?"
She gave a little shrug of amused disdain.
"Raptures never last!" and she laughed. "And artists and poets are
dreadful people! I've seen a few of them, and don't want to see them any
more. They are always very untidy, and they have the most absurd ideas
of their own abilities. You can't have them in society, you know!--you
simply can't! If I had a house of my own I would never have a poet
inside it."
The grim lines round Helmsley's mouth hardened, and made him look almost
cruelly saturnine. Yet he murmured under his breath:--
"'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame;
Are but the ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame!'"
"What's that?" she asked quickly.
"Poetry!" he answered, "by a man named Coleridge. He is dead now. He
used to take opium, and he did not understand business matters. He was
never rich in anything but thoughts."
She smiled brilliantly.
"How silly!" she said.
"Yes, he was very silly," agreed Helmsley, watching her narrowly from
under his half-closed eyelids. "But most thinkers are silly, even when
they don't take opium. They believe in Love."
She coloured. She caught the sarcastic inflection in his tone. But she
was silent.
"Most men who have lived and worked and suffered," he went on, "come to
know before they die that without a great and true love in their lives,
their work is wasted, and their sufferings are in vain. But there are
exceptions, of course. Some get on very well without love at all, and
perhaps these are the most fortunate."
"I am sure they are!" she said decisively.
He picked up two or three of the rose-petals her restless fingers had
scattered, and laying them in his palm looked at the curved, pink,
shell-like shapes abstractedly.
"Well, they are saved a good deal of trouble," he answered quietly.
"They spare themselves many a healing heart-ache and many purifying
tears. But when they grow old, and when they find that, after all, the
happiest folks in the world are still those who love, or who have loved
and have been loved, even though the loved ones are perhaps no longer
here, they may--I do not say they will--possibly regret that they never
experienced that marvellous sense of absorption into another's life of
which Mrs. Browning writes in her letters to her husband. Do you know
what she says?"
"I'm afraid I don't!" and she smothered a slight yawn as she spoke. He
fixed his eyes intently upon her.
"She tells her lover her feeling in these words: '_There is nothing in
you that does not draw all out of me._' That is the true emotion of
love,--the one soul must draw all out of the other, and the best of all
in each."
"But the Brownings were a very funny couple," and the fair Lucy arched
her graceful throat and settled more becomingly in its place a straying
curl of her glossy brown hair. "I know an old gentleman who used to see
them together when they lived in Florence, and _he_ says they were so
queer-looking that people used to laugh at them. It's all very well to
love and to be in love, but if you look odd and people laugh at you,
what's the good of it?"
Helmsley rose from his seat abruptly.
"True!" he exclaimed. "You're right, Lucy! Little girl, you're quite
right! What's the good of it! Upon my word, you're a most practical
woman!--you'll make a capital wife for a business man!" Then as the gay
music of the band below-stairs suddenly ceased, to give place to the
noise of chattering voices and murmurs of laughter, he glanced at his
watch.
"Supper-time!" he said. "Let me take you down. And after supper, will
you give me ten minutes' chat with you alone in the library!"
She looked up eagerly, with a flush of pink in her cheeks.
"Of course I will! With pleasure!"
"Thank you!" And he drew her white-gloved hand through his arm. "I am
leaving town next week, and I have something important to say to you
before I go. You will allow me to say it privately?"
She smiled assent, and leaned on his arm with a light, confiding
pressure, to which he no more responded than if his muscles had been
rigid iron. Her heart beat quickly with a sense of gratified vanity and
exultant expectancy,--but his throbbed slowly and heavily, chilled by
the double frost of age and solitude.
CHAPTER III
To see people eating is understood to be a very interesting and
"brilliant" spectacle, and however insignificant you may be in the
social world, you get a reflex of its "brilliancy" when you allow people
in their turn to see you eating likewise. A well-cooked, well-served
supper is a "function," in which every man and woman who can move a jaw
takes part, and though in plain parlance there is nothing uglier than
the act of putting food into one's mouth, we have persuaded ourselves
that it is a pretty and pleasant performance enough for us to ask our
friends to see us do it. Byron's idea that human beings should eat
privately and apart, was not altogether without aesthetic justification,
though according to medical authority such a procedure would be very
injurious to health. The slow mastication of a meal in the presence of
cheerful company is said to promote healthy digestion--moreover, custom
and habit make even the most incongruous things acceptable, therefore
the display of tables, crowded with food-stuffs and surrounded by
eating, drinking, chattering and perspiring men and women, does not
affect us to any sense of the ridiculous or the unseemly. On the
contrary, when some of us see such tables, we exclaim "How lovely!" or
"How delightful!" according to our own pet vocabulary, or to our
knowledge of the humour of our host or hostess,--or perhaps, if we are
young cynics, tired of life before we have confronted one of its
problems, we murmur, "Not so bad!" or "Fairly decent!" when we are
introduced to the costly and appetising delicacies heaped up round
masses of flowers and silver for our consideration and entertainment. At
the supper given by David Helmsley for Lucy Sorrel's twenty-first
birthday, there was, however, no note of dissatisfaction--the _blase_
breath of the callow critic emitted no withering blight, and even
latter-day satirists in their teens, frosted like tender pease-blossom
before their prime, condescended to approve the lavish generosity,
combined with the perfect taste, which made the festive scene a glowing
picture of luxury and elegance. But Helmsley himself, as he led his
beautiful partner, "the" guest of the evening, to the head of the
principal table, and took his place beside her, was conscious of no
personal pleasure, but only of a dreary feeling which seemed lonelier
than loneliness and more sorrowful than sorrow. The wearied scorn that
he had lately begun to entertain for himself, his wealth, his business,
his influence, and all his surroundings, was embittered by a
disappointment none the less keen because he had dimly foreseen it. The
child he had petted, the girl he had indulged after the fashion of a
father who seeks to make the world pleasant to a young life just
entering it, she, even she, was, or seemed to be, practically as selfish
as any experienced member of the particular set of schemers and
intriguers who compose what is sometimes called "society" in the present
day. He had no wish to judge her harshly, but he was too old and knew
too much of life to be easily deceived in his estimation of character. A
very slight hint was sufficient for him. He had seen a great deal of
Lucy Sorrel as a child--she had always been known as his "little
favourite"--but since she had attended a fashionable school at Brighton,
his visits to her home had been less frequent, and he had had very few
opportunities of becoming acquainted with the gradual development of her
mental and moral self. During her holidays he had given her as many
little social pleasures and gaieties as he had considered might be
acceptable to her taste and age, but on these occasions other persons
had always been present, and Lucy herself had worn what are called
"company" manners, which in her case were singularly charming and
attractive, so much so, indeed, that it would have seemed like heresy to
question their sincerity. But now--whether it was the slight hint
dropped by Sir Francis Vesey on the previous night as to Mrs. Sorrel's
match-making proclivities, or whether it was a scarcely perceptible
suggestion of something more flippant and assertive than usual in the
air and bearing of Lucy herself that had awakened his suspicions,--he
was certainly disposed to doubt, for the first time in all his knowledge
of her, the candid nature of the girl for whom he had hitherto
entertained, half-unconsciously, an almost parental affection. He sat by
her side at supper, seldom speaking, but always closely observant. He
saw everything; he watched the bright, exulting flash of her eyes as she
glanced at her various friends, both near her and at a distance, and he
fancied he detected in their responsive looks a subtle inquiry and
meaning which he would not allow himself to investigate. And while the
bubbling talk and laughter eddied round him, he made up his mind to
combat the lurking distrust that teased his brain, and either to
disperse it altogether or else confirm it beyond all mere shadowy
misgiving. Some such thought as this had occurred to him, albeit
vaguely, when he had, on a sudden unpremeditated impulse, asked Lucy to
give him a few minutes' private conversation with her after supper, but
now, what had previously been a mere idea formulated itself into a fixed
resolve.
"For what, after all, does it matter to me?" he mused. "Why should I
hesitate to destroy a dream? Why should I care if another rainbow bubble
of life breaks and disappears? I am too old to have ideals--so most
people would tell me. And yet--with the grave open and ready to receive
me,--I still believe that love and truth and purity surely exist in
women's hearts--if one could only know just where to find the women!"
"Dear King David!" murmured a cooing voice at his ear. "Won't you drink
my health?"
He started as from a reverie. Lucy Sorrel was bending towards him, her
face glowing with gratified vanity and self-elation.
"Of course!" he answered, and rising to his feet, he lifted his glass
full of as yet untasted champagne, at which action on his part the
murmur of voices suddenly ceased sand all eyes were turned upon him.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, in his soft, tired voice,--"I beg to
propose the health of Miss Lucy Sorrel! She has lived twenty-one years
on this interesting old planet of ours, and has found it, so far, not
altogether without charm. I have had seventy years of it, and strange as
it may seem to you all, I am able to keep a few of the illusions and
delusions I had when I was even younger than our charming guest of the
evening. I still believe in good women! I think I have one sitting at my
right hand to-night. I take for granted that her nature is as fair as
her face; and I hope that every recurring anniversary of this day may
bring her just as much happiness as she deserves. I ask you to drink to
her health, wealth, and prosperity; and--may she soon find a good
husband!"
Applause and laughter followed this conventional little speech, and the
toast was honoured in the usual way, Lucy bowing and smiling her thanks
to all present. And then there ensued one of those strange
impressions--one might almost call them telepathic instead of
atmospheric effects--which, subtly penetrating the air, exerted an
inexplicable influence on the mind;--the expectancy of some word never
to be uttered,--the waiting for some incident never to take place.
People murmured and smiled, and looked and laughed, but there was an
evident embarrassment among them,--an under-sense of something like
disappointment. The fortunately commonplace and methodical habits of
waiters, whose one idea is to keep their patrons busy eating and
drinking, gradually overcame this insidious restraint, and the supper
went on gaily till at one o'clock the Hungarian band again began to
play, and all the young people, eager for their "extras" in the way of
dances, quickly rose from the various tables and began to crowd out
towards the ballroom. In the general dispersal, Lucy having left him for
a partner to whom she had promised the first "extra," Helmsley stopped
to speak to one or two men well known to him in the business world. He
was still conversing with these when Mrs. Sorrel, not perceiving him in
the corner where he stood apart with his friend, trotted past him with
an agitated step and flushed countenance, and catching her daughter by
the skirt of her dress as that young lady moved on with the pushing
throng in front of her, held her back for a second.
"What have you done?" she demanded querulously, in not too soft a tone.
"Were you careful? Did you manage him properly? What did he say to you?"
Lucy's beautiful face hardened, and her lips met in a thin, decidedly
bad-tempered line.
"He said nothing to the purpose," she replied coldly. "There was no
time. But"--and she lowered her voice--"he wants to speak to me alone
presently. I'm going to him in the library after this dance."
She passed on, and Mrs. Sorrel, heaving a deep sigh, drew out a black
pocket-fan and fanned herself vigorously. Wreathing her face with social
smiles, she made her way slowly out of the supper-room, happily unaware
that Helmsley had been near enough to hear every word that had passed.
And hearing, he had understood; but he went on talking to his friends
in the quiet, rather slow way which was habitual to him, and when he
left them there was nothing about him to indicate that he was in a
suppressed state of nervous excitement which made him for the moment
quite forget that he was an old man. Impetuous youth itself never felt a
keener blaze of vitality in the veins than he did at that moment, but it
was the withering heat of indignation that warmed him--not the tender
glow of love. The clarion sweetness of the dance-music, now pealing
loudly on the air, irritated his nerves,--the lights, the flowers, the
brilliancy of the whole scene jarred upon his soul,--what was it all but
sham, he thought!--a show in the mere name of friendship!--an ephemeral
rose of pleasure with a worm at its core! Impatiently he shook himself
free of those who sought to detain him and went at once to his
library,--a sombre, darkly-furnished apartment, large enough to seem
gloomy by contrast with the gaiety and cheerfulness which were dominant
throughout the rest of the house that evening. Only two or three shaded
lamps were lit, and these cast a ghostly flicker on the row of books
that lined the walls. A few names in raised letters of gold relief upon
the backs of some of the volumes, asserted themselves, or so he fancied,
with unaccustomed prominence. "Montaigne," "Seneca," "Rochefoucauld,"
"Goethe," "Byron," and "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare," stood forth
from the surrounding darkness as though demanding special notice.
"Voices of the dead!" he murmured half aloud. "I should have learned
wisdom from you all long ago! What have the great geniuses of the world
lived for? For what purpose did they use their brains and pens? Simply
to teach mankind the folly of too much faith! Yet we continue to delude
ourselves--and the worst of it is that we do it wilfully and knowingly.
We are perfectly aware that when we trust, we shall be deceived--yet we
trust on! Even I--old and frail and about to die--cannot rid myself of a
belief in God, and in the ultimate happiness of each man's destiny. And
yet, so far as my own experience serves me, I have nothing to go
upon--absolutely nothing!"
He gave an unconscious gesture--half of scorn, half of despair--and
paced the room slowly up and down. A life of toil--a life rounding into
worldly success, but blank of all love and heart's comfort--was this to
be the only conclusion to his career? Of what use, then, was it to have
lived at all?
"People talk foolishly of a 'declining birth-rate,'" he went on; "yet
if, according to the modern scientist, all civilisations are only so
much output of wasted human energy, doomed to pass into utter oblivion,
and human beings only live but to die and there an end, of what avail is
it to be born at all? Surely it is but wanton cruelty to take upon
ourselves the responsibility of continuing a race whose only
consummation is rottenness in unremembered graves!"
At that moment the door opened and Lucy Sorrel entered softly, with a
pretty air of hesitating timidity which became her style of beauty
excellently well. As he looked up and saw her standing half shyly on the
threshold, a white, light, radiant figure expressing exquisitely fresh
youth, grace and--innocence?--yes! surely that wondrous charm which hung
about her like a delicate atmosphere redolent with the perfume of
spring, could only be the mystic exhalation of a pure mind adding
spiritual lustre to the material attraction of a perfect body,--his
heart misgave him. Already he was full of remorse lest so much as a
passing thought in his brain might have done her unmerited wrong. He
advanced to meet her, and his voice was full of kindness as he said:--
"Is your dance quite over, Lucy? Are you sure I am not selfishly
depriving you of pleasure by asking you to come away from all your young
friends just to talk to me for a few minutes in this dull room?"
She raised her beautiful eyes confidingly.
"Dear Mr. Helmsley, there can be no greater pleasure for me than to talk
to you!" she answered sweetly.
His expression changed and hardened. "That's not true," he thought; "and
_she_ knows it, and _I_ know it." Aloud he said: "Very prettily spoken,
Lucy! But I am aware of my own tediousness and I won't detain you long.
Will you sit down?" and he offered her an easy-chair, into which she
sank with the soft slow grace of a nestling bird. "I only want to say
just a few words,--such as your father might say to you if he were so
inclined--about your future."
She gave him a swift glance of keen inquiry.
"My future?" she echoed.
"Yes. Have you thought of it at all yourself?"
She heaved a little sigh, smiled, and shook her head in the negative.
"I'm afraid I'm very silly," she confessed plaintively. "I never think!"
He drew up another armchair and sat down opposite to her.
"Well, try to do so now for five minutes at least," he said, gently. "I
am going away to-morrow or next day for a considerable time----"
A quick flush flew over her face.
"Going away!" she exclaimed. "But--not far?"
"That depends on my own whim," he replied, watching her attentively. "I
shall certainly be absent from England for a year, perhaps longer. But,
Lucy,--you were such a little pet of mine in your childhood that I
cannot help taking an interest in you now you are grown up. That is, I
think, quite natural. And I should like to feel that you have some good
and safe idea of your own happiness in life before I leave you."
She stared,--her face fell.
"I have no ideas at all," she answered after a pause, the corners of her
red mouth drooping in petulant, spoilt-child fashion, "and if you go
away I shall have no pleasures either!"
He smiled.
"I'm sorry you take it that way," he said. "But I'm nearing the end of
my tether, Lucy, and increasing age makes me restless. I want change of
scene--and change of surroundings. I am thoroughly tired of my present
condition."
"Tired?" and her eyes expressed whole volumes of amazement. "Not really?
_You_--tired of your present condition? With all your money?"
"With all my money!" he answered drily, "Money is not the elixir of
happiness, Lucy, though many people seem to think it is. But I prefer
not to talk about myself. Let me speak of you. What do you propose to do
with your life? You will marry, of course?"
"I--I suppose so," she faltered.
"Is there any one you specially favour?--any young fellow who loves you,
or whom you are inclined to love--and who wants a start in the world? If
there is, send him to me, and, if he has anything in him, I'll make
myself answerable for his prosperity."
She looked up with a cold, bright steadfastness.
"There is no one," she said. "Dear Mr. Helmsley, you are very good, but
I assure you I have never fallen in love in my life. As I told you
before supper, I don't believe in that kind of nonsense. And I--I want
nothing. Of course I know my father and mother are poor, and that they
have kept up a sort of position which ranks them among the 'shabby
genteel,'--and I suppose if I don't marry quickly I shall have to do
something for a living----"
She broke off, embarrassed by the keenness of the gaze he fixed upon
her.
"Many good, many beautiful, many delicate women 'do something,' as you
put it, for a living," he said slowly. "But the fight is always fierce,
and the end is sometimes bitter. It is better for a woman that she
should be safeguarded by a husband's care and tenderness than that she
should attempt to face the world alone."
A flashing smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.
"Why, yes, I quite agree with you," she retorted playfully. "But if no
husband come forward, then it cannot be helped!"
He rose, and, pushing away his chair, walked up and down in silence.
She watched him with a sense of growing irritability, and her heart beat
with uncomfortable quickness. Why did he seem to hesitate so long?
Presently he stopped in his slow movement to and fro, and stood looking
down upon her with a fixed intensity which vaguely troubled her.
"It is difficult to advise," he said, "and it is still more difficult to
control. In your case I have no right to do either. I am an old man, and
you are a very young woman. You are beginning your life,--I am ending
mine. Yet, young as you are, you say with apparent sincerity that you do
not believe in love. Now I, though I have loved and lost, though I have
loved and have been cruelly deceived in love, still believe that if the
true, heavenly passion be fully and faithfully experienced, it must
prove the chief joy, if not the only one, of life. You think otherwise,
and perhaps you correctly express the opinion of the younger generation
of men and women. These appear to crowd more emotion and excitement into
their lives than ever was attained or attainable in the lives of their
forefathers, but they do not, or so it seems to me, secure for
themselves as much peace of mind and satisfaction of soul as were the
inheritance of bygone folk whom we now call 'old-fashioned.' Still, you
may be right in depreciating the power of love--from your point of view.
All the same, I should be sorry to see you entering into a loveless
marriage."
For a moment she was silent, then she suddenly plunged into speech.
"Dear Mr. Helmsley, do you really think all the silly sentiment talked
and written about love is any good in marriage? We know so much
nowadays,--and the disillusion of matrimony is so _very_ complete! One
has only to read the divorce cases in the newspapers to see what
mistakes people make----"
He winced as though he had been stung.
"Do you read the divorce cases, Lucy?" he asked. "You--a mere girl like
you?"
She looked surprised at the regret and pain in his tone.
"Why, of course! One _must_ read the papers to keep up with all the
things that are going on. And the divorce cases have always such
startling headings,--in such big print!--one is obliged to read
them--positively obliged!"
She laughed carelessly, and settled herself more cosily in her chair.
"You nearly always find that it is the people who were desperately in
love with each other before marriage who behave disgracefully and are
perfectly sick of each other afterwards," she went on. "They wanted
perpetual poetry and moonlight, and of course they find they can't have
it. Now, I don't want poetry or moonlight,--I hate both! Poetry makes me
sleepy, and moonlight gives me neuralgia. I should like a husband who
would be a _friend_ to me--a real kind friend!--some one who would be
able to take care of me, and be nice to me always--some one much older
than myself, who was wise and strong and clever----"
"And rich," said Helmsley quietly. "Don't forget that! Very rich!"
She glanced at him furtively, conscious of a slight nervous qualm. Then,
rapidly reviewing the situation in her shallow brain, she accepted his
remark smilingly.
"Oh, well, of course!" she said. "It's not pleasant to live without
plenty of money."
He turned from her abruptly, and resumed his leisurely walk to and fro,
much to her inward vexation. He was becoming fidgety, she decided,--old
people were really very trying! Suddenly, with the air of a man arriving
at an important decision, he sat down again in the armchair opposite her
own, and leaning indolently back against the cushion, surveyed her with
a calm, critical, entirely businesslike manner, much as he would have
looked at a Jew company-promoter, who sought his aid to float a "bogus"
scheme.
"It's not pleasant to live without plenty of money, you think," he said,
repeating her last words slowly. "Well! The pleasantest time of my life
was when I did not own a penny in the bank, and when I had to be very
sharp in order to earn enough for my day's dinner. There was a zest, a
delight, a fine glory in the mere effort to live that brought out the
strength of every quality I possessed. I learned to know myself, which
is a farther reaching wisdom than is found in knowing others. I had
ideals then,--and--old as I am, I have them still."
He paused. She was silent. Her eyes were lowered, and she played idly
with her painted fan.
"I wonder if it would surprise you," he went on, "to know that I have
made an ideal of _you_?"
She looked up with a smile.
"Really? Have you? I'm afraid I shall prove a disappointment!"
He did not answer by the obvious compliment which she felt she had a
right to expect. He kept his gaze fixed steadily on her face, and his
shaggy eyebrows almost met in the deep hollow which painful thought had
ploughed along his forehead.
"I have made," he said, "an ideal in my mind of the little child who sat
on my knee, played with my watch-chain and laughed at me when I called
her my little sweetheart. She was perfectly candid in her laughter,--she
knew it was absurd for an old man to have a child as his sweetheart. I
loved to hear her laugh so,--because she was true to herself, and to her
right and natural instincts. She was the prettiest and sweetest child I
ever saw,--full of innocent dreams and harmless gaiety. She began to
grow up, and I saw less and less of her, till gradually I lost the child
and found the woman. But I believe in the child's heart still--I think
that the truth and simplicity of the child's soul are still in the
womanly nature,--and in that way, Lucy, I yet hold you as an ideal."
Her breath quickened a little.
"You think too kindly of me," she murmured, furling and unfurling her
fan slowly; "I'm not at all clever."
He gave a slight deprecatory gesture.
"Cleverness is not what I expect or have ever expected of you," he said.
"You have not as yet had to endure the misrepresentation and wrong which
frequently make women clever,--the life of solitude and despised dreams
which moves a woman to put on man's armour and sally forth to fight the
world and conquer it, or else die in the attempt. How few conquer, and
how many die, are matters of history. Be glad you are not a clever
woman, Lucy!--for genius in a woman is the mystic laurel of Apollo
springing from the soft breast of Daphne. It hurts in the growing, and
sometimes breaks the heart from which it grows."
She answered nothing. He was talking in a way she did not
understand,--his allusion to Apollo and Daphne was completely beyond
her. She smothered a tiny yawn and wondered why he was so tedious.
Moreover, she was conscious of some slight chagrin, for though she said,
out of mere social hypocrisy, that she was not clever, she thought
herself exceptionally so. Why could he not admit her abilities as
readily as she herself admitted them?
"No, you are not clever," he resumed quietly. "And I am glad you are
not. You are good and pure and true,--these graces outweigh all
cleverness."
Her cheeks flushed prettily,--she thought of a girl who had been her
schoolmate at Brighton, one of the boldest little hussies that ever
flashed eyes to the light of day, yet who could assume the dainty
simpering air of maiden--modest perfection at the moment's notice. She
wished she could do the same, but she had not studied the trick
carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a
little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley
watched her attentively--almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of
perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He
settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the
tips of his fingers together, looked at her over this pointed rampart
of polished nails as though she were something altogether curious and
remarkable.
"The virtues of a woman are her wealth and worth," he said
sententiously, as though he were quoting a maxim out of a child's
copybook. "A jewel's price is not so much for its size and weight as for
its particular lustre. But common commercial people--like myself--even
if they have the good fortune to find a diamond likely to surpass all
others in the market, are never content till they have tested it. Every
Jew bites his coin. And I am something of a Jew. I like to know the
exact value of what I esteem as precious. And so I test it."
"Yes?" She threw in this interjected query simply because she did not
know what to say. She thought he was talking very oddly, and wondered
whether he was quite sane.
"Yes," he echoed; "I test it. And, Lucy, I think so highly of you, and
esteem you as so very fair a pearl of womanhood, that I am inclined to
test you just as I would a priceless gem. Do you object?"
She glanced up at him flutteringly, vaguely surprised. The corners of
his mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile, and she was reassured.
"Object? Of course not! As if I should object to anything you wish!" she
said amiably. "But--I don't quite understand----"
"No, possibly not," he interrupted; "I know I have not the art of making
myself very clear in matters which deeply and personally affect myself.
I have nerves still, and some remnant of a heart,--these occasionally
trouble me----"
She leaned forward and put her delicately gloved hand on his.
"Dear King David!" she murmured. "You are always so good!"
He took the little fingers in his own clasp and held them gently.
"I want to ask you a question, Lucy," he said; "and it is a very
difficult question, because I feel that your answer to it may mean a
great sorrow for me,--a great disappointment. The question is the 'test'
I speak of. Shall I put it to you?"
"Please do!" she answered, her heart beginning to beat violently. He
was coming to the point at last, she thought, and a few words more would
surely make her the future mistress of the Helmsley millions! "If I can
answer it I will!"
"Shall I ask you my question, or shall I not?" he went on, gripping her
hand hard, and half raising himself in his chair as he looked intently
at her telltale face. "For it means more than you can realise. It is an
audacious, impudent question, Lucy,--one that no man of my age ought to
ask any woman,--one that is likely to offend you very much!"
She withdrew her hand from his.
"Offend me?" and her eyes widened with a blank wonder. "What can it be?"
"Ah! What can it be! Think of all the most audacious and impudent things
a man--an old man--could say to a young woman! Suppose,--it is only
supposition, remember,--suppose, for instance, I were to ask you to
marry me?"
A smile, brilliant and exultant, flashed over her features,--she almost
laughed out her inward joy.
"I should accept you at once!" she said.
With sudden impetuosity he rose, and pushing away his chair, drew
himself up to his full height, looking down upon her.
"You would!" and his voice was low and tense. "_You!_--you would
actually marry me?"
She, rising likewise, confronted him in all her fresh and youthful
beauty, fair and smiling, her bosom heaving and her eyes dilating with
eagerness.
"I would,--indeed I would!" she averred delightedly. "I would rather
marry you than any man in the world!"
There was a moment's silence. Then--
"Why?" he asked.
The simple monosyllabic query completely confused her. It was
unexpected, and she was at her wit's end how to reply to it. Moreover,
he kept his eyes so pertinaciously fixed upon her that she felt her
blood rising to her cheeks and brow in a hot flush of--shame? Oh
no!--not shame, but merely petulant vexation. The proper way for him to
behave at this juncture, so she reflected, would be that he should take
her tenderly in his arms and murmur, after the penny-dreadful style of
elderly hero, "My darling, my darling! Can you, so young and beautiful,
really care for an old fogey like me?'" to which she would, of course,
have replied in the same fashion, and with the most charming
insincerity--"Dearest! Do not talk of age! You will never be old to my
fond heart!" But to stand, as he was standing, like a rigid figure of
bronze, with a hard pale face in which only the eyes seemed living, and
to merely ask "Why" she would rather marry him than any other man in the
world, was absurd, to say the least of it, and indeed quite lacking in
all delicacy of sentiment. She sought about in her mind for some way out
of the difficulty and could find none. She grew more and more painfully
crimson, and wished she could cry. A well worked-up passion of tears
would have come in very usefully just then, but somehow she could not
turn the passion on. And a horrid sense of incompetency and failure
began to steal over her--an awful foreboding of defeat. What could she
do to seize the slippery opportunity and grasp the doubtful prize? How
could she land the big golden fish which she foolishly fancied she had
at the end of her line? Never had she felt so helpless or so angry.
"Why?" he repeated--"Why would you marry me? Not for love certainly.
Even if you believed in love--which you say you do not,--you could not
at your age love a man at mine. That would be impossible and unnatural.
I am old enough to be your grandfather. Think again, Lucy! Perhaps you
spoke hastily--- out of girlish thoughtlessness--or out of kindness and
a wish to please me,--but do not, in so serious a matter, consider me at
all. Consider yourself. Consider your own nature and temperament--your
own life--your own future--your own happiness. Would you, young as you
are, with all the world before you--would you, if I asked you,
deliberately and of your own free will, marry me?"
She drew a sharp breath, and hurriedly wondered what was best to do. He
spoke so strangely!--he looked so oddly! But that might be because he
was in love with her! Her lips parted,--she faced him straightly,
lifting her head with a little air of something like defiance.
"I would!--of course I would!" she replied. "Nothing could make me
happier!"
He gave a kind of gesture with his hands as though he threw aside some
cherished object.
"So vanishes my last illusion!" he said. "Well! Let it go!"
She gazed at him stupidly. What did he mean? Why did he not now emulate
the penny-dreadful heroes and say "My darling!" Nothing seemed further
from his thoughts. His eyes rested upon her with a coldness such as she
had never seen in them before, and his features hardened.
"I should have known the modern world and modern education better," he
went on, speaking more to himself than to her. "I have had experience
enough. I should never have allowed myself to keep even the shred of a
belief in woman's honesty!"
She started, and flamed into a heat of protest.
"Mr. Helmsley!"
He raised a deprecatory hand.
"Pardon me!" he said wearily--"I am an old man, accustomed to express
myself bluntly. Even if I vex you, I fear I shall not know how to
apologise. I had thought----"
He broke off, then with an effort resumed--
"I had thought, Lucy, that you were above all bribery and corruption."
"Bribery?--Corruption?" she stammered, and in a tremor of excitement and
perturbation her fan dropped from her hands to the floor. He stooped for
it with the ease and grace of a far younger man, and returned it to her.
"Yes, bribery and corruption," he continued quietly. "The bribery of
wealth--the corruption of position. These are the sole objects for which
(if I asked you, which I have not done) you would marry me. For there is
nothing else I have to offer you. I could not give you the sentiment or
passion of a husband (if husbands ever have sentiment or passion
nowadays), because all such feeling is dead in me. I could not be your
'friend' in marriage--because I should always remember that our
matrimonial 'friendship' was merely one of cash supply and demand. You
see I speak very plainly. I am not a polite person--not even a
Conventional one. I am too old to tell lies. Lying is never a profitable
business in youth--but in age it is pure waste of time and energy. With
one foot in the grave it is as well to keep the other from slipping."
He paused. She tried to say something, but could find no suitable words
with which to answer him. He looked at her steadily, half expecting her
to speak, and there was both pain and sorrow in the depths of his tired
eyes.
"I need not prolong this conversation," he said, after a minute's
silence. "For it must be as embarrassing to you as it is to me. It is
quite my own fault that I built too many hopes upon you, Lucy! I set you
up on a pedestal and you have yourself stepped down from it--I have put
you to the test, and you have failed. I daresay the failure is as much
the concern of your parents and the way in which they have brought you
up, as it is of any latent weakness in your own mind and character.
But,--if, when I suggested such an absurd and unnatural proposition as
marriage between myself arid you, you had at once, like a true woman,
gently and firmly repudiated the idea, then----"
"Then--what?" she faltered.
"Why, then I should have made you my sole heiress," he said quietly.
Her eyes opened in blank wonderment and despair. Was it possible! Had
she been so near her golden El Dorado only to see the shining shores
receding, and the glittering harbour closed! Oh, it was cruel! Horrible!
There was a convulsive catch in her throat which she managed to turn
into the laugh hysterical.
"Really!" she ejaculated, with a poor attempt at flippancy; and, in her
turn, she asked the question, "Why?"
"Because I should have known you were honest," answered Helmsley, with
emphasis. "Honest to your womanly instincts, and to the simplest and
purest part of your nature. I should have proved for myself the fact
that you refused to sell your beautiful person for gold--that you were
no slave in the world's auction-mart, but a free, proud, noble-hearted
English girl who meant to be faithful to all that was highest and best
in her soul. Ah, Lucy! You are not this little dream-girl of mine! You
are a very realistic modern woman with whom a man's 'ideal' has nothing
in common!"
She was silent, half-stifled with rage. He stepped up to her and took
her hand.
"Good-night, Lucy! Good-bye!"
She wrenched her fingers from his clasp, and a sudden, uncontrollable
fury possessed her.
"I hate you!" she said between her set teeth. "You are mean! Mean! I
hate you!"
He stood quite still, gravely irresponsive.
"You have deceived me--cheated me!" she went on, angrily and recklessly.
"You made me think you wanted to marry me."
The corners of his mouth went up under his ashen-grey moustache in a
chill smile.
"Pardon me!" he interrupted. "But did I make you think? or did you think
it of your own accord?"
She plucked at her fan nervously.
"Any girl--I don't care who she is--would accept you if you asked her to
marry you!" she said hotly. "It would be perfectly idiotic to refuse
such a rich man, even if he were Methusaleh himself. There's nothing
wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having plenty of money, if it
is offered."
He looked at her, vaguely compassionating her loss of self-control.
"No, there is nothing wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having
plenty of money, if such a chance can be had without shame and
dishonour," he said. "But I, personally, should consider a woman
hopelessly lost to every sense of self-respect, if at the age of
twenty-one she consented to marry a man of seventy for the sake of his
wealth. And I should equally consider the man of seventy a disgrace to
the name of manhood if he condoned the voluntary sale of such a woman by
becoming her purchaser."
She lifted her head with a haughty air.
"Then, if you thought these things, you had no right to propose to me!"
she said passionately.
He was faintly amused.
"I did not propose to you, Lucy," he answered, "and I never intended to
do so! I merely asked what your answer would be if I did."
"It comes to the same thing!" she muttered.
"Pardon me, not quite! I told you I was putting you to a test. That you
failed to stand my test is the conclusion of the whole affair. We really
need say no more about it. The matter is finished."
She bit her lips vexedly, then forced a hard smile.
"It's about time it was finished, I'm sure!" she said carelessly. "I'm
perfectly tired out!"
"No doubt you are--you must be--I was forgetting how late it is," and
with ceremonious politeness he opened the door for her to pass. "You
have had an exhausting evening! Forgive me for any pain or
vexation--or--or anger I may have caused you--and, good-night, Lucy! God
bless you!"
He held out his hand. He looked worn and wan, and his face showed
pitiful marks of fatigue, loneliness, and sorrow, but the girl was too
much incensed by her own disappointment to forgive him for the
unexpected trial to which he had submitted her disposition and
character.
"Good-night!" she said curtly, avoiding his glance. "I suppose
everybody's gone by this time; mother will be waiting for me."
"Won't you shake hands?" he pleaded gently. "I'm sorry that I expected
more of you than you could give, Lucy! but I want you to be happy, and I
think and hope you will be, if you let the best part of you have its
way. Still, it may happen that I shall never see you again--so let us
part friends!"
She raised her eyes, hardened now in their expression by intense
malignity and spite, and fixed them fully upon him.
"I don't want to be friends with you any more!" she said. "You are cruel
and selfish, and you have treated me abominably! I am sure you will die
miserably, without a soul to care for you! And I hope--yes, I hope I
shall never hear of you, never see you any more as long as you live! You
could never have really had the least bit of affection for me when I was
a child."
He interrupted her by a quick, stern gesture.
"That child is dead! Do not speak of her!"
Something in his aspect awed her--something of the mute despair and
solitude of a man who has lost his last hope on earth, shadowed his
pallid features as with a forecast of approaching dissolution.
Involuntarily she trembled, and felt cold; her head drooped;--for a
moment her conscience pricked her, reminding her how she had schemed and
plotted and planned to become the wife of this sad, frail old man ever
since she had reached the mature age of sixteen,--for a moment she was
impelled to make a clean confession of her own egotism, and to ask his
pardon for having, under the tuition of her mother, made him the
unconscious pivot of all her worldly ambitions,--then, with a sudden
impetuous movement, she swept past him without a word, and ran
downstairs.
There she found half the evening's guests gone, and the other half well
on the move. Some of these glanced at her inquiringly, with "nods and
becks and wreathed smiles," but she paid no heed to any of them. Her
mother came eagerly up to her, anxiety purpling every vein of her
mottled countenance, but no word did she utter, till, having put on
their cloaks, the two waited together on the steps of the mansion, with
flunkeys on either side, for the hired brougham to bowl up in as
_un_-hired a style as was possible at the price of one guinea for the
night's outing.
"Where is Mr. Helmsley?" then asked Mrs. Sorrel.
"In his own room, I believe," replied Lucy, frigidly.
"Isn't he coming to see you into the carriage and say good-night?"
"Why should he?" demanded the girl, peremptorily.
Mrs. Sorrel became visibly agitated. She glanced at the impassive
flunkeys nervously.
"O my dear!" she whimpered softly, "what's the matter? Has anything
happened?"
At that moment the expected vehicle lumbered up with a very creditable
clatter of well-assumed importance. The flunkeys relaxed their formal
attitudes and hastened to assist both mother and daughter into its
somewhat stuffy recess. Another moment and they were driven off, Lucy
looking out of the window at the numerous lights which twinkled from
every story of the stately building they had just left, till the last
bright point of luminance had vanished. Then the strain on her mind gave
way--and to Mrs. Sorrel's alarm and amazement, she suddenly burst into a
stormy passion of tears.
"It's all over!" she sobbed angrily, "all over! I've lost him! I've lost
everything!"
Mrs. Sorrel gave a kind of weasel cry and clasped her fat hands
convulsively.
"Oh, you little fool!" she burst out, "what have you done?"
Thus violently adjured, Lucy, with angry gasps of spite and
disappointment, related in full the maddening, the eccentric, the
altogether incomprehensible and inexcusable conduct of the famous
millionaire, "old Gold-dust," towards her beautiful, outraged, and
injured self. Her mother sat listening in a kind of frozen horror which
might possibly have become rigid, had it not been for the occasional
bumping of the hired brougham over ruts and loose stones, which bumping
shook her superfluous flesh into agitated bosom-waves.
"I ought to have guessed it! I ought to have followed my own instinct!"
she said, in sepulchral tones. "It came to me like a flash, when I was
talking to him this evening! I said to myself, 'he is in a moral mood.'
And he was. Nothing is so hopeless, so dreadful! If I had only thought
he would carry on that mood with you, I would have warned you! You could
have held off a little--it would perhaps have been the wiser course."
"I should think it would indeed!" cried Lucy, dabbing her eyes with her
scented handkerchief; "He would have left me every penny he has in the
world if I had refused him! He told me so as coolly as possible!"
Mrs. Sorrel sank back with a groan.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" she wailed feebly. "Can nothing be done?"
"Nothing!" And Lucy, now worked up to hysterical pitch, felt as if she
could break the windows, beat her mother, or do anything else equally
reckless and irresponsible. "I shall be left to myself now,--he will
never ask me to his house again, never give me any parties or drives or
opera-boxes or jewels,--he will never come to see me, and I shall have
no pleasure at all! I shall sink into a dowdy, frowsy, shabby-genteel
old maid for the rest of my life! It is _detestable_!" and she uttered a
suppressed small shriek on the word, "It has been a hateful, abominable
birthday! Everybody will be laughing at me up their sleeves! Think of
Lady Larford!"
This suggestion was too dreadful for comment, and Mrs. Sorrel closed her
eyes, visibly shuddering.
"Who would have thought it possible!" she moaned drearily, "a
millionaire, with such mad ideas! I _had_ thought him always such a
sensible man! And he seemed to admire you so much! What will he do with
all his money?"
The fair Lucy sighed, sobbed, and swallowed her tears into silence. And
again, like the doubtful refrain of a song in a bad dream, her mother
moaned and murmured--
"What will he do with all his money!"
CHAPTER IV
Two or three days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private
office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or
trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice
detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formulae preliminary to an
impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and
had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,--signs that his
mind was wandering somewhat from the point at issue. He was a
conscientious man, but he was getting old, and the disputations of
obstinate or foolish clients were becoming troublesome to him. Moreover,
the case concerning which his clerk was prosing along in the style of a
chapel demagogue engaged in extemporary prayer, was an extremely
uninteresting one, and he thought hazily of his lunch. The hour for that
meal was approaching,--a fact for which he was devoutly thankful. For
after lunch, he gave himself his own release from work for the rest of
the day. He left it all to his subordinates, and to his partner Symonds,
who was some eight or ten years his junior. He glanced at the clock, and
beat a tattoo with his foot on the floor, conscious of his inward
impatience with the reiterated "Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the
so-and-so," which echoed dully on the otherwise unbroken silence. It was
a warm, sunshiny morning, but the brightness of the outer air was poorly
reflected in the stuffy room, which though comfortably and even
luxuriously furnished, conveyed the usual sense of dismal depression
common to London precincts of the law. Two or three flies buzzed
irritably now and then against the smoke-begrimed windowpanes, and the
clerk's dreary preamble went on and on till Sir Francis closed his eyes
and wondered whether a small "catnap" would be possible between the
sections of the seeming interminable document. Suddenly, to his relief,
there came a sharp tap at the door, and an office boy looked in.
"Mr. Helmsley's man, sir," he announced. "Wants to see you personally."
Sir Francis got up from his chair with alacrity.
"All right! Show him in."
The boy retired, and presently reappearing, ushered in a staid-looking
personage in black who, saluting Sir Francis respectfully, handed him a
letter marked "Confidential."
"Nice day, Benson," remarked the lawyer cheerfully, as he took the
missive. "Is your master quite well?"
"Perfectly well, Sir Francis, thank you," replied Benson. "Leastways he
was when I saw him off just now."
"Oh! He's gone then?"
"Yes, Sir Francis. He's gone."
Sir Francis broke the seal of the letter,--then bethinking himself of
"Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the so-and-so," turned to his worn
and jaded clerk.
"That will do for the present," he said. "You can go."
With pleasing haste the clerk put together the voluminous folios of blue
paper from which he had been reading, and quickly made his exit, while
Sir Francis, still standing, put on his glasses and unfolded the one
sheet of note-paper on which Helmsley's communication was written.
Glancing it up and down, he turned it over and over--then addressed
himself to the attentively waiting Benson.
"So Mr. Helmsley has started on his trip alone?"
"Yes, Sir Francis. Quite alone."
"Did he say where he was going?"
"He booked for Southhampton, sir."
"Oh!"
"And," proceeded Benson, "he only took one portmanteau."
"Oh!" again ejaculated the lawyer. And, stroking his bearded chin, he
thought awhile.
"Are you going to stay at Carlton House Terrace till he comes back?"
"I have a month's holiday, sir. Then I return to my place. The same
order applies to all the servants, sir."
"I see! Well!"
And then there came a pause.
"I suppose," said Sir Francis, after some minutes' reflection, "I
suppose you know that during Mr. Helmsley's absence you are to apply to
me for wages and household expenses--that, in fact, your master has
placed me in charge of all his affairs?"
"So I have understood, sir," replied Benson, deferentially. "Mr.
Helmsley called us all into his room last night and told us so."
"Oh, he did, did he? But, of course, as a man of business, he would
leave nothing incomplete. Now, supposing Mr. Helmsley is away more than
a month, I will call or send to the house at stated intervals to see how
things are getting on, and arrange any matters that may need
arranging"--here he glanced at the letter in his hand--"as your master
requests. And--if you want anything--or wish to know any news,--you can
always call here and inquire."
"Thank you, Sir Francis."
"I'm sorry,"--and the lawyer's shrewd yet kindly eyes looked somewhat
troubled--"I'm very sorry that my old friend hasn't taken you with him,
Benson."
Benson caught the ring of sympathetic interest in his voice and at once
responded to it.
"Well, sir, so am I!" he said heartily. "For Mr. Helmsley's over
seventy, and he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be by a long
way. He ought to have some one with him. But he wouldn't hear of my
going. He can be right down obstinate if he likes, you know, sir, though
he is one of the best gentlemen to work for that ever lived. But he will
have his own way, and, bad or good, he takes it."
"Quite true!" murmured Sir Francis meditatively. "Very true!"
A silence fell between them.
"You say he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be," began Vesey
again, presently. "Surely he's wonderfully alert and active for his time
of life?"
"Why, yes, sir, he's active enough, but it's all effort and nerve with
him now. He makes up his mind like, and determines to be strong, in
spite of being weak. Only six months ago the doctor told him to be
careful, as his heart wasn't quite up to the mark."
"Ah!" ejaculated Sir Francis ruefully. "And did the doctor recommend any
special treatment?"
"Yes, sir. Change of air and complete rest."
The lawyer's countenance cleared.
"Then you may depend upon it that's why he has gone away by himself,
Benson," he said. "He wants change of air, rest, and different
surroundings. And as he won't have letters forwarded, and doesn't give
any future address, I shouldn't wonder if he starts off yachting
somewhere----"
"Oh, no, sir, I don't think so," interposed Benson, "The yacht's in the
dry dock, and I know he hasn't given any orders to have her got ready."
"Well, well, if he wants change and rest, he's wise to put a distance
between himself and his business affairs"--and Sir Francis here looked
round for his hat and walking-stick. "Take me, for example! Why, I'm a
different man when I leave this office and go home to lunch! I'm going
now. I don't think--I really don't think there is any cause for
uneasiness, Benson. Your master will let us know if there's anything
wrong with him."
"Oh, yes, sir, he'll be sure to do that. He said he would telegraph for
me if he wanted me."
"Good! Now, if you get any news of him before I do, or if you are
anxious that I should attend to any special matter, you'll always find
me here till one o'clock. You know my private address?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's all right. And when I go down to my country place for the
summer, you can come there whenever your business is urgent. I'll settle
all expenses with you."
"Thank you, Sir Francis. Good-day!"
"Good-day! A pleasant holiday to you!"
Benson bowed his respectful thanks again, and retired.
Sir Francis Vesey, left alone, took his hat and gazed abstractedly into
its silk-lined crown before putting it on his head. Then setting it
aside, he drew Helmsley's letter from his pocket and read it through
again. It ran as follows:--
"MY DEAR VESEY,--I had some rather bad news on the night of Miss
Lucy Sorrel's birthday party. A certain speculation in which I had
an interest has failed, and I have lost on the whole 'gamble.' The
matter will not, however, affect my financial position. You have all
your instructions in order as given to you when we last met, so I
shall leave town with an easy mind. I am likely to be away for some
time, and am not yet certain of my destination. Consider me,
therefore, for the present as lost. Should I die suddenly, or at
sickly leisure, I carry a letter on my person which will be conveyed
to you, making you acquainted with the sad (?) event as soon as it
occurs. And for all your kindly services in the way of both business
and friendship, I owe you a vast debt of thanks, which debt shall be
fully and gratefully acknowledged,--_when I make my Will_. I may
possibly employ another lawyer than yourself for this purpose. But,
for the immediate time, all my affairs are in your hands, as they
have been for these twenty years or more. My business goes on as
usual, of course; it is a wheel so well accustomed to regular motion
that it can very well grind for a while without my personal
supervision. And so far as my individual self is concerned, I feel
the imperative necessity of rest and freedom. I go to find these,
even if I lose myself in the endeavour. So farewell! And as
old-fashioned folks used to say--'God be with you!' If there be any
meaning in the phrase, it is conveyed to you in all sincerity by
your old friend,
"DAVID HELMSLEY."
"Cryptic, positively cryptic!" murmured Sir Francis, as he folded up the
letter and put it by. "There's no clue to anything anywhere. What does
he mean by a bad speculation?--a loss 'on the whole gamble'? I know--or
at least I thought I knew--every number on which he had put his money.
It won't affect his financial position, he says. I should think not! It
would take a bigger Colossus than that of Rhodes to overshadow Helmsley
in the market! But he's got some queer notion in his mind,--some scheme
for finding an heir to his millions,--I'm sure he has! A fit of romance
has seized him late in life,--he wants to be loved for himself
alone,--which, of course, at his age, is absurd! No one loves old
people, except, perhaps (in very rare cases), their children,--if the
children are not hopelessly given over to self and the hour, which they
generally are." He sighed, and his brows contracted. He had a
spendthrift son and a "rapid" daughter, and he knew well enough how
little he could depend upon them for either affection or respect.
"Old age is regarded as a sort of crime nowadays," he continued,
apostrophising the dingy walls of his office, as he took his
walking-stick and prepared to leave the premises--"thanks to the
donkey-journalism of the period which brays down everything that is not
like itself--mere froth and scum. And unlike our great classic teachers
who held that old age was honourable and deserved the highest place in
the senate, the present generation affects to consider a man well on the
way to dotage after forty. God bless me!--what fools there are in this
twentieth century!--what blatant idiots! Imagine national affairs
carried on in the country by its young men! The Empire would soon became
a mere football for general kicking! However, there's one thing in this
Helmsley business that I'm glad of"--and his eyes twinkled--"I believe
the Sorrels have lost their game! Positively, I think Miss Lucy has
broken her line, and that the fish has gone _without_ her hook in its
mouth! Old as he is, David is not too old to outwit a woman! I gave him
a hint, just the slightest hint in the world,--and I think he's taken
it. Anyhow, he's gone,--booked for Southampton. And from Southampton a
man can 'ship himself all aboard of a ship,' like Lord Bateman in the
ballad, and go anywhere. Anywhere, yes!--but in this case I wonder where
he will go? Possibly to America--yet no!--I think not!" And Sir Francis,
descending his office stairs, went out into the broad sunshine which
flooded the city streets, continuing his inward reverie as he
walked,--"I think not. From what he said the other night, I fancy not
even the haunting memory of 'ole Virginny' will draw him back _there_.
'Consider me as lost,' he says. An odd notion! David Helmsley, one of
the richest men in the whole of two continents, wishes to lose himself!
Impossible! He's a marked multi-millionaire,--branded with the golden
sign of unlimited wealth, and as well known as a London terminus! If he
were 'lost' to-day, he'd be found to-morrow. As matters stand I daresay
he'll turn up all fight in a month's time and I need not worry my head
any more about him!"
With this determination Sir Francis went home to luncheon, and after
luncheon duly appeared driving in the Park with Lady Vesey, like the
attentive and obliging husband he ever was, despite the boredom which
the "Row" and the "Ladies' Mile" invariably inflicted upon him,--yet
every now and then before him there rose a mental image of his old
friend "King David,"--grey, sad-eyed, and lonely--flitting past like
some phantom in a dream, and wandering far away from the crowded vortex
of London life, where his name was as honey to a swarm of bees, into
some dim unreachable region of shadow and silence, with the brief
farewell:
"Consider me as lost!"
CHAPTER V
Among the many wild and lovely tangles of foliage and flower which
Nature and her subject man succeed in working out together after
considerable conflict and argument, one of the most beautiful and
luxuriant is a Somersetshire lane. Narrow and tortuous, fortified on
either side with high banks of rough turf, topped by garlands of
climbing wild-rose, bunches of corn-cockles and tufts of meadow-sweet,
such a lane in midsummer is one of beauty's ways through the world,--a
path, which if it lead to no more important goal than a tiny village or
solitary farm, is, to the dreamer and poet, sufficiently entrancing in
itself to seem a fairy road to fairyland. Here and there some grand elm
or beech tree, whose roots have hugged the soil for more than a century,
spreads out broad protecting branches all a-shimmer with green
leaves,--between the uneven tufts of grass, the dainty "ragged robin"
sprays its rose-pink blossoms contrastingly against masses of snowy
star-wort and wild strawberry,--the hedges lean close together, as
though accustomed to conceal the shy confidences of young lovers,--and
from the fields beyond, the glad singing of countless skylarks, soaring
one after the other into the clear pure air, strikes a wave of repeated
melody from point to point of the visible sky. All among the delicate or
deep indentures of the coast, where the ocean creeps softly inland with
a caressing murmur, or scoops out caverns for itself among the rocks
with perpetual roar and dash of foam, the glamour of the green
extends,--the "lane runs down to meet the sea, carrying with it its
garlands of blossoms, its branches of verdure, and all the odour and
freshness of the woodlands and meadows, and when at last it drops to a
conclusion in some little sandy bay or sparkling weir, it leaves an
impression of melody on the soul like the echo of a sweet song just
sweetly sung. High up the lanes run;--low down on the shoreline they
come to an end,--and the wayfarer, pacing along at the summit of their
devious windings, can hear the plash of the sea below him as he
walks,--the little tender laughing plash if the winds are calm and the
day is fair,--the angry thud and boom of the billows if a storm is
rising. These bye-roads, of which there are so many along the
Somersetshire coast, are often very lonely,--they are dangerous to
traffic, as no two ordinary sized vehicles can pass each other
conveniently within so narrow a compass,--and in summer especially they
are haunted by gypsies, "pea-pickers," and ill-favoured men and women of
the "tramp" species, slouching along across country from Bristol to
Minehead, and so over Countisbury Hill into Devon. One such
questionable-looking individual there was, who,--in a golden afternoon
of July, when the sun was beginning to decline towards the west,--paused
in his slow march through the dust, which even in the greenest of hill
and woodland ways is bound to accumulate thickly after a fortnight's
lack of rain,--and with a sigh of fatigue, sat down at the foot of a
tree to rest. He was an old man, with a thin weary face which was
rendered more gaunt and haggard-looking by a ragged grey moustache and
ugly stubble beard of some ten days' growth, and his attire suggested
that he might possibly be a labourer dismissed from farm work for the
heinous crime of old age, and therefore "on the tramp" looking out for a
job. He wore a soft slouched felt hat, very much out of shape and
weather-stained,--and when he had been seated for a few minutes in a
kind of apathy of lassitude, he lifted the hat off, passing his hand
through his abundant rough white hair in a slow tired way, as though by
this movement he sought to soothe some teasing pain.
"I think," he murmured, addressing himself to a tiny brown bird which
had alighted on a branch of briar-rose hard by, and was looking at him
with bold and lively inquisitiveness,--"I think I have managed the whole
thing very well! I have left no clue anywhere. My portmanteau will tell
no tales, locked up in the cloak-room at Bristol. If it is ever sold
with its contents 'to defray expenses,' nothing will be found in it but
some unmarked clothes. And so far as all those who know me are
concerned, every trace of me ends at Southampton. Beyond Southampton
there is a blank, into which David Helmsley, the millionaire, has
vanished. And David Helmsley, the tramp, sits here in his place!"
The little brown bird preened its wing, and glanced at him sideways
intelligently, as much as to say: "I quite understand! You have become
one of us,--a wanderer, taking no thought for the morrow, but letting
to-morrow take thought for the things of itself. There is a bond of
sympathy between me, the bird, and you, the man--we are brothers!"
A sudden smile illumined his face. The situation was novel, and to him
enjoyable. He was greatly fatigued,--he had over-exerted himself during
the past three or four days, walking much further than he had ever been
accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely--nevertheless, with the sense
of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit,
like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is
defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the
rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new"
experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the
"social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as
empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly
profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of
finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had
exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which
ended in a loathing of the thing gained. Others might and would consume
themselves in fevers of avarice, and surfeits of luxury,--but for him
such temporary pleasures were past. He desired a complete change,--a
change of surroundings, a change of associations--and for this, what
could be more excellent or more wholesome than a taste of poverty? In
his time he had met men who, worn out with the constant fight of the
body's materialism against the soul's idealism, had turned their backs
for ever on the world and its glittering shows, and had shut themselves
up as monks of "enclosed" or "silent" orders,--others he had known, who,
rushing away from what we call civilisation, had encamped in the
backwoods of America, or high up among the Rocky Mountains, and had
lived the lives of primeval savages in their strong craving to assert a
greater manliness than the streets of cities would allow them to
enjoy,--and all were moved by the same mainspring of action,--the
overpowering spiritual demand within themselves which urged them to
break loose from cowardly conventions and escape from Sham. He could not
compete with younger men in taking up wild sport and "big game" hunting
in far lands, in order to give free play to the natural savage
temperament which lies untamed at the root of every man's individual
being,--and he had no liking for "monastic" immurements. But he longed
for liberty,--liberty to go where he liked without his movements being
watched and commented upon by a degraded "personal" press,--liberty to
speak as he felt and do as he wished, without being compelled to weigh
his words, or to consider his actions. Hence--he had decided on his
present course, though how that course was likely to shape itself in its
progress he had no very distinct idea. His actual plan was to walk to
Cornwall, and there find out the native home of his parents, not so much
for sentiment's sake as for the necessity of having a definite object or
goal in view. And the reason of his determination to go "on the road,"
as it were, was simply that he wished to test for himself the actual
happiness or misery experienced by the very poor as contrasted with the
supposed joys of the very wealthy. This scheme had been working in his
brain for the past year or more,--all his business arrangements had been
made in such a way as to enable him to carry it out satisfactorily to
himself without taking any one else into his confidence. The only thing
that might possibly have deterred him from his quixotic undertaking
would have been the moral triumph of Lucy Sorrel over the temptation he
had held out to her. Had she been honest to her better womanhood,--had
she still possessed the "child's heart," with which his remembrance and
imagination had endowed her, he would have resigned every other thought
save that of so smoothing the path of life for her that she might tread
it easily to the end. But now that she had disappointed him, he had, so
he told himself, done with fine illusions and fair beliefs for ever. And
he had started on a lonely quest,--a search for something vague and
intangible, the very nature of which he himself could not tell. Some
glimmering ghost of a notion lurked in his mind that perhaps, during his
self-imposed solitary ramblings, he might find some new and unexplored
channel wherein his vast wealth might flow to good purpose after his
death, without the trammels of Committee-ism and Red-Tape-ism. But he
expected and formulated nothing,--he was more or less in a state of
quiescence, awaiting adventures without either hope or fear. In the
meantime, here he sat in the shady Somersetshire lane, resting,--the
multi-millionaire whose very name shook the money-markets of the world,
but who to all present appearances seemed no more than a tramp, footing
it wearily along one of the many winding "short cuts" through the
country between Somerset and Devon, and as unlike the actual self of him
as known to Lombard Street and the Stock Exchange as a beggar is unlike
a king.
"After all, it's quite as interesting as 'big game' shooting!" he said,
the smile still lingering in his eyes. "I am after 'sport,'--in a novel
fashion! I am on the lookout for new specimens of men and women,--real
honest ones! I may find them,--I may not,--but the search will surely
prove at least as instructive and profitable as if one went out to the
Arctic regions for the purpose of killing innocent polar bears! Change
and excitement are what every one craves for nowadays--I'm getting as
much as I want--in my own way!"
He thought over the whole situation, and reviewed with a certain sense
of interest and amusement his method of action since he left London.
Benson, his valet, had packed his portmanteau, according to orders, with
everything that was necessary for a short sea trip, and then had seen
him off at the station for Southampton,--and to Southampton he had gone.
Arrived there, he had proceeded to a hotel, where, under an assumed
name, he had stayed the night. The next day he had left Southampton for
Salisbury by train, and there staying another night, had left again for
Bath and Bristol. On the latter journey he had "tipped" the guard
heavily to keep his first-class compartment reserved to himself. This
had been done; and the train being an express, stopping at very few
stations, he had found leisure and opportunity to unpack his portmanteau
and cut away every mark on his linen and other garments which could give
the slightest clue to their possessor. When he had removed all possible
trace of his identity on or in this one piece of luggage, he packed it
up again, and on reaching Bristol, took it to the station's cloak-room,
and there deposited it with the stated intention of calling back for it
at the hour of the next train to London. This done, he stepped forth
untrammelled, a free man. He had with him five hundred pounds in
banknotes, and for a day or so was content to remain in Bristol at one
of the best hotels, under an assumed name as before, while privately
making such other preparations for his intended long "tramp" as he
thought necessary. In one of the poorest quarters of the town he
purchased a few second-hand garments such as might be worn by an
ordinary day-labourer, saying to the dealer that he wanted to "rig out"
a man who had just left hospital and who was going in for "field" work.
The dealer saw nothing either remarkable or suspicious in this seemingly
benevolent act of a kindly-looking well-dressed old gentleman, and sent
him the articles he had purchased done up in a neat package and
addressed to him at his hotel, by the name he had for the time assumed.
When he left the hotel for good, he did so with nothing more than this
neat package, which he carried easily in one hand by a loop of string.
And so he began his journey, walking steadily for two or three
hours,--then pausing to rest awhile,--and after rest, going on again.
Once out of Bristol he was glad, and at certain lonely places, when the
shadows of night fell, he changed all his garments one by one till he
stood transformed as now he was. The clothes he was compelled to discard
he got rid of by leaving them in unlikely holes and corners on the
road,--as for example, at one place he filled the pockets of his good
broadcloth coat with stones and dropped it into the bottom of an old
disused well. The curious sense of guilt he felt when he performed this
innocent act surprised as well as amused him.
"It is exactly as if I had murdered somebody and had sunk a body into
the well instead of a coat!" he said--"and--perhaps I have! Perhaps I am
killing my Self,--getting rid of my Self,--which would be a good thing,
if I could only find Some one or Some thing better than my Self in my
Self's place!"
When he had finally disposed of every article that could suggest any
possibility of his ever having been clothed as a gentleman, he unripped
the lining of his rough "workman's" vest, and made a layer of the
banknotes he had with him between it and the cloth, stitching it
securely over and over with coarse needle and thread, being satisfied by
this arrangement to carry all his immediate cash hidden upon his person,
while for the daily needs of hunger and thirst he had a few loose
shillings and coppers in his pocket. He had made up his mind not to
touch a single one of the banknotes, unless suddenly overtaken by
accident or illness. When his bit of silver and copper came to an end,
he meant to beg alms along the road and prove for himself how far it
was true that human beings were in the main kind and compassionate, and
ready to assist one another in the battle of life. With these ideas and
many others in his mind, he started on his "tramp"--and during the first
two or three days of it suffered acutely. Many years had passed since he
had been accustomed to long sustained bodily exercise, and he was
therefore easily fatigued. But by the time he reached the open country
between the Quantocks and the Brendon Hills, he had got somewhat into
training, and had begun to feel a greater lightness and ease as well as
pleasure in walking. He had found it quite easy to live on very simple
food,--in fact one of the principal charms of the strange "holiday" he
had planned for his own entertainment was to prove for himself beyond
all dispute that no very large amount of money is required to sustain a
man's life and health. New milk and brown bread had kept him going
bravely every day,--fruit was cheap and so was cheese, and all these
articles of diet are highly nourishing, so that he had wanted for
nothing. At night, the weather keeping steadily fine and warm, he had
slept in the open, choosing some quiet nook in the woodland under a
tree, or else near a haystack in the fields, and he had benefited
greatly by thus breathing the pure air during slumber, and getting for
nothing the "cure" prescribed by certain Artful Dodgers of the medical
profession who take handfuls of guineas from credulous patients for what
Mother Nature willingly gives gratis. And he was beginning to understand
the joys of "loafing,"--so much so indeed that he felt a certain
sympathy with the lazy varlet who prefers to stroll aimlessly about the
country begging his bread rather than do a stroke of honest work. The
freedom of such a life is self-evident,--and freedom is the broadest and
best way of breathing on earth. To "tramp the road" seems to the
well-dressed, conventional human being a sorry life; but it may be
questioned whether, after all, he with his social trammels and household
cares, is not leading a sorrier one. Never in all his brilliant,
successful career till now had David Helmsley, that king of modern
finance, realised so intensely the beauty and peace of being alone with
Nature,--the joy of feeling the steady pulse of the Spirit of the
Universe throbbing through one's own veins and arteries,--the quiet yet
exultant sense of knowing instinctively beyond all formulated theory or
dogma, that one is a vital part of the immortal Entity, as
indestructible as Itself. And a great calm was gradually taking
possession of his soul,--a smoothing of all the waves of his emotional
and nervous temperament. Under this mystic touch of unseen and
uncomprehended heavenly tenderness, all sorrows, all disappointments,
all disillusions sank out of sight as though they had never been. It
seemed to him that he had put away his former life for ever, and that
another life had just begun,--and his brain was ready and eager to rid
itself of old impressions in order to prepare for new. Nothing of much
moment had occurred to him as yet. A few persons had said "good-day " or
"good-night" to him in passing,--a farmer had asked him to hold his
horse for a quarter of an hour, which he had done, and had thereby
earned threepence,--but he had met with no interesting or exciting
incidents which could come under the head of "adventures." Nevertheless
he was gathering fresh experiences,--experiences which all tended to
show him how the best and brightest part of life is foolishly wasted and
squandered by the modern world in a mad rush for gain.
"So very little money really suffices for health, contentment, and
harmless pleasure!" he thought. "The secret of our growing social
mischief does not lie with the natural order of created things, but
solely with ourselves. We will not set any reasonable limit to our
desires. If we would, we might live longer and be far happier!"
He stretched out his limbs easefully, and dropped into a reclining
posture. The tree he had chosen to rest under was a mighty elm, whose
broad branches, thick with leaves, formed a deep green canopy through
which the sunbeams filtered in flecks and darts of gold. A constant
twittering of birds resounded within this dome of foliage, and a thrush
whistled melodious phrases from one of the highest boughs. At his feet
was spread a carpet of long soft moss, interspersed with wild thyme and
groups of delicate harebells, and the rippling of a tiny stream into a
hollow cavity of stones made pleasant and soothing music. Charmed with
the tranquillity and loveliness of his surroundings, he determined to
stay here for a couple of hours, reading, and perhaps sleeping, before
resuming his journey. He had in his pocket a shilling edition of Keats's
poems which he had bought in Bristol by way of a silent companion to his
thoughts, and he took it out and opened it now, reading and re-reading
some of the lines most dear and familiar to him, when, as a boy, he had
elected this poet, so wickedly done to death ere his prime by
commonplace critics, as one of his chief favourites among the highest
Singers. And his lips, half-murmuring, followed the verse which tells of
that
"untrodden region of the mind,
Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind;
Far, far around shall these dark clustered trees,
Fledge the wild ridged mountains steep by steep,
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds and bees,
The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness,
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,
With buds and bells and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight,
That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!"
A slight sigh escaped him.
"How perfect is that stanza!" he said. "How I used to believe in all it
suggested! And how, when I was a young man, my heart was like that
'casement ope at night, to let the warm Love in!' But Love never
came,--only a spurious will-o'-the-wisp imitation of Love. I wonder if
many people in this world are not equally deceived with myself in their
conceptions of this divine passion? All the poets and romancists may be
wrong,--and Lucy Sorrel, with her hard materialism encasing her youth
like a suit of steel armour, may be right. Boys and girls 'love,' so
they say,--men and women 'love' and marry--and with marriage, the
wondrous light that led them on and dazzled them, seems, in nine cases
out of ten, to suddenly expire! Taking myself as an example, I cannot
say that actual marriage made me happy. It was a great disillusion; a
keen disappointment. The birth of my sons certainly gave me some
pleasure as well as latent hope, for as little children they were
lovable and lovely; but as boys--as men--what bitterness they brought
me! Were they the heirs of Love? Nay!--surely Love never generated such
callous hearts! They were the double reflex of their mother's nature,
grasping all and giving nothing. Is there no such virtue on earth as
pure unselfish Love?--love that gives itself freely, unasked, without
hope of advantage or reward--and without any personal motive lurking
behind its offered tenderness?"
He turned over the pages of the book he held, with a vague idea that
some consoling answer to his thoughts would flash out in a stray line or
stanza, like a beacon lighting up the darkness of a troubled sea. But no
such cheering word met his eyes. Keats is essentially the poet of the
young, and for the old he has no comfort. Sensuous, passionate, and
almost cloying in the excessive sweetness of his amorous muse, he offers
no support to the wearied spirit,--no sense of strength or renewal to
the fagged brain. He does not grapple with the hard problems of life;
and his mellifluous murmurings of delicious fantasies have no place in
the poignant griefs and keen regrets of those who have passed the
meridian of earthly hopes, and who see the shadows of the long night
closing in. And David Helmsley realised this all suddenly, with
something of a pang.
"I am too old for Keats," he said in a half-whisper to the leafy
branches that bowed their weight of soft green shelteringly over him.
"Too old! Too old for a poet in whose imaginative work I vised to take
such deep delight. There is something strange in this, for I cherished a
belief that fine poetry would fit every time and every age, and that no
matter how heavy the burden of years might be, I should always be able
to forget myself and my sorrows in a poet's immortal creations. But I
have left Keats behind me. He was with me in the sunshine,--he does not
follow me into the shade."
A cloud of melancholy darkened his worn features, and he slowly closed
the book. He felt that it was from henceforth a sealed letter. For him
the half-sad, half-scornful musings of Omar Khayyam were more fitting,
such as the lines that run thus:--
"Fair wheel of heaven, silvered with many a star,
Whose sickly arrows strike us from afar,
Never a purpose to my soul was dear,
But heaven crashed down my little dream to mar.
Never a bird within my sad heart sings
But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings;
O valiant wheel! O most courageous heaven,
To leave me lonely with the broken wings!"
tinging pain, as of tears that rose but would not fall, troubled his
eyes. He passed his hand across them, and leaned back against the sturdy
trunk of the elm which served him for the moment as a protecting haven
of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the clover, the soft
subdued twittering of the birds, and the laughing ripple of the little
stream hard by, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound which
lulled his senses to a drowsiness that gradually deepened into slumber.
He made a pathetic figure enough, lying fast asleep there among the
wilderness of green,--a frail and apparently very poor old man, adrift
and homeless, without a friend in the world. The sun sank, and a crimson
after-glow spread across the horizon from west to east, the rich colours
flung up from the centre of the golden orb merging by slow degrees into
that pure pearl-grey which marks the long and lovely summer twilight of
English skies. The air was very still, not so much as the rumble of a
distant cart wheel disturbing the silence. Presently, however, the slow
shuffle of hesitating footsteps sounded through the muffling thickness
of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little
rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and
honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a
prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and
dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging
together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might
expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a
large basket on his back, seemingly full of weeds,--the rope which
supported it was tied across his chest, and he clasped this rope with
both hands crossed in the middle, after the fashion of a praying monk.
Smoking a short black pipe, he trudged along, keeping his eyes fixed on
the ground with steady and almost surly persistence, till arriving at
the tree where Helmsley lay, he paused, and lifting his head stared long
and curiously at the sleeping man. Then, unclasping his hands, he
lowered his basket to the ground and set it down. Stealthily creeping
close up to Helmsley's side, he examined the prone figure from head to
foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on
the grass where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he
took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and
finger.
"Portry!" he ejaculated. "Glory be good to me! 'E's a reg'ler noddy
none-such! An' measly old enuff to know better!"
He threw the book on the grass again with a sniff of contempt. At that
moment Helmsley stirred, and opening his eyes fixed them full and
inquiringly on the lowering face above him.
"'Ullo, gaffer! Woke up, 'ave yer?" said the man gruffly. "Off yer lay?"
Helmsley raised himself on one elbow, looking a trifle dazed.
"Off my what?" he murmured. "I didn't quite hear you----?"
"Oh come, stow that!" said the man. "You dunno what I'm talkin' about;
that's plain as a pike. _You_ aint used to the road! Where d'ye come
from?"
"I've walked from Bristol," he answered--"And you're quite right,--I'm
not used to the road."
The man looked at him and his hard face softened. Pushing back his
tattered cap from his brows he showed his features more openly, and a
smile, half shrewd, half kindly, made them suddenly pleasant.
"Av coorse you're not!" he declared. "Glory be good to me! I've tramped
this bit o' road for years, an' never come across such a poor old
chuckle-headed gammer as you sleepin' under a tree afore! Readin' portry
an' droppin' to by-by over it! The larst man as iver I saw a' readin'
portry was what they called a 'Serious Sunday' man, an' 'e's doin' time
now in Portland."
Helmsley smiled. He was amused;--his "adventures," he thought, were
beginning. To be called "a poor old chuckle-headed gammer" was a new and
almost delightful experience.
"Portland's an oncommon friendly place," went on his uninvited
companion. "Once they gits ye, they likes ye to stop. 'Taint like the
fash'nable quality what says to their friends: 'Do-ee come an' stay wi'
me, loveys!' wishin' all the while as they wouldn't. Portland takes ye
willin', whether ye likes it or not, an' keeps ye so fond that ye can't
git away nohow. Oncommon 'ospitable Portland be!"
And he broke into a harsh laugh. Then he glanced at Helmsley again with
a more confiding and favourable eye.
"Ye seems a 'spectable sort," he said. "What's wrong wi' ye? Out o'
work?"
Helmsley nodded.
"Turned off, eh? Too old?"
"That's about it!" he answered.
"Well, ye do look a bit of a shivery-shake,--a kind o'
not-long-for-this-world," said the man. "Howsomiver, we'se be all
'elpless an' 'omeless soon, for the Lord hisself don't stop a man
growin' old, an' under the new ways o' the world, it's a reg'lar crime
to run past forty. I'm sixty, an' I gits my livin' my own way, axin'
nobody for the kind permission. _That's_ my fortin!"
And he pointed to the basket of weedy stuff which he had just set down.
Helmsley looked at it with some curiosity.
"What's in it?" he asked.
"What's in it? What's _not_ in it!" And the man gave a gesture of
mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their
guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe
no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An'
minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an'
seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an'
beast, Matthew Peke's got 'em all in there. An' Matthew Peke wouldn't be
the man he is, if he didn't know where to find 'em better'n any livin'
soul iver born! Ah!--an' there aint a toad in a hole hoppin' out between
Quantocks an' Cornwall as hasn't seen Matthew Peke gatherin' the
blessin' an' health o' the fields at rise o' sun an' set o' moon,
spring, summer, autumn, ay, an' even winter, all the year through!"
Helmsley became interested.
"And you are the man!" he said questioningly--"You are Matthew Peke?"
"I am! An' proud so ter be! An' you--'ave yer got a name for the
arskin'?"
"Why, certainly!" And Helmsley's pale face flushed. "My name is David."
"Chrisen name? Surname?"
"Both."
Matthew Peke shook his head.
"'Twon't fadge!" he declared. "It don't sound right. It's like th' owld
Bible an' the Book o' Kings where there's nowt but Jews; an' Jews is
the devil to pay wheriver you finds 'em!"
"I'm not a Jew," said Helmsley, smiling.
"Mebbe not--mebbe not--but yer name's awsome like it. An' if ye put it
short, like D. David, that's just Damn David an' nothin' plainer. Aint
it?"
Helmsley laughed.
"Exactly!" he said--"You're right! Damn David suits me down to the
ground!"
Peke looked at him dubiously, as one who is not quite sure of his man.
"You're a rum old sort!" he said; "an' I tell ye what it is--you're as
tired as a dog limpin' on three legs as has nipped his fourth in a
weasel-trap. Wheer are ye goin' on to?"
"I don't know," answered Helmsley--"I'm a stranger to this part of the
country. But I mean to tramp it to the nearest village. I slept out in
the open yesterday,--I think I'd like a shelter over me to-night."
"Got any o' the King's pictures about ye?" asked Peke.
Helmsley looked, as he felt, bewildered.
"The King's pictures?" he echoed--"You mean----?"
"This!" and Peke drew out of his tattered trouser pocket a dim and
blackened sixpence--"'Ere 'e is, as large as life, a bit bald about the
top o' 'is blessed old 'ead, Glory be good to 'im, but as useful as if
all 'is 'air was still a blowin' an' a growin'! Aint that the King's
picture, D. David? Don't it say 'Edwardus VII. D. G. Britt.,' which
means Edward the Seventh, thanks be to God Britain? Don't it?"
"It _do_!" replied Helmsley emphatically, taking a fantastic pleasure in
the bad grammar of his reply. "I've got a few more pictures of the same
kind," and he took out two or three loose shillings and pennies--"Can we
get a night's lodging about here for that?"
"Av coorse we can! I'll take ye to a place where ye'll be as welcome as
the flowers in May with Matt Peke interroducin' of ye. Two o' them
thank-God Britts in silver will set ye up wi' a plate o' wholesome food
an' a clean bed at the 'Trusty Man.' It's a pub, but Miss Tranter what
keeps it is an old maid, an' she's that proud o' the only 'Trusty Man'
she ever 'ad that she calls it an '_O_tel!"
He grinned good-humouredly at what he considered his own witticism
concerning the little weakness of Miss Tranter, and proceeded to
shoulder his basket.
"_You_ aint proud, are ye?" he said, as he turned his ferret-brown eyes
on Helmsley inquisitively.
Helmsley, who had, quite unconsciously to himself, drawn up his spare
figure in his old habitual way of standing very erect, with that
composed air of dignity and resolution which those who knew him
personally in business were well accustomed to, started at the question.
"Proud!" he exclaimed--"I? What have I to be proud of? I'm the most
miserable old fellow in the world, my friend! You may take my word for
that! There's not a soul that cares a button whether I live or die! I'm
seventy years of age--out of work, and utterly wretched and friendless!
Why the devil should _I_ be proud?"
"Well, if ye never was proud in yer life, ye can be now," said Peke
condescendingly, "for I tell ye plain an' true that if Matt Peke walks
with a tramp on this road, every one round the Quantocks knows as how
that tramp aint altogether a raskill! I've took ye up on trust as
'twere, likin' yer face for all that it's thin an' mopish,--an' steppin'
in wi' me to the 'Trusty Man' will mebbe give ye a character. Anyways,
I'll do my best for ye!"
"Thank you," said Helmsley simply.
Again Peke looked at him, and again seemed troubled. Then, stuffing his
pipe full of tobacco, he lit it and stuck it sideways between his teeth.
"Now come along!" he said. "You're main old, but ye must put yer best
foot foremost all the same. We've more'n an hour's trampin' up hill an'
down dale, an' the dew's beginnin' to fall. Keep goin' slow an'
steady--I'll give ye a hand."
For a moment Helmsley hesitated. This shaggy, rough, uncouth
herb-gatherer evidently regarded him as very feeble and helpless, and,
out of a latent kindliness of nature, wished to protect him and see him
to some safe shelter for the night. Nevertheless, he hated the position.
Old as he knew himself to be, he resented being pitied for his age,
while his mind was yet so vigorous and his heart felt still so warm and
young. Yet the commonplace fact remained that he was very tired,--very
worn out, and conscious that only a good rest would enable him to
continue his journey with comfort. Moreover, his experiences at the
"Trusty Man" might prove interesting. It was best to take what came in
his way, even though some episodes should possibly turn out less
pleasing than instructive. So putting aside all scruples, he started to
walk beside his ragged comrade of the road, finding, with some secret
satisfaction, that after a few paces his own step was light and easy
compared to the heavy shuffling movement with which Peke steadily
trudged along. Sweet and pungent odours of the field and woodland
floated from the basket of herbs as it swung slightly to and fro on its
bearer's shoulders, and amid the slowly darkening shadows of evening, a
star of sudden silver brilliance sparkled out in the sky.
"Yon's the first twinkler," said Peke, seeing it at once, though his
gaze was apparently fixed on the ground. "The love-star's allus up early
o' nights to give the men an' maids a chance!"
"Yes,--Venus is the evening star just now," rejoined Helmsley,
half-absently.
"Stow Venus! That's a reg'lar fool's name," said Peke surlily. "Where
did ye git it from? That aint no Venus,--that's just the love-star, an'
it'll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!"
Helmsley made no answer. He walked on patiently, his limbs trembling a
little with fatigue and nervous exhaustion. But Peke's words had started
the old dream of his life again into being,--the latent hope within him,
which though often half-killed, was not yet dead, flamed up like newly
kindled vital fire in his mind,--and he moved as in a dream, his eyes
fixed on the darkening heavens and the brightening star.
CHAPTER VI
They plodded on together side by side for some time in unbroken silence.
At last, after a short but stiff climb up a rough piece of road which
terminated in an eminence commanding a wide and uninterrupted view of
the surrounding country, they paused. The sea lay far below them, dimly
covered by the gathering darkness, and the long swish and roll of the
tide could be heard sweeping to and from the shore like the grave and
graduated rhythm of organ music.
"We'd best 'ave a bit of a jabber to keep us goin'," said Peke,
then--"Jabberin' do pass time, as the wimin can prove t' ye; an' arter
such a jumblegut lane as this, it'll seem less lonesome. We're off the
main road to towns an' sich like--this is a bye, an' 'ere it stops.
We'll 'ave to git over yon stile an' cross the fields--'taint an easy
nor clean way, but it's the best goin'. We'll see the lights o' the
'Trusty Man' just over the brow o' the next hill."
Helmsley drew a long breath, and sat down on a stone by the roadside.
Peke surveyed him critically.
"Poor old gaffer! Knocked all to pieces, aint ye! Not used to the road?
Glory be good to me! I should think ye wornt! Short in yer wind an' weak
on yer pins! I'd as soon see my old grandad trampin' it as you. Look
'ere! Will ye take a dram out o' this 'ere bottle?"
He held up the bottle he spoke of,--it was black, and untemptingly
dirty. Yet there was such a good-natured expression in the man's eyes,
and so much honest solicitude written on his rough bearded face, that
Helmsley felt it would be almost like insulting him to refuse his
invitation.
"Tell me what's in it first!" he said, smiling.
"'Taint whisky," said Peke. "And 'taint brandy neither. _Nor_ rum. _Nor_
gin. Nor none o' them vile stuffs which brewers makes as arterwards goes
to Parl'ment on the profits of 'avin' poisoned their consti_too_ants.
'Tis nowt but just yerb wine."
"Yerb wine? Wine made of herbs?"
"That's it! 'Erbs or yerbs--I aint pertikler which--I sez both.
This,"--and he shook the bottle he held vigorously--"is genuine yerb
wine--an' made as I makes it, what do the Wise One say of it? 'E
sez:--'It doth strengthen the heart of a man mightily, and refresheth
the brain; drunk fasting, it braceth up the sinews and maketh the old
feel young; it is of rare virtue to expel all evil humours, and if
princes should drink of it oft it would be but an ill service to the
world, as they might never die!'"
Peke recited these words slowly and laboriously; it was evident that he
had learned them by heart, and that the effort of remembering them
correctly was more or less painful to him.
Helmsley laughed, and stretched out his hand.
"Give it over here!" he said. "It's evidently just the stuff for me. How
much shall I take at one go?"
Peke uncorked the precious fluid with care, smelt it, and nodded
appreciatively.
"Swill it all if ye like," he remarked graciously. "'Twont hurt ye, an'
there's more where that came from. It's cheap enuff, too--nature don't
keep it back from no man. On'y there aint a many got sense enuff to
thank the Lord when it's offered."
As he thus talked, Helmsley took the bottle from him and tasted its
contents. The "yerb wine" was delicious. More grateful to his palate
than Chambertin or Clos Vougeot, it warmed and invigorated him, and he
took a long draught, Matthew Peke watching him drink it with great
satisfaction.
"Let the yerbs run through yer veins for two or three minits, an' ye'll
step across yon fields as light as a bird 'oppin' to its nest," he
declared. "Talk o' tonics,--there's more tonic in a handful o' green
stuff growin' as the Lord makes it to grow, than all the
purr-escriptions what's sent out o' them big 'ouses in 'Arley Street,
London, where the doctors sits from ten to two like spiders waitin' for
flies, an' gatherin' in the guineas for lookin' at fools' tongues. Glory
be good to me! If all the world were as sick as it's silly, there'd be
nowt wantin' to 't but a grave an' a shovel!"
Helmsley smiled, and taking another pull at the black bottle, declared
himself much better and ready to go on. He was certainly refreshed, and
the weary aching of his limbs which had made every step of the road
painful and difficult to him, was gradually passing off.
"You are very good to me," he said, as he returned the remainder of the
"yerb wine" to its owner. "I wonder why?"
Peke took a draught of his mixture before replying. Then corking the
bottle, he thrust it in his pocket.
"Ye wonders why?" And he uttered a sound between a grunt and a
chuckle--"Ye may do that! I wonders myself!"
And, giving his basket a hitch, he resumed his slow trudging movement
onward.
"You see," pursued Helmsley, keeping up the pace beside him, and
beginning to take pleasure in the conversation--"I may be anything or
anybody----"
"Ye may that," agreed Peke, his eyes fixed as usual on the ground. "Ye
may be a jail-bird or a missioner,--they'se much of a muchity, an' goes
on the road lookin' quite simple like, an' the simpler they seems the
deeper they is. White 'airs an' feeble legs 'elps 'em along
considerable,--nowt's better stock-in-trade than tremblin' shins. Or ye
might be a War-office neglect,--ye looks a bit set that way."
"What's a War-office neglect?" asked Helmsley, laughing.
"One o' them totterin' old chaps as was in the Light Brigade," answered
Peke. "There's no end to 'em. They'se all over every road in the
country. All of 'em fought wi' Lord Cardigan, an' all o' 'em's driven to
starve by an ungrateful Gov'ment. They won't be all dead an' gone till a
hundred years 'as rolled away, an' even then I shouldn't wonder if one
or two was still left on the tramp a-pipin' his little 'arf-a-league
onard tale o' woe to the first softy as forgits the date o' the battle."
Here he gave an inquisitive side-glance at his companion. "But you aint
quite o' the Balaclava make an' colour. Yer shoulders is millingterry,
but yer 'ead is business. Ye might be a gentleman if 'twornt for yer
clothes."
Helmsley heard this definition of himself without flinching.
"I might be a thief," he said--"or an escaped convict. You've been kind
to me without knowing whether I am one or the other, or both. And I want
to know why?"
Peke stopped in his walk. They had come to the stile over which the way
lay across the fields, and he rested himself and his basket for a moment
against it.
"Why?" he repeated,--then suddenly raising one hand, he whispered,
"Listen! Listen to the sea!"
The evening had now almost closed in, and all around them the country
lay dark and solitary, broken here and there by tall groups of trees
which at night looked like sable plumes, standing stiff and motionless
in the stirless summer air. Thousands of stars flashed out across this
blackness, throbbing in their orbits with a quick pulsation as of uneasy
hearts beating with nameless and ungratified longing. And through the
tense silence came floating a long, sweet, passionate cry,--a shivering
moan of pain that touched the edge of joy,--a song without words, of
pleading and of prayer, as of a lover, who, debarred from the possession
of the beloved, murmurs his mingled despair and hope to the
unsubstantial dream of his own tortured soul. The sea was calling to the
earth,--calling to her in phrases of eloquent and urgent
music,--caressing her pebbly shores with winding arms of foam, and
showering kisses of wild spray against her rocky bosom. "If I could come
to thee! If thou couldst come to me!" was the burden of the waves,--the
ceaseless craving of the finite for the infinite, which is, and ever
shall be, the great chorale of life. The shuddering sorrow of that low
rhythmic boom of the waters rising and falling fathoms deep under cliffs
which the darkness veiled from view, awoke echoes from the higher hills
around, and David Helmsley, lifting his eyes to the countless
planet-worlds sprinkled thick as flowers in the patch of sky immediately
above him, suddenly realised with a pang how near he was to death,--how
very near to that final drop into the unknown where the soul of man is
destined to find All or Nothing! He trembled,--not with fear,--but with
a kind of anger at himself for having wasted so much of his life. What
had he done, with all his toil and pains? He had gathered a multitude of
riches. Well, and then? Then,--why then, and now, he had found riches
but vain getting. Life and Death were still, as they have always been,
the two supreme Facts of the universe. Life, as ever, asserted itself
with an insistence demanding something far more enduring than the mere
possession of gold, and the power which gold brings. And Death presented
its unwelcome aspect in the same perpetual way as the Last Recorder who,
at the end of the day, closes up accounts with a sum-total paid exactly
in proportion to the work done. No more, and no less. And with Helmsley
these accounts were reaching a figure against which his whole nature
fiercely rebelled,--the figure of Nought, showing no value in his life's
efforts or its results. And the sound of the sea to-night in his ears
was more full of reproach than peace.
"When the water moans like that," said Peke softly, under his breath,
"it seems to me as if all the tongues of drowned sailors 'ad got into it
an' was beggin' of us not to forget 'em lyin' cold among the shells an'
weed. An' not only the tongues o' them seems a-speakin' an' a-cryin',
but all the stray bones o' them seems to rattle in the rattle o' the
foam. It goes through ye sharp, like a knife cuttin' a sour apple; an'
it's made me wonder many a time why we was all put 'ere to git drowned
or smashed or choked off or beat down somehows just when we don't expect
it. Howsomiver, the Wise One sez it's all right!"
"And who is the Wise One?" asked Helmsley, trying to rouse himself from
the heavy thoughts engendered in his mind by the wail of the sea.
"The Wise One was a man what wrote a book a 'underd years ago about
'erbs," said Peke. "'_The Way o' Long Life_,' it's called, an' my father
an' grandfather and great-grandfather afore 'em 'ad the book, an' I've
got it still, though I shows it to nobody, for nobody but me wouldn't
unnerstand it. My father taught me my letters from it, an' I could spell
it out when I was a kid--I've growed up on it, an' it's all I ever
reads. It's 'ere"--and he touched his ragged vest. "I trusts it to keep
me goin' 'ale an' 'arty till I'm ninety,--an' that's drawin' it mild,
for my father lived till a 'underd, an' then on'y went through slippin'
on a wet stone an' breakin' a bone in 'is back; an' my grandfather saw
'is larst Christmas at a 'underd an' ten, an' was up to kissin' a wench
under the mistletoe, 'e was sich a chirpin' old gamecock. 'E didn't look
no older'n you do now, an' you're a chicken compared to 'im. You've wore
badly like, not knowin' the use o' yerbs."
"That's it!" said Helmsley, now following his companion over the stile
and into the dark dewy fields beyond--"I need the advice of the Wise
One! Has he any remedy for old age, I wonder?"
"Ay, now there ye treads on my fav'rite corn!" and Peke shook his head
with a curious air of petulance. "That's what I'm a-lookin' for day an'
night, for the Wise One 'as got a bit in 'is book which 'e's cropped
out o' another Wise One's savin's,--a chap called Para-Cel-Sus"--and
Peke pronounced this name in three distinct and well-divided syllables.
"An this is what it is: 'Take the leaves of the Daura, which prevent
those who use it from dying for a hundred and twenty years. In the same
way the flower of the _secta croa_ brings a hundred years to those who
use it, whether they be of lesser or of longer age.' I've been on the
'unt for the 'Daura' iver since I was twenty, an' I've arskt ivery
'yerber I've ivir met for the 'Secta Croa,' an' all I've 'ad sed to me
is 'Go 'long wi' ye for a loony jackass! There aint no sich thing.' But
jackass or no, I'm of a mind to think there _is_ such things as both the
'Daura' an' the 'Secta Croa,' if I on'y knew the English of 'em. An'
s'posin' I ivir found 'em----"
"You would become that most envied creature of the present age,--a
millionaire," said Helmsley; "you could command your own terms for the
wonderful leaves,--you would cease to tramp the road or to gather herbs,
and you would live in luxury like a king!"
"Not I!"--and Peke gave a grunt of contempt. "Kings aint my notion of
'appiness nor 'onesty neither. They does things often for which some o'
the poor 'ud be put in quod, an' no mercy showed 'em, an' yet 'cos
they're kings they gits off. An' I aint great on millionaires neither.
They'se mis'able ricketty coves, all gone to pot in their in'ards
through grubbin' money an' eatin' of it like, till ivery other kind o'
food chokes 'em. There's a chymist in London what pays me five shillings
an ounce for a little green yerb I knows on, cos' it's the on'y med'cine
as keeps a millionaire customer of 'is a-goin'. I finds the yerb, an'
the chymist gits the credit. I gits five shillin', an' the chymist gits
a guinea. _That's_ all right! _I_ don't mind! I on'y gathers,--the
chymist, 'e's got to infuse the yerb, distil an' bottle it. I'm paid my
price, an 'e's paid 'is. All's fair in love an' war!"
He trudged on, his footsteps now rendered almost noiseless by the thick
grass on which he trod. The heavy dew sparkled on every blade, and here
and there the pale green twinkle of a glow-worm shone like a jewel
dropped from a lady's gown. Helmsley walked beside his companion at an
even pace,--the "yerb wine" had undoubtedly put strength in him and he
was almost unconscious of his former excessive fatigue. He was
interested in Peke's "jabber," and wondered, somewhat enviously, why
such a man as this, rough, ragged, and uneducated, should seem to
possess a contentment such as he had never known.
"Millionaires is gin'rally fools," continued Peke; "they buys all they
wants, an' then they aint got nothin' more to live for. They gits into
motor-cars an' scours the country, but they never sees it. They never
'ears the birds singin', an' they misses all the flowers. They never
smells the vi'lets nor the mayblossom--they on'y gits their own petrol
stench wi' the flavour o' the dust mixed in. Larst May I was a-walkin'
in the lanes o' Devon, an' down the 'ill comes a motor-car tearin' an'
scorchin' for all it was worth, an' bang went somethin' at the bottom o'
the thing, an' it stops suddint. Out jumps a French chauffy, parlyvooin'
to hisself, an' out jumps the man what owns it an' takes off his
goggles. 'This is Devonshire, my man?' sez 'e to me. 'It is,' I sez to
'im. An' then the cuckoo started callin' away over the trees. 'What's
that?' sez 'e lookin' startled like. 'That's the cuckoo,' sez I. An' he
takes off 'is 'at an' rubs 'is 'ead, which was a' fast goin' bald.
'Dear, dear me!' sez 'e--'I 'aven't 'eard the cuckoo since I was a boy!'
An' he rubs 'is 'ead again, an' laughs to hisself--'Not since I was a
boy!' 'e sez. 'An' that's the cuckoo, is it? Dear, dear me!' 'You
'aven't bin much in the country p'r'aps?' sez I. 'I'm always in the
country,' 'e sez--'I motor everywhere, but I've missed the cuckoo
somehow!' An' then the chauffy puts the machine right, an' he jumps in
an' gives me a shillin'. 'Thank-ye, my man!' sez 'e--'I'm glad you told
me 'twas a _real_ cuckoo!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er!" And Peke gave
vent to a laugh peculiarly his own. "Mebbe 'e thought I'd got a Swiss
clock with a sham cuckoo workin' it in my basket! 'I'm glad,' sez 'e,
'you told me 'twas a _real_ cuckoo!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er!"
The odd chuckling sounds of merriment which were slowly jerked forth as
it were from Peke's husky windpipe, were droll enough in themselves to
be somewhat infectious, and Helmsley laughed as he had not done for many
days.
"Ay, there's a mighty sight of tringum-trangums an' nonsense i' the
world," went on Peke, still occasionally giving vent to a suppressed
"Hor--er--hor"--"an' any amount o' Tom Conys what don't know a real
cuckoo from a sham un'. Glory be good to me! Think o' the numskulls as
goes in for pendlecitis! There's a fine name for ye! Pendlecitis!
Hor--er--hor! All the fash'nables 'as got it, an' all the doctors 'as
their knives sharpened an' ready to cut off the remains o' the tail we
'ad when we was all 'appy apes together! Hor--er--hor! An' the bit o'
tail 's curled up in our in'ards now where it ain't got no business to
be. Which shows as 'ow Natur' don't know 'ow to do it, seein' as if we
'adn't wanted a tail, she'd a' took it sheer off an' not left any
behind. But the doctors thinks they knows a darn sight better'n Natur',
an' they'll soon be givin' lessons in the makin' o' man to the Lord
A'mighty hisself! Hor--er--hor! Pendlecitis! That's a precious monkey's
tail, that there! In my grandfather's day we didn't 'ear 'bout no
monkey's tails,--'twas just a chill an' inflammation o' the in'ards, an'
a few yerbs made into a tea an' drunk 'ot fastin', cured it in
twenty-four hours. But they've so many new-fangled notions nowadays,
they've forgot all the old 'uns. There's the cancer illness,--people
goes off all over the country now from cancer as never used to in my
father's day, an' why? 'Cos they'se gittin' too wise for Nature's own
cure. Nobody thinks o' tryin' agrimony,--water agrimony--some calls it
water hemp an' bastard agrimony--'tis a thing that flowers in this month
an' the next,--a brown-yellow blossom on a purple stalk, an' ye find it
in cold places, in ponds an' ditches an' by runnin' waters. Make a drink
of it, an' it'll mend any cancer, if 'taint too far gone. An' a cancer
that's outside an' not in, 'ull clean away beautiful wi' the 'elp o' red
clover. Even the juice o' nettles, which is common enough, drunk three
times a day will kill any germ o' cancer, while it'll set up the blood
as fresh an' bright as iver. But who's a-goin' to try common stuff like
nettles an' clover an' water hemp, when there's doctors sittin' waitin'
wi' knives an' wantin' money for cuttin' up their patients an' 'urryin'
'em into kingdom-come afore their time! Glory be good to me! What wi'
doctors an' 'omes an' nusses, an' all the fuss as a sick man makes about
hisself in these days, I'd rather be as I am, Matt Peke, a-wanderin' by
hill an' dale, an' lyin' down peaceful to die under a tree when my times
comes, than take any part wi' the pulin' cowards as is afraid o' cold
an' fever an' wet feet an' the like, just as if they was poor little
shiverin' mice instead o' men. Take 'em all round, the wimin's the
bravest at bearin' pain,--they'll smile while they'se burnin' so as it
sha'n't ill-convenience anybody. Wonderful sufferers, is wimin!"
"Yet they are selfish enough sometimes," said Helmsley, quickly.
"Selfish? Wheer was ye born, D. David?" queried Peke--"An' what wimin
'ave ye know'd? Town or country?"
Helmsley was silent.
"Arsk no questions an' ye'll be told no lies!" commented Peke, with a
chuckle. "I sees! Ye've bin a gay old chunk in yer time, mebbe! An' it's
the wimin as goes in for gay old chunks as ye've made all yer larnin of.
But they ain't wimin--not as the country knows 'em. Country wimin works
all day an' as often as not dandles a babby all night,--they've not got
a minnit but what they aint a-troublin' an' a-worryin' 'bout 'usband or
childer, an' their faces is all writ over wi' the curse o' the garden of
Eden. Selfish? They aint got the time! Up at cock-crow, scrubbin' the
floors, washin' the babies, feedin' the fowls or the pigs, peelin' the
taters, makin' the pot boil, an' tryin' to make out 'ow twelve shillin's
an' sixpence a week can be made to buy a pound's worth o' food, trapsin'
to market, an' wonderin' whether the larst born in the cradle aint
somehow got into the fire while mother's away,--'opin' an' prayin' for
the Lord's sake as 'usband don't come 'ome blind drunk,--where's the
room for any selfishness in sich a life as that?--the life lived by
'undreds o' wimin all over this 'ere blessed free country? Get 'long wi'
ye, D. David! Old as y' are, ye 'ad a mother in yer time,--an' I'll take
my Gospel oath there was a bit o' good in 'er!"
Helmsley stopped abruptly in his walk.
"You are right, man!" he said, "And I am wrong! You know women better
than I do, and--you give me a lesson! One is never too old to
learn,"--and he smiled a rather pained smile. "But--I have had a bad
experience!"
"Well, if y'ave 'ad it ivir so bad, yer 'xperience aint every one's,"
retorted Peke. "If one fly gits into the soup, that don't argify that
the hull pot 's full of 'em. An' there's more good wimin than
bad--takin' 'em all round an' includin' 'op pickers, gypsies an' the
like. Even Miss Tranter aint wantin' in feelin', though she's a bit sour
like, owin' to 'avin missed a 'usband an' all the savin' worrity
wear-an-tear a 'usband brings, but she aint arf bad. Yon's the lamp of
'er 'Trusty Man' now."
A gleam of light, not much larger than the glitter of one of the
glow-worms in the grass, was just then visible at the end of the long
field they were traversing.
"That's an old cart-road down there wheer it stands," continued Peke.
"As bad a road as ivir was made, but it runs straight into Devonshire,
an' it's a good place for a pub. For many a year 'twornt used, bein' so
rough an' ready, but now there's such a crowd o' motors tearin, over
Countisbury 'Ill, the carts takes it, keepin' more to theirselves like,
an' savin' smashin'. Miss Tranter she knew what she was a-doin' of when
she got a licence an' opened 'er bizniss. 'Twas a ramshackle old
farm-'ouse, goin' all to pieces when she bought it an' put up 'er sign
o' the 'Trusty Man,' an' silly wenches round 'ere do say as 'ow it's
'aunted, owin' to the man as 'ad it afore Miss Tranter, bein' found dead
in 'is bed with 'is 'ands a-clutchin' a pack o' cards. An' the ace o'
spades--that's death--was turned uppermost. So they goes chatterin' an'
chitterin' as 'ow the old chap 'ad been playin' cards wi' the devil, an'
got a bad end. But Miss Tranter, she don't listen to maids'
gabble,--she's doin' well, devil or no devil--an' if any one was to talk
to 'er 'bout ghosteses an' sich-like, she'd wallop 'em out of 'er bar
with a broom! Ay, that she would! She's a powerful strong woman Miss
Tranter, an' many's the larker what's felt 'er 'and on 'is collar
a-chuckin' 'im out o' the 'Trusty Man' neck an' crop for sayin'
somethin' what aint ezackly agreeable to 'er feelin's. She don't stand
no nonsense, an' though she's lib'ral with 'er pennorths an' pints she
don't wait till a man's full boozed 'fore lockin' up the tap-room. 'Git
to bed, yer hulkin' fools!' sez she, 'or ye may change my '_O_tel for
the Sheriff's.' An' they all knuckles down afore 'er as if they was
childer gettin' spanked by their mother. Ah, she'd 'a made a grand wife
for a man! 'E wouldn't 'ave 'ad no chance to make a pig of hisself if
she'd been anywheres round!"
"Perhaps she won't take me in!" suggested Helmsley.
"She will, an' that sartinly!" said Peke. "She'll not refuse bed an'
board to any friend o' mine."
"Friend!" Helmsley echoed the word wonderingly.
"Ay, friend! Any one's a friend what trusts to ye on the road, aint 'e?
Leastways that's 'ow I take it."
"As I said before, you are very kind to me," murmured Helmsley; "and I
have already asked you--Why?"
"There aint no rhyme nor reason in it," answered Peke. "You 'elps a man
along if ye sees 'e wants 'elpin', sure-_ly_,--that's nat'ral. 'Tis on'y
them as is born bad as don't 'elp nothin' nor nobody. Ye're old an'
fagged out, an' yer face speaks a bit o' trouble--that's enuff for me.
Hi' y' are!--hi' y' are, old 'Trusty Man!'"
And striding across a dry ditch which formed a kind of entrenchment
between the field and the road, Peke guided his companion round a dark
corner and brought him in front of a long low building, heavily
timbered, with queer little lop-sided gable windows set in the slanting,
red-tiled roof. A sign-board swung over the door and a small lamp fixed
beneath it showed that it bore the crudely painted portrait of a
gentleman in an apron, spreading out both hands palms upwards as one who
has nothing to conceal,--the ideal likeness of the "Trusty Man" himself.
The door itself stood open, and the sound of male voices evinced the
presence of customers within. Peke entered without ceremony, beckoning
Helmsley to follow him, and made straight for the bar, where a tall
woman with remarkably square shoulders stood severely upright, knitting.
"'Evenin', Miss Tranter!" said Peke, pulling off his tattered cap. "Any
room for poor lodgers?"
Miss Tranter glanced at him, and then at his companion.
"That depends on the lodgers," she answered curtly.
"That's right! That's quite right, Miss!" said Peke with propitiatory
deference. "You 'se allus right whatsoever ye does an' sez! But yer
knows _me_,--yer knows Matt Peke, don't yer?"
Miss Tranter smiled sourly, and her knitting needles glittered like
crossed knives as she finished a particular row of stitches on which she
was engaged before condescending to reply. Then she said:--
"Yes, I know _you_ right enough, but I don't know your company. I'm not
taking up strangers."
"Lord love ye! This aint a stranger!" exclaimed Peke. "This 'ere's old
David, a friend o' mine as is out o' work through gittin' more years on
'is back than the British Gov'ment allows, an' 'e's trampin' it to see
'is relations afore 'e gits put to bed wi' a shovel. 'E's as 'armless as
they makes 'em, an' I've told 'im as 'ow ye' don't take in nowt but
'spectable folk. Doant 'ee turn out an old gaffer like 'e be, fagged an'
footsore, to sleep in open--doant 'ee now, there's a good soul!"
Miss Tranter went on knitting rapidly. Presently she turned her piercing
gimlet grey eyes on Helmsley.
"Where do you come from, man?" she demanded.
Helmsley lifted his hat with the gentle courtesy habitual to him.
"From Bristol, ma'am."
"Tramping it?"
"Yes."
"Where are you going?"
"To Cornwall."
"That's a long way and a hard road," commented Miss Tranter; "You'll
never get there!"
Helmsley gave a slight deprecatory gesture, but said nothing.
Miss Tranter eyed him more keenly.
"Are you hungry?"
He smiled.
"Not very!"
"That means you're half-starved without knowing it," she said
decisively. "Go in yonder," and she pointed with one of her knitting
needles to the room beyond the bar whence the hum of male voices
proceeded. "I'll send you some hot soup with plenty of stewed meat and
bread in it. An old man like you wants more than the road food. Take him
in, Peke!"
"Didn't I tell ye!" ejaculated Peke, triumphantly looking round at
Helmsley. "She's one that's got 'er 'art in the right place! I say, Miss
Tranter, beggin' yer parding, my friend aint a sponger, ye know! 'E can
pay ye a shillin' or two for yer trouble!"
Miss Tranter nodded her head carelessly.
"The food's threepence and the bed fourpence," she said. "Breakfast in
the morning, threepence,--and twopence for the washing towel. That makes
a shilling all told. Ale and liquors extra."
With that she turned her back on them, and Peke, pulling Helmsley by the
arm, took him into the common room of the inn, where there were several
men seated round a long oak table with "gate-legs" which must have been
turned by the handicraftsmen of the time of Henry the Seventh. Here
Peke set down his basket of herbs in a corner, and addressed the company
generally.
"'Evenin', mates! All well an' 'arty?"
Three or four of the party gave gruff response. The others sat smoking
silently. One end of the table was unoccupied, and to this Peke drew a
couple of rush-bottomed chairs with sturdy oak backs, and bade Helmsley
sit down beside him.
"It be powerful warm to-night!" he said, taking off his cap, and showing
a disordered head of rough dark hair, sprinkled with grey. "Powerful
warm it be trampin' the road, from sunrise to sunset, when the dust lies
thick and 'eavy, an' all the country's dry for a drop o' rain."
"Wal, _you_ aint got no cause to grumble at it," said a fat-faced man in
very dirty corduroys. "It's _your_ chice, an' _your_ livin'! _You_ likes
the road, an' _you_ makes your grub on it! 'Taint no use _you_ findin'
fault with the gettin' o' _your_ victuals!"
"Who's findin' fault, Mister Dubble?" asked Peke soothingly. "I on'y
said 'twas powerful warm."
"An' no one but a sawny 'xpects it to be powerful cold in July," growled
Dubble--"though some there is an' some there be what cries fur snow in
August, but I aint one on 'em."
"No, 'e aint one on 'em," commented a burly farmer, blowing away the
foam from the brim of a tankard of ale which was set on the table in
front of him. "'E alluz takes just what cooms along easy loike, do
Mizter Dubble!"
There followed a silence. It was instinctively felt that the discussion
was hardly important enough to be continued. Moreover, every man in the
room was conscious of a stranger's presence, and each one cast a furtive
glance at Helmsley, who, imitating Peke's example, had taken off his
hat, and now sat quietly under the flickering light of the oil lamp
which was suspended from the middle of the ceiling. He himself was
intensely interested in the turn his wanderings had taken. There was a
certain excitement in his present position,--he was experiencing the
"new sensation" he had longed for,--and he realised it with the fullest
sense of enjoyment. To be one of the richest men in the world, and yet
to seem so miserably poor and helpless as to be regarded with suspicion
by such a class of fellows as those among whom he was now seated, was
decidedly a novel way of acquiring an additional relish for the varying
chances and changes of life.
"Brought yer father along wi' ye, Matt?" suddenly asked a wizened little
man of about sixty, with a questioning grin on his hard weather-beaten
features.
"I aint up to 'awkin' dead bodies out o' their graves yet, Bill Bush,"
answered Peke. "Unless my old dad's corpsy's turned to yerbs, which is
more'n likely, I aint got 'im. This 'ere's a friend o' mine,--Mister
David--e's out o' work through the Lord's speshul dispensation an' rule
o' natur--gettin' old!"
A laugh went round, but a more favourable impression towards Peke's
companion was at once created by this introduction.
"Sorry for ye!" said the individual called Bill Bush, nodding
encouragingly to Helmsley. "I'm a bit that way myself."
He winked, and again the company laughed. Bill was known as one of the
most daring and desperate poachers in all the countryside, but as yet he
had never been caught in the act, and he was one of Miss Tranter's
"respectable" customers. But, truth to tell, Miss Tranter had some very
odd ideas of her own. One was that rabbits were vermin, and that it was
of no consequence how or by whom they were killed. Another was that
"wild game" belonged to everybody, poor and rich. Vainly was it
explained to her that rich landowners spent no end of money on breeding
and preserving pheasants, grouse, and the like,--she would hear none of
it.
"Stuff and nonsense," she said sharply. "The birds breed by themselves
quite fast enough if let alone,--and the Lord intended them so to do for
every one's use and eating, not for a few mean and selfish money-grubs
who'd shoot and sell their own babies if they could get game prices for
them!"
And she had a certain sympathy with Bill Bush and his nefarious
proceedings. As long as he succeeded in evading the police, so long
would he be welcome at the "Trusty Man," but if once he were to be
clapped into jail the door of his favourite "public" would be closed to
him. Not that Miss Tranter was a woman who "went back," as the saying
is, on her friends, but she had to think of her licence, and could not
afford to run counter to those authorities who had the power to take it
away from her.
"I'm a-shrivellin' away for want o' suthin' to do," proceeded Bill. "My
legs aint no show at all to what they once was."
And he looked down at those members complacently. They were encased in
brown velveteens much the worse for wear, and in shape resembled a
couple of sticks with a crook at the knees.
"I lost my sitiwation as gamekeeper to 'is Royal 'Ighness the Dook o'
Duncy through bein' too 'onest," he went on with another wink. "'Orful
pertikler, the Dook was,--nobuddy was 'llowed to be 'onest wheer '_e_
was but 'imself! Lord love ye! It don't do to be straight an' square in
this world!"
Helmsley listened to this bantering talk, saying nothing. He was pale,
and sat very still, thus giving the impression of being too tired to
notice what was going on around him. Peke took up the conversation.
"Stow yer gab, Bill!" he said. "When _you_ gits straight an' square,
it'll be a round 'ole ye'll 'ave to drop into, mark my wurrd! An' no
Dook o' Duncy 'ull pull ye out! This 'ere old friend o' mine don't
unnerstand ye wi' yer fustian an' yer galligaskins. 'E's kinder
eddicated--got a bit o' larnin' as I 'aves myself."
"Eddicated!" echoed Bill. "Eddication's a fine thing, aint it, if it
brings an old gaffer like 'im to trampin' the road! Seems to me the more
people's eddicated the less they's able to make a livin'."
"That's true! that's _dorned_ true!" said the man named Dubble, bringing
his great fist down on the table with a force that made the tankards
jump. "My darter, she's larned to play the pianner, an' I'm _dorned_ if
she kin do anythin' else! Just a gillflurt she is, an' as sassy as a
magpie. That's what eddication 'as made of 'er an' be _dorned_ to 't!"
"'Scuse me," and Bill Bush now addressed himself immediately to
Helmsley, "_ef_ I may be so bold as to arsk you wheer ye comes from,
meanin' no 'arm, an' what's yer purfession?"
Helmsley looked up with a friendly smile.
"I've no profession now," he answered at once. "But in my time--before I
got too old--I did a good deal of office work."
"Office work! In a 'ouse of business, ye means? Readin', 'ritin',
'rithmetic, an' mebbe sweepin' the floor at odd times an' runnin'
errands?"
"That's it!" answered Helmsley, still smiling.
"An' they won't 'ave ye no more?"
"I am too old," he answered quietly.
Here Dubble turned slowly round and surveyed him.
"How old be ye?"
"Seventy."
Silence ensued. The men glanced at one another. It was plain that the
"one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin" was moving them
all to kindly and compassionate feeling for the age and frail appearance
of their new companion. What are called "rough" and "coarse" types of
humanity are seldom without a sense of reverence and even affection for
old persons. It is only among ultra-selfish and callous communities
where over-luxurious living has blunted all the finer emotions, that age
is considered a crime, or what by some individuals is declared worse
than a crime, a "bore."
At that moment a short girl, with a very red face and round beady eyes,
came into the room carrying on a tray two quaint old pewter tureens full
of steaming soup, which emitted very savoury and appetising odours.
Setting these down before Matt Peke and Helmsley, with two goodly slices
of bread beside them, she held out her podgy hand.
"Threepence each, please!"
They paid her, Peke adding a halfpenny to his threepence for the girl
herself, and Helmsley, who judged it safest to imitate Peke's behaviour,
doing the same. She giggled.
"'Ope you aint deprivin' yourselves!" she said pertly.
"No, my dear, we aint!" retorted Peke. "We can afford to treat ye like
the gentlemen doos! Buy yerself a ribbin to tie up yer bonnie brown
'air!"
She giggled again, and waited to see them begin their meal, then, with a
comprehensive roll of her round eyes upon all the company assembled, she
retired. The soup she had brought was certainly excellent,--strong,
invigorating, and tasty enough to have done credit to a rich man's
table, and Peke nodded over it with mingled surprise and appreciation.
"Miss Tranter knows what's good, she do!" he remarked to Helmsley in a
low tone. "She's cooked this up speshul! This 'ere broth aint flavoured
for _me_,--it's for _you_! Glory be good to me if she aint taken a fancy
ter yer!--shouldn't wonder if ye 'ad the best in the 'ouse!"
Helmsley shook his head demurringly, but said nothing. He knew that in
the particular position in which he had placed himself, silence was
safer than speech.
Meanwhile, the short beady-eyed handmaiden returned to her mistress in
the kitchen, and found that lady gazing abstractedly into the fire.
"They've got their soup," she announced, "an' they're eatin' of it up!"
"Is the old man taking it?" asked Miss Tranter.
"Yes'm. An' 'e seems to want it 'orful bad, 'orful bad 'e do, on'y 'e
swallers it slower an' more soft like than Matt Peke swallers."
Miss Tranter ceased to stare at the fire, and stared at her domestic
instead.
"Prue," she said solemnly, "that old man is a gentleman!"
Prue's round eyes opened a little more roundly.
"Lor', Mis' Tranter!"
"He's a gentleman," repeated the hostess of the "Trusty Man" with
emphasis and decision; "and he's fallen on bad times. He may have to beg
his bread along the road or earn a shilling here and there as best he
can, but nothing"--and here Miss Tranter shook her forefinger defiantly
in the air--"nothing will alter the fact that he's a gentleman!"
Prue squeezed her fat red hands together, breathed hard, and not knowing
exactly what else to do, grinned. Her mistress looked at her severely.
"You grin like a Cheshire cat," she remarked. "I wish you wouldn't."
Prue at once pursed in her wide mouth to a more serious double line.
"How much did they give you?" pursued Miss Tranter.
"'Apenny each," answered Prue.
"How much have you made for yourself to-day all round!"
"Sevenpence three fardin's," confessed Prue, with an appealing look.
"You know I don't allow you to take tips from my customers," went on
Miss Tranter. "You must put those three farthings in my poor-box."
"Yes'm!" sighed Prue meekly.
"And then you may keep the sevenpence."
"Oh thank y' 'm! Thank y', Mis' Tranter!" And Prue hugged herself
ecstatically. "You'se 'orful good to me, you is, Mis' Tranter!"
Miss Tranter stood a moment, an upright inflexible figure, surveying
her.
"Do you say your prayers every night and morning as I told you to do?"
Prue became abnormally solemn.
"Yes, I allus do, Mis' Tranter, wish I may die right 'ere if I don't!"
"What did I teach you to say to God for the poor travellers who stop at
the 'Trusty Man'?"
"'That it may please Thee to succour, help and comfort all that are in
danger, necessity and tribulation, we beseech Thee to hear us Good
Lord!'" gabbled Prue, shutting her eyes and opening them again with
great rapidity.
"That's right!" And Miss Tranter bent her head graciously. "I'm glad you
remember it so well! Be sure you say it to-night. And now you may go,
Prue."
Prue went accordingly, and Miss Tranter, resuming her knitting, returned
to the bar, and took up her watchful position opposite the clock, there
to remain patiently till closing time.
CHAPTER VII
The minutes wore on, and though some of the company at the "Trusty Man"
went away in due course, others came in to replace them, so that even
when it was nearing ten o'clock the common room was still fairly full.
Matt Peke was evidently hail-fellow-well-met with many of the loafers of
the district, and his desultory talk, with its quaint leaning towards a
kind of rustic philosophy intermingled with an assumption of profound
scientific wisdom, appeared to exercise considerable fascination over
those who had the patience and inclination to listen to it. Helmsley
accepted a pipe of tobacco offered to him by the surly-looking Dubble
and smoked peacefully, leaning back in his chair and half closing his
eyes with a drowsy air, though in truth his senses had never been more
alert, or his interest more keenly awakened. He gathered from the
general conversation that Bill Bush was an accustomed night lodger at
the "Trusty Man," that Dubble had a cottage not far distant, with a
scolding wife and an uppish daughter, and that it was because she knew
of his home discomforts that Miss Tranter allowed him to pass many of
his evenings at her inn, smoking and sipping a mild ale, which without
fuddling his brains, assisted him in part to forget for a time his
domestic worries. And he also found out that the sturdy farmer sedately
sucking his pipe in a corner, and now and then throwing in an unexpected
and random comment on whatever happened to be the topic of conversation,
was known as "Feathery" Joltram, though why "Feathery" did not seem very
clear, unless the term was, as it appeared to be, an adaptation of
"father" or "feyther" Joltram. Matt Peke explained that old "Feathery"
was a highly respected character in the "Quantocks," and not only rented
a large farm, but thoroughly understood the farming business. Moreover,
that he had succeeded in making himself somewhat of a terror to certain
timorous time-servers, on account of his heterodox and obstinate
principles. For example, he had sent his children to school because
Government compelled him to do so, but when their schooldays were over,
he had informed them that the sooner they forgot all they had ever
learned during that period and took to "clean an' 'olesome livin'," the
better he should be pleased.
"For it's all rort an' rubbish," he declared, in his broad, soft
dialect. "I dozn't keer a tinker's baad 'apenny whether tha knaw 'ow to
'rite tha mizchief or to read it, or whether king o' England is eatin'
'umble pie to the U-nited States top man, or noa,--I keerz nawt aboot
it, noben way or t'other. My boys 'as got to laarn draawin' crops out o'
fields,--an' my gels must put 'and to milkin' and skimmin' cream an'
makin' foinest butter as iver went to market. An' time comin' to wed,
the boys 'ull take strong dairy wives, an' the gels 'ull pick men as can
thraw through men's wurrk, or they'ze nay gels nor boys o' mine. Tarlk
o' Great Britain! Heart alive! Wheer would th' owd country be if 'twere
left to pulin' booky clerks what thinks they're gemmen, an' what weds
niminy-piminy shop gels, an' breeds nowt but ricketty babes fit for
workus' burial! Noa, by the Lord! No school larnin' for me nor mine,
thank-ee! Why, the marster of the Board School 'ere doant know more
practical business o' life than a suckin' calf! With a bit o' garden
ground to 'is cot, e' doant reckon 'ow io till it, an' that's the
rakelness o' book larnin'. Noa, noa! Th' owd way o' wurrk's the best
way,--brain, 'ands, feet an' good ztrong body all zet on't, an' no
meanderin' aff it! Take my wurrd the Lord A'mighty doant 'elp corn to
grow if there's a whinin' zany ahint the plough!"
With these distinctly "out-of-date" notions, "Feathery" Joltram had also
set himself doggedly against church-going and church people generally.
Few dared mention a clergyman in his presence, for his open and
successful warfare with the minister of his own parish had been going on
for years and had become well-nigh traditional. Looking at him, however,
as he sat in his favourite corner of the "Trusty Man's" common room, no
one would have given him credit for any particular individuality. His
round red face expressed nothing,--his dull fish-like eyes betrayed no
intelligence,--he appeared to be nothing more than a particularly large,
heavy man, wedged in his chair rather than seated in it, and absorbed in
smoking a long pipe after the fashion of an infant sucking a
feeding-bottle, with infinite relish that almost suggested gluttony.
The hum of voices grew louder as the hour grew later, and one or two
rather noisy disputations brought Miss Tranter to the door. A look of
hers was sufficient to silence all contention, and having bent the
warning flash of her eyes impressively upon her customers, she retired
as promptly and silently as she had appeared. Helmsley was just thinking
that he would slip away and get to bed, when, a firm tread sounded in
the outer passage, and a tall man, black-haired, black-eyed, and of
herculean build, suddenly looked in upon the tavern company with a
familiar nod and smile.
"Hullo, my hearties!" he exclaimed. "Is all tankards drained, or is a
drop to spare?"
A shout of welcome greeted him:--"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" "Come in,
Tom!" "Drinks all round!"--and there followed a general hustle and
scraping of chairs on the floor,--every one seemed eager to make room
for the newcomer. Helmsley, startled in a manner by his appearance,
looked at him with involuntary and undisguised admiration. Such a
picturesque figure of a man he had seldom or never seen, yet the fellow
was clad in the roughest, raggedest homespun, the only striking and
curious note of colour about him being a knitted crimson waistcoat,
which instead of being buttoned was tied together with two or three tags
of green ribbon. He stood for a moment watching the men pushing up
against one another in order to give him a seat at the table, and a
smile, half-amused, half-ironical, lighted up his sun-browned, handsome
face.
"Don't put yourselves out, mates!" he said carelessly. "Mind Feathery's
toes!--if you tread on his corns there'll be the devil to pay! Hullo,
Matt Peke! How are you?"
Matt rose and shook hands.
"All the better for seein' ye again, Tom," he answered, "Wheer d'ye hail
from this very present minit?"
"From the caves of Cornwall!" laughed the man. "From picking up drift on
the shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks!"
He laughed again, and his great eyes flashed wildly. "All sport, Matt! I
live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my pleasure!"
Here "Feathery" Joltram looked up and dumbly pointed with the stem of
his pipe to a chair left vacant near the middle of the table. Tom o' the
Gleam, by which name he seemed to be known to every one present, sat
down, and in response to the calls of the company, a wiry pot-boy in
shirt-sleeves made his appearance with several fresh tankards of ale, it
now being past the hour for the attendance of that coy handmaiden of the
"Trusty Man," Miss Prue.
"Any fresh tales to tell, Tom?" inquired Matt Peke then--"Any more
harum-scarum pranks o' yours on the road?"
Tom drank off a mug of ale before replying, and took a comprehensive
glance around the room.
"You have a stranger here," he said suddenly, in his deep, thrilling
voice, "One who is not of our breed,--one who is unfamiliar with our
ways. Friend or foe?"
"Friend!" declared Peke emphatically, while Bill Bush and one or two of
the men exchanged significant looks and nudged each other. "Now, Tom,
none of yer gypsy tantrums! I knows all yer Romany gibberish, an' I
ain't takin' any. Ye've got a good 'art enough, so don't work yer dander
up with this 'ere old chap what's a-trampin' it to try and find out all
that's left o's fam'ly an' friends 'fore turnin' up 'is toes to the
daisies. 'Is name is David, an' 'e's been kickt out o' office work
through bein' too old. That's _'is_ ticket!"
Tom o' the Gleam listened to this explanation in silence, playing
absently with the green tags of ribbon at his waistcoat. Then slowly
lifting his eyes he fixed them full on Helmsley, who, despite himself,
felt an instant's confusion at the searching intensity of the man's bold
bright gaze.
"Old and poor!" he ejaculated. "That's a bad lookout in this world!
Aren't you tired of living!"
"Nearly," answered Helmsley quietly--"but not quite."
Their looks met, and Tom's dark features relaxed into a smile.
"You're fairly patient!" he said, "for it's hard enough to be poor, but
it's harder still to be old. If I thought I should live to be as old as
you are, I'd drown myself in the sea! There's no use in life without
body's strength and heart's love."
"Ah, tha be graat on the love business, Tom!" chuckled "Feathery"
Joltram, lifting his massive body with a shake out of the depths of his
comfortable chair. "Zeems to me tha's zummat like the burd what cozies a
new mate ivery zummer!"
Tom o' the Gleam laughed, his strong even white teeth shining like a
row of pearls between his black moustaches and short-cropped beard.
"You're a steady-going man, Feathery," he said, "and I'm a wastrel. But
I'm ne'er as fickle as you think. I've but one love in the world that's
left me--my kiddie."
"Ay, an' 'ow's the kiddie?" asked Matt Peke--"Thrivin' as iver?"
"Fine! As strong a little chap as you'll see between Quantocks and
Land's End. He'll be four come Martinmas."
"Zo agein' quick as that!" commented Joltram with a broad grin. "For
zure 'e be a man grow'd! Tha'll be puttin' the breechez on 'im an'
zendin' 'im to the school----"
"Never!" interrupted Tom defiantly. "They'll never catch my kiddie if I
know it! I want him for myself,--others shall have no part in him. He
shall grow up wild like a flower of the fields--wild as his mother
was--wild as the wild roses growing over her grave----"
He broke off suddenly with an impatient gesture.
"Psha! Why do you drag me over the old rough ground talking of Kiddie!"
he exclaimed, almost angrily. "The child's all right. He's safe in camp
with the women."
"Anywheres nigh?" asked Bill Bush.
Tom o' the Gleam made no answer, but the fierce look in his eyes showed
that he was not disposed to be communicative on this point. Just then
the sound of voices raised in some dispute on the threshold of the
"Trusty Man," caused all the customers in the common room to pause in
their talking and drinking, and to glance expressively at one another.
Miss Tranter's emphatic accents rang out sharply on the silence.
"It wants ten minutes to ten, and I never close till half-past ten," she
said decisively. "The law does not compel me to do so till eleven, and I
resent private interference."
"I am aware that you resent any advice offered for your good," was the
reply, delivered in harsh masculine tones. "You are a singularly
obstinate woman. But I have my duty to perform, and as minister of this
parish I shall perform it."
"Mind your own business first!" said Miss Tranter, with evident
vehemence.
"My business is my duty, and my duty is my business,"--and here the male
voice grew more rasping and raucous. "I have as much right to use this
tavern as any one of the misled men who spend their hard earnings here
and neglect their homes and families for the sake of drink. And as you
do not close till half-past ten, it is not too late for me to enter."
During this little altercation, the party round the table in the common
room sat listening intently. Then Dubble, rousing himself from a
pleasant ale-warm lethargy, broke the spell.
"Dorned if it aint old Arbroath!" he said.
"Ay, ay, 'tis old Arbroath zartin zure!" responded "Feathery" Joltram
placidly. "Let 'un coom in! Let 'un coom in!"
Tom o' the Gleam gave vent to a loud laugh, and throwing himself back in
his chair, crossed his long legs and administered a ferocious twirl to
his moustache, humming carelessly under his breath:--
"'And they called the parson to marry them,
But devil a bit would he--
For they were but a pair of dandy prats
As couldn't pay devil's fee!'"
Helmsley's curiosity was excited. There was a marked stir of expectation
among the guests of the "Trusty Man"; they all appeared to be waiting
for something about to happen of exceptional interest. He glanced
inquiringly at Peke, who returned the glance by one of warning.
"Best sit quiet a while longer," he said. "They won't break up till
closin' hour, an' m'appen there'll be a bit o' fun."
"Ay, sit quiet!" said Tom o' the Gleam, catching these words, and
turning towards Helmsley with a smile--"There's more than enough time
for tramping. Come! Show me if you can smoke _that_!" "That" was a
choice Havana cigar which he took out of the pocket of his crimson wool
waistcoat. "You've smoked one before now, I'll warrant!"
Helmsley met his flashing eyes without wavering.
"I will not say I have not," he answered quietly, accepting and lighting
the fragrant weed, "but it was long ago!"
"Ay, away in the Long, long ago!" said Tom, still regarding him fixedly,
but kindly--"where we have all buried such a number of beautiful
things,--loves and hopes and beliefs, and dreams and fortunes!--all, all
tucked away under the graveyard grass of the Long Ago!"
Here Miss Tranter's voice was heard again outside, saying acidly:--
"It's clear out and lock up at half-past ten, business or no business,
duty or no duty. Please remember that!"
"'Ware, mates!" exclaimed Tom,--"Here comes our reverend!"
The door was pushed open as he spoke, and a short, dark man in clerical
costume walked in with a would-be imposing air of dignity.
"Good-evening, my friends!" he said, without lifting his hat.
There was no response.
He smiled sourly, and surveyed the assembled company with a curious air
of mingled authority and contempt. He looked more like a petty officer
of dragoons than a minister of the Christian religion,--one of those
exacting small military martinets accustomed to brow-beating and
bullying every subordinate without reason or justice.
"So you're there, are you, Bush!" he continued, with a frowning glance
levied in the direction of the always suspected but never proved
poacher,--"I wonder you're not in jail by this time!"
Bill Bush took up his pewter tankard, and affected to drain it to the
last dregs, but made no reply.
"Is that Mr. Dubble!" pursued the clergyman, shading his eyes with one
hand from the flickering light of the lamp, and feigning to be doubtful
of the actual personality of the individual he questioned. "Surely not!
I should be very much surprised and very sorry to see Mr. Dubble here at
such a late hour!"
"Would ye now!" said Dubble. "Wal, I'm allus glad to give ye both a
sorrer an' a surprise together, Mr. Arbroath--darned if I aint!"
"You must be keeping your good wife and daughter up waiting for you,"
proceeded Arbroath, his iron-grey eyebrows drawing together in an ugly
line over the bridge of his nose. "Late hours are a mistake, Dubble!"
"So they be, so they be, Mr. Arbroath!" agreed Dubble. "Ef I was oop
till midnight naggin' away at my good wife an' darter as they nags away
at me, I'd say my keepin' o' late 'ours was a dorned whoppin' mistake
an' no doubt o't. But seein' as 'taint arf-past ten yet, an' I aint
naggin' nobody nor interferin' with my neighbours nohow, I reckon I'm on
the right side o' the night so fur."
A murmur of approving laughter from all the men about him ratified this
speech. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath gave a gesture of disdain, and bent
his lowering looks on Tom o' the Gleam.
"Aren't you wanted by the police?" he suggested sarcastically.
The handsome gypsy glanced him over indifferently.
"I shouldn't wonder!" he retorted. "Perhaps the police want me as much
as the devil wants _you_!"
Arbroath flushed a dark red, and his lips tightened over his teeth
vindictively.
"There's a zummat for tha thinkin' on, Pazon Arbroath!" said "Feathery"
Joltram, suddenly rising from his chair and showing himself in all his
great height and burly build. "Zummat for a zermon on owd Nick, when
tha're wantin' to scare the zhoolboys o' Zundays!"
Mr. Arbroath's countenance changed from red to pale.
"I was not aware of your presence, Mr. Joltram," he said stiffly.
"Noa, noa, Pazon, m'appen not, but tha's aweer on it now. Nowt o' me's
zo zmall as can thraw to heaven through tha straight and narrer way. I'd
'ave to squeeze for 't!"
He laughed,--a big, slow laugh, husky with good living and good humour.
Arbroath shrugged his shoulders.
"I prefer not to speak to you at all, Mr. Joltram," he said. "When
people are bound to disagree, as we have disagreed for years, it is best
to avoid conversation."
"Zed like the Church all over, Pazon!" chuckled the imperturbable
Joltram. "Zeems as if I 'erd the 'Glory be'! But if tha don't want any
talk, why does tha coom in 'ere wheer we'se all a-drinkin' steady and
talkin' 'arty, an' no quarrellin' nor backbitin' of our neighbours? Tha
wants us to go 'ome,--why doezn't tha go 'ome thysen? Tha's a wife a
zettin' oop there, an' m'appen she's waitin' with as fine a zermon as
iver was preached from a temperance cart in a wasterne field!"
He laughed again; Arbroath turned his back upon him in disgust, and
strode up to the shadowed corner where Helmsley sat watching the little
scene.
"Now, my man, who are _you_?" demanded the clergyman imperiously. "Where
do you come from?"
Matt Peke would have spoken, but Helmsley silenced him by a look and
rose to his feet, standing humbly with bent head before his arrogant
interlocutor. There were the elements of comedy in the situation, and he
was inclined to play his part thoroughly.
"From Bristol," he replied.
"What are you doing here?"
"Getting rest, food, and a night's lodging."
"Why do you leave out drink in the list?" sneered Arbroath. "For, of
course, it's your special craving! Where are you going?"
"To Cornwall."
"Tramping it?"
"Yes."
"Begging, I suppose?"
"Sometimes."
"Disgraceful!" And the reverend gentleman snorted offence like a walrus
rising from deep waters. "Why don't you work?"
"I'm too old."
"Too old! Too lazy you mean! How old are you?"
"Seventy."
Mr. Arbroath paused, slightly disconcerted. He had entered the "Trusty
Man" in the hope of discovering some or even all of its customers in a
state of drunkenness. To his disappointment he had found them perfectly
sober. He had pounced on the stray man whom he saw was a stranger, in
the expectation of proving him, at least, to be intoxicated. Here again
he was mistaken. Helmsley's simple straight answers left him no opening
for attack.
"You'd better make for the nearest workhouse," he said, at last. "Tramps
are not encouraged on these roads."
"Evidently not!" And Helmsley raised his calm eyes and fixed them on the
clergyman's lowering countenance with a faintly satiric smile.
"You're not too old to be impudent, I see!" retorted Arbroath, with an
unpleasant contortion of his features. "I warn you not to come cadging
about anywhere in this neighbourhood, for if you do I shall give you in
charge. I have four parishes under my control, and I make it a rule to
hand all beggars over to the police."
"That's not very good Christianity, is it?" asked Helmsley quietly.
Matt Peke chuckled. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath started indignantly, and
stared so hard that his rat-brown eyes visibly projected from his head.
"Not very good Christianity!" he echoed. "What--what do you mean? How
dare you speak to me about Christianity!"
"Ay, 'tis a bit aff!" drawled "Feathery" Joltram, thrusting his great
hands deep into his capacious trouser-pockets. "'Tis a bit aff to taalk
to Christian parzon 'bout Christianity, zeein' 'tis the one thing i'
this warld 'e knaws nawt on!"
Arbroath grew livid, but his inward rage held him speechless.
"That's true!" cried Tom o' the Gleam excitedly--"That's as true as
there's a God in heaven! I've read all about the Man that was born a
carpenter in Galilee, and so far as I can understand it, He never had a
rough word for the worst creatures that crawled, and the worse they
were, and the more despised and down-trodden, the gentler He was with
them. That's not the way of the men that call themselves His ministers!"
"I 'eerd once," said Mr. Dubble, rising slowly and laying down his pipe,
"of a little chap what was makin' a posy for 'is mother's birthday, an'
passin' the garden o' the rector o' the parish, 'e spied a bunch o' pink
chestnut bloom 'angin' careless over the 'edge, ready to blow to bits
wi' the next puff o' wind. The little raskill pulled it down an' put it
wi' the rest o' the flowers 'e'd got for 'is mother, but the good an'
lovin' rector seed 'im at it, an' 'ad 'im nabbed as a common thief an'
sent to prison. 'E wornt but a ten-year-old lad, an' that prison spoilt
'im for life. 'E wor a fust-class Lord's man as did that for a babby
boy, an' the hull neighbourhood's powerful obleeged to 'im. So don't
ye,"--and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,--"don't ye, for
all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere
reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art
o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a
comprehensive smile round at the company,--then taking up his hat, he
put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm goin'.
Good-den, Tom! Good-den, all!"
And out he strode, whistling as he went. With his departure every one
began to move,--the more quickly as the clock in the bar had struck ten
a minute or two since. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood irresolute for a
moment, wishing his chief enemy, "Feathery" Joltram, would go. But
Joltram remained where he was, standing erect, and surveying the scene
like a heavily caparisoned charger scenting battle.
"Tha's heerd Mizter Dubble's tale afore now, Pazon, hazn't tha?" he
inquired. "M'appen tha knaw'd the little chap as Christ's man zent to
prizon thysen?"
Arbroath lifted his head haughtily.
"A theft is a theft," he said, "whether it is committed by a young
person or an old one, and whether it is for a penny or a hundred pounds
makes no difference. Thieves of all classes and all ages should be
punished as such. Those are my opinions."
"They were nowt o' the Lord's opinions," said Joltram, "for He told the
thief as 'ung beside Him, 'This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,'
but He didn't say nowt o' the man as got the thief punished!"
"You twist the Bible to suit your own ends, Mr. Joltram," retorted
Arbroath contemptuously. "It is the common habit of atheists and
blasphemers generally."
"Then, by the Lord!" exclaimed the irrepressible "Feathery," "All th'
atheists an' blasphemers must be a-gathered in the fold o' the Church,
for if the pazons doan't twist the Bible to suit their own ends, I'm
blest if I knaw whaat else they does for a decent livin'!"
Just then a puff of fine odour from the Havana cigar which Helmsley was
enjoying floated under the nostrils of Mr. Arbroath, and added a fresh
touch of irritation to his temper. He turned at once upon the offending
smoker.
"So! You pretend to be poor!" he snarled, "And yet you can smoke a cigar
that must have cost a shilling!"
"It was given to me," replied Helmsley gently.
"Given to you! Bah! Who would give an old tramp a cigar like that?"
"I would!" And Tom o' the Gleam sprang lightly up from his chair, his
black eyes sparkling with mingled defiance and laughter--"And I did!
Here!--will you take another?" And he drew out and opened a handsome
case full of the cigars in question.
"Thank you!" and Arbroath's pallid lips trembled with rage. "I decline
to share in stolen plunder!"
"Ha--ha--ha! Ha--ha!" laughed Tom hilariously. "Stolen plunder! That's
good! D'ye think I'd steal when I can buy! Reverend sir, Tom o' the
Gleam is particular as to what he smokes, and he hasn't travelled all
over the world for nothing:
'Qu'en dictes-vous? Faut-il a ce musier,
_Il n'est tresor que de vivre a son aise_!'"
Helmsley listened in wonderment. Here was a vagrant of the highroads and
woods, quoting the refrain of Villon's _Contreditz de Franc-Gontier_,
and pronouncing the French language with as soft and pure an accent as
ever came out of Provence. Meanwhile, Mr. Arbroath, paying no attention
whatever to Tom's outburst, looked at his watch.
"It is now a quarter-past ten," he announced dictatorially; "I should
advise you all to be going."
"By the law we needn't go till eleven, though Miss Tranter _does_ halve
it," said Bill Bush sulkily--"and perhaps we won't!"
Mr. Arbroath fixed him with a stern glance.
"Do you know that I am here in the cause of Temperance?" he said.
"Oh, are ye? Then why don't ye call on Squire Evans, as is the brewer
wi' the big 'ouse yonder?" queried Bill defiantly. "'E's the man to go
to! Arsk 'im to shut up 'is brewery an' sell no more ale wi' pizon in't
to the poor! That'll do more for Temp'rance than the early closin' o'
the 'Trusty Man.'"
"Ye're right enough," said Matt Peke, who had refrained from taking any
part in the conversation, save by now and then whispering a side comment
to Helmsley. "There's stuff put i' the beer what the brewers brew, as is
enough to knock the strongest man silly. I'm just fair tired o' hearin'
o' Temp'rance this an' Temp'rance that, while 'arf the men as goes to
Parl'ment takes their livin' out o' the brewin' o' beer an' spiritus
liquors. An' they bribes their poor silly voters wi' their drink till
they'se like a flock o' sheep runnin' into wotever field o' politics
their shepherds drives 'em. The best way to make the temp'rance cause
pop'lar is to stop big brewin'. Let every ale'ouse 'ave its own
pertikler brew, an' m'appen we'll git some o' the old-fashioned malt
an' 'ops agin. That'll be good for the small trader, an' the big brewin'
companies can take to somethin' 'onester than the pizonin' bizness."
"You are a would-be wise man, and you talk too much, Matthew Peke!"
observed the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, smiling darkly, and still glancing
askew at his watch. "I know you of old!"
"Ye knows me an' I knows you," responded Peke placidly. "Yer can't
interfere wi' me nohow, an' I dessay it riles ye a bit, for ye loves
interferin' with ivery sort o' folk, as all the parsons do. I b'longs to
no parish, an' aint under you no more than Tom o' the Gleam be, an' we
both thanks the Lord for't! An' I'm earnin' a livin' my own way an'
bein' a benefit to the sick an' sorry, which aint so far from proper
Christianity. Lor', Parson Arbroath! I wonder ye aint more 'uman like,
seein' as yer fav'rite gel in the village was arskin' me t'other day if
I 'adn't any yerb for to make a love-charm. 'Love-charm!' sez I--'what
does ye want that for, my gel?' An' she up an' she sez--'I'd like to
make Parson Arbroath eat it!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er! 'I'd like to
make Parson Arbroath eat it!' sez she. An' she's a foine strappin'
wench, too!--'Ullo, Parson! Goin'?"
The door slammed furiously,--Arbroath had suddenly lost his dignity and
temper together. Peke's raillery proved too much for him, and amid the
loud guffaws of "Feathery" Joltram, Bill Bush and the rest, he beat a
hasty retreat, and they heard his heavy footsteps go hurriedly across
the passage of the "Trusty Man," and pass out into the road beyond.
Roars of laughter accompanied his departure, and Peke looked round with
a smile of triumph.
"It's just like a witch-spell!" he declared. "There's nowt to do but
whisper, 'Parson's fav'rite!'--an' Parson hisself melts away like a mist
o' the mornin' or a weasel runnin' into its 'ole! Hor--er, hor--er,
hor--er!"
And again the laughter pealed out long and loud, "Feathery" Joltram
bending himself double with merriment, and slapping the sides of his
huge legs in ecstasy. Miss Tranter hearing the continuous uproar, looked
in warningly, but there was a glimmering smile on her face.
"We'se goin', Miss Tranter!" announced Bill Bush, his wizened face all
one broad grin. "We aint the sort to keep you up, never fear! Your worst
customer's just cleared out!"
"So I see!" replied Miss Tranter calmly,--then, nodding towards
Helmsley, she said--"Your room's ready."
Helmsley took the hint. He rose from his chair, and held out his hand to
Peke.
"Good-night!" he said. "You've been very kind to me, and I shan't forget
it!"
The herb-gatherer looked for a moment at the thin, refined white hand
extended to him before grasping it in his own horny palm. Then--
"Good-night, old chap!" he responded heartily. "Ef I don't see ye i' the
mornin' I'll leave ye a bottle o' yerb wine to take along wi' ye
trampin', for the more ye drinks o't the soberer ye'll be an' the better
ye'll like it. But ye should give up the idee o' footin' it to Cornwall;
ye'll never git there without a liftin'."
"I'll have a good try, anyway," rejoined Helmsley. "Good-night!"
He turned towards Tom o' the Gleam.
"Good-night!"
"Good-night!" And Tom's dark eyes glowed upon him with a sombre
intentness. "You know the old proverb which says, 'It's a long lane
which has never a turning'?"
Helmsley nodded with a faint smile.
"Your turning's near at hand," said Tom. "Take my word for it!"
"Will it be a pleasant turning?" asked Helmsley, still smiling.
"Pleasant? Ay, and peaceful!" And Tom's mellow voice sank into a softer
tone. "Peaceful as the strong love of a pure woman, and as sweet with
contentment as is the summer when the harvest is full! Good-night!"
Helmsley looked at him thoughtfully; there was something poetic and
fascinating about the man.
"I should like to meet you again," he said impulsively.
"Would you?" Tom o' the Gleam smiled. "So you will, as sure as God's in
heaven! But how or when, who can tell!" His handsome face clouded
suddenly,--some dark shadow of pain or perplexity contracted his
brows,--then he seemed to throw the feeling, whatever it was, aside, and
his features cleared. "You are bound to meet me," he continued. "I am as
much a part of this country as the woods and hills,--the Quantocks and
Brendons know me as well as Exmoor and the Valley of Rocks. But you are
safe from me and mine! Not one of our tribe will harm you,--you can
pursue your way in peace--and if any one of us can give you help at any
time, we will."
"You speak of a community?"
"I speak of a Republic!" answered Tom proudly. "There are thousands of
men and women in these islands whom no king governs and no law
controls,--free as the air and independent as the birds! They ask
nothing at any man's hands--they take and they keep!"
"Like the millionaires!" suggested Bill Bush, with a grin.
"Right you are, Bill!--like the millionaires! None take more than they
do, and none keep their takings closer!"
"And very miserable they must surely be sometimes, on both their takings
and their keepings," said Helmsley.
"No doubt of it! There'd be no justice in the mind of God if
millionaires weren't miserable," declared Tom o' the Gleam. "They've
more money than they ought to have,--it's only fair they should have
less happiness. Compensation's a natural law that there's no getting
away from,--that's why a gypsy's merrier than a king!"
Helmsley smiled assent, and with another friendly good-night all round,
left the room. Miss Tranter awaited him, candle in hand, and preceding
him up a short flight of ancient and crooked oaken stairs, showed him a
small attic room with one narrow bed in it, scrupulously neat and clean.
"You'll be all right here," she said. "There's no lock to your door, but
you're out of the truck of house work, and no one will come nigh you."
"Thank you, madam,"--and Helmsley bent his head gently, almost
humbly,--"You are very good to me. I am most grateful!"
"Nonsense!" said Miss Tranter, affecting snappishness. "You pay for a
bed, and here it is. The lodgers here generally share one room between
them, but you are an old man and need rest. It's better you should get
your sleep without any chance of disturbance. Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
She set down the candle by his bedside with a "Mind you put it out!"
final warning, and descended the stairs to see the rest of her customers
cleared off the premises, with the exception of Bill Bush, Matt Peke,
and Tom o' the Gleam, who were her frequent night lodgers. She found
Tom o' the Gleam standing up and delivering a kind of extemporary
oration, while his rough cap, under the pilotage of Bill Bush, was being
passed round the table in the fashion of a collecting plate.
"The smallest contribution thankfully received!" he laughed, as he
looked and saw her. "Miss Tranter, we're doing a mission! We're
Salvationists! Now's your chance! Give us a sixpence!"
"What for?" And setting her arms akimbo, the hostess of the "Trusty Man"
surveyed all her lingering guests with a severe face. "What games are
you up to now? It's time to clear!"
"So it is, and all the good little boys are going to bed," said Tom.
"Don't be cross, Mammy! We want to close our subscription list--that's
all! We've raised a few pennies for the old grandfather upstairs. He'll
never get to Cornwall, poor chap! He's as white as paper. Office work
doesn't fit a man of his age for tramping the road. We've collected two
shillings for him among us,--you give sixpence, and there's half-a-crown
all told. God bless the total!"
He seized his cap as it was handed back to him, and shook it, to show
that it was lined with jingling halfpence, and his eyes sparkled like
those of a child enjoying a bit of mischief.
"Come, Miss Tranter! Help the Gospel mission!"
Her features relaxed into a smile, and feeling in her apron pocket, she
produced the requested coin.
"There you are!" she said.--"And now you've got it, how are you going to
give him the money?"
"Never you mind!" and Tom swept all the coins together, and screwed them
up in a piece of newspaper. "We'll surprise the old man as the angels
surprise the children!"
Miss Tranter said nothing more, but withdrawing to the passage, stood
and watched her customers go out of the door of the "Trusty Man," one by
one. Each great hulking fellow doffed his cap to her and bade her a
respectful "Good-night" as he passed, "Feathery" Joltram pausing a
moment to utter an "aside" in her ear.
"'A fixed oop owd Arbroath for zartin zure!"--and here, with a sly wink,
he gave a forcible nudge to her arm,--"An owd larrupin' fox 'e be!--an'
Matt Peke giv' 'im the finish wi's fav'rite! Ha--ha--ha! 'A can't abide
a wurrd o' that long-legged wench! Ha--ha--ha! An' look y'ere, Miss
Tranter! I'd 'a given a shillin' in Tom's 'at when it went round, but
I'm thinkin' as zummat in the face o' the owd gaffer up in bed ain't zet
on beggin', an' m'appen a charity'd 'urt 'is feelin's like the
poor-'ouse do. But if 'e's wantin' to 'arn a mossel o' victual, I'll
find 'im a lightsome job on the farm if he'll reckon to walk oop to me
afore noon to-morrer. Tell 'im' that from farmer Joltram, an' good-night
t'ye!"
He strode out, and before eleven had struck, the old-fashioned iron bar
clamped down across the portal, and the inn was closed. Then Miss
Tranter turned into the bar, and before shutting it up paused, and
surveyed her three lodgers critically.
"So you pretend to be all miserably poor, and yet you actually collect
what you call a 'fund' for the old tramp upstairs who's a perfect
stranger to you!" she said--"Rascals that you are!"
Bill Bush looked sheepish.
"Only halfpence, Miss," he explained. "Poor we be as church mice, an' ye
knows that, doesn't ye? But we aint gone broken yet, an' Tom 'e started
the idee o' doin' a good turn for th' old gaffer, for say what ye like
'e do look a bit feeble for trampin' it."
Miss Tranter sniffed the atmosphere of the bar with a very good
assumption of lofty indifference.
"_You_ started the idea, did you?" she went on, looking at Tom o' the
Gleam. "You're a nice sort of ruffian to start any idea at all, aren't
you? I thought you always took, and never gave!"
He smiled, leaning his handsome head back against the white-washed wall
of the little entry where he stood, but said nothing. Matt Peke then
took up the parable.
"Th' old man be mortal weak an' faint for sure," he said. "I come upon
'im lyin' under a tree wi' a mossel book aside 'im, an' I takes an'
looks at the book, an' 'twas all portry an' simpleton stuff like, an' 'e
looked old enough to be my dad, an' tired enough to be fast goin' where
my dad's gone, so I just took 'im along wi' me, an' giv' 'im my name an'
purfession, an' 'e did the same, a-tellin' me as 'ow 'is name was D.
David, an' 'ow 'e 'd lost 'is office work through bein' too old an'
shaky. 'E's all right,--an office man aint much good on the road, weak
on 'is pins an' failin' in 'is sight. M'appen the 'arf-crown we've got
'im 'ull 'elp 'im to a ride part o' the way 'e's goin'."
"Well, don't you men bother about him any more," said Miss Tranter
decisively. "You get off early in the morning, as usual. _I'll_ look
after him!"
"Will ye now?" and Peke's rugged features visibly brightened--"That's
just like ye, Miss! Aint it, Tom? Aint it, Bill?"
Both individuals appealed to agreed that it was "Miss Tranter all over."
"Now off to bed with you!" proceeded that lady peremptorily. "And leave
your collected 'fund' with me--I'll give it to him."
But Tom o' the Gleam would not hear of this.
"No, Miss Tranter!--with every respect for you, no!" he said gaily.
"It's not every night we can play angels! I play angel to my kiddie
sometimes, putting a fairing in his little hammock where he sleeps like
a bird among the trees all night, but I've never had the chance to do it
to an old grandad before! Let me have my way!"
And so it chanced that at about half-past eleven, Helmsley, having lain
down with a deep sense of relief and repose on his clean comfortable
little bed, was startled out of his first doze by hearing stealthy steps
approaching his door. His heart began to beat quickly,--a certain vague
misgiving troubled him,--after all, he thought, had he not been very
rash to trust himself to the shelter of this strange and lonely inn
among the wild moors and hills, among unknown men, who, at any rate by
their rough and uncouth appearance, might be members of a gang of
thieves? The steps came nearer, and a hand fumbled gently with the door
handle. In that tense moment of strained listening he was glad to
remember that when undressing, he had carefully placed his vest, lined
with the banknotes he carried, under the sheet on which he lay, so that
in the event of any one coming to search his clothes, nothing would be
found but a few loose coins in his coat pocket. The fumbling at his door
continued, and presently it slowly opened, letting in a pale stream of
moonlight from a lattice window outside. He just saw the massive figure
of Tom o' the Gleam standing on the threshold, clad in shirt and
trousers only, and behind him there seemed to be the shadowy outline of
Matt Peke's broad shoulders and Bill Bush's bullet head. Uncertain what
to expect, he determined to show no sign of consciousness, and half
closing his eyes, he breathed heavily and regularly, feigning to be in a
sound slumber. But a cold chill ran through his veins as Tom o' the
Gleam slowly and cautiously approached the bed, holding something in his
right hand, while Matt Peke and Bill Bush tiptoed gently after him
half-way into the room.
"Poor old gaffer!" he heard Tom whisper--"Looks all ready laid out and
waiting for the winding!"
And the hand that held the something stole gently and ever gentlier
towards the pillow. By a supreme effort Helmsley kept quite still. How
he controlled his nerves he never knew, for to see through his almost
shut eyelids the dark herculean form of the gypsy bending over him with
the two other men behind, moved him to a horrible fear. Were they going
to murder him? If so, what for? To them he was but an old
tramp,--unless--unless somebody had tracked him from London!--unless
somebody knew who he really was, and had pointed him out as likely to
have money about him. These thoughts ran like lightning through his
brain, making his blood burn and his pulses, tingle almost to the verge
of a start and cry, when the creeping hand he dreaded quietly laid
something on his pillow and withdrew itself with delicate precaution.
"He'll be pleased when he wakes," said Tom o' the Gleam, in the mildest
of whispers, retreating softly from the bedside--"Won't he?"
"Ay, that he will!" responded Peke, under his breath;, "aint 'e sleepin'
sound?"
"Sound as a babe!"
Slowly and noiselessly they stepped backward,--slowly and noiselessly
they closed the door, and the faint echo of their stealthy footsteps
creeping away along the outer passage to another part of the house, was
hushed at last into silence. After a long pause of intense stillness,
some clock below stairs struck midnight with a mellow clang, and
Helmsley opening his eyes, lay waiting till the excited beating of his
heart subsided, and his quickened breath grew calm. Blaming himself for
his nervous terrors, he presently rose from his bed, and struck a match
from the box which Miss Tranter had thoughtfully left beside him, and
lit his candle. Something had been placed on his pillow, and curiosity
moved him to examine it. He looked,--but saw nothing save a mere screw
of soiled newspaper. He took it up wonderingly. It was heavy,--and
opening it he found it full of pennies, halfpennies, and one odd
sixpence. A scrap of writing accompanied this collection, roughly
pencilled thus:--"To help you along the road. From friends at the Trusty
Man. Good luck!"
For a moment he stood inert, fingering the humble coins,--for a moment
he could hardly realise that these rough men of doubtful character and
calling, with whom he had passed one evening, were actually humane
enough to feel pity for his age, and sympathy for his seeming loneliness
and poverty, and that they had sufficient heart and generosity to
deprive themselves of money in order to help one whom they judged to be
in greater need;--then the pure intention and honest kindness of the
little "surprise" gift came upon him all at once, and he was not ashamed
to feel his eyes full of tears.
"God forgive me!" he murmured--"God forgive me that I ever judged the
poor by the rich!"
With an almost reverential tenderness, he folded the paper and coins
together, and put the little packet carefully away, determining never to
part with it.
"For its value outweighs every banknote I ever handled!" he said--"And I
am prouder of it than of all my millions!"
CHAPTER VIII
The light of the next day's sun, beaming with all the heat and
effulgence of full morning, bathed moor and upland in a wide shower of
gold, when Miss Tranter, standing on the threshold of her dwelling, and
shading her eyes with one hand from the dazzling radiance of the skies,
watched a man's tall figure disappear down the rough and precipitous
road which led from the higher hills to the seashore. All her night's
lodgers had left her save one--and he was still soundly sleeping. Bill
Bush had risen as early as five and stolen away,--Matt Peke had broken
his fast with a cup of hot milk and a hunch of dry bread, and
shouldering his basket, had started for Crowcombe, where he had several
customers for his herbal wares.
"Take care o' the old gaffer I brought along wi' me," had been his
parting recommendation to the hostess of the "Trusty Man." "Tell 'im
I've left a bottle o' yerb wine in the bar for 'im. M'appen ye might
find an odd job or two about th' 'ouse an' garden for 'im, just for
lettin' 'im rest a while."
Miss Tranter had nodded curtly in response to this suggestion, but had
promised nothing.
The last to depart from the inn was Tom o' the Gleam. Tom had risen in
what he called his "dark mood." He had eaten no breakfast, and he
scarcely spoke at all as he took up his stout ash stick and prepared to
fare forth upon his way. Miss Tranter was not inquisitive, but she had
rather a liking for Tom, and his melancholy surliness was not lost upon
her.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked sharply. "You're like a bear
with a sore head this morning!"
He looked at her with sombre eyes in which the flame of strongly
restrained passions feverishly smouldered.
"I don't know what's the matter with me," he answered slowly. "Last
night I was happy. This morning I am wretched!"
"For no cause?"
"For no cause that I know of,"--and he heaved a sudden sigh. "It is the
dark spirit--the warning of an evil hour!"
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Tranter.
He was silent. His mouth compressed itself into a petulant line, like
that of a chidden child ready to cry.
"I shall be all right when I have kissed the kiddie," he said.
Miss Tranter sniffed and tossed her head.
"You're just a fool over that kiddie," she declared with emphasis,--"You
make too much of him."
"How can I make too much of my all?" he asked.
Her face softened.
"Well, it's a pity you look at it in that way," she said. "You shouldn't
set your heart on anything in this world."
"Why not?" he demanded. "Is God a friend that He should grudge us love?"
Her lips trembled a little, but she made no reply.
"What am I to set my heart on?" he continued--"If not on anything in
this world, what have I got in the next?"
A faint tinge of colour warmed Miss Tranter's sallow cheeks.
"Your wife's in the next," she answered, quietly.
His face changed--his eyes lightened.
"My wife!" he echoed. "Good woman that you are, you know she was never
my wife! No parson ever mocked us wild birds with his blessing! She was
my love--my love!--so much more than wife! By Heaven! If prayer and
fasting would bring me to the world where _she_ is, I'd fast and pray
till I turned this body of mine to dust and ashes! But my kiddie is all
I have that's left of her; and shall I not love him, nay, worship him
for _her_ sake?"
Miss Tranter tried to look severe, but could not,--the strong vehemence
of the man shook her self-possession.
"Love him, yes!--but don't worship him," she said. "It's a mistake, Tom!
He's only a child, after all, and he might be taken from you."
"Don't say that!" and Tom suddenly gripped her by the arm. "For God's
sake don't say that! Don't send me away this morning with those words
buzzing in my ears!"
Great tears flashed into his eyes,--his face paled and contracted as
with acutest agony.
"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Miss Tranter, herself quite overcome by his
fierce emotion--"I didn't mean----"
"Yes--yes!--that's right! Say you didn't mean it!" muttered Tom, with a
pained smile--"You didn't----?"
"I didn't mean it!" declared Miss Tranter earnestly. "Upon my word I
didn't, Tom!"
He loosened his hold of her arm.
"Thank you! God bless you!" and a shudder ran through his massive frame.
"But it's all one with the dark hour!--all one with the wicked tongue of
a dream that whispers to me of a coming storm!"
He pulled his rough cap over his brows, and strode forward a step or
two. Then he suddenly wheeled round again, and doffed the cap to Miss
Tranter.
"It's unlucky to turn back," he said, "yet I'm doing it,
because--because--I wouldn't have you think me sullen or ill-tempered
with _you_! Nor ungrateful. You're a good woman, for all that you're a
bit rough sometimes. If you want to know where we are, we've camped down
by Cleeve, and we're on the way to Dunster. I take the short cuts that
no one else dare venture by--over the cliffs and through the cave-holes
of the sea. When the old man comes down, tell him I'll have a care of
him if he passes my way. I like his face! I think he's something more
than he seems."
"So do I!" agreed Miss Tranter. "I'd almost swear that he's a gentleman,
fallen on hard times."
"A gentleman!" Tom o' the Gleam laughed disdainfully--"What's that? Only
a robber grown richer than his neighbours! Better be a plain Man any day
than your up-to-date 'gentleman'!"
With another laugh he swung away, and Miss Tranter remained, as already
stated, at the door of the inn for many minutes, watching his easy
stride over the rough stones and clods of the "by-road" winding down to
the sea. His figure, though so powerfully built, was singularly graceful
in movement, and commanded the landscape much as that of some chieftain
of old might have commanded it in that far back period of time when
mountain thieves and marauders were the progenitors of all the British
kings and their attendant nobility.
"I wish I knew that man's real history!" she mused, as he at last
disappeared from her sight. "The folks about here, such as Mr. Joltram,
for instance, say he was never born to the gypsy life,--he speaks too
well, and knows too much. Yet he's wild enough--and--yes!--I'm afraid
he's bad enough--sometimes--to be anything!"
Her meditations were here interrupted by a touch on her arm, and
turning, she beheld her round-eyed handmaiden Prue.
"The old man you sez is a gentleman is down, Mis' Tranter!"
Miss Tranter at once stepped indoors and confronted Helmsley, who,
amazed to find it nearly ten o'clock, now proffered humble excuses to
his hostess for his late rising. She waived these aside with a
good-humoured nod and smile.
"That's all right!" she said. "I wanted you to have a good long rest,
and I'm glad you got it. Were you disturbed at all?"
"Only by kindness," answered Helmsley in a rather tremulous voice. "Some
one came into my room while I was asleep--and--and--I found a 'surprise
packet' on my pillow----"
"Yes, I know all about it," interrupted Miss Tranter, with a touch of
embarrassment--"Tom o' the Gleam did that. He's just gone. He's a rough
chap, but he's got a heart. He thinks you're not strong enough to tramp
it to Cornwall. And all those great babies of men put their heads
together last night after you'd gone upstairs, and clubbed up enough
among them to give you a ride part of the way----"
"They're very good!" murmured Helmsley. "Why should they trouble about
an old fellow like me?"
"Oh well!" said Miss Tranter cheerfully, "it's just because you _are_ an
old fellow, I suppose! You see you might walk to a station to-day, and
take the train as far as Minehead before starting on the road again.
Anyhow you've time to think it over. If you'll step into the room
yonder, I'll send Prue with your breakfast."
She turned her back upon him, and with a shrill call of "Prue! Prue!"
affected to be too busy to continue the conversation. Helmsley,
therefore, went as she bade him into the common room, which at this hour
was quite empty. A neat white cloth was spread at one end of the table,
and on this was set a brown loaf, a pat of butter, a jug of new milk, a
basin of sugar, and a brightly polished china cup and saucer. The window
was open, and the inflow of the pure fresh morning air had done much to
disperse the odours of stale tobacco and beer that subtly clung to the
walls as reminders of the drink and smoke of the previous evening.
Just outside, a tangle of climbing roses hung like a delicate pink
curtain between Helmsley's eyes and the sunshine, while the busy humming
of bees in and out the fragrant hearts of the flowers, made a musical
monotony of soothing sound. He sat down and surveyed the simple scene
with a quiet sense of pleasure. He contrasted it in his memory with the
weary sameness of the breakfasts served to him in his own palatial
London residence, when the velvet-footed butler creeping obsequiously
round the table, uttered his perpetual "Tea or coffee, sir? 'Am or
tongue? Fish or heggs?" in soft sepulchral tones, as though these
comestibles had something to do with poison rather than nourishment.
With disgust at the luxury which engendered such domestic appurtenances,
he thought of the two tall footmen, whose chief duty towards the serving
of breakfast appeared to be the taking of covers off dishes and the
putting them on again, as if six-footed able-bodied manhood were not
equipped for more muscular work than that!
"We do great wrong," he said to himself--"We who are richer than what
are called the rich, do infinite wrong to our kind by tolerating so much
needless waste and useless extravagance. We merely generate mischief for
ourselves and others. The poor are happier, and far kindlier to each
other than the moneyed classes, simply because they cannot demand so
much self-indulgence. The lazy habits of wealthy men and women who
insist on getting an unnecessary number of paid persons to do for them
what they could very well do for themselves, are chiefly to blame for
all our tiresome and ostentatious social conditions. Servants must, of
course, be had in every well-ordered household--but too many of them
constitute a veritable hive of discord and worry. Why have huge houses
at all? Why have enormous domestic retinues? A small house is always
cosiest, and often prettiest, and the fewer servants, the less trouble.
Here again comes in the crucial question--Why do we spend all our best
years of youth, life, and sentiment in making money, when, so far as the
sweetest and highest things are concerned, money can give so little!"
At that moment, Prue entered with a brightly shining old brown "lustre"
teapot, and a couple of boiled eggs.
"Mis' Tranter sez you're to eat the eggs cos' they'se new-laid an'
incloodid in the bill," she announced glibly--"An' 'opes you've got all
ye want."
Helmsley looked at her kindly.
"You're a smart little girl!" he said. "Beginning to earn your own
living already, eh?"
"Lor', that aint much!" retorted Prue, putting a knife by the brown
loaf, and setting the breakfast things even more straightly on the table
than they originally were. "I lives on nothin' scarcely, though I'm
turned fifteen an' likes a bit o' fresh pork now an' agen. But I've got
a brother as is on'y ten, an' when 'e aint at school 'e's earnin' a bit
by gatherin' mussels on the beach, an' 'e do collect a goodish bit too,
though 'taint reg'lar biziness, an' 'e gets hisself into such a pickle
o' salt water as never was. But he brings mother a shillin' or two."
"And who is your mother?" asked Helmsley, drawing up his chair to the
table and sitting down.
"Misses Clodder, up at Blue-bell Cottage, two miles from 'ere across the
moor," replied Prue. "She goes out a-charing, but it's 'ard for 'er to
be doin' chars now--she's gettin' old an' fat--orful fat she be gettin'.
Dunno what we'll do if she goes on fattenin'."
It was difficult not to laugh at this statement, Prue's eyes were so
round, her cheeks were so red, and she breathed so spasmodically as she
spoke. David Helmsley bit his lips to hide a broad smile, and poured out
his tea.
"Have you no father?"
"No, never 'ad," declared Prue, quite jubilantly. "'E droonk 'isself to
death an' tumbled over a cliff near 'ere one dark night an' was
drowned!" This, with the most thrilling emphasis.
"That's very sad! But you can't say you never had a father," persisted
Helmsley. "You had him before he was drowned?"
"No, I 'adn't," said Prue. "'E never comed 'ome at all. When 'e seed me
'e didn't know me, 'e was that blind droonk. When my little brother was
born 'e was 'owlin' wild down Watchet way, an' screechin' to all the
folks as 'ow the baby wasn't his'n!"
This was a doubtful subject,--a "delicate and burning question," as
reviewers for the press say when they want to praise some personal
friend's indecent novel and pass it into decent households,--and
Helmsley let it drop. He devoted himself to the consideration of his
breakfast, which was excellent, and found that he had an appetite to
enjoy it thoroughly.
Prue watched him for a minute or two in silence.
"Ye likes yer food?" she demanded, presently.
"Very much!"
"Thought yer did! I'll tell Mis' Tranter."
With that she retired, and shutting the door behind her left Helmsley to
himself.
Many and conflicting were the thoughts that chased one another through
his brain during the quiet half-hour he gave to his morning meal,--a
whole fund of new suggestions and ideas were being generated in him by
the various episodes in which he was taking an active yet seemingly
passive part. He had voluntarily entered into his present circumstances,
and so far, he had nothing to complain of. He had met with friendliness
and sympathy from persons who, judged by the world's conventions, were
of no social account whatever, and he had seen for himself men in a
condition of extreme poverty, who were nevertheless apparently contented
with their lot. Of course, as a well-known millionaire, his secretaries
had always had to deal with endless cases of real or assumed distress,
more often the latter,--and shoals of begging letters from people
representing themselves as starving and friendless, formed a large part
of the daily correspondence with which his house and office were
besieged,--but he had never come into personal contact with these
shameless sort of correspondents, shrewdly judging them to be
undeserving simply by the very fact that they wrote begging letters. He
knew that no really honest or plucky-spirited man or woman would waste
so much as a stamp in asking money from a stranger, even if such a
stranger were twenty times a millionaire. He had given huge sums away to
charitable institutions anonymously; and he remembered with a thrill of
pain the "Christian kindness" of some good "Church" people, who, when
the news accidentally slipped out that he was the donor of a
particularly munificent gift to a certain hospital, remarked that "no
doubt Mr. Helmsley had given it anonymously _at first_, in order that it
might be made public more effectively _afterwards,_ by way of a personal
_advertisement_!" Such spiteful comment often repeated, had effectually
checked the outflow of his naturally warm and generous spirit,
nevertheless he was always ready to relieve any pressing cases of want
which were proved genuine, and many a wretched family in the East End of
London had cause to bless him for his timely and ungrudging aid. But
this present kind of life,--the life of the tramp, the poacher, the
gypsy, who is content to be "on the road" rather than submit to the
trammels of custom and ordinance, was new to him and full of charm. He
took a peculiar pleasure in reflecting as to what he could do to make
these men, with whom he had casually foregathered, happier? Did it lie
in his power to give them any greater satisfaction than that which they
already possessed? He doubted whether a present of money to Matt Peke,
for instance, would not offend that rustic philosopher, more than it
would gratify him;--while, as for Tom o' the Gleam, that handsome
ruffian was more likely to rob a man of gold than accept it as a gift
from him. Then involuntarily, his thoughts reverted to the "kiddie." He
recalled the look in Tom's wild eyes, and the almost womanish tremble of
tenderness in his rough voice, when he had spoken of this little child
of his on whom he openly admitted he had set all his love.
"I should like," mused Helmsley, "to see that kiddie! Not that I believe
in the apparent promise of a child's life,--for my own sons taught me
the folly of indulging in any hopes on that score--and Lucy Sorrel has
completed the painful lesson. Who would have ever thought that she,--the
little angel creature who seemed too lovely and innocent for this world
at ten,--could at twenty have become the extremely commonplace and
practical woman she is,--practical enough to wish to marry an old man
for his money! But that talk among the men last night about the 'kiddie'
touched me somehow,--I fancy it must be a sturdy little lad, with a
bright face and a will of its own. I might possibly do something for the
child if,--if its father would let me! And that's very doubtful!
Besides, should I not be interfering with the wiser and healthier
dispensations of nature? The 'kiddie' is no doubt perfectly happy in its
wild state of life,--free to roam the woods and fields, with every
chance of building up a strong and vigorous constitution in the simple
open-air existence to which it has been born and bred. All the riches in
the world could not make health or freedom for it,--and thus again I
confront myself with my own weary problem--Why have I toiled all my
life to make money, merely to find money so useless and comfortless at
the end?"
With a sigh he rose from the table. His simple breakfast was finished,
and he went to the window to look at the roses that pushed their pretty
pink faces up to the sun through a lattice-work of green leaves. There
was a small yard outside, roughly paved with cobbles, but clean, and
bordered here and there with bright clusters of flowers, and in one
particularly sunny corner where the warmth from the skies had made the
cobbles quite hot, a tiny white kitten rolled on its back, making the
most absurd efforts to catch its own tail between its forepaws,--and a
promising brood of fowls were clucking contentedly round some scattered
grain lately flung out from the window of the "Trusty Man's" wash-house
for their delectation. There was nothing in the scene at all of a
character to excite envy in the most morbid and dissatisfied mind;--it
was full of the tamest domesticity, and yet--it was a picture such as
some thoughtful Dutch artist would have liked to paint as a suggestion
of rural simplicity and peace.
"But if one only knew the ins and outs of the life here, it might not
prove so inviting," he thought. "I daresay all the little towns and
villages in this neighbourhood are full of petty discords, jealousies,
envyings and spites,--even Prue's mother, Mrs. Clodder, may have, and
probably has, a neighbour whom she hates, and wishes to get the better
of, in some way or other, for there is really no such thing as actual
peace anywhere except--in the grave! And who knows whether we shall even
find it there! Nothing dies which does not immediately begin to live--in
another fashion. And every community, whether of insects, birds, wild
animals, or men and women, is bound to fight for existence,--therefore
those who cry: 'Peace, peace!' only clamour for a vain thing. The very
stones and rocks and mountains maintain a perpetual war with destroying
elements,--they appear immutable things to our short lives, but they
change in their turn even as we do--they die to live again in other
forms, even as we do. And what is it all for? What is the sum and
substance of so much striving--if merest Nothingness is the end?"
He was disturbed from his reverie by the entrance of Miss Tranter. He
turned round and smiled at her.
"Well!" she said--"Enjoyed your breakfast?"
"Very much indeed, thanks to your kindness!" he replied. "I hardly
thought I had such a good appetite left to me. I feel quite strong and
hearty this morning."
"You look twice the man you were last night, certainly,"--and she eyed
him thoughtfully--"Would you like a job here?"
A flush rose to his brows. He hesitated before replying.
"You'd rather not!" snapped out Miss Tranter--"I can see 'No' in your
face. Well, please yourself!"
He looked at her. Her lips were compressed in a thin line, and she wore
a decidedly vexed expression.
"Ah, you think I don't want to work!" he said--"There you're wrong! But
I haven't many years of life in me,--there's not much time left to do
what I have to do,--and I must get on."
"Get on, where?"
"To Cornwall."
"Whereabouts in Cornwall?"
"Down by Penzance way."
"You want to start off on the tramp again at once?"
"Yes."
"All right, you must do as you like, I suppose,"--and Miss Tranter
sniffed whole volumes of meaning in one sniff--"But Farmer Joltram told
me to say that if you wanted a light job up on his place,--that's about
a mile from here,--- he wouldn't mind giving you a chance. You'd get
good victuals there, for he feeds his men well. And I don't mind
trusting you with a bit of gardening--you could make a shilling a day
easy--so don't say you can't get work. That's the usual whine--but if
you say it----"
"I shall be a liar!" said Helmsley, his sunken eyes lighting up with a
twinkle of merriment--"And don't you fear, Miss Tranter,--I _won't_ say
it! I'm grateful to Mr. Joltram--but I've only one object left to me in
life, and that is--to get on, and find the person I'm looking for--if I
can!"
"Oh, you're looking for a person, are you?" queried Miss Tranter, more
amicably--"Some long-lost relative?"
"No,--not a relative, only--a friend."
"I see!" Miss Tranter smoothed down her neatly fitting plain cotton gown
with both hands reflectively--"And you'll be all right if you find this
friend?"
"I shall never want anything any more," he answered, with an
unconsciously pathetic tremor in his voice--"My dearest wish will be
granted, and I shall be quite content to die!"
"Well, content or no content, you've got to do it," commented Miss
Tranter--"And so have I--and so have all of us. Which I think is a pity.
I shouldn't mind living for ever and ever in this world. It's a very
comfortable world, though some folks say it isn't. That's mostly liver
with them though. People who don't over-eat or over-drink themselves,
and who get plenty of fresh air, are generally fairly pleased with the
world as they find it. I suppose the friend you're looking for will be
glad to see you?"
"The friend I'm looking for will certainly be glad to see me," said
Helmsley, gently--"Glad to see me--glad to help me--glad above all
things to love me! If this were not so, I should not trouble to search
for my friend at all."
Miss Tranter fixed her eyes full upon him while he thus spoke. They were
sharp eyes, and just now they were visibly inquisitive.
"You've not been very long used to tramping," she observed.
"No."
"I expect you've seen better days?"
"Some few, perhaps,"--and he smiled gravely--"But it comes harder to a
man who has once known comfort to find himself comfortless in his old
age."
"That's very true! Well!"--and Miss Tranter gave a short sigh--"I'm
sorry you won't stay on here a bit to pick up your strength--but a
wilful man must have his way! I hope you'll find your friend!"
"I hope I shall!" said Helmsley earnestly. "And believe me I'm most
grateful to you----"
"Tut!" and Miss Tranter tossed her head. "What do you want to be
grateful to me for! You've had food and lodging, and you've paid me for
it. I've offered you work and you won't take it. That's the long and
short of it between us."
And thereupon she marched out of the room, her head very high, her
shoulders very square, and her back very straight. Helmsley watched her
dignified exit with a curious sense of half-amused contrition.
"What odd creatures some women are!" he thought. "Here's this
sharp-tongued, warm-hearted hostess of a roadside inn quite angry
because, apparently, an old tramp won't stay and do incompetent work for
her! She knows that I should make a mere boggle of her garden,--she is
equally aware that I could be no use in any way on 'Feathery' Joltram's
farm--and yet she is thoroughly annoyed and disappointed because I won't
try to do what she is perfectly confident I can't do, in order that I
shall rest well and be fed well for one or two days! Really the kindness
of the poor to one another outvalues all the gifts of the rich to the
charities they help to support. It is so much more than ordinary
'charity,' for it goes hand in hand with a touch of personal feeling.
And that is what few rich men ever get,--except when their pretended
'friends' think they can make something for themselves out of their
assumed 'friendship'!"
He put on his hat, and plucked one of the roses clambering in at the
window to take with him as a remembrance of the "Trusty Man,"--a place
which he felt would henceforward be a kind of landmark for the rest of
his life to save him from drowning in utter cynicism, because within its
walls he had found unselfish compassion for his age and loneliness, and
disinterested sympathy for his seeming need. Then he went to say
good-bye to Miss Tranter. She was, as usual, in the bar, standing very
erect. She had taken up her knitting, and her needles clicked and
glittered busily.
"Matt Peke left a bottle of his herb wine for you," she said. "There it
is."
She indicated by a jerk of her head a flat oblong quart flask, neatly
corked and tied with string, which lay on the counter. It was of a
conveniently portable shape, and Helmsley slipped it into one of his
coat pockets with ease.
"Shall you be seeing Peke soon again, Miss Tranter?" he asked.
"I don't know. Maybe so, and maybe not. He's gone on to Crowcombe. I
daresay he'll come back this way before the end of the month. He's a
pretty regular customer."
"Then, will you thank him for me, and say that I shall never forget his
kindness?"
"Never forget is a long time," said Miss Tranter. "Most folks forget
their friends directly their backs are turned."
"That's true," said Helmsley, gently; "but I shall not. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" Miss Tranter paused in her knitting. "Which road are you
going from here?"
Helmsley thought a moment.
"Perhaps," he said at last, "one of the main roads would be best. I'd
rather not risk any chance of losing my way."
Miss Tranter stepped out of the bar and came to the open doorway of the
inn.
"Take that path across the moor," and she pointed with one of her bright
knitting needles to a narrow beaten track between the tufted grass,
whitened here and there by clusters of tall daisies, "and follow it as
straight as you can. It will bring you out on the highroad to Williton
and Watchett. It's a goodish bit of tramping on a hot day like this, but
if you keep to it steady you'll be sure to get a lift or so in waggons
going along to Dunster. And there are plenty of publics about where I
daresay you'd get a night's sixpenny shelter, though whether any of them
are as comfortable as the 'Trusty Man,' is open to question."
"I should doubt it very much," said Helmsley, his rare kind smile
lighting up his whole face. "The 'Trusty Man' thoroughly deserves trust;
and, if I may say so, its kind hostess commands respect."
He raised his cap with the deferential easy grace which was habitual to
him, and Miss Tranter's pale cheeks reddened suddenly and violently.
"Oh, I'm only a rough sort!" she said hastily. "But the men like me
because I don't give them away. I hold that the poor must get a bit of
attention as well as the rich."
"The poor deserve it more," rejoined Helmsley. "The rich get far too
much of everything in these days,--they are too much pampered and too
much flattered. Yet, with it all, I daresay they are often miserable."
"It must be pretty hard to be miserable on twenty or thirty thousand a
year!" said Miss Tranter.
"You think so? Now, I should say it was very easy. For when one has
everything, one wants nothing."
"Well, isn't it all right to want nothing?" she queried, looking at him
inquisitively.
"All right? No!--rather all wrong! For want stimulates the mind and body
to work, and work generates health and energy,--and energy is the pulse
of life. Without that pulse, one is a mere husk of a man--as I am!" He
doffed his cap again. "Thank you for all your friendliness. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye! Perhaps I shall see you again some time this way?"
"Perhaps--but----"
"With your friend?" she suggested.
"Ay--if I find my friend--then possibly I may return. Meanwhile, all
good be with you!"
He turned away, and began to ascend the path indicated across the moor.
Once he looked back and waved his hand. Miss Tranter, in response, waved
her piece of knitting. Then she went on clicking her needles rapidly
through a perfect labyrinth of stitches, her eyes fixed all the while on
the tall, thin, frail figure which, with the assistance of a stout
stick, moved slowly along between the nodding daisies.
"He's what they call a mystery," she said to herself. "He's as true-born
a gentleman as ever lived--with a gentleman's ways, a gentleman's voice,
and a gentleman's hands, and yet he's 'on the road' like a tramp! Well!
there's many ups and downs in life, certainly, and those that's rich
to-day may be poor to-morrow. It's a queer world--and God who made it
only knows what it was made for!"
With that, having seen the last of Helmsley's retreating figure, she
went indoors, and relieved her feelings by putting Prue through her
domestic paces in a fashion that considerably flurried that small damsel
and caused her to wonder, "what 'ad come over Miss Tranter suddint, she
was that beside 'erself with work and temper!"
CHAPTER IX
It was pleasant walking across the moor. The July sun was powerful, but
to ageing men the warmth and vital influences of the orb of day are
welcome, precious, and salutary. An English summer is seldom or never
too warm for those who are conscious that but few such summers are left
to them, and David Helmsley was moved by a devout sense of gratitude
that on this fair and tranquil morning he was yet able to enjoy the
lovely and loving beneficence of all beautiful and natural things. The
scent of the wild thyme growing in prolific patches at his feet,--the
more pungent odour of the tall daisies which were of a hardy,
free-flowering kind,--the "strong sea-daisies that feast on the
sun,"--and the indescribable salty perfume that swept upwards on the
faint wind from the unseen ocean, just now hidden by projecting shelves
of broken ground fringed with trees,--all combined together to refresh
the air and to make the mere act of breathing a delight. After about
twenty minutes' walking Helmsley's step grew easier and more
springy,--almost he felt young,--almost he pictured himself living for
another ten years in health and active mental power. The lassitude and
_ennui_ inseparable from a life spent for the most part in the business
centres of London, had rolled away like a noxious mist from his mind,
and he was well-nigh ready to "begin life again," as he told himself,
with a smile at his own folly.
"No wonder that the old-world philosophers and scientists sought for the
_elixir vitae_!" he thought. "No wonder they felt that the usual tenure
is too short for all that a man might accomplish, did he live well and
wisely enough to do justice to all the powers with which nature has
endowed him. I am myself inclined to think that the 'Tree of Life'
exists,--perhaps its leaves are the 'leaves of the Daura,' for which
that excellent fellow Matt Peke is looking. Or it may be the 'Secta
Croa'!"
He smiled,--and having arrived at the end of the path which he had
followed from the door of the "Trusty Man," he saw before him a
descending bank, which sloped into the highroad, a wide track white
with thick dust stretching straight away for about a mile and then
dipping round a broad curve of land, overarched with trees. He sat down
for a few minutes on the warm grass, giving himself up to the idle
pleasure of watching the birds skimming through the clear blue sky,--the
bees bouncing in and out of the buttercups,--the varicoloured
butterflies floating like blown flower-petals on the breeze,--and he
heard a distant bell striking the half-hour after eleven. He had noted
the time when leaving the "Trusty Man," otherwise he would not have
known it so exactly, having left his watch locked up at home in his
private desk with other personal trinkets which would have been
superfluous and troublesome to him on his self-imposed journey. When the
echo of the bell's one stroke had died away it left a great stillness in
the air. The heat was increasing as the day veered towards noon, and he
decided that it would be as well to get on further down the road and
under the shadow of the trees, which were not so very far off, and which
looked invitingly cool in their spreading dark soft greenness. So,
rising from his brief rest, he started again "on the tramp," and soon
felt the full glare of the sun, and the hot sensation of the dust about
his feet; but he went on steadily, determining to make light of all the
inconveniences and difficulties, to which he was entirely unaccustomed,
but to which he had voluntarily exposed himself. For a considerable time
he met no living creature; the highroad seemed to be as much his own as
though it were part of a private park or landed estate belonging to him
only; and it was not till he had nearly accomplished the distance which
lay between him and the shelter of the trees, that he met a horse and
cart slowly jogging along towards the direction from whence he had come.
The man who drove the vehicle was half-asleep, stupefied, no doubt, by
the effect of the hot sun following on a possible "glass" at a
public-house, but Helmsley called to him just for company's sake.
"Hi! Am I going right for Watchett?"
The man opened his drowsing eyes and yawned expansively.
"Watchett? Ay! Williton comes fust."
"Is it far?"
"Nowt's far to your kind!" said the man, flicking his whip. "An' ye'll
meet a bobby or so on the road!"
On he went, and Helmsley without further parley resumed his tramp.
Presently, reaching the clump of trees he had seen in the distance, he
moved into their refreshing shade. They were broad-branched elms,
luxuriantly full of foliage, and the avenue they formed extended for
about a quarter of a mile. Cool dells and dingles of mossy green sloped
down on one side of the road, breaking into what are sometimes called
"coombs" running precipitously towards the sea-coast, and slackening his
pace a little he paused, looking through a tangle of shrubs and bracken
at the pale suggestion of a glimmer of blue which he realised was the
shining of the sunlit ocean. While he thus stood, he fancied he heard a
little plaintive whine as of an animal in pain. He listened attentively.
The sound was repeated, and, descending the shelving bank a few steps he
sought to discover the whereabouts of this piteous cry for help. All at
once he spied two bright sparkling eyes and a small silvery grey head
perking up at him through the leaves,--the head of a tiny Yorkshire
"toy" terrier. It looked at him with eloquent anxiety, and as he
approached it, it made an effort to move, but fell back again with a
faint moan. Gently he picked it up,--it was a rare and beautiful little
creature, but one of its silky forepaws had evidently been caught in
some trap, for it was badly mangled and bleeding. Round its neck was a
small golden collar, something like a lady's bracelet, bearing the
inscription: "I am Charlie. Take care of me!" There was no owner's name
or address, and the entreaty "Take care of me!" had certainly not been
complied with, or so valuable a pet would not have been left wounded on
the highroad. While Helmsley was examining it, it ceased whining, and
gently licked his hand. Seeing a trickling stream of water making its
way through the moss and ferns close by, he bathed the little dog's
wounded paw carefully and tied it up with a strip of material torn from
his own coat sleeve.
"So you want to be taken care of, do you, Charlie!" he said, patting the
tiny head. "That's what a good many of us want, when we feel hurt and
broken by the hard ways of the world!" Charlie blinked a dark eye,
cocked a small soft ear, and ventured on another caress of the kind
human hand with his warm little tongue. "Well, I won't leave you to
starve in the woods, or trust you to the tender mercies of the
police,--you shall come along with me! And if I see any advertisement
of your loss I'll perhaps take you back to your owner. But in the
meantime we'll stay together."
Charlie evidently agreed to this proposition, for when Helmsley tucked
him cosily under his arm, he settled down comfortably as though well
accustomed to the position. He was certainly nothing of a weight to
carry, and his new owner was conscious of a certain pleasure in feeling
the warm, silky little body nestling against his breast. He was not
quite alone any more,--this little creature was a companion,--a
something to talk to, to caress and to protect. He ascended the bank,
and regaining the highroad resumed his vagrant way. Noon was now at the
full, and the sun's heat seemed to create a silence that was both
oppressive and stifling. He walked slowly, and began to feel that
perhaps after all he had miscalculated his staying powers, and that the
burden of old age would, in the end, take vengeance upon him for running
risks of fatigue and exhaustion which, in his case, were wholly
unnecessary.
"Yet if I were really poor," he argued with himself, "if I were in very
truth a tramp, I should have to do exactly what I am doing now. If one
man can stand 'life on the road,' so can another."
And he would not allow his mind to dwell on the fact that a temperament
which has become accustomed to every kind of comfort and luxury is
seldom fitted to endure privation. On he jogged steadily, and by and by
began to be entertained by his own thoughts as pleasantly as a poet or
romancist is entertained by the fancies which come and go in the brain
with all the vividness of dramatic reality. Yet always he found himself
harking back to what he sometimes called the "incurability" of life.
Over and over again he asked himself the old eternal question: Why so
much Product to end in Waste? Why are thousands of millions of worlds,
swarming with life-organisms, created to revolve in space, if there is
no other fate for them but final destruction?
"There _must_ be an Afterwards!" he said. "Otherwise Creation would not
only be a senseless joke, but a wicked one! Nay, it would almost be a
crime. To cause creatures to be born into existence without their own
consent, merely to destroy them utterly in a few years and make the fact
of their having lived purposeless, would be worse than the dreams of
madmen. For what is the use of bringing human creatures into the world
to suffer pain, sickness, and sorrow, if mere life-torture is all we can
give them, and death is the only end?"
Here his meditations were broken in upon by the sound of a horse's hoofs
trotting briskly behind him, and pausing, he saw a neat little cart and
pony coming along, driven by a buxom-looking woman with a brown sun-hat
tied on in the old-fashioned manner under her chin.
"Would ye like a lift?" she asked. "It's mighty warm walkin'."
Helmsley raised his eyes to the sun-bonnet, and smiled at the cheerful
freckled face beneath its brim.
"You're very kind----" he began.
"Jump in!" said the woman. "I'm taking cream and cheeses into Watchett,
but it's a light load, an' Jim an' me can do with ye that far. This is
Jim."
She flicked the pony's ears with her whip by way of introducing the
animal, and Helmsley clambered up into the cart beside her.
"That's a nice little dog you've got," she remarked, as Charlie perked
his small black nose out from under his protector's arm to sniff the
subtle atmosphere of what was going to happen next. "He's a real
beauty!"
"Yes," replied Helmsley, without volunteering any information as to how
he had found the tiny creature, whom he now had no inclination to part
with. "He got his paw caught in a trap, so I'm obliged to carry him."
"Poor little soul! There's a-many traps all about 'ere, lots o' the land
bein' private property. Go on, Jim!" And she shook the reins on her
pony's neck, thereby causing that intelligent animal to start off at a
pleasantly regular pace. "I allus sez that if the rich ladies and
gentlemen as eats up every bit o' land in Great Britain could put traps
in the air to catch the noses of everything but themselves as dares to
breathe it, they'd do it, singin' glory all the time. For they goes to
church reg'lar."
"Ah, it's a wise thing to be seen _looking_ good in public!" said
Helmsley.
The woman laughed.
"That's right! You can do a lot o' humbuggin' if you're friends with the
parson, what more often than not humbugs everybody hisself. I'm no
church-goer, but I turn out the best cheese an' butter in these parts,
an' I never tells no lies nor cheats any one of a penny, so I aint
worryin' about my soul, seein' it's straight with my neighbours."
"Are there many rich people living about here?" inquired Helmsley.
"Not enough to do the place real good. The owners of the big houses are
here to-day and gone to-morrow, and they don't trouble much over their
tenantry. Still we rub on fairly well. None of us can ever put by for a
rainy day,--and some folk as is as hard-working as ever they can be, are
bound to come on the parish when they can't work no more--no doubt o'
that. You're a stranger to these parts?"
"Yes, I've tramped from Bristol."
The woman opened her eyes widely.
"That's a long way! You must be fairly strong for your age. Where are ye
wantin' to get to?"
"Cornwall."
"My word! You've got a goodish bit to go. All Devon lies before you."
"I know that. But I shall rest here and there, and perhaps get a lift or
two if I meet any more such kind-hearted folk as yourself."
She looked at him sharply.
"That's what we may call a bit o' soft soap," she said, "and I'd advise
ye to keep that kind o' thing to yourself, old man! It don't go down
with Meg Ross, I can tell ye!"
"Are you Meg Ross?" he asked, amused at her manner.
"That's me! I'm known all over the countryside for the sharpest tongue
as ever wagged in a woman's head. So you'd better look out!"
"I'm not afraid of you!" he said smiling.
"Well, you might be if you knew me!" and she whipped up her pony
smartly. "Howsomever, you're old enough to be past hurtin' or bein'
hurt."
"That's true!" he responded gently.
She was silent after this, and not till Watchett was reached did she
again begin conversation. Rattling quickly through the little
watering-place, which at this hour seemed altogether deserted or asleep,
she pulled up at an inn in the middle of the principal street.
"I've got an order to deliver here," she said. "What are _you_ going to
do with yourself?"
"Nothing in particular," he answered, with a smile. "I shall just take
my little dog to a chemist's and get its paw dressed, and then I shall
walk on."
"Don't you want any dinner?"
"Not yet. I had a good breakfast, I daresay I'll have a glass of milk
presently."
"Well, if you come back here in half an hour I can drive you on a little
further. How would you like that?"
"Very much! But I'm afraid of troubling you----"
"Oh, you won't do that!" said Meg with a defiant air. "No man, young or
old, has ever troubled _me_! I'm not married, thank the Lord!"
And jumping from the cart, she began to pull out sundry cans, jars, and
boxes, while Helmsley standing by with the small Charlie under his arm,
wished he could help her, but felt sure she would resent assistance even
if he offered it. Glancing at him, she gave him a kindly nod.
"Off you go with your little dog! You'll find me ready here in half an
hour."
With that she turned from him into the open doorway of the inn, and
Helmsley made his way slowly along the silent, sun-baked little street
till he found a small chemist's shop, where he took his lately found
canine companion to have its wounded paw examined and attended to. No
bones were broken, and the chemist, a lean, pale, kindly man, assured
him that in a few days the little animal would be quite well.
"It's a pretty creature," he said. "And valuable too."
"Yes. I found it on the highroad," said Helmsley; "and of course if I
see any advertisement out for it, I'll return it to its owner. But if no
one claims it I'll keep it."
"Perhaps it fell out of a motor-car," said the chemist. "It looks as if
it might have belonged to some fine lady who was too wrapped up in
herself to take proper care of it. There are many of that kind who come
this way touring through Somerset and Devon."
"I daresay you're right," and Helmsley gently stroked the tiny dog's
soft silky coat. "Rich women will pay any amount of money for such toy
creatures out of mere caprice, and will then lose them out of sheer
laziness, forgetting that they are living beings, with feelings and
sentiments of trust and affection greater sometimes than our own.
However, this little chap will be safe with me till he is rightfully
claimed, if ever that happens. I don't want to steal him; I only want to
take care of him."
"I should never part with him if I were you," said the chemist. "Those
who were careless enough to lose him deserve their loss."
Helmsley agreed, and left the shop. Finding a confectioner's near by, he
bought a few biscuits for his new pet, an attention which that small
animal highly appreciated. "Charlie" was hungry, and cracked and munched
the biscuits with exceeding relish, his absurd little nose becoming
quite moist with excitement and appetite. Returning presently to the inn
where he had left Meg Ross, Helmsley found that lady quite ready to
start.
"Oh, here you are, are you?" she said, smiling pleasantly, "Well, I'm
just on the move. Jump in!"
Helmsley hesitated a moment, standing beside the pony-cart.
"May I pay for my ride?" he said.
"Pay?" Meg stuck her stout arms akimbo, and glanced him all over. "Well,
I never! How much 'ave ye got?"
"Two or three shillings," he answered.
Meg laughed, showing a very sound row of even white teeth.
"All right! You can keep 'em!" she said. "Mebbe you want 'em. _I_ don't!
Now don't stand haverin' there,--get in the cart quick, or Jim'll be
runnin' away."
Jim showed no sign of this desperate intention, but, on the contrary,
stood very patiently waiting till his passengers were safely seated,
when he trotted off at a great pace, with such a clatter of hoofs and
rattle of wheels as rendered conversation impossible. But Helmsley was
very content to sit in silence, holding the little dog "Charlie" warmly
against his breast, and watching the beauties of the scenery expand
before him like a fairy panorama, ever broadening into fresh glimpses of
loveliness. It was a very quiet coastline which the windings of the road
now followed,--a fair and placid sea shining at wide intervals between a
lavish flow of equally fair and placid fields. The drive seemed all too
short, when at the corner of a lane embowered in trees, Meg Ross pulled
up short.
"The best of friends must part!" she said. "I'm right sorry I can't take
ye any further. But down 'ere's a farm where I put up for the afternoon
an' 'elps 'em through with their butter-makin', for there's a lot o'
skeery gals in the fam'ly as thinks more o' doin' their 'air than
churnin', an' doin' the 'air don't bring no money in, though mebbe it
might catch a 'usband as wasn't worth 'avin'. An' Jim gets his food 'ere
too. Howsomever, I'm real put about that I can't drive ye a bit towards
Cleeve Abbey, for that's rare an' fine at this time o' year,--but mebbe
ye're wantin' to push on quickly?"
"Yes, I must push on," rejoined Helmsley, as he got out of the cart;
then, standing in the road, he raised his cap to her. "And I'm very
grateful to you for helping me along so far, at the hottest time of the
day too. It's most kind of you!"
"Oh, I don't want any thanks!" said Meg, smiling. "I'm rather sweet on
old men, seein' old age aint their fault even if trampin' the road is.
You'd best keep on the straight line now, till you come to Blue Anchor.
That's a nice little village, and you'll find an inn there where you can
get a night's lodging cheap. I wouldn't advise you to stay much round
Cleeve after sundown, for there's a big camp of gypsies about there, an'
they're a rough lot, pertikly a man they calls Tom o' the Gleam."
Helmsley smiled.
"I know Tom o' the Gleam," he said. "He's a friend of mine."
Meg Ross opened her round, bright brown eyes.
"Is he? Dear life, if I'd known that, I mightn't 'ave been so ready to
give you a ride with me!" she said, and laughed. "Not that I'm afraid of
Tom, though he's a queer customer. I've given a good many glasses of new
milk to his 'kiddie,' as he calls that little lad of his, so I expect
I'm fairly in his favour."
"I've never seen his 'kiddie,'" said Helmsley. "What is the boy like?"
"A real fine little chap!" said Meg, with heartiness and feeling. "I'm
not a crank on children, seein' most o' them's muckers an' trouble from
mornin' to night, but if it 'ad pleased the Lord as I should wed, I
shouldn't 'a wished for a better specimen of a babe than Tom's kiddie.
Pity the mother died!"
"When the child was born?" queried Helmsley gently.
"No--oh no!"--and Meg's eyes grew thoughtful. "She got through her
trouble all right, but 'twas about a year or eighteen months arterwards
that she took to pinin' like, an' droopin' down just like the poppies
droops in the corn when the sun's too fierce upon 'em. She used to sit
by the roadside o' Sundays, with a little red handkerchief tied across
her shoulders, and all her dark 'air tumblin' about 'er face, an' she
used to look up with her great big black eyes an' smile at the finicky
fine church misses as come mincin' an' smirkin' along, an' say: 'Tell
your fortune, lady?' She was the prettiest creature I ever saw--not a
good lass--no!--nobody could say she was a good lass, for she went to
Tom without church or priest, but she loved him an' was faithful. An'
she just worshipped her baby." Here Meg paused a moment. "Tom was a real
danger to the country when she died," she presently went on. "He used to
run about the woods like a madman, calling her to come back to 'im, an'
threatenin' to murder any one who came nigh 'im;--then, by and by, he
took to the kiddie, an' he's steadier now."
There was something in the narration of this little history that touched
Helmsley too deeply for comment, and he was silent.
"Well!"--and Meg gave her pony's reins a shake--"I must be off! Sorry to
leave ye standin' in the middle o' the road like, but it can't be
helped. Mind you keep the little dog safe!--and take a woman's
advice--don't walk too far or too fast in one day. Good luck t' ye!"
Another shake of the reins, and "Jim" turned briskly down the lane. Once
Meg looked back and waved her hand,--then the green trees closed in upon
her disappearing vehicle, and Helmsley was again alone, save for
"Charlie," who, instinctively aware that some friend had left them,
licked his master's hand confidentially, as much as to say "I am still
with you." The air was cooler now, and Helmsley walked on with
comparative ease and pleasure. His thoughts were very busy. He was
drawing comparisons between the conduct of the poor and the rich to one
another, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter class.
"If a wealthy man has a carriage," he soliloquised, "how seldom will he
offer it or think of offering its use to any one of his acquaintances
who may be less fortunate! How rarely will he even say a kind word to
any man who is 'down'! Do I not know this myself! I remember well on one
occasion when I wished to send my carriage for the use of a poor fellow
who had once been employed in my office, but who had been compelled to
give up work, owing to illness, my secretary advised me not to show him
this mark of sympathy and attention. 'He will only take it as his
right,' I was assured,--'these sort of men are always ungrateful.' And I
listened to my secretary's advice--more fool I! For it should have been
nothing to me whether the man was ungrateful or not; the thing was to do
the good, and let the result be what it might. Now this poor Meg Ross
has no carriage, but such vehicle as she possesses she shares with one
whom she imagines to be in need. No other motive has moved her save
womanly pity for lonely age and infirmity. She has taught me a lesson by
simply offering a kindness without caring how it might be received or
rewarded. Is not that a lovely trait in human nature?--one which I have
never as yet discovered in what is called 'swagger society'! When I was
in the hey-dey of my career, and money was pouring in from all my
business 'deals' like water from a never-ending main, I had a young
Scotsman for a secretary, as close-fisted a fellow as ever was, who
managed to lose me the chance of doing a great many kind actions. More
than that, whenever I was likely to have any real friends whom I could
confidently trust, and who wanted nothing from me but affection and
sincerity, he succeeded in shaking off the hold they had upon me. Of
course I know now why he did this,--it was in order that he himself
might have his grip of me more securely, but at that time I was
unsuspicious, and believed the best of every one. Yes! I honestly
thought people were honest,--I trusted their good faith, with the result
that I found out the utter falsity of their pretensions. And here I
am,--old and nearing the end of my tether--more friendless than when I
first began to make my fortune, with the certain knowledge that not a
soul has ever cared or cares for me except for what can be got out of me
in the way of hard cash! I have met with more real kindness from the
rough fellows at the 'Trusty Man,' and from the 'Trusty Man's' hostess,
Miss Tranter, and now from this good woman Meg Ross, than has ever been
offered to me by those who know I am rich, and who have 'used' me
accordingly."
Here, coming to a place where two cross-roads met, he paused, looking
about him. The afternoon was declining, and the loveliness of the
landscape was intensified by a mellow softness in the sunshine, which
deepened the rich green of the trees and wakened an opaline iridescence
in the sea. A sign-post on one hand bore the direction "To Cleeve
Abbey," and the road thus indicated wound upward somewhat steeply,
disappearing amid luxuriant verdure which everywhere crowned the higher
summits of the hills. While he yet stood, looking at the exquisitely
shaded masses of foliage which, like festal garlands, adorned and
over-hung this ascent, the discordant "hoot" of a motor-horn sounded on
the stillness, and sheer down the winding way came at a tearing pace the
motor vehicle itself. It was a large, luxurious car, and pounded along
with tremendous speed, swerving at the bottom of the declivity with so
sharp a curve as to threaten an instant overturn, but, escaping this
imminent peril by almost a hairsbreadth, it dashed onward straight ahead
in a cloud of dust that for two or three minutes entirely blurred and
darkened the air. Half-blinded and choked by the rush of its furious
passage past him, Helmsley could only just barely discern that the car
was occupied by two men, the one driving, the other sitting beside the
driver,--and shading his eyes from the sun, he strove to track its way
as it flew down the road, but in less than a minute it was out of sight.
"There's not much 'speed limit' in that concern!" he said, half-aloud,
still gazing after it. "I call such driving recklessly wicked! If I
could have seen the number of that car, I'd have given information to
the police. But numbers on motors are no use when such a pace is kept
up, and the thick dust of a dry summer is whirled up by the wheels. It's
fortunate the road is clear. Yes, Charlie!"--this, as he saw his canine
foundling's head perk out from under his arm, with a little black nose
all a-quiver with anxiety,--"it's just as well for you that you've got a
wounded paw and can't run too far for the present! If you had been in
the way of that car just now, your little life would have been ended!"
Charlie pricked his pretty ears, and listened, or appeared to listen,
but had evidently no forebodings about himself or his future. He was
quite at home, and, after the fashion of dogs, who are often so much
wiser than men, argued that being safe and comfortable now, there was no
reason why he should not be safe and comfortable always. And Helmsley
presently bent himself to steady walking, and got on well, only pausing
to get some tea and bread and butter at a cottage by the roadside, where
a placard on the gate intimated that such refreshments were to be had
within. Nevertheless, he was a slow pedestrian, and what with lingering
here and there for brief rests by the way, the sun had sunk fully an
hour before he managed to reach Blue Anchor, the village of which Meg
Ross had told him. It was a pretty, peaceful place, set among wide
stretches of beach, extending for miles along the margin of the waters,
and the mellow summer twilight showed little white wreaths of foam
crawling lazily up on the sand in glittering curves that gleamed like
snow for a moment and then melted softly away into the deepening
darkness. He stopped at the first ale-house, a low-roofed, cottage-like
structure embowered in clambering flowers. It had a side entrance which
led into a big, rambling stableyard, and happening to glance that way he
perceived a vehicle standing there, which he at once recognised as the
large luxurious motor-car that had dashed past him at such a tearing
pace near Cleeve. The inn door was open, and the bar faced the road,
exhibiting a brave show of glittering brass taps, pewter tankards,
polished glasses and many-coloured bottles, all these things being
presided over by a buxom matron, who was not only an agreeable person to
look at in herself, but who was assisted by two pretty daughters. These
young women, wearing spotless white cuffs and aprons, dispensed the beer
to the customers, now and then relieving the monotony of this occupation
by carrying trays of bread and cheese and meat sandwiches round the wide
room of which the bar was a part, evidently bent on making the general
company stay as long as possible, if fascinating manners and smiling
eyes could work any detaining influence. Helmsley asked for a glass of
ale and a plate of bread and cheese, and on being supplied with these
refreshments, sat down at a small table in a corner well removed from
the light, where he could see without being seen. He did not intend to
inquire for a night's lodging yet. He wished first to ascertain for
himself the kind of people who frequented the place. The fear of
discovery always haunted him, and the sight of that costly motor-car
standing in the stableyard had caused him to feel a certain misgiving
lest any one of marked wealth or position should turn out to be its
owner. In such a case, the world being proverbially small, and rich men
being in the minority, it was just possible that he, David Helmsley,
even clad as he was in workman's clothes and partially disguised in
features by the growth of a beard, might be recognised. With this idea,
he kept himself well back in the shadow, listening attentively to the
scraps of desultory talk among the dozen or so of men in the room, while
carefully maintaining an air of such utter fatigue as to appear
indifferent to all that passed around him. Nobody noticed him, for which
he was thankful. And presently, when he became accustomed to the various
contending voices, which in their changing tones of gruff or gentle,
quick or slow, made a confused din upon his ears, he found out that the
general conversation was chiefly centred on one subject, that of the
very motor-car whose occupants he desired to shun.
"Serve 'em right!" growled one man. "Serve 'em right to 'ave broke down!
'Ope the darned thing's broke altogether!"
"You shouldn't say that,--'taint Christian," expostulated his neighbour
at the same table. "Them cars cost a heap o' money, from eight 'undred
to two thousand pounds, I've 'eerd tell."
"Who cares!" retorted the other. "Them as can pay a fortin on a car to
swish 'emselves about in, should be made to keep on payin' till they're
cleaned out o' money for good an' all. The road's a reg'lar hell since
them engines started along cuttin' everything to pieces. There aint a
man, woman, nor child what's safe from the moneyed murderers."
"Oh come, I say!" ejaculated a big, burly young fellow in corduroys.
"Moneyed murderers is going a bit too strong!"
"No 'taint!" said the first man who had spoken. "That's what the
motor-car folks are--no more nor less. Only t' other day in Taunton, a
woman as was the life an' soul of 'er 'usband an' childern, was knocked
down by a car as big as a railway truck. It just swept 'er off the curb
like a bundle o' rags. She picked 'erself up again an' walked 'ome,
tremblin' a little, an' not knowin' rightly what 'ad chanced to 'er, an'
in less than an hour she was dead. An' what did they say at the inquest?
Just 'death from shock'--an' no more. For them as owned the murderin'
car was proprietors o' a big brewery, and the coroner hisself 'ad shares
in it. That's 'ow justice is done nowadays!"
"Yes, we's an obligin' lot, we poor folks," observed a little man in the
rough garb of a cattle-driver, drawing his pipe from his mouth as he
spoke. "We lets the rich ride over us on rubber tyres an' never sez a
word on our own parts, but trusts to the law for doin' the same to a
millionaire as 'twould to a beggar,--but, Lord!--don't we see every day
as 'ow the millionaire gets off easy while the beggar goes to prison?
There used to be justice in old England, but the time for that's gone
past."
"There's as much justice in England as you'll ever get anywheres else!"
interrupted the hostess at the bar, nodding cheerfully at the men, and
smiling,--"And as for the motor-cars, they bring custom to my house, and
I don't grumble at anything which does me and mine a good turn. If it
hadn't been for a break-down in that big motor standing outside in the
stableyard, I shouldn't have had two gentlemen staying in my best rooms
to-night. I never find fault with money!"
She laughed and nodded again in the pleasantest manner. A slow smile
went round among the men,--it was impossible not to smile in response to
the gay good-humour expressed on such a beaming countenance.
"One of them's a lord, too," she added. "Quite a young fellow, just come
into his title, I suppose." And referring to her day-book, she ran her
plump finger down the various entries. "I've got his name
here--Wrotham,--Lord Reginald Wrotham."
"Wrotham? That aint a name known in these parts," said the man in
corduroys. "Wheer does 'e come from?"
"I don't know," she replied. "And I don't very much care. It's enough
for me that he's here and spending money!"
"Where's his chauffy?" inquired a lad, lounging near the bar.
"He hasn't got one. He drives his car himself. He's got a friend with
him--a Mr. James Brookfield."
There was a moment's silence. Helmsley drew further back into the corner
where he sat, and restrained the little dog Charlie from perking its
inquisitive head out too far, lest its beauty should attract
undesirable attention. His nervous misgivings concerning the owner of
the motor-car had not been entirely without foundation, for both
Reginald Wrotham and James Brookfield were well known to him. Wrotham's
career had been a sufficiently disgraceful one ever since he had entered
his teens,--he was a modern degenerate of the worst type, and though his
coming-of-age and the assumption of his family title had caused certain
time-servers to enrol themselves among his flatterers and friends, there
were very few decent houses where so soiled a member of the aristocracy
as he was could find even a semblance of toleration. James Brookfield
was a proprietor of newspapers as well as a "something in the City," and
if Helmsley had been asked to qualify that "something" by a name, he
would have found a term by no means complimentary to the individual in
question. Wrotham and Brookfield were always seen together,--they were
brothers in every sort of social iniquity and licentiousness, and an
attempt on Brookfield's part to borrow some thousands of pounds for his
"lordly" patron from Helmsley, had resulted in the latter giving the
would-be borrower's go-between such a strong piece of his mind as he was
not likely to forget. And now Helmsley was naturally annoyed to find
that these two abandoned rascals were staying at the very inn where he,
in his character of a penniless wayfarer, had hoped to pass a peaceful
night; however, he resolved to avoid all danger and embarrassment by
leaving the place directly he had finished his supper, and going in
search of some more suitable lodgment. Meanwhile, the hum of
conversation grew louder around him, and opinion ran high on the subject
of "the right of the road."
"The roads are made for the people, sure-_ly_!" said one of a group of
men standing near the largest table in the room--"And the people 'as the
right to 'xpect safety to life an' limb when they uses 'em."
"Well, the motors can put forward the same claim," retorted another.
"Motor folks are people too, an' they can say, if they likes, that if
roads is made for people, they're made for _them_ as well as t' others,
and they expects to be safe on 'em with their motors at whatever pace
they travels."
"Go 'long!" exclaimed the cattle-driver, who had before taken part in
the discussion--"Aint we got to take cows an' sheep an' 'osses by the
road? An' if a car comes along at the rate o' forty or fifty miles an
hour, what's to be done wi' the animals? An' if they're not to be on the
road, which way is they to be took?"
"Them motors ought to have roads o' their own like the railways," said a
quiet-looking grey-haired man, who was the carrier of the district.
"When the steam-engine was invented it wasn't allowed to go tearin'
along the public highway. They 'ad to make roads for it, an' lay tracks,
and they should do the same for motors which is gettin' just as fast an'
as dangerous as steam-engines."
"Yes, an' with makin' new roads an' layin' tracks, spoil the country for
good an' all!" said the man in corduroys--"An' alter it so that there
aint a bit o' peace or comfort left in the land! Level the hills an' cut
down the trees--pull up the hedges an' scare away all the singin' birds,
till the hull place looks like a football field!--all to please a few
selfish rich men who'd be better dead than livin'! A fine thing for
England that would be!"
At that moment, there was the noise of an opening door, and the hostess,
with an expressive glance at her customers, held up her finger
warningly.
"Hush, please!" she said. "The gentlemen are coming out."
A sudden pause ensued. The men looked round upon one another, half
sheepishly, half sullenly, and their growling voices subsided into a
murmur. The hostess settled the bow at her collar more becomingly, and
her two pretty daughters feigned to be deeply occupied with some drawn
thread work. David Helmsley, noting everything that was going on from
his coign of vantage, recognised at once the dissipated,
effeminate-looking young man, who, stepping out of a private room which
opened on a corridor apparently leading to the inner part of the house,
sauntered lazily up to the bar and, resting his arm upon its oaken
counter, smiled condescendingly, not to say insolently, upon the women
who stood behind it. There was no mistaking him,--it was the same
Reginald Wrotham whose scandals in society had broken his worthy
father's heart, and who now, succeeding to a hitherto unblemished title,
was doing his best to load it with dishonour. He was followed by his
friend Brookfield,--a heavily-built, lurching sort of man, with a nose
reddened by strong drink, and small lascivious eyes which glittered
dully in his head like the eyes of poisonous tropical beetle. The hush
among the "lower" class of company at the inn deepened into the usual
stupid awe which at times so curiously affects untutored rustics who are
made conscious of the presence of a "lord." Said a friend of the present
writer's to a waiter in a country hotel where one of these "lords" was
staying for a few days: "I want a letter to catch to-night's post, but
I'm afraid the mail has gone from the hotel. Could you send some one to
the post-office with it?" "Oh yes, sir!" replied the waiter
grandiloquently. "The servant of the Lord will take it!" Pitiful beyond
most piteous things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human
nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up
above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men,
gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe
before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness
nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so
far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well
might a stuffed boar's head assume a superiority to other comestibles
because decorated by the cook with a paper frill and bow of ribbon! The
atmosphere which Lord Reginald Wrotham brought with him into the
common-room of the bar was redolent of tobacco-smoke and whisky, yet,
judging from the various propitiatory, timid, anxious, or servile looks
cast upon him by all and sundry, it might have been fragrant and sacred
incense wafted from the altars of the goddess Fortune to her waiting
votaries. Helmsley's spirit rose up in contempt against the effete dandy
as he watched him leaning carelessly against the counter, twirling his
thin sandy moustache, and talking to his hostess merely for the sake of
offensively ogling her two daughters.
"Charming old place you have here!--charming!" drawled his lordship.
"Perfect dream! Love to pass all my days in such a delightful spot! 'Pon
my life! Awful luck for us, the motor breaking down, or we never should
have stopped at such a jolly place, don't-cher-know. Should we,
Brookfield?"
Brookfield, gently scratching a pimple on his fat, clean-shaven face,
smiled knowingly.
"_Couldn't_ have stopped!" he declared. "We were doing a record run. But
we should have missed a great deal,--a great deal!" And he emitted a
soft chuckle. "Not only the place,--but----!"
He waved his hand explanatorily, with a slight bow, which implied an
unspoken compliment to the looks of the mistress of the inn and her
family. One of the young women blushed and peeped slyly up at him. He
returned the glance with interest.
"May I ask," pursued Lord Wrotham, with an amicable leer, "the names of
your two daughters, Madam? They've been awfully kind to us
broken-down-travellers--should just like to know the difference between
them. Like two roses on one stalk, don't-cher-know! Can't tell which is
which!"
The mother of the girls hesitated a moment. She was not quite sure that
she liked the "tone" of his lordship's speech. Finally she replied
somewhat stiffly:--
"My eldest daughter is named Elizabeth, my lord, and her sister is
Grace."
"Elizabeth and Grace! Charming!" murmured Wrotham, leaning a little more
confidentially over the counter--"Now which--which is Grace?"
At that moment a tall, shadowy form darkened the open doorway of the
inn, and a man entered, carrying in his arms a small oblong bundle
covered with a piece of rough horse-cloth. Placing his burden down on a
vacant bench, he pushed his cap from his brows and stared wildly about
him. Every one looked at him,--some with recognition, others in
alarm,--and Helmsley, compelled as he was to keep himself out of the
general notice in his corner, almost started to his feet with an
involuntary cry of amazement. For it was Tom o' the Gleam.
CHAPTER X
Tom o' the Gleam,--Tom, with his clothes torn and covered with
dust,--Tom, changed suddenly to a haggard and terrible unlikeness of
himself, his face drawn and withered, its healthy bronze colour whitened
to a sickly livid hue,--Tom, with such an expression of dazed and stupid
horror in his eyes as to give the impression that he was heavily in
drink, and dangerous.
"Well, mates!" he said thickly--"A fine night and a clear moon!"
No one answered him. He staggered up to the bar. The hostess looked at
him severely.
"Now, Tom, what's the matter?" she said.
He straightened himself, and, throwing back his shoulders as though
parrying a blow, forced a smile.
"Nothing! A touch of the sun!" A strong shudder ran through his limbs,
and his teeth chattered,--then suddenly leaning forward on the counter,
he whispered: "I'm not drunk, mother!--for God's sake don't think
it!--I'm ill. Don't you see I'm ill?--I'll be all right in a
minute,--give me a drop of brandy!"
She fixed her candid gaze full upon him. She had known him well for
years, and not only did she know him, but, rough character as he was,
she liked and respected him. Looking him squarely in the face she saw at
once that he was speaking the truth. He was not drunk. He was ill,--very
ill. The strained anguish on his features proved it.
"Hadn't you better come inside the bar and sit down?" she suggested, in
a low tone.
"No, thanks--I'd rather not. I'll stand just here."
She gave him the brandy he had asked for. He sipped it slowly, and,
pushing his cap further off his brows, turned his dark eyes, full of
smouldering fire, upon Lord Wrotham and his friend, both of whom had
succeeded in getting up a little conversation with the hostess's younger
daughter, the girl named Grace. Her sister, Elizabeth, put down her
needlework, and watched Tom with sudden solicitude. An instinctive
dislike of Lord Wrotham and his companion caused her to avoid looking
their way, though she heard every word they were saying,--and her
interest became centred on the handsome gypsy, whose pallid features and
terrible expression filled her with a vague alarm.
"It would be awfully jolly of you if you'd come for a spin in my motor,"
said his lordship, twirling his sandy moustache and conveying a would-be
amorous twinkle into his small brown-green eyes for the benefit of the
girl he was ogling. "Beastly bore having a break-down, but it's nothing
serious--half a day's work will put it all right, and if you and your
sister would like a turn before we go on from here, I shall be charmed.
We can't do the record business now--not this time,--so it doesn't
matter how long we linger in this delightful spot."
"Especially in such delightful company!" added his friend, Brookfield.
"I'm going to take a photograph of this house to-morrow, and
perhaps"--here he smiled complacently--"perhaps Miss Grace and Miss
Elizabeth will consent to come into the picture?"
"Ya-as--ya-as!--oh do!" drawled Wrotham. "Of course they will! _You_
will, I'm sure, Miss Grace! This gentleman, Mr. Brookfield, has got
nearly all the pictorials under his thumb, and he'll put your portrait
in them as 'The Beauty of Somerset,' won't you, Brookfield?"
Brookfield laughed, a pleased laugh of conscious power.
"Of course I will," he said. "You have only to express the wish and the
thing is done!"
Wrotham twirled his moustache again.
"Awful fun having a friend on the press, don't-cher-know!" he went on.
"I get all my lady acquaintances into the papers,--makes 'em famous in a
day! The women I like are made to look beautiful, and those I don't like
are turned into frights--positive old horrors, give you my life! Easily
done, you know!--touch up a negative whichever way you fancy, and there
you are!"
The girl Grace lifted her eyes,--very pretty sparkling eyes they
were,--and regarded him with a mutinous air of contempt.
"It must be 'awfully' amusing!" she said sarcastically.
"It is!--give you my life!" And his lordship played with a charm in the
shape of an enamelled pig which dangled at his watch-chain. "It pleases
all parties except those whom I want to rub up the wrong way. I've made
many a woman's hair curl, I can tell you! You'll be my 'Somersetshire
beauty,' won't you, Miss Grace?"
"I think not!" she replied, with a cool glance. "My hair curls quite
enough already. I never use tongs!"
Brookfield burst into a laugh, and the laugh was echoed murmurously by
the other men in the room. Wrotham flushed and bit his lip.
"That's a one--er for me," he said lazily. "Pretty kitten as you are,
Miss Grace, you can scratch! That's always the worst of women,--they've
got such infernally sharp tongues----"
"Grace!" interrupted her mother, at this juncture--"You are wanted in
the kitchen."
Grace took the maternal hint and retired at once. At that instant Tom o'
the Gleam stirred slightly from his hitherto rigid attitude. He had only
taken half his glass of brandy, but that small amount had brought back a
tinge of colour to his face and deepened the sparkle of fire in his
eyes.
"Good roads for motoring about here!" he said.
Lord Wrotham looked up,--then measuring the great height, muscular
build, and commanding appearance of the speaker, nodded affably.
"First-rate!" he replied. "We had a splendid run from Cleeve Abbey."
"Magnificent!" echoed Brookfield. "Not half a second's stop all the way.
We should have been far beyond Minehead by this time, if it hadn't been
for the break-down. We were racing from London to the Land's End,--but
we took a wrong turning just before we came to Cleeve----"
"Oh! Took a wrong turning, did you?" And Tom leaned a little forward as
though to hear more accurately. His face had grown deadly pale again,
and he breathed quickly.
"Yes. We found ourselves quite close to Cleeve Abbey, but we didn't stop
to see old ruins this time, you bet! We just tore down the first lane we
saw running back into the highroad,--a pretty steep bit of ground
too--and, by Jove!--didn't we whizz round the corner at the bottom! That
was a near shave, I can tell you!"
"Ay, ay!" said Tom slowly, listening with an air of profound interest.
"You've got a smart chauffeur, no doubt!"
"No chauffeur at all!" declared Brookfield, emphatically. "His lordship
drives his car himself."
There followed an odd silence. All the customers in the room, drinking
and eating as many of them were, seemed to be under a dumb spell. Tom o'
the Gleam's presence was at all times more or less of a terror to the
timorous, and that he, who as a rule avoided strangers, should on his
own initiative enter into conversation with the two motorists, was of
itself a circumstance that awakened considerable wonder and interest.
David Helmsley, sitting apart in the shadow, could not take his eyes off
the gypsy's face and figure,--a kind of fascination impelled him to
watch with strained attention the dark shape, moulded with such
herculean symmetry, which seemed to command and subdue the very air that
gave it force and sustenance.
"His lordship drives his car himself!" echoed Tom, and a curious smile
parted his lips, showing an almost sinister gleam of white teeth between
his full black moustache and beard,--then, bringing his sombre glance to
bear slowly down on Wrotham's insignificant form, he continued,--"Are
you his lordship?"
Wrotham nodded with a careless condescension, and, lighting a cigar,
began to smoke it.
"And you drive your car yourself!" proceeded Tom,--"you must have good
nerve and a keen eye!"
"Oh well!" And Wrotham laughed airily--"Pretty much so!--but I won't
boast!"
"How many miles an hour?" went on Tom, pursuing his inquiries with an
almost morbid eagerness.
"Forty or fifty, I suppose--sometimes more. I always run at the highest
speed. Of course that kind of thing knocks the motor to pieces rather
soon, but one can always buy another."
"True!" said Tom. "Very true! One can always buy another!" He paused,
and seemed to collect his thoughts with an effort,--then noticing the
half-glass of brandy he had left on the counter, he took it up and drank
it all off at a gulp. "Have you ever had any accidents on the road?"
"Accidents?" Lord Wrotham put up an eyeglass. "Accidents? What do you
mean?"
"Why, what should I mean except what I say!" And Tom gave a sudden loud
laugh,--a laugh which made the hostess at the bar start nervously, while
many of the men seated round the various tables exchanged uneasy
glances. "Accidents are accidents all the world over! Haven't you ever
been thrown out, upset, shaken in body, broken in bone, or otherwise
involved in mischief?"
Lord Wrotham smiled, and let his eyeglass fall with a click against his
top waistcoat button.
"Never!" he said, taking his cigar from his mouth, looking at it, and
then replacing it with a relish--"I'm too fond of my own life to run any
risk of losing it. Other people's lives don't matter so much, but mine
is precious! Eh, Brookfield?"
Brookfield chuckled himself purple in the face over this pleasantry, and
declared that his lordship's wit grew sharper with every day of his
existence. Meanwhile Tom o' the Gleam moved a step or two nearer to
Wrotham.
"You're a lucky lord!" he said, and again he laughed discordantly. "Very
lucky! But you don't mean to tell me that while you're pounding along at
full speed, you've never upset anything in your way?--never knocked down
an old man or woman,--never run over a dog,--or a child?"
"Oh, well, if you mean that kind of thing!" murmured Wrotham, puffing
placidly at his cigar--"Of course! That's quite common! We're always
running over something or other, aren't we, Brookie?"
"Always!" declared that gentleman pleasantly. "Really it's half the
fun!"
"Positively it is, don't-cher-know!" and his lordship played again with
his enamelled pig--"But it's not our fault. If things will get into our
way, we can't wait till they get out. We're bound to ride over them. Do
you remember that old hen, Brookie?"
Brookfield spluttered into a laugh, and nodded in the affirmative.
"There it was skipping over the road in front of us in as great a hurry
as ever hen was," went on Wrotham. "Going back to its family of eggs per
express waddle! Whiz! Pst--and all its eggs and waddles were over! By
Jove, how we screamed! Ha--ha--ha!--he--he--he!"
Lord Wrotham's laugh resembled that laugh peculiar to "society"
folk,--the laugh civil-sniggering, which is just a tone between the
sheep's bleat and the peewit's cry. But no one laughed in response, and
no one spoke. Some heavy spell was in the air like a cloud shadowing a
landscape, and an imaginative onlooker would have been inclined to think
that this imperceptible mystic darkness had come in with Tom o' the
Gleam and was centralising itself round him alone. Brookfield, seeing
that his lordly patron was inclined to talk, and that he was evidently
anxious to narrate various "car" incidents, similar to the hen episode,
took up the conversation and led it on.
"It is really quite absurd," he said, "for any one of common sense to
argue that a motorist can, could, or should pull up every moment for the
sake of a few stray animals, or even people, when they don't seem to
know or care where they are going. Now think of that child to-day! What
an absolute little idiot! Gathering wild thyme and holding it out to the
car going full speed! No wonder we knocked it over!"
The hostess of the inn looked up quickly.
"I hope it was not hurt?" she said.
"Oh dear no!" answered Lord Wrotham lightly. "It just fell back and
turned a somersault in the grass,--evidently enjoying itself. It had a
narrow escape though!"
Tom o' the Gleam stared fixedly at him. Once or twice he essayed to
speak, but no sound came from his twitching lips. Presently, with an
effort, he found his voice.
"Did you--did you stop the car and go back to see--to see if--if it was
all right?" he asked, in curiously harsh, monotonous accents.
"Stop the car? Go back? By Jove, I should think not indeed! I'd lost too
much time already through taking a wrong turning. The child was all
right enough."
"Are you sure?" muttered Tom thickly. "Are you--quite--sure?"
"Sure?" And Wrotham again had recourse to his eyeglass, which he stuck
in one eye, while he fixed his interlocutor with a supercilious glance.
"Of course I'm sure! What the devil d' ye take me for? It was a mere
beggar's brat anyhow--there are too many of such little wretches running
loose about the roads--regular nuisances--a few might be run over with
advantage--Hullo! What now? What's the matter? Keep your distance,
please!" For Tom suddenly threw up his clenched fists with an
inarticulate cry of rage, and now leaped towards Wrotham in the attitude
of a wild beast springing on its prey. "Hands off! Hands off, I say!
Damn you, leave me alone! Brookfield! Here! Some one get a hold of this
fellow! He's mad!"
But before Brookfield or any other man could move to his assistance, Tom
had pounced upon him with all the fury of a famished tiger.
"God curse you!" he panted, between the gasps of his labouring
breath--"God burn you for ever in Hell!"
Down on the ground he hurled him, clutching him round the neck, and
choking every attempt at a cry. Then falling himself in all his huge
height, breadth, and weight, upon Wrotham's prone body he crushed it
under and held it beneath him, while, with appalling swiftness and
vehemence, he plunged a drawn claspknife deep in his victim's throat,
hacking the flesh from left to right, from right to left with reckless
ferocity, till the blood spurted about him in horrid crimson jets, and
gushed in a dark pool on the floor.
Piercing screams from the women, groans and cries from the men, filled
the air, and the lately peaceful scene was changed to one of maddening
confusion. Brookfield rushed wildly through the open door of the inn
into the village street, yelling: "Help! Help! Murder! Help!" and in
less than five minutes the place was filled with an excited crowd.
"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" ran in frightened whispers from mouth to
mouth. David Helmsley, giddy with the sudden shock of terror, rose
shuddering from his place with a vague idea of instant flight in his
mind, but remained standing inert, half paralysed by sheer panic, while
several men surrounded Tom, and dragged him forcibly up from the ground
where he lay, still grasping his murdered man. As they wrenched the
gypsy's grappling arms away, Wrotham fell back on the floor, stone dead.
Life had been thrust out of him with the first blow dealt him by Tom's
claspknife, which had been aimed at his throat as a butcher aims at the
throat of a swine. His bleeding corpse presented a frightful spectacle,
the head being nearly severed from the body.
Brookfield, shaking all over, turned his back upon the awful sight, and
kept on running to and fro and up and down the street, clamouring like a
madman for the police. Two sturdy constables presently came, their
appearance restoring something like order. To them Tom o' the Gleam
advanced, extending his blood-stained hands.
"I am ready!" he said, in a quiet voice. "I am the murderer!"
They looked at him. Then, by way of precaution, one of them clasped a
pair of manacles on his wrists. The other, turning his eyes to the
corpse on the floor, recoiled in horror.
"Throw something over it!" he commanded.
He was obeyed, and the dreadful remains of what had once been human,
were quickly shrouded from view.
"How did this happen?" was the next question put by the officer of the
law who had already spoken, opening his notebook.
A chorus of eager tongues answered him, Brookfield's excited explanation
echoing above them all. His dear friend, his great, noble, good friend
had been brutally murdered! His friend was Lord Wrotham, of Wrotham
Hall, Blankshire! A break-down had occurred within half a mile of Blue
Anchor, and Lord Wrotham had taken rooms at the present inn for the
night. His lordship had condescended to enter into a friendly
conversation with the ruffian now under arrest, who, without the
slightest cause or provocation whatsoever, had suddenly attacked and
overthrown his lordship, and plunged a knife into his lordship's throat!
He himself was James Brookfield, proprietor of the _Daily Post-Bag_, the
_Pictorial Pie_, and the _Illustrated Invoice_, and he should make this
outrageous, this awful crime a warning to motorists throughout the
world----!"
"That will do, thank you," said the officer briefly--then he gave a
sharp glance around him--"Where's the landlady?"
She had fled in terror from the scene, and some one went in search of
her, returning with the poor woman and her two daughters, all of them
deathly pale and shivering with dread.
"Don't be frightened, mother!" said one of the constables kindly--"No
harm will come to you. Just tell us what you saw of this affair--that's
all."
Whereat the poor hostess, her narrative interrupted by tears, explained
that Tom o' the Gleam was a frequent customer of hers, and that she had
never thought badly of him.
"He was a bit excited to-night, but he wasn't drunk," she said. "He told
me he was ill, and asked for a glass of brandy. He looked as if he were
in great pain, and I gave him the brandy at once and asked him to step
inside the bar. But he wouldn't do that,--he just stood talking with the
gentlemen about motoring, and then something was said about a child
being knocked over by the motor,--and all of a sudden----"
Here her voice broke, and she sank on a seat half swooning, while
Elizabeth, her eldest girl, finished the story in low, trembling tones.
Tom o' the Gleam meanwhile stood rigidly upright and silent. To him the
chief officer of the law finally turned.
"Will you come with us quietly?" he asked, "or do you mean to give us
trouble?"
Tom lifted his dark eyes.
"I shall give no man any more trouble," he answered. "I shall go nowhere
save where I am taken. You need fear nothing from me now. But I must
speak."
The officer frowned warningly.
"You'd better not!" he said.
"I must!" repeated Tom. "You think,--all of you,--that I had no
cause--no provocation--to kill the man who lies there"--and he turned a
fierce glance upon the covered corpse, from which a dark stream of blood
was trickling slowly along the floor--"I swear before God that I _had_
cause!--and that my cause was just! I _had_ provocation!--the bitterest
and worst! That man was a murderer as surely as I am. Look yonder!" And
lifting his manacled hands he extended them towards the bench where lay
the bundle covered with horse-cloth, which he had carried in his arms
and set down when he had first entered the inn. "Look, I say!--and then
tell me I had no cause!"
With an uneasy glance one of the officers went up to the spot indicated,
and hurriedly, yet fearfully, lifted the horse-cloth and looked under
it. Then uttering an exclamation of horror and pity, he drew away the
covering altogether, and disclosed to view the dead body of a child,--a
little curly-headed lad,--lying as if it were asleep, a smile on its
pretty mouth, and a bunch of wild thyme clasped in the clenched fingers
of its small right hand.
"My God! It's Kiddie!"
The exclamation was uttered almost simultaneously by every one in the
room, and the girl Elizabeth sprang forward.
"Oh, not Kiddie!" she cried--"Oh, surely not Kiddie! Oh, the poor little
darling!--the pretty little man!"
And she fell on her knees beside the tiny corpse and gave way to a wild
fit of weeping.
There was an awful silence, broken only by her sobbing. Men turned away
and covered their eyes--Brookfield edged himself stealthily through the
little crowd and sneaked out into the open air--and the officers of the
law stood inactive. Helmsley felt the room whirling about him in a
sickening blackness, and sat down to steady himself, the stinging tears
rising involuntarily in his throat and almost choking him.
"Oh, Kiddie!" wailed Elizabeth again, looking up in plaintive
appeal--"Oh, mother, mother, see! Grace come here! Kiddie's dead! The
poor innocent little child!" They came at her call, and knelt with her,
crying bitterly, and smoothing back with tender hands the thickly
tangled dark curls of the smiling dead thing, with the fragrance of wild
thyme clinging about it, as though it were a broken flower torn from the
woods where it had blossomed. Tom o' the Gleam watched them, and his
broad chest heaved with a sudden gasping sigh.
"You all know now," he said slowly, staring with strained piteous eyes
at the little lifeless body--"you understand,--the motor killed my
Kiddie! He was playing on the road--I was close by among the trees--I
saw the cursed car coming full speed downhill--I rushed to take the boy,
but was too late--he cried once--and then--silence! All the laughter
gone out of him--all the life and love----" He paused with a
shudder.--"I carried him all the way, and followed the car," he went
on--"I would have followed it to the world's end! I ran by a short cut
down near the sea,--and then--I saw the thing break down. I thanked God
for that! I tracked the murderers here,--I meant to kill the man who
killed my child!--and I have done it!" He paused again. Then he held out
his hands and looked at the constable.
"May I--before I go--take him in my arms--and kiss him?" he asked.
The chief officer nodded. He could not speak, but he unfastened Tom's
manacles and threw them on the floor. Then Tom himself moved feebly and
unsteadily to where the women knelt beside his dead child. They rose as
he approached, but did not turn away.
"You have hearts, you women!" he said faintly. "You know what it is to
love a child! And Kiddie,--Kiddie was such a happy little fellow!--so
strong and hearty!--so full of life! And now--now he's stiff and cold!
Only this morning he was jumping and laughing in my arms----" He broke
off, trembling violently, then with an effort he raised his head and
turned his eyes with a wild stare upon all around him. "We are only poor
folk!" he went on, in a firmer voice. "Only gypsies, tinkers,
road-menders, labourers, and the like! We cannot fight against the rich
who ride us down! There's no law for us, because we can't pay for it. We
can't fee the counsel or dine the judge! The rich can pay. They can
trample us down under their devilish motor-cars, and obliging juries
will declare our wrongs and injuries and deaths to be mere 'accident' or
'misadventure'! But if _they_ can kill, by God!--so can _we_! And if the
law lets them off for murdering our children, we must take the law into
our own hands and murder _them_ in turn--ay! even if we swing for it!"
No one spoke. The women still sobbed convulsively, but otherwise there
was a great silence. Tom o' the Gleam stretched forth his hands with an
eloquent gesture of passion.
"Look at him lying there!" he cried--"Only a child--a little child! So
pretty and playful!--all his joy was in the birds and flowers! The
robins knew him and would perch on his shoulder,--he would call to the
cuckoo,--he would race the swallow,--he would lie in the grass and sing
with the skylark and talk to the daisies. He was happy with the simplest
things--and when we put him to bed in his little hammock under the
trees, he would smile up at the stars and say: 'Mother's up there!
Good-night, mother!' Oh, the lonely trees, and the empty hammock! Oh, my
lad!--my little pretty lad! Murdered! Murdered! Gone from me for ever!
For ever! God! God!"
Reeling heavily forward, he sank in a crouching heap beside the child's
dead body and snatched it into his embrace, kissing the little cold lips
and cheeks and eyelids again and again, and pressing it with frantic
fervour against his breast.
"The dark hour!" he muttered--"the dark hour! To-day when I came away
over the moors I felt it creeping upon me! Last night it whispered to
me, and I felt its cold breath hissing against my ears! When I climbed
down the rocks to the seashore, I heard it wailing in the waves!--and
through the hollows of the rocks it shrieked an unknown horror at me!
Who was it that said to-day--'He is only a child after all, and he might
be taken from you'? I remember!--it was Miss Tranter who spoke--and she
was sorry afterwards--ah, yes!--she was sorry!--but it was the spirit of
the hour that moved her to the utterance of a warning--she could not
help herself,--and I--I should have been more careful!--I should not
have left my little one for a moment,--but I never thought any harm
could come to him--no, never to _him_! I was always sure God was too
good for that!"
Moaning drearily, he rocked the dead boy to and fro.
"Kiddie--my Kiddie!" he murmured--"Little one with my love's
eyes!--heart's darling with my love's face! Don't go to sleep,
Kiddie!--not just yet!--wake up and kiss me once!--only once again,
Kiddie!"
"Oh, Tom!" sobbed Elizabeth,--"Oh, poor, poor Tom!"
At the sound of her voice he raised his head and looked up at her. There
was a strange expression on his face,--a fixed and terrible stare in his
eyes. Suddenly he broke into a wild laugh.
"Ha-ha!" he cried. "Poor Tom! Tom o' the Gleam! That's me!--the me that
was not always me! Not always me--no!--not always Tom o' the Gleam! It
was a bold life I led in the woods long ago!--a life full of sunshine
and laughter--a life for a man with man's blood in his veins! Away out
in the land that once was old Provence, we jested and sang the hours
away,--the women with their guitars and mandolines--the men with their
wild dances and tambourines,--and love was the keynote of the
music--love!--always love! Love in the sunshine!--love under the
moonbeams!--bright eyes in which to drown one's soul,--red lips on which
to crush one's heart!--Ah, God!--such days when we were young!
'Ah! Craignons de perdre un seul jour,
De la belle saison de l'amour!'"
He sang these lines in a rich baritone, clear and thrilling with
passion, and the men grouped about him, not understanding what he sang,
glanced at one another with an uneasy sense of fear. All at once he
struggled to his feet without assistance, and stood upright, still
clasping the body of his child in his arms.
"Come, come!" he said thickly--"It's time we were off, Kiddie! We must
get across the moor and into camp. It's time for all lambs to be in the
fold;--time to go to bed, my little lad! Good-night, mates! Good-night!
I know you all,--and you all know me--you like fair play! Fair play all
round, eh? Not one law for the rich and another for the poor! Even
justice, boys! Justice! Justice!"
Here his voice broke in a great and awful cry,--blood sprang from his
lips--his face grew darkly purple,--and like a huge tree snapped asunder
by a storm, he reeled heavily to the ground. One of the constables
caught him as he fell.
"Hold up, Tom!" he said tremulously, the thick tears standing in his
eyes. "Don't give way! Be a man! Hold up! Steady! Here, let me take the
poor Kiddie!"
For a ghastly pallor was stealing over Tom's features, and his lips were
widely parted in a gasping struggle for breath.
"No--no!--don't take my boy!" he muttered feebly. "Let me--keep
him--with me! God is good--good after all!--we shall not--be parted!"
A strong convulsion shook his sinewy frame from head to foot, and he
writhed in desperate agony. The officer put an arm under his head, and
made an expressive sign to the awed witnesses of the scene. Helmsley,
startled at this, came hurriedly forward, trembling and scarcely able to
speak in the extremity of his fear and pity.
"What--what is it?" he stammered. "Not--not----?"
"Death! That's what it is!" said the officer, gently. "His heart's
broken!"
One rough fellow here pushed his way to the side of the fallen man,--it
was the cattle-driver who had taken part in the previous conversation
among the customers at the inn before the occurrence of the tragedy. He
knelt down, sobbing like a child.
"Tom!" he faltered, "Tom, old chap! Hearten up a bit! Don't leave us!
There's not one of us us'll think ill of ye!--no, not if the law was to
shut ye up for life! You was allus good to us poor folk--an' poor folk
aint as forgittin' o' kindness as rich. Stay an' help us along,
Tom!--you was allus brave an' strong an' hearty--an' there's many of us
wantin' comfort an' cheer, eh Tom?"
Tom's splendid dark eyes opened, and a smile, very wan and wistful,
gleamed across his lips.
"Is that you, Jim?" he muttered feebly. "It's all dark and cold!--I
can't see!--there'll be a frost to-night, and the lambs must be watched
a bit--I'm afraid I can't help you, Jim--not to-night! Wanting comfort,
did you say? Ay!--plenty wanting that, but I'm past giving it, my boy!
I'm done."
He drew a struggling breath with pain and difficulty.
"You see, Jim, I've killed a man!" he went on,
gaspingly--"And--and--I've no money--we all share and share alike in
camp--it won't be worth any one's while to find excuses for me. They'd
shut me up in prison if I lived--but now--God's my judge! And He's
merciful--He's giving me my liberty!"
His eyelids fell wearily, and a shadow, dark at first, and then
lightening into an ivory pallor, began to cover his features like a fine
mask, at sight of which the girls, Elizabeth and Grace, with their
mother, knelt down and hid their faces. Every one in the room knelt too,
and there was a profound stillness. Tom's breathing grew heavier and
more laboured,--once they made an attempt to lift the weight of his
child's dead body from his breast, but his hands were clenched upon it
convulsively and they could not loosen his hold. All at once Elizabeth
lifted her head and prayed aloud--
"O God, have mercy on our poor friend Tom, and help him through the
Valley of the Shadow! Grant him Thy forgiveness for all his sins, and
let him find----" here she broke down and sobbed pitifully,--then
between her tears she finished her petition--"Let him find his little
child with Thee!"
A low and solemn "Amen" was the response to her prayer from all present,
and suddenly Tom opened his eyes with a surprised bright look.
"Is Kiddie all right?" he asked.
"Yes, Tom!" It was Elizabeth who answered, bending over him--"Kiddie's
all right! He's fast asleep in your arms."
"So he is!" And the brilliancy in Tom's eyes grew still more radiant,
while with one hand he caressed the thick dark curls that clustered on
the head of his dead boy--"Poor little chap! Tired out, and so am I!
It's very cold surely!"
"Yes, Tom, it is. Very cold!"
"I thought so! I--I must keep the child warm. They'll be worried in camp
over all this--Kiddie never stays out so late. He's such a little
fellow--only four!--and he goes to bed early always. And when--when he's
asleep--why then--then--the day's over for me,--and night begins--night
begins!"
The smile lingered on his lips, and settled there at last in coldest
gravity,--the fine mask of death covered his features with an
impenetrable waxen stillness--all was over! Tom o' the Gleam had gone
with his slain child, and the victim he had sacrificed to his revenge,
into the presence of that Supreme Recorder who chronicles all deeds both
good and evil, and who, in the character of Divine Justice, may,
perchance, find that the sheer brutal selfishness of the modern social
world is more utterly to be condemned, and more criminal even than
murder.
CHAPTER XI
Sick at heart, and utterly overcome by the sudden and awful tragedy to
which he had been an enforced silent witness, David Helmsley had now but
one idea, and that was at once to leave the scene of horror which, like
a ghastly nightmare, scarred his vision and dizzied his brain. Stumbling
feebly along, and seeming to those who by chance noticed him, no more
than a poor old tramp terrified out of his wits by the grief and
confusion which prevailed, he made his way gradually through the crowd
now pressing closely round the dead, and went forth into the village
street. He held the little dog Charlie nestled under his coat, where he
had kept it hidden all the evening,--the tiny creature was shivering
violently with that strange consciousness of the atmosphere of death
which is instinctive to so many animals,--and a vague wish to soothe its
fears helped him for the moment to forget his own feelings. He would not
trust himself to look again at Tom o' the Gleam, stretched lifeless on
the ground with his slaughtered child clasped in his arms; he could not
speak to any one of the terrified people. He heard the constables giving
hurried orders for the removal of the bodies, and he saw two more police
officers arrive and go into the stableyard of the inn, there to take the
number of the motor-car and write down the full deposition of that
potentate of the pictorial press, James Brookfield. And he knew, without
any explanation, that the whole affair would probably be served up the
next day in the cheaper newspapers as a "sensational" crime, so worded
as to lay all the blame on Tom o' the Gleam, and to exonerate the act,
and deplore the violent death of the "lordly" brute who, out of his
selfish and wicked recklessness, had snatched away the life of an only
child from its father without care or compunction. But it was the
fearful swiftness of the catastrophe that affected Helmsley most,--that,
and what seemed to him, the needless cruelty of fate. Only last night he
had seen Tom o' the Gleam for the first time--only last night he had
admired the physical symmetry and grace of the man,--his handsome head,
his rich voice, and the curious refinement, suggestive of some past
culture and education, which gave such a charm to his manner,--only last
night he had experienced that little proof of human sympathy and
kindliness which had shown itself in the gift of the few coins which Tom
had collected and placed on his pillow,--only last night he had been
touched by the herculean fellow's tenderness for his little
"Kiddie,"--and now,--within the space of twenty-four hours, both father
and child had gone out of life at a rush as fierce and relentless as the
speed of the motor-car which had crushed a world of happiness under its
merciless wheels. Was it right--was it just that such things should be?
Could one believe in the goodness of God, in such a world of wanton
wickedness? Moving along in a blind haze of bewilderment, Helmsley's
thoughts were all disordered and his mind in a whirl,--what
consciousness he had left to him was centred in an effort to get
away--away!--far away from the scene of murder and death,--away from the
scent and trail of blood which seemed to infect and poison the very air!
It was a calm and lovely night. The moon rode high, and there was a soft
wind blowing in from the sea. Out over the waste of heaving water, where
the moonbeams turned the small rippling waves to the resemblance of
netted links of silver or steel, the horizon stretched sharply clear and
definite, like a line drawn under the finished chapter of vision. There
was a gentle murmur of the inflowing tide among the loose stones and
pebbles fringing the beach,--but to Helmsley's ears it sounded like the
miserable moaning of a broken heart,--the wail of a sorrowful spirit in
torture. He went on and on, with no very distinct idea of where he was
going,--he simply continued to walk automatically like one in a dream.
He did not know the time, but guessed it must be somewhere about
midnight. The road was quite deserted, and its loneliness was to him, in
his present over-wrought condition, appalling. Desolation seemed to
involve the whole earth in gloom,--the trees stood out in the white
shine of the moon like dark shrouded ghosts waving their cerements to
and fro,--the fields and hills on either side of him were bare and
solitary, and the gleam of the ocean was cold and cheerless as a "Dead
Man's Pool." Slowly he plodded along, with a thousand disjointed
fragments of thought and memory teasing his brain, all part and parcel
of his recent experiences,--he seemed to have lived through a whole
history of strange events since the herb-gatherer, Matt Peke, had
befriended him on the road,--and the most curious impression of all was
that he had somehow lost his own identity for ever. It was impossible
and ridiculous to think of himself as David Helmsley, the
millionaire,--there was, there could be no such person! David
Helmsley,--the real David Helmsley,--was very old, very tired, very
poor,--there was nothing left for him in this world save death. He had
no children, no friends,--no one who cared for him or who wanted to know
what had become of him. He was absolutely alone,--and in the hush of the
summer night he fancied that the very moon looked down upon him with a
chill stare as though wondering why he burdened the earth with his
presence when it was surely time for him to die!
It was not till he found that he was leaving the shore line, and that
one or two gas lamps twinkled faintly ahead of him, that he realized he
was entering the outskirts of a small town. Pausing a moment, he looked
about him. A high-walled castle, majestically enthroned on a steep
wooded height, was the first object that met his view,--every line of
its frowning battlements and turrets was seen clearly against the sky as
though etched out on a dark background with a pencil of light. A
sign-post at the corner of a winding road gave the direction "To Dunster
Castle." Reading this by the glimmer of the moon, Helmsley stood
irresolute for a minute or so, and then resumed his tramp, proceeding
through the streets of what he knew must be Dunster itself. He had no
intention of stopping in the town,--an inward nervousness pushed him on,
on, in spite of fatigue, and Dunster was not far enough away from Blue
Anchor to satisfy him. The scene of Tom o' the Gleam's revenge and death
surrounded him with a horrible environment,--an atmosphere from which he
sought to free himself by sheer distance, and he resolved to walk till
morning rather than remain anywhere near the place which was now
associated in his mind with one of the darkest episodes of human guilt
and suffering that he had ever known. Passing by the old inn known as
"The Luttrell Arms," now fast closed for the night, a policeman on his
beat stopped in his marching to and fro, and spoke to him.
"Hillo! Which way do you come from?"
"From Watchett."
"Oh! We've just had news of a murder up at Blue Anchor. Have you heard
anything of it?"
"Yes." And Helmsley looked his questioner squarely in the face. "It's a
terrible business! But the murderer's caught!"
"Caught is he? Who's got him?"
"Death!" And Helmsley, lifting his cap, stood bareheaded in the
moonlight. "He'll never escape again!"
The constable looked amazed and a little awed.
"Death? Why, I heard it was that wild gypsy, Tom o' the Gleam----"
"So it was,"--said Helmsley, gently,--"and Tom o' the Gleam is dead!"
"No! Don't say that!" ejaculated the constable with real concern.
"There's a lot of good in Tom! I shouldn't like to think he's gone!"
"You'll find it's true," said Helmsley. "And perhaps, when you get all
the details, you'll think it for the best. Good-night!"
"Are you staying in Dunster?" queried the officer with a keen glance.
"No. I'm moving on." And Helmsley smiled wearily as he again
said--"Good-night!"
He walked steadily, though slowly, through the sleeping town, and passed
out of it. Ascending a winding bit of road he found himself once more in
the open country, and presently came to a field where part of the fence
had been broken through by the cattle. Just behind the damaged palings
there was a covered shed, open in front, with a few bundles of straw
packed within it. This place suggested itself as a fairly comfortable
shelter for an hour's rest, and becoming conscious of the intense aching
of his limbs, he took possession of it, setting the small "Charlie" down
to gambol on the grass at pleasure. He was far more tired than he knew,
and remembering the "yerb wine" which Matt Peke had provided him with,
he took a long draught of it, grateful for its reviving warmth and tonic
power. Then, half-dreamily, he watched the little dog whom he had
rescued and befriended, and presently found himself vaguely entertained
by the graceful antics of the tiny creature which, despite its wounded
paw, capered limpingly after its own shadow flung by the moonlight on
the greensward, and attempted in its own playful way to attract the
attention of its new master and wile him away from his mood of utter
misery. Involuntarily he thought of the frenzied cry of Shakespeare's
"Lear" over the dead body of Cordelia:--
"What! Shall a dog, a horse, a rat, have life
And thou no breath at all!"
What curious caprice of destiny was it that saved the life of a dog, yet
robbed a father of his child? Who could explain it? Why should a happy
innocent little lad like Tom o' the Gleam's "Kiddie" have been hurled
out of existence in a moment as it were by the mad speed of a motor's
wheels,--and a fragile "toy" terrier, the mere whim of dog-breeders and
plaything for fanciful women, be plucked from starvation and death as
though the great forces of creation deemed it more worth cherishing than
a human being! For the murder of Lord Wrotham, Helmsley found
excuse,--for the death of Tom there was ample natural cause,--but for
the wanton killing of a little child no reason could justly be assigned.
Propping his elbows on his knees, and resting his aching head on his
hands, he thought and thought,--till Thought became almost as a fire in
his brain. What was the use of life? he asked himself. What definite
plan or object could there possibly be in the perpetuation of the human
race?
"To pace the same dull round
On each recurring day,
For seventy years or more
Till strength and hope decay,--
To trust,--and be deceived,--
And standing,--fear to fall!
To find no resting-place--
_Can this be all?_"
Beginning with hope and eagerness, and having confidence in the good
faith of his fellow-men, had he not himself fought a hard fight in the
world, setting before him a certain goal,--a goal which he had won and
passed,--to what purpose? In youth he had been very poor,--and poverty
had served him as a spur to ambition. In middle life he had become one
of the richest men in the world. He had done all that rich and ambitious
men set themselves out to do. He might have said with the Preacher:
"Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them,--I withheld not my
heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was
my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my
hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do, and
behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit
under the sun."
He had loved,--or rather, he had imagined he loved,--he had married, and
his wife had dishonoured him. Sons had been born to him, who, with their
mother's treacherous blood in their veins, had brought him to shame by
their conduct,--and now all the kith and kin he had sought to surround
himself with were dead, and he was alone--as alone as he had ever been
at the very commencement of his career. Had his long life of toil led
him only to this? With a sense of dull disappointment, his mind reverted
to the plan he had half entertained of benefiting Tom o' the Gleam in
some way and making him happy by prospering the fortunes of the child he
loved so well,--though he was fully aware that perhaps he could not have
done much in that direction, as it was more than likely that Tom would
have resented the slightest hint of a rich man's patronage. Death,
however, in its fiercest shape, had now put an abrupt end to any such
benevolent scheme, whether or not it might have been feasible,--and,
absorbed in a kind of lethargic reverie, he again and again asked
himself what use he was in the world?--what could he do with the brief
remaining portion of his life?--and how he could dispose, to his own
satisfaction, of the vast wealth which, like a huge golden mill-stone,
hung round his neck, dragging him down to the grave? Such poor people as
he had met with during his tramp seemed fairly contented with their lot;
he, at any rate, had heard no complaints of poverty from them. On the
contrary, they had shown an independence of thought and freedom of life
which was wholly incompatible with the mere desire of money. He could
put a five-pound note in an envelope and post it anonymously to Matt
Peke at the "Trusty Man" as a slight return for his kindness, but he was
quite sure that though Matt might be pleased enough with the money he
would equally be puzzled, and not entirely satisfied in his mind as to
whether he was doing right to accept and use it. It would probably be
put in a savings bank for a "rainy day."
"It is the hardest thing in the world to do good with money!" he mused,
sorrowfully. "Of course if I were to say this to the unthinking
majority, they would gape upon me and exclaim--'Hard to do good! Why,
there's nothing so easy! There are thousands of poor,--there are the
hospitals--the churches!' True,--but the thousands of _real_ poor are
not so easily found! There are thousands, ay, millions of 'sham' poor.
But the _real_ poor, who never ask for anything,--who would not know how
to write a begging letter, and who would shrink from writing it even if
they did know--who starve patiently, suffer uncomplainingly, and die
resignedly--these are as difficult to meet with as diamonds in a coal
mine. As for hospitals, do I not know how many of them pander to the
barbarous inhumanity of vivisection!--and have I not experienced to the
utmost dregs of bitterness, the melting of cash through the hands of
secretaries and under-secretaries, and general Committee-ism, and Red
Tape-ism, while every hundred thousand pounds bestowed on these
necessary institutions turns out in the end to be a mere drop in the sea
of incessant demand, though the donors may possibly purchase a
knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage, in return for their gifts!
And the churches!--my God!--as Madame Roland said of Liberty, what
crimes are committed in Thy Name!"
He looked up at the sky through the square opening of the shed, and saw
the moon, now changed in appearance and surrounded by a curious luminous
halo like the nimbus with which painters encircle the head of a saint.
It was a delicate aureole of prismatic radiance, and seemed to have
swept suddenly round the silver planet in companionship with a light
mist from the sea,--a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and
covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew. A few fleecy
clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of
the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.
"It will soon be morning,"--thought Helmsley--"The sun will rise in its
same old glorious way--with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it
has made from the beginning. The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the
building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of
Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of Caesar, the crucifixion
of Christ,--the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or
horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and
fruitfulness, itself indifferent as to what becomes of the atoms
germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed
whether a man dies or lives--neither does God!"
Yet with this idea came a sudden revulsion. Surely in the history of
human events, there was ample proof that God, or the invisible Power we
call by that name, did care? Crime was, and is, always followed by
punishment, sooner or later. Who ordained,--who ordains that this shall
be? Who is it that distinguishes between Right and Wrong, and adjusts
the balance accordingly? Not Man,--for Man in a barbarous state is often
incapable of understanding moral law, till he is trained to it by the
evolution of his being and the ever-progressive working of the unseen
spiritual forces. And the first process of his evolution is the
awakening of conscience, and the struggle to rise from his mere Self to
a higher ideal of life,--from material needs to intellectual
development. Why is he thus invariably moved towards this higher ideal?
If the instinct were a mistaken one, foredoomed to disappointment, it
would not be allowed to exist. Nature does not endow us with any sense
of which we do not stand in need, or any attribute which is useless to
us in the shaping and unfolding of our destinies. True it is that we see
many a man and woman who appear to have no souls, but we dare not infer
from these exceptions that the soul does not exist. Soulless beings
simply have no need of spirituality, just as the night-owl has no need
of the sun,--they are bodies merely, and as bodies perish. As the angel
said to the prophet Esdras:--"The Most High hath made this world for
many, but the world to come for few. I will tell thee a similitude,
Esdras; As when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it
giveth much mould whereof earthern vessels are made, but little dust
that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world!"
Weary of arguing with himself, Helmsley tried to reflect back on certain
incidents of his youth, which now in his age came out like prominent
pictures in the gallery of his brain. He remembered the pure and simple
piety which distinguished his mother, who lived her life out as sweetly
as a flower blooms,--thanking God every morning and night for His
goodness to her, even at times when she was most sorrowful,--he thought
of his little sister, dead in the springtime of her girlhood, who never
had a doubt of the unfailing goodness and beneficence of her Creator,
and who, when dying, smiled radiantly, and whispered with her last
breath, "I wish you would not cry for me, Davie dear!--the next world is
so beautiful!" Was this "next world" in her imagination, or was it a
fact? Materialists would, of course, say it was imagination. But, in the
light of present-day science and discovery, who can pin one's faith on
Materialism?
"I have missed the talisman that would have made all the darkness of
life clear to me," he said at last, half aloud; "and missing it, I have
missed everything of real value. Pain, loss, old age, and death would
have been nothing to me, if I had only won that magic glory of the
world--Love!"
His eyes again wandered to the sky, and he noticed that the
grey-and-white clouds in the west were rising still higher in fleecy
pyramids, and were spreading with a wool-like thickness gradually over
the whole heavens. The wind, too, had grown stronger, and its sighing
sound had changed to a more strenuous moaning. The little dog, Charlie,
tired of its master's gloomy absorption, jumped on his knee, and
intimated by eloquent looks and wagging tail a readiness to be again
nestled into some cosy corner. The shed was warm and comfortable, and
after some brief consideration, he decided to try and sleep for an hour
or so before again starting on his way. With this object in view, he
arranged the packages of straw which filled one side of the shed into
the form of an extemporary couch, which proved comfortable enough when
he lay down with Charlie curled up beside him. He could not help
thinking of the previous night, when he had seen the tall figure of Tom
o' the Gleam approaching his bedside at the "Trusty Man," with the
little "surprise" gift he had so stealthily laid upon his pillow,--and
it was difficult to realise or to believe that the warm, impulsive heart
had ceased to beat, and that all that splendid manhood was now but
lifeless clay. He tried not to see the horribly haunting vision of the
murdered Wrotham, with that terrible gash in his throat, and the blood
pouring from it,--he strove to forget the pitiful picture of the little
dead "Kiddie" in the arms of its maddened and broken-hearted father--but
the impression was too recent and too ghastly for forgetfulness.
"And yet with it all," he mused, "Tom o' the Gleam had what I have never
possessed--love! And perhaps it is better to die--even in the awful way
he died--in the very strength and frenzy of love--rather than live
loveless!"
Here Charlie heaved a small sigh, and nestled a soft silky head close
against his breast. "I love you!" the little creature seemed to say--"I
am only a dog--but I want to comfort you if I can!" And he
murmured--"Poor Charlie! Poor wee Charlie!" and, patting the flossy coat
of his foundling, was conscious of a certain consolation in the mere
companionship of an animal that trusted to him for protection.
Presently he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His brain was somewhat
confused, and scraps of old songs and verses he had known in boyhood,
were jumbled together without cause or sequence, varying in their turn
with the events of his business, his financial "deals" and the general
results of his life's work. He remembered quite suddenly and for no
particular reason, a battle he had engaged in with certain directors of
a company who had attempted to "better" him in a particularly important
international trade transaction, and he recalled his own sweeping
victory over them with a curious sense of disgust. What did it
matter--now?--whether he had so many extra millions, or so many more
degrees of power? Certain lines of Tennyson's seemed to contain greater
truths than all the money-markets of the world could supply:--
"O let the solid earth
Not fail beneath my feet,
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet--
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day!
"Let the sweet heavens endure
Not close and darken above me,
Before I am quite, quite sure
That there is one to love me;
Then let come what come may
To a life that has been so sad,
I shall have had my day!"
He murmured this last verse over and over again till it made mere
monotony in his mind, and till at last exhausted nature had its way and
lulled his senses into a profound slumber. Strange to say, as soon as he
was fast asleep, Charlie woke up. Perking his little ears sharply, he
sat briskly erect on his tiny haunches, his forepaws well placed on his
master's breast, his bright eyes watchfully fixed on the opening of the
shed, and his whole attitude expressing that he considered himself "on
guard." It was evident that had the least human footfall broken the
stillness, he would have made the air ring with as much noise as he was
capable of. He had a vibrating bark of his own, worthy of a much larger
animal, and he appeared to be anxiously waiting for an opportunity to
show off this special accomplishment. No such chance, however, offered
itself; the minutes and hours went by in undisturbed order. Now and then
a rabbit scampered across the field, or an owl flew through the trees
with a plaintive cry,--otherwise, so far as the immediate surroundings
of the visible land were concerned, everything was perfectly calm. But
up in the sky there were signs of gathering trouble. The clouds had
formed into woollier masses,--their grey had changed to black, their
white to grey, and the moon, half hidden, appeared to be hurrying
downward to the west in a flying scud of etheric foam. Some disturbance
was brewing in the higher altitudes of air, and a low snarling murmur
from the sea responded to what was, perchance, the outward gust of a
fire-tempest in the sun. The small Charlie was, no doubt, quite ignorant
of meteorological portents, nevertheless he kept himself wide awake,
sniffing at empty space in a highly suspicious manner, his tiny black
nose moist with aggressive excitement, and his whole miniature being
prepared to make "much ado about nothing" on the smallest provocation.
The morning broke sullenly, in a dull haze, though here and there pale
patches of blue, and flushes of rose-pink, showed how fair the day would
willingly have made itself, had only the elements been propitious.
Helmsley slept well on through the gradual unfolding of the dawn, and it
was fully seven o'clock when he awoke with a start, scarcely knowing
where he was. Charlie hailed his return to consciousness with marked
enthusiasm, and dropping the sentry "Who goes there?" attitude,
gambolled about him delightedly. Presently remembering his environment
and the events which were a part of it, he quickly aroused himself, and
carefully packing up all the bundles of straw in the shed, exactly as he
had found them, he again went forth upon what he was disposed to
consider now a penitential pilgrimage.
"In old times," he said to himself, as he bathed his face and hands in a
little running stream by the roadside--"kings, when they found
themselves miserable and did not know why they were so, went to the
church for consolation, and were told by the priests that they had
sinned--and that it was their sins that made them wretched. And a
journey taken with fasting was prescribed--much in the way that our
fashionable physicians prescribe change of air, a limited diet and
plenty of exercise to the luxurious feeders of our social hive. And the
weary potentates took off their crowns and their royal robes, and
trudged along as they were told--became tramps for the nonce, like me.
But I need no priest to command what I myself ordain!"
He resumed his onward way ploddingly and determinedly, though he was
beginning to be conscious of an increasing weariness and lassitude which
seemed to threaten him with a break-down ere long. But he would not
think of this.
"Other men have no doubt felt just as weak," he thought. "There are many
on the road as old as I am and even older. I ought to be able to do of
my own choice what others do from necessity. And if the worst comes to
the worst, and I am compelled to give up my project, I can always get
back to London in a few hours!"
He was soon at Minehead, and found that quaint little watering-place
fully astir; for so far as it could have a "season," that season was now
on. A considerable number of tourists were about, and coaches and brakes
were getting ready in the streets for those who were inclined to
undertake the twenty miles drive from Minehead to Lynton. Seeing a
baker's shop open he went in and asked the cheery-looking woman behind
the counter if she would make him a cup of coffee, and let him have a
saucer of milk for his little dog. She consented willingly, and showed
him a little inner room, where she spread a clean white cloth on the
table and asked him to sit down. He looked at her in some surprise.
"I'm only 'on the road,'" he said--"Don't put yourself out too much for
me."
She smiled.
"You'll pay for what you've ordered, I suppose?"
"Certainly!"
"Then you'll get just what everybody gets for their money,"--and her
smile broadened kindly--"We don't make any difference between poor and
rich."
She retired, and he dropped into a chair, wearily. "We don't make any
difference between poor and rich!" said this simple woman. How very
simple she was! No difference between poor and rich! Where would
"society" be if this axiom were followed! He almost laughed to think of
it. A girl came in and brought his coffee with a plate of fresh
bread-and-butter, a dish of Devonshire cream, a pot of jam, and a small
round basket full of rosy apples,--also a saucer of milk which she set
down on the floor for Charlie, patting him kindly as she did so, with
many admiring comments on his beauty.
"You've brought me quite a breakfast!" said Helmsley. "How much?"
"Sixpence, please."
"Only sixpence?"
"That's all. It's a shilling with ham and eggs."
Helmsley paid the humble coin demanded, and wondered where the "starving
poor" came in, at any rate in Somersetshire. Any beggar on the road,
making sixpence a day, might consider himself well fed with such a meal.
Just as he drew up his chair to the table, a sudden gust of wind swept
round the house, shaking the whole building, and apparently hurling the
weight of its fury on the roof, for it sounded as if a whole stack of
chimney-pots had fallen.
"It's a squall,"--said the girl--"Father said there was a storm coming.
It often blows pretty hard up this way."
She went out, and left Helmsley to himself. He ate his meal, and fed
Charlie with as much bread and milk as that canine epicure could
consume,--and then sat for a while, listening to the curious hissing of
the wind, which was like a suppressed angry whisper in his ears.
"It will be rough weather,"--he thought--"Now shall I stay in Minehead,
or go on?"
Somehow, his experience of vagabondage had bred in him a certain
restlessness, and he did not care to linger in any one place. An
inexplicable force urged him on. He was conscious that he entertained a
most foolish, most forlorn secret hope,--that of finding some yet
unknown consolation,--of receiving some yet unobtained heavenly
benediction. And he repeated again the lines:--
"Let the sweet heavens endure,
Not close and darken above me,
Before I am quite, quite sure
That there is one to love me!"
Surely a Divine Providence there was who could read his heart's desire,
and who could see how sincerely in earnest he was to find some channel
wherein the current of his accumulated wealth might flow after his own
death, to fruitfulness and blessing for those who truly deserved it.
"Is it so much to ask of destiny--just one honest heart?" he inwardly
demanded--"Is it so large a return to want from the world in which I
have toiled so long--just one unselfish love? People would tell me I am
too old to expect such a thing,--but I am not seeking the love of a
lover,--that I know is impossible. But Love,--that most god-like of all
emotions, has many phases, and a merely sexual attraction is the least
and worst part of the divine passion. There is a higher form,--one far
more lasting and perfect, in which Self has very little part,--and
though I cannot give it a name, I am certain of its existence!"
Another gust of wind, more furious than the last, whistled overhead and
through the crannies of the door. He rose, and tucking Charlie warmly
under his coat as before, he went out, pausing on his way to thank the
mistress of the little bakery for the excellent meal he had enjoyed.
"Well, you won't hurt on it," she said, smilingly; "it's plain, but it's
wholesome. That's all we claim for it. Are you going on far?"
"Yes, I'm bound for a pretty long tramp,"--he replied. "I'm walking to
find friends in Cornwall."
She opened her eyes in unfeigned wonder and compassion.
"Deary me!" she ejaculated--"You've a stiff road before you. And to-day
I'm afraid you'll be in for a storm."
He glanced out through the shop-window.
"It's not raining,"--he said.
"Not yet,--but it's blowing hard,"--she replied--"And it's like to blow
harder."
"Never mind, I must risk it!" And he lifted his cap; "Good-day!"
"Good-day! A safe journey to you!"
"Thank you!"
And, gratefully acknowledging the kindly woman's parting nod and smile,
he stepped out of the shop into the street. There he found the wind had
risen indeed. Showers of blinding dust were circling in the air,
blotting out the view,--the sky was covered with masses of murky cloud
drifting against each other in threatening confusion--and there was a
dashing sound of the sea on the beach which seemed to be steadily
increasing in volume and intensity. He paused for a moment under the
shelter of an arched doorway, to place Charlie more comfortably under
his arm and button his coat more securely, the while he watched the
people in the principal thoroughfare struggling with the capricious
attacks of the blast, which tore their hats off and sent them spinning
across the road, and played mischievous havoc with women's skirts,
blowing them up to the knees, and making a great exhibition of feet, few
of which were worth looking at from any point of beauty or fitness. And
then, all at once, amid the whirling of the gale, he heard a hoarse
stentorian shouting--"Awful Murder! Local Crime! Murder of a Nobleman!
Murder at Blue Anchor! Latest details!" and he started precipitately
forward, walking hurriedly along with as much nervous horror as though
he had been guiltily concerned in the deed with which the town was
ringing. Two or three boys ran past him, with printed placards in their
hands, which they waved in front of them, and on which in thick black
letters could be seen:--"Murder of Lord Wrotham! Death of the Murderer!
Appalling Tragedy at Blue Anchor!" And, for a few seconds, amid the
confusion caused by the wind, and the wild clamour of the news-vendors,
he felt as if every one were reeling pell-mell around him like persons
on a ship at sea,--men with hats blown off,--women and children running
aslant against the gale with hair streaming,--all eager to purchase the
first papers which contained the account of a tragedy, enacted, as it
were, at their very doors. Outside a little glass and china shop at the
top of a rather hilly street a group of workingmen were standing, with
the papers they had just bought in their hands, and Helmsley, as he
trudged by, with stooping figure and bent head set against the wind,
lingered near them a moment to hear them discuss the news.
"Ah, poor Tom!" exclaimed one--"Gone at last! I mind me well how he used
to say he'd die a bad death!"
"What's a bad death?" queried another, gruffly--"And what's the truth
about this here business anyhow? Newspapers is allus full o' lies.
There's a lot about a lord that's killed, but precious little about
Tom!"
"That's so!" said an old farmer, who with spectacles on was leaning his
back against the wall of the shop near which they stood, to shelter
himself a little from the force of the gale, while he read the paper he
held--"See here,--this lord was driving his motor along by Cleeve, and
ran over Tom's child,--why, that's the poor Kiddie we used to see Tom
carrying for miles on his shoulder----"
"Ah, the poor lamb!" And a commiserating groan ran through the little
group of attentive listeners.
"And then,"--continued the farmer--"from what I can make out of this
paper, Tom picked up his baby quite dead. Then he started to run all the
way after the fellow whose motor car had killed it. That's nat'ral
enough!"
"Of course it is!" "I'd a' done it myself!" "Damn them motors!" muttered
the chorus, fiercely.
"If so be the motor 'ad gone on, Tom couldn't never 'ave caught up with
it, even if he'd run till he dropped," went on the farmer--"but as luck
would 'ave it, the thing broke down nigh to Blue Anchor, and Tom got his
chance. Which he took. And--he killed this Lord Wrotham, whoever he
is,--stuck him in the throat with a knife as though he were a pig!"
There was a moment's horrified silence.
"So he wor!" said one man, emphatically--"A right-down reg'lar
road-hog!"
"Then,"--proceeded the farmer, carefully studying the paper again--"Tom,
'avin' done all his best an' worst in this world, gives himself up to
the police, but just 'afore goin' off, asks if he may kiss his dead
baby,----"
A long pause here ensued. Tears stood in many of the men's eyes.
"And," continued the farmer, with a husky and trembling voice--"he takes
the child in his arms, an' all sudden like falls down dead. God rest
him!"
Another pause.
"And what does the paper say about it all?" enquired one of the group.
"It says--wait a minute!--it says--'Society will be plunged into
mourning for Lord Wrotham, who was one of the most promising of our
younger peers, and whose sporting tendencies made him a great favourite
in Court circles.'"
"That's a bit o' bunkum paid for by the fam'ly!" said a great hulking
drayman who had joined the little knot of bystanders, flicking his whip
as he spoke,--"Sassiety plunged into mourning for the death of a
precious raskill, is it? I 'xpect it's often got to mourn that way! Rort
an' rubbish! Tell ye what!--Tom o' the Gleam was worth a dozen o' your
motorin' lords!--an' the hull countryside through Quantocks, ay, an'
even across Exmoor, 'ull 'ave tears for 'im an' 'is pretty little Kiddie
what didn't do no 'arm to anybody more'n a lamb skippin' in the fields.
Tom worn't known in their blessed 'Court circles,'--but, by the
Lord!--he'd got a grip o' the people's heart about here, an' the people
don't forget their friends in a hurry! Who the devil cares for Lord
Wrotham!"
"Who indeed!" murmured the chorus.
"An' who'll say a bad word for Tom o' the Gleam?"
"Nobody!" "He wor a rare fine chap!" "We'll all miss him!" eagerly
answered the chorus.
With a curious gesture, half of grief, half of defiance, the drayman
tore a scrap of black lining from his coat, and tied it to his whip.
"Tom was pretty well known to be a terror to some folk,--specially liars
an' raskills,"--he said--"An' I aint excusin' murder. But all the same
I'm in mourning for Tom an' 'is little Kiddie, an' I don't care who
knows it!"
He went off, and the group dispersed, partly driven asunder by the
increasing fury of the wind, which was now sweeping through the streets
in strong, steady gusts, hurling everything before it. But Helmsley set
his face to the storm and toiled on. He must get out of Minehead. This
he felt to be imperative. He could not stay in a town which now for many
days would talk of nothing else but the tragic death of Tom o' the
Gleam. His nerves were shaken, and he felt himself to be mentally, as
well as physically, distressed by the strange chance which had
associated him against his will with such a grim drama of passion and
revenge. He remembered seeing the fateful motor swing down that
precipitous road near Cleeve,--he recalled its narrow escape from a
complete upset at the end of the declivity when it had swerved round the
corner and rushed on,--how little he had dreamed that a child's life had
just been torn away by its reckless wheels!--and that child the
all-in-the-world to Tom o' the Gleam! Tom must have tracked the motor by
following some side-lane or short cut known only to himself, otherwise
Helmsley thought he would hardly have escaped seeing him. But, in any
case, the slow and trudging movements of an old man must have lagged
far, far behind those of the strong, fleet-footed gypsy to whom the
wildest hills and dales, cliffs and sea caves were all familiar ground.
Like a voice from the grave, the reply Tom had given to Matt Peke at the
"Trusty Man," when Matt asked him where he had come from, rang back upon
his ears--"From the caves of Cornwall! From picking up drift on the
shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks! All
sport, Matt! I live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my
pleasure!"
Shuddering at this recollection, Helmsley pressed on in the teeth of the
blast, and a sudden shower of rain scudded by, stinging him in the face
with the sharpness of needlepoints. The gale was so high, and the blown
dust so thick on all sides, that he could scarcely see where he was
going, but his chief effort was to get out of Minehead and away from all
contact with human beings--for the time. In this he succeeded very soon.
Once well beyond the town, he did not pause to make a choice of roads.
He only sought to avoid the coast line, rightly judging that way to lie
most open and exposed to the storm,--moreover the wind swooped in so
fiercely from the sea, and the rising waves made such a terrific
roaring, that, for the mere sake of greater quietness, he turned aside
and followed a path which appeared to lead invitingly into some deep
hollow of the hills. There seemed a slight chance of the weather
clearing at noon, for though the wind was so high, the clouds were
whitening under passing gleams of sunlight, and the scud of rain had
passed. As he walked further and further he found himself entering a
deep green valley--a cleft between high hills,--and though he had no
idea which way it led him, he was pleased to have reached a
comparatively sheltered spot where the force of the hurricane was not so
fiercely felt, and where the angry argument of the sea was deadened by
distance. There was a lovely perfume everywhere,--the dash of rain on
the herbs and field flowers had brought out their scent, and the
freshness of the stormy atmosphere was bracing and exhilarating. He put
Charlie down on the grass, and was amused to see how obediently the tiny
creature trotted after him, close at his heels, in the manner of a
well-trained, well-taught lady's favourite. There was no danger of
wheeled or motor traffic in this peaceful little glen, which appeared to
be used solely by pedestrians. He rather wondered now and then whither
it led, but was not very greatly concerned on the subject. What pleased
him most was that he did not see a single human being anywhere or a sign
of human habitation.
Presently the path began to ascend, and he followed it upward. The climb
became gradually steep and wearisome, and the track grew smaller, almost
vanishing altogether among masses of loose stones, which had rolled down
from the summits of the hills, and he had again to carry Charlie, who
very strenuously objected to the contact of sharp flints against his
dainty little feet. The boisterous wind now met him full-faced,--but,
struggling against it, he finally reached a wide plateau, commanding a
view of the surrounding country and the sea. Not a house was in
sight;--all around him extended a chain of hills, like a fortress set
against invading ocean,--and straight away before his eyes ocean itself
rose and fell in a chaos of billowy blackness. What a sight it was!
Here, from this point, he could take some measure and form some idea of
the storm, which so far from abating as he had imagined it might, when
passing through the protected seclusion of the valley he had just left,
was evidently gathering itself together for a still fiercer onslaught.
Breathless with his climbing exertions he stood watching the huge walls
of water, built up almost solidly as it seemed, by one force and dashed
down again by another,--it was as though great mountains lifted
themselves over each other to peer at the sky and were driven back again
to shapelessness and destruction. The spectacle was all the more grand
and impressive to him, because where he now was he could not hear the
full clamour of the rolling and retreating billows. The thunder of the
surf was diminished to a sullen moan, which came along with the wind and
clung to it like a concordant note in music, forming one sustained chord
of wrath and desolation. Darkening steadily over the sea and densely
over-spreading the whole sky, there were flying clouds of singular
shape,--clouds tossed up into the momentary similitude of Titanesque
human figures with threatening arms outstretched,--anon, to the filmly
outlines of fabulous birds swooping downwards with jagged wings and
ravenous beaks,--or twisting into columns and pyramids of vapour as
though the showers of foam flung up by the waves had been caught in
mid-air and suddenly frozen. Several sea-gulls were flying inland; two
or three soared right over Helmsley's head with a plaintive cry. He
turned to watch their graceful flight, and saw another phalanx of clouds
coming up behind to meet and cope with those already hurrying in with
the wind from the sea. The darkness of the sky was deepening every
minute, and he began to feel a little uneasy. He realised that he had
lost his way, and he looked on all sides for some glimpse of a main
road, but could see none, and the path he had followed evidently
terminated at the summit where he stood. To return to the valley he had
left seemed futile, as it was only a way back to Minehead, which place
he wished to avoid. There was a small sheep track winding down on the
other side of the hill, and he thought it possible that this might lead
to a farm-road, which again might take him out on some more direct
highway. He therefore started to follow it. He could scarcely walk
against the wind; it blew with such increasing fury. Charlie shivered
away from its fierce breath and snuggled his tiny body more warmly under
his protector's arm, withdrawing himself entirely from view. And now
with a sudden hissing whirl, down came the rain. The two opposing forces
of cloud met with a sudden rush, and emptied their pent-up torrents on
the earth, while a low muttering noise, not of the wind, betokened
thunder. The prolonged heat of the last month had been very great all
over the country, and a suppressed volcano was smouldering in the heart
of the heavens, ready to shoot forth fire. The roaring of the sea grew
more distinct as Helmsley descended from the height and came nearer to
the coast line,--and the mingled scream of the angry surf on the shore
and the sword-like sweep of the rain, rang in his ears deafeningly, with
a kind of monotonous horror. His head began to swim, and his eyes were
half blinded by the sharp showers that whipped his face with blown drops
as hard and cold as hail. On he went, however, more like a struggling
dreamer in a dream, than with actual consciousness,--and darker and
wilder grew the storm. A forked flash of lightning, running suddenly
like melted lava down the sky, flung half a second's lurid blue glare
athwart the deepening blackness,--and in less than two minutes it was
followed by the first decisive peal of thunder rolling in deep
reverberations from sea to land, from land to sea again. The war of the
elements had begun in earnest. Amid their increasing giant wrath,
Helmsley stumbled almost unseeingly along,--keeping his head down and
leaning more heavily than was his usual wont upon the stout ash stick
which was part of the workman's outfit he had purchased for himself in
Bristol, and which now served him as his best support. In the gathering
gloom, with his stooping thin figure, he looked more like a faded leaf
fluttering in the gale than a man, and he was beginning now to realise
with keen disappointment that his strength was not equal to the strain
he had been putting upon it. The weight of his seventy years was
pressing him down,--and a sudden thrill of nervous terror ran through
him lest his whim for wandering should cost him his life.
"And if I were to die of exhaustion out here on the hills, what would be
said of me?" he thought--"They would find my body--perhaps--after some
days;--they would discover the money I carry in my vest lining, and a
letter to Vesey which would declare my actual identity. Then I should be
called a fool or a madman--most probably the latter. No one would
know,--no one would guess--except Vesey--the real object with which I
started on this wild goose chase after the impossible. It is a foolish
quest! Perhaps after all I had better give it up, and return to the old
wearisome life of luxury,--the old ways!--and die in my bed in the usual
'respectable' style of the rich, with expensive doctors, nurses and
medicines set in order round me, and all arrangements getting ready for
a 'first-class funeral'!"
He laughed drearily. Another flash of lightning, followed almost
instantaneously by a terrific crash of thunder, brought him to a pause.
He was now at the bottom of the hill which he had ascended from the
other side, and perceived a distinct and well-trodden path which
appeared to lead in a circuitous direction towards the sea. Here there
seemed some chance of getting out of the labyrinth of hills into which
he had incautiously wandered, and, summoning up his scattered forces, he
pressed on. The path proved to be an interminable winding way,--first
up--then down,--now showing glimpses of the raging ocean, now dipping
over bare and desolate lengths of land,--and presently it turned
abruptly into a deep thicket of trees. Drenched with rain and tired of
fighting against the boisterous wind which almost tore his breath away,
he entered this dark wood with a vague sense of relief,--it offered some
sort of shelter, and if the trees attracted the lightning and he were
struck dead beneath them, what did it matter after all! One way of dying
was as good (or as bad) as another!
The over-arching boughs dripping with wet, closed over him and drew him,
as it were, into their dense shadows,--the wind shrieked after him like
a scolding fury, but its raging tone grew softer as he penetrated more
deeply into the sable-green depths of heavily foliaged solitude. His
weary feet trod gratefully on a thick carpet of pine needles and masses
of the last year's fallen leaves,--and a strong sweet scent of mingled
elderflower and sweetbriar was tossed to him on every gust of rain. Here
the storm turned itself to music and revelled in a glorious symphony of
sound.
"Oh ye Winds of God, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for
ever!
"Oh ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify
Him for ever!"
In full chords of passionate praise the hurricane swept its grand anthem
through the rustling, swaying trees, as though these were the strings of
a giant harp on which some great Archangel played,--and the dash and
roar of the sea came with it, rolling in the track of another mighty
peal of thunder. Helmsley stopped and listened, seized by an
overpowering enchantment and awe.
"This--this is Life!" he said, half aloud--"Our miserable human
vanities--our petty schemes--our poor ambitions--what are they? Motes in
a sunbeam!--gone as soon as realised! But Life,--the deep,
self-contained divine Life of Nature--this is the only life that lives
for ever, the Immortality of which we are a part!"
A fierce gust of wind here snapped asunder a great branch from a tree,
and flung it straight across his path. Had he been a few inches nearer,
it would have probably struck him down with it. Charlie peeped out from
under his arm with a pitiful little whimper, and Helmsley's heart smote
him.
"Poor wee Charlie!" he said, fondling the tiny head; "I know what you
would say to me! You would say that if I want to risk my own life, I
needn't risk yours! Is that it? Well!--I'll try to get you out of this
if I can! I wish I I could see some sign of a house anywhere! I'd make
for it and ask for shelter."
He trudged patiently onwards,--but he was beginning to feel unsteady in
his limbs,--and every now and then he had to stop, overcome by a
sickening sensation of giddiness. The tempest had now fully developed
into a heavy thunderstorm, and the lightning quivered and gleamed
through the trees incessantly, followed by huge claps of thunder which
clashed down without a second's warning, afterwards rolling away in long
thudding detonations echoing for miles and miles. It was difficult to
walk at all in such a storm,--the youngest and strongest pedestrian
might have given way under the combined onslaught of rain, wind, and the
pattering shower of leaves which were literally torn, fresh and green,
from their parent boughs and cast forth to whirl confusedly amid the
troubled spaces of the air. And if the young and strong would have found
it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it
for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and
buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice,
brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter
weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself
bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,--a fancy
that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or a
friendship he had never met with among the rich and powerful, was all
that had led him forth on this strange journey of which the end could
but be disappointment and failure;--and at the present moment he felt so
thoroughly conscious of his own folly, that he almost resolved on
abandoning his enterprise as soon as he found himself once more on the
main road.
"I will take the first vehicle that comes by,"--he said, "and make for
the nearest railway station. And I'll end my days with a character for
being 'hard as nails!'--that's the only way in which one can win the
respectful consideration of one's fellows as a thoroughly 'sane and
sensible' man!"
Just then, the path he was following started sharply up a steep
acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to
continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles
about him, and the brushwood was becoming so thick that he could not
have possibly forced a passage through it. His footing grew more
difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and leaves to tread
upon, there were only loose stones, and the rain was blowing in downward
squalls that almost by their very fury threw him backward on the ground.
Up, still up, he went, however, panting painfully as he climbed,--his
breath was short and uneasy--and all his body ached and shivered as with
strong ague. At last,--dizzy and half fainting,--he arrived at the top
of the tedious and troublesome ascent, and uttered an involuntary cry at
the scene of beauty and grandeur stretched in front of him. How far he
had walked he had no idea,--nor did he know how many hours he had taken
in walking,--but he had somehow found his way to the summit of a rocky
wooded height, from which he could survey the whole troubled expanse of
wild sky and wilder sea,--while just below him the hills were split
asunder into a huge cleft, or "coombe," running straight down to the
very lip of ocean, with rampant foliage hanging about it on either side
in lavish garlands of green, and big boulders piled up about it, from
whose smooth surfaces the rain swept off in sleety sheets, leaving them
shining like polished silver. What a wild Paradise was here
disclosed!--what a matchless picture, called into shape and colour with
all the forceful ease and perfection of Nature's handiwork! No glimpse
of human habitation was anywhere visible; man seemed to have found no
dwelling here; there was nothing--nothing, but Earth the Beautiful, and
her Lover the Sea! Over these twain the lightnings leaped, and the
thunder played in the sanctuary of heaven,--this hour of storm was all
their own, and humanity was no more counted in their passionate
intermingling of life than the insects on a leaf, or the grains of sand
on the shore. For a moment or two Helmsley's eyes, straining and dim,
gazed out on the marvellously bewitching landscape thus suddenly
unrolled before him,--then all at once a sharp pain running through his
heart caused him to flinch and tremble. It was a keen stab of anguish,
as though a knife had been plunged into his body.
"My God!" he muttered--"What--what is this?"
Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing
with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he
sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,--to overcome the
creeping sick sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing
him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness
off;--he looked up at the sky--and was met by a blinding flash which
tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire
in the centre of the blackness--and at this he made some inarticulate
sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of
flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding
himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood amazed, and
shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not
conscious of his canine friend's distress. Another pang, cruel and
prolonged, convulsed him,--a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he
lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward,
slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap
on the ground,--involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man
might do among great waves overwhelming him,--and so went
down--down!--into silence and unconsciousness.
CHAPTER XII
The storm raged till sunset; and then exhausted by its own stress of
fury, began to roll away in angry sobs across the sea. The wind sank
suddenly; the rain as suddenly ceased. A wonderful flush of burning
orange light cut the sky asunder, spreading gradually upward and paling
into fairest rose. The sullen clouds caught brightness at their summits,
and took upon themselves the semblance of Alpine heights touched by the
mystic glory of the dawn, and a clear silver radiance flashed across the
ocean for a second and then vanished, as though a flaming torch had just
flared up to show the troublous heaving of the waters, and had then been
instantly quenched. As the evening came on the weather steadily
cleared;--and presently a pure, calm, dark-blue expanse of ether
stretched balmily across the whole width of the waves, with the evening
star--the Star of Love--glimmering faintly aloft like a delicate jewel
hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the
"coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,--and when
David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself
no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her
arms,--and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent
upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious
state he fancied he must be wandering somewhere through heaven if the
stars were so near. He tried to speak--to move,--but was checked by a
gentle pressure of the protecting arms about him.
"Better now, dearie?" murmured a low anxious voice. "That's right! Don't
try to get up just yet--take time! Let the strength come back to you
first!"
Who was it--who could it be, that spoke to him with such affectionate
solicitude? He gazed and gazed and marvelled,--but it was too dark to
see the features of his rescuer. As consciousness grew more vivid, he
realised that he was leaning against her bosom like a helpless
child,--that the wet grass was all about him,--and that he was
cold,--very cold, with a coldness as of some enclosing grave. Sense and
memory returned to him slowly with sharp stabs of physical pain, and
presently he found utterance.
"You are very kind!" he muttered, feebly--"I begin to recollect now--I
had walked a long way--and I was caught in the storm--I felt ill,--very
ill!--I suppose I must have fallen down here----"
"That's it!" said the woman, gently--"Don't try to think about it!
You'll be better presently."
He closed his eyes wearily,--then opened them again, struck by a sudden
self-reproach and anxiety.
"The little dog?" he asked, trembling--"The little dog I had with
me----?"
He saw, or thought he saw, a smile on the face in the darkness.
"The little dog's all right,--don't you worry about him!" said the
woman--"He knows how to take care of himself and you too! It was just
him that brought me along here where I found you. Bless the little soul!
He made noise enough for six of his size!"
Helmsley gave a faint sigh of pleasure.
"Poor little Charlie! Where is he?"
"Oh, he's close by! He was almost drowned with the rain, like a poor
mouse in a pail of water, but he went on barking all the same! I dried
him as well as I could in my apron, and then wrapped him up in my
cloak,--he's sitting right in it just now watching me."
"If--if I die,--please take care of him!" murmured Helmsley.
"Nonsense, dearie! I'm not going to let you die out here on the
hills,--don't think it!" said the woman, cheerily,--"I want to get you
up, and take you home with me. The storm's well overpast,--if you could
manage to move----"
He raised himself a little, and tried to see her more closer.
"Do you live far from here?" he asked.
"Only just on the upper edge of the 'coombe'--not in the village,"--she
answered--"It's quite a short way, but a bit steep going. If you lean on
me, I won't let you slip,--I'm as strong as a man, and as men go
nowadays, stronger than most!"
He struggled to rise, and she assisted him. By dint of sheer mental
force and determination he got himself on his feet, but his limbs shook
violently, and his head swam.
"I'm afraid"--he faltered--"I'm afraid I am very ill. I shall only be a
trouble to you----"
"Don't talk of trouble? Wait till I fetch the doggie!" And, turning from
him a moment, she ran to pick up Charlie, who, as she had said, was
snugly ensconced in the folds of her cloak, which she had put for him
under the shelter of a projecting boulder,--"Could you carry him, do you
think?"
He nodded assent, and put the little animal under his coat as before,
touched almost to weak tears to feel it trying to lick his hand.
Meanwhile his unknown and scarcely visible protectress put an arm round
him, holding him up as carefully as though he were a tottering infant.
"Don't hurry--just take an easy step at a time,"--she said--"The moon
rises a bit late, and we'll have to see our way as best we can with the
stars." And she gave a glance upward. "That's a bright one just over the
coombe,--the girls about here call it 'Light o' Love.'"
Moving stiffly, and with great pain, Helmsley was nevertheless impelled,
despite his suffering, to look, as she was looking, towards the heavens.
There he saw the same star that had peered at him through the window of
his study at Carlton House Terrace,--the same that had sparkled out in
the sky the night that he and Matt Peke had trudged the road together,
and which Matt had described as "the love-star, an' it'll be nowt else
in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!" And she whose eyes were
upturned to its silvery glory,--who was she? His sight was very dim, and
in the deepening shadows he could only discern a figure of medium
womanly height,--an uncovered head with the hair loosely knotted in a
thick coil at the nape of the neck,--and the outline of a face which
might be fair or plain,--he could not tell. He was conscious of the warm
strength of the arm that supported him, for when he slipped once or
twice, he was caught up tenderly, without hurt or haste, and held even
more securely than before. Gradually, and by halting degrees, he made
the descent of the hill, and, as his guide helped him carefully over a
few loose stones in the path, he saw through a dark clump of foliage the
glimmer of twinkling lights, and heard the rush of water. He paused,
vaguely bewildered.
"Nearly home now!" said his guide, encouragingly; "Just a few steps more
and we'll be there. My cottage is the last and the highest in the
coombe. The other houses are all down closer to the sea."
Still he stood inert.
"The sea!" he echoed, faintly--"Where is it?"
With her disengaged hand she pointed outwards.
"Yonder! By and by, when the moon comes over the hill, it will be
shining like a silver field with big daisies blowing and growing all
over it. That's the way it often looks after a storm. The tops of the
waves are just like great white flowers."
He glanced at her as she said this, and caught a closer glimpse of her
face. Some faint mystical light in the sky illumined the outlines of her
features, and showed him a calm and noble profile, such as may be found
in early Greek sculpture, and which silently expresses the lines:
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know!"
He moved on with a quicker step, touched by a keen sense of expectation.
Ill as he knew himself to be, he was eager to reach this woman's
dwelling and to see her more closely. A soft laugh of pleasure broke
from her lips as he tried to accelerate his pace.
"Oh, we're getting quite strong and bold now, aren't we!" she exclaimed,
gaily--"But take care not to go too fast! There's a rough bit of bog and
boulder coming."
This was true. They had arrived at the upper edge of a bank overlooking
a hill stream which was pouring noisily down in a flood made turgid by
the rain, and the "rough bit of bog and boulder" was a sort of natural
bridge across the torrent, formed by heaps of earth and rock, out of
which masses of wet fern and plumy meadow-sweet sprang in tall tufts and
garlands, which though beautiful to the eyes in day-time, were apt to
entangle the feet in walking, especially when there was only the
uncertain glimmer of the stars by which to grope one's way. Helmsley's
age and over-wrought condition made his movements nervous and faltering
at this point, and nothing could exceed the firm care and delicate
solicitude with which his guide helped him over this last difficulty of
the road. She was indeed strong, as she had said,--she seemed capable
of lifting him bodily, if need were--yet she was not a woman of large or
robust frame. On the contrary, she appeared slightly built, and carried
herself with that careless grace which betokens perfect form. Once
safely across the bridge and on the other side of the coombe, she
pointed to a tiny lattice window with a light behind it which gleamed
out through the surrounding foliage like a glow-worm in the darkness.
"Here we are at home," she said,--"Just along this path--it's quite
easy!--now under this tree--it's a big chestnut,--you'll love it!--now
here's the garden gate--wait till I lift the latch--that's right!--the
garden's quite small you see,--it goes straight up to the cottage--and
here's the door! Come in!"
As in a dream, Helmsley was dimly conscious of the swishing rustle of
wet leaves, and the fragrance of mignonette and roses mingling with the
salty scent of the sea,--then he found himself in a small, low,
oak-raftered kitchen, with a wide old-fashioned hearth and ingle-nook,
warm with the glow of a sparkling fire. A quaintly carved comfortably
cushioned armchair was set in the corner, and to this his guide
conducted him, and gently made him sit down.
"Now give me the doggie!" she said, taking that little personage from
his arms--"He'll be glad of his supper and a warm bed, poor little soul!
And so will you!"
With a kindly caress she set Charlie down in front of the hearth, and
proceeded to shut the cottage door, which had been left open as they
entered,--and locking it, dropped an iron bar across it for the night.
Then she threw off her cloak, and hung it up on a nail in the wall, and
bending over a lamp which was burning low on the table, turned up its
wick a little higher. Helmsley watched her in a kind of stupefied
wonderment. As the lamplight flashed up on her features, he saw that she
was not a girl, but a woman who seemed to have thought and suffered. Her
face was pale, and the lines of her mouth were serious, though very
sweet. He could hardly judge whether she had beauty or not, because he
saw her at a disadvantage. He was too ill to appreciate details, and he
could only gaze at her in the dim and troubled weariness of an old and
helpless man, who for the time being was dependent on any kindly aid
that might be offered to him. Once or twice the vague idea crossed his
mind that he would tell her who he was, and assure her that he had
plenty of money about him to reward her for her care and pains,--but he
could not bring himself to the point of this confession. The surprise
and sweetness of being received thus unquestioningly under the shelter
of her roof as merely the poor way-worn tramp he seemed to be, were too
great for him to relinquish. She, meanwhile, having trimmed the lamp,
hurried into a neighboring room, and came in again with a bundle of
woollen garments, and a thick flannel dressing gown on her arm.
"This was my father's," she said, as she brought it to him--"It's soft
and cosy. Get off your wet clothes and slip into it, while I go and make
your bed ready."
She spread the dressing gown before the fire to warm it, and was about
to turn away again, when Helmsley laid a detaining hand on her arm.
"Wait--wait!" he said--"Do you know what you are doing?"
She laughed.
"Well, now that _is_ a question! Do I seem crazy?"
"Almost you do--to me!" And stirred into a sudden flicker of animation,
he held her fast as he spoke--"Do you live alone here?"
"Yes,--quite alone."
"Then don't you see how foolish you are? You are taking into your house
a mere tramp,--a beggar who is more likely to die than live! Do you
realise how dangerous this is for you? I may be an escaped convict,--a
thief--even a murderer! You cannot tell!"
She smiled and nodded at him as a nurse might nod and smile at a
fanciful or querulous patient.
"I can't tell, certainly, and don't want to know!" she replied--"I go by
what I see."
"And what do you see?"
She patted his thin cold hand kindly.
"I see a very old man--older than my own dear father was when he
died--and I know he is too old and feeble to be out at night in the wet
and stormy weather. I know that he is ill and weak, and suffering from
exhaustion, and that he must rest and be well nourished for a few days
till he gets strong again. And I am going to take care of him,"--here
she gave a consoling little pressure to the hand she held. "I am
indeed! And he must do as he is told, and take off his wet clothes and
get ready for bed!"
Something in Helmsley's throat tightened like the contraction of a
rising sob.
"You will risk all this trouble,"--he faltered--"for a
stranger--who--who--cannot repay you--?----"
"Now, now! You mustn't hurt me!" she said, with a touch of reproach in
her soft tones--"I don't want to be repaid in any way. You know WHO it
was that said 'I was a stranger and ye took me in'? Well, He would wish
me to take care of you."
She spoke quite simply, without any affectation of religious sentiment.
Helmsley looked at her steadily.
"Is that why you shelter me?"
She smiled very sweetly, and he saw that her eyes were beautiful.
"That is one reason, certainly!"--she answered; "But there is
another,--quite a selfish one! I loved my father, and when he died, I
lost everything I cared for in the world. You remind me of him--just a
little. Now will you do as I ask you, and take off your wet things?"
He let go her hand gently.
"I will,"--he said, unsteadily--for there were tears in his eyes--"I
will do anything you wish. Only tell me your name!"
"My name? My name is Mary,--Mary Deane."
"Mary Deane!" he repeated softly--and yet again--"Mary Deane! A pretty
name! Shall I tell you mine!"
"Not unless you like,"--she replied, quickly--"It doesn't matter!"
"Oh, you'd better know it!" he said--"I'm only old David--a man 'on the
road' tramping it to Cornwall."
"That's a long way!" she murmured compassionately, as she took his
weather-beaten hat and shook the wet from it--"And why do you want to
tramp so far, you poor old David?"
"I'm looking for a friend,"--he answered--"And maybe it's no use
trying,--but I should like to find that friend before I die."
"And so you will, I'm sure!" she declared, smiling at him, but with
something of an anxious expression in her eyes, for Helmsley's face was
very pinched and pallid, and every now and then he shivered violently as
with an ague fit--"But you must pick up your strength first. Then
you'll get on better and quicker. Now I'm going to leave you while you
change. You'll find plenty of warm things with the dressing gown."
She went out as before into the next room, and Helmsley managed, though
with considerable difficulty, to divest himself of his drenched clothes
and get on the comfortable woollen garments she had put ready for him.
When he took off his coat and vest, he spread them in front of the fire
to dry instead of the dressing-gown which he now wore, and as soon as
she returned he specially pointed out the vest to her.
"I should like you to put that away somewhere in your own safe
keeping,"--he said. "It has a few letters and--and papers in it which I
value,--and I don't want any stranger to see them. Will you take care of
it for me?"
"Of course I will! Nobody shall touch it, be sure! Not a soul ever comes
nigh me unless I ask for company!--so you can be quite easy in your
mind. Now I'm going to give you a cup of hot soup, and then you'll go to
bed, won't you?--and, please God, you'll be better in the morning!"
He nodded feebly, and forced a smile. He had sunk back in the armchair
and his eyes were fixed on the warm-hearth, where the tiny dog, Charlie,
whom he had rescued, and who in turn had rescued him, was curled up and
snoozing peacefully. Now that the long physical and nervous strain of
his journey and of his ghastly experience at Blue Anchor was past, he
felt almost too weak to lift a hand, and the sudden change from the
fierce buffetings of the storm to the homely tranquillity of this little
cottage into which he had been welcomed just as though he had every
right to be there, affected him with a strange sensation which he could
not analyse. And once he murmured half unconsciously:
"Mary! Mary Deane!"
"Yes,--that's me!" she responded cheerfully, coming to his side at
once--"I'm here!"
He lifted his head and looked at her.
"Yes, I know you are here,--Mary!" he said, his voice trembling a little
as he uttered her name--"And I thank God for sending you to me in time!
But how--how was it that you found me?"
"I was watching the storm,"--she replied--"I love wild weather!--I love
to hear the wind among the trees and the pouring of the rain! I was
standing at my door listening to the waves thudding into the hollow of
the coombe, and all at once I heard the sharp barking of a dog on the
hill just above here--and sometimes the bark changed to a pitiful little
howl, as if the animal were in pain. So I put on my cloak and crossed
the coombe up the bank--it's only a few minutes' scramble, though to you
it seemed ever such a long way to-night,--and there I saw you lying on
the grass with the little doggie running round and round you, and making
all the noise he could to bring help. Wise little beastie!" And she
stooped to pat the tiny object of her praise, who sighed comfortably and
stretched his dainty paws out a little more luxuriously--"If it hadn't
been for him you might have died!"
He said nothing, but watched her in a kind of morbid fascination as she
went to the fire and removed a saucepan which she had set there some
minutes previously. Taking a large old-fashioned Delft bowl from a
cupboard at one side of the fire-place, she filled it with steaming soup
which smelt deliciously savoury and appetising, and brought it to him
with some daintily cut morsels of bread. He was too ill to feel much
hunger, but to please her, he managed to sip it by slow degrees, talking
to her between-whiles.
"You say you live alone here,"--he murmured--"But are you always alone?"
"Always,--ever since father died."
"How long is that ago?"
"Five years."
"You are not--you have not been--married?"
She laughed.
"No indeed! I'm an old maid!"
"Old?" And he raised his eyes to her face. "You are not old!"
"Well, I'm not young, as young people go,"--she declared--"I'm
thirty-four. I was never married for myself in my youth,--and I shall
certainly never be married for my money in my age!" Again her pretty
laugh rang softly on the silence. "But I'm quite happy, all the same!"
He still looked at her intently,--and all suddenly it dawned upon him
that she was a beautiful woman. He saw, as for the first time, the clear
transparency of her skin, the soft brilliancy of her eyes, and the
wonderful masses of her warm bronze brown hair. He noted the perfect
poise of her figure, clad as it was in a cheap print gown,--the slimness
of her waist, the fulness of her bosom, the white roundness of her
throat. Then he smiled.
"So you are an old maid!" he said--"That's very strange!"
"Oh, I don't think so!" and she shook her head deprecatingly--"Many
women are old maids by choice as well as by necessity. Marriage isn't
always bliss, you know! And unless a woman loves a man very very
much--so much that she can't possibly live her life without him, she'd
better keep single. At least that's _my_ opinion. Now Mr. David, you
must go to bed!"
He rose obediently--but trembled as he rose, and could scarcely stand
from sheer weakness. Mary Deane put her arm through his to support him.
"I'm afraid,"--he faltered--"I'm afraid I shall be a burden to you! I
don't think I shall be well enough to start again on my way to-morrow."
"You won't be allowed to do any such foolish thing!" she answered, with
quick decision--"So you can just make up your mind on _that_ score! You
must stay here as my guest."
"Not a paying one, I fear!" he said, with a pained smile, and a quick
glance at her.
She gave a slight gesture of gentle reproach.
"I wouldn't have you on paying terms,"--she answered; "I don't take in
lodgers."
"But--but--how do you live?"
He put the question hesitatingly, yet with keen curiosity.
"How do I live? You mean how do I work for a living? I am a lace mender,
and a bit of a laundress too. I wash fine muslin gowns, and mend and
clean valuable old lace. It's pretty work and pleasant enough in its
way."
"Does it pay you well?"
"Oh, quite sufficiently for all my needs. I don't cost much to keep!"
And she laughed--"I'm all by myself, and I was never money-hungry! Now
come!--you mustn't talk any more. You know who I am and what I am,--and
we'll have a good long chat to-morrow. It's bed-time!"
She led him, as though he were a child, into a little room,--one of the
quaintest and prettiest he had ever seen,--with a sloping raftered
ceiling, and one rather wide latticed window set in a deep embrasure and
curtained with spotless white dimity. Here there was a plain
old-fashioned oak bedstead, trimmed with the same white hangings, the
bed itself being covered with a neat quilt of diamond-patterned silk
patchwork. Everything was delicately clean, and fragrant with the odour
of dried rose-leaves and lavender,--and it was with all the zealous care
of an anxious housewife that Mary Deane assured her "guest" that the
sheets were well-aired, and that there was not "a speck of damp"
anywhere. A kind of instinct told him that this dainty little sleeping
chamber, so fresh and pure, with not even a picture on its white-washed
walls, and only a plain wooden cross hung up just opposite to the bed,
must be Mary's own room, and he looked at her questioningly.
"Where do you sleep yourself?" he asked.
"Upstairs,"--she answered, at once--"Just above you. This is a
two-storied cottage--quite large really! I have a parlour besides the
kitchen,--oh, the parlour's very sweet!--it has a big window which my
father built himself, and it looks out on a lovely view of the orchard
and the stream,--then I have three more rooms, and a wash-house and
cellar. It's almost too big a cottage for me, but father loved it, and
he died here,--that's why I keep all his things about me and stay on in
it. He planted all the roses in the orchard,--and I couldn't leave
them!"
Helmsley said nothing in answer to this. She put an armchair for him
near the bed.
"Now as soon as you're in bed, just call to me and I'll put out the
light in the kitchen and go to bed myself,"--she said--"And I'll take
the little doggie with me, and make him comfortable for the night. I'm
leaving you a candle and matches, and if you feel badly at all, there's
a handbell close by,--mind you ring it, and I'll come to you at once and
do all I can for you."
He bent his eyes searchingly upon her in his old suspicious "business"
way, his fuzzy grey eyebrows almost meeting in the intensity of his
gaze.
"Tell me--why are you so good to me?" he asked.
She smiled.
"Don't ask nonsense questions, please, Mr. David! Haven't I told you
already?--not why I am 'good,' because that's rubbish--but why I am
trying to take care of you?"
"Yes--because I am old!" he said, with a sudden pang of
self-contempt--"and--useless!"
"Good-night!" she answered, cheerfully--"Call to me when you are ready!"
She was gone before he could speak another word and he heard her talking
to Charlie in petting playful terms of endearment. Judging from the
sounds in the kitchen, he concluded, and rightly, that she was getting
her own supper and that of the dog at the same time. For two or three
minutes he sat inert, considering his strange and unique position. What
would this present adventure lead to? Unless his new friend, Mary Deane,
examined the vest he had asked her to take care of for him, she would
not discover who he was or from whence he came. Would she examine
it?--would she unrip the lining, just out of feminine curiosity, and sew
it up again, pretending that she had not touched it, after the "usual
way of women"? No! He was sure,--absolutely sure--of her integrity.
What? In less than an hour's acquaintance with her, would he swear to
her honesty? Yes, he would! Never could such eyes as hers, so softly,
darkly blue and steadfast, mirror a falsehood, or deflect the fragment
of a broken promise! And so, for the time being, in utter fatigue of
both body and mind, he put away all thought, all care for the future,
and resigned himself to the circumstances by which he was now
surrounded. Undressing as quickly as he could in his weak and trembling
condition, he got into the bed so comfortably prepared for him, and lay
down in utter lassitude, thankful for rest. After he had lain so for a
few minutes he called:
"Mary Deane!"
She came at once, and looked in, smiling.
"All cosy and comfortable?" she queried--"That's right!" Then entering
the room, she showed him the very vest, the possible fate of which he
had been considering.
"This is quite dry now,"--she said--"I've been thinking that perhaps as
there are letters and papers inside, you'd like to have it near you,--so
I'm just going to put it in here--see?" And she opened a small cupboard
in the wall close to the bed--"There! Now I'll lock it up"--and she
suited the action to the word--"Where shall I put the key?"
"Please keep it for me yourself!" he answered, earnestly,--"It will be
safest with you!"
"Well, perhaps it will,"--she agreed. "Anyhow no one can get at your
letters without _my_ consent! Now, are you quite easy?"
And, as she spoke, she came and smoothed the bedclothes over him, and
patted one of his thin, worn hands which lay, almost unconsciously to
himself, outside the quilt.
"Quite!" he said, faintly, "God bless you!"
"And you too!" she responded--"Good-night--David!"
"Good-night--Mary!"
She went away with a light step, softly closing the door behind her.
Returning to the kitchen she took up the little dog Charlie in her arms,
and nestled him against her bosom, where he was very well content to be,
and stood for a moment looking meditatively into the fire.
"Poor old man!" she murmured--"I'm so glad I found him before it was too
late! He would have died out there on the hills, I'm sure! He's very
ill--and so worn out and feeble!"
Involuntarily her glance wandered to a framed photograph which stood on
the mantelshelf, showing the likeness of a white-haired man standing
among a group of full-flowering roses, with a smile upon his wrinkled
face,--a smile expressing the quaintest and most complete satisfaction,
as though he sought to illustrate the fact that though he was old, he
was still a part of the youthful blossoming of the earth in summer-time.
"What would you have done, father dear, if you had been here
to-night?"--she queried, addressing the portrait--"Ah, I need not ask! I
know! You would have brought your suffering brother home, to share all
you had;--you would have said to him 'Rest, and be thankful!' For you
never turned the needy from your door, my dear old dad!--never!--no
matter how much you were in need yourself!"
She wafted a kiss to the venerable face among the roses,--and then
turning, extinguished the lamp on the table. The dying glow of the fire
shone upon her for a moment, setting a red sparkle in her hair, and a
silvery one on the silky head of the little dog she carried, and
outlining her fine profile so that it gleamed with a pure soft pallor
against the surrounding darkness,--and with one final look round to see
that all was clear for the night, she went away noiselessly like a
lovely ghost and disappeared, her step making no sound on the short
wooden stairs that led to the upper room which she had hastily arranged
for her own accommodation, in place of the one now occupied by the
homeless wayfarer she had rescued.
There was no return of the storm. The heavens, with their mighty burden
of stars, remained clear and tranquil,--the raging voice of ocean was
gradually sinking into a gentle crooning song of sweet content,--and
within the little cottage complete silence reigned, unbroken save for
the dash of the stream outside, rushing down through the "coombe" to the
sea.
CHAPTER XIII
The next morning Helmsley was too ill to move from his bed, or to be
conscious of his surroundings. And there followed a long period which to
him was well-nigh a blank. For weeks he lay helpless in the grasp of a
fever which over and over again threatened to cut the last frail thread
of his life asunder. Pain tortured every nerve and sinew in his body,
and there were times of terrible collapse,--when he was conscious of
nothing save an intense longing to sink into the grave and have done
with all the sharp and cruel torment which kept him on the rack of
existence. In a semi-delirious condition he tossed and moaned the hours
away, hardly aware of his own identity. In certain brief pauses of the
nights and days, when pain was momentarily dulled by stupor, he saw, or
fancied he saw a woman always near him, with anxiety in her eyes and
words of soothing consolation on her lips;--and then he found himself
muttering, "Mary! Mary! God bless you!" over and over again. Once or
twice he dimly realised that a small dark man came to his bedside and
felt his pulse and looked at him very doubtfully, and that she, Mary,
called this personage "doctor," and asked him questions in a whisper.
But all within his own being was pain and bewilderment,--sometimes he
felt as though he were one drop in a burning whirlpool of madness--and
sometimes he seemed to himself to be spinning round and round in a haze
of blinding rain, of which the drops were scalding hot, and heavy as
lead,--and occasionally he found that he was trying to get out of bed,
uttering cries of inexplicable anguish, while at such moments, something
cool was placed on his forehead, and a gentle arm was passed round him
till the paroxysm abated, and he fell down again among his pillows
exhausted. Slowly, and as it were grudgingly, after many days, the
crisis of the illness passed and ebbed away in dull throbs of
agony,--and he sank into a weak lethargy that was almost like the
comatose condition preceding death. He lay staring at the ceiling for
hours, heedless as to whether he ever moved or spoke again. Some-one
came and put spoonfuls of liquid nourishment between his lips, and he
swallowed it mechanically without any sign of conscious appreciation.
White as white marble, and aged by many years, he remained stretched in
his rigid corpse-like attitude, his eyes always fixedly upturned, till
one day he was roused from his deepening torpor by the sound of sobbing.
With a violent effort he brought his gaze down from the ceiling, and saw
a figure kneeling by his bed, and a mass of bronze brown hair falling
over a face concealed by two shapely white hands through which the tears
were falling. Feebly astonished, he stretched out his thin, trembling
fingers to touch that wonderful bright mesh of waving tresses, and
asked--
"What is this? Who--who is crying?"
The hidden face was uplifted, and two soft eyes, wet with weeping,
looked up hopefully.
"It's Mary!" said a trembling voice--"You know me, don't you? Oh,
dearie, if you would but try to rouse yourself, you'd get well even
now!"
He gazed at her in a kind of childish admiration.
"It's Mary!" he echoed, faintly--"And who is Mary?"
"Don't you remember?" And rising from her knees, she dashed away her
tears and smiled at him--"Or is it too hard for you to think at all
about it just now? Didn't I find you out on the hills in the storm, and
bring you home here?--and didn't I tell you that my name was Mary?"
He kept his eyes upon her wistful face,--and presently a wan smile
crossed his lips.
"Yes!--so you did!" he answered--"I know you now, Mary! I've been ill,
haven't I?"
She nodded at him--the tears were still wet on her lashes.
"Very ill!"
"Ill all night, I suppose?"
She nodded again.
"It's morning now?"
"Yes, it's morning!"
"I shall get up presently,"--he said, in his old gentle courteous
way--"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble! I must not burden
your hospitality--your kindness----"
His voice trailed away into silence,--his eyelids drooped--and fell into
a sound slumber,--the first refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many
weary nights and days.
Mary Deane stood looking at him thoughtfully. The turn had come for the
better, and she silently thanked God. Night after night, day after day,
she had nursed him with unwearying patience and devotion, having no
other help or guidance save her own womanly instinct, and the occasional
advice of the village doctor, who, however, was not a qualified medical
man, but merely a herbalist who prepared his own simples. This humble
Gamaliel diagnosed Helmsley's case as one of rheumatic fever,
complicated by heart trouble, as well as by the natural weakness of
decaying vitality. Mary had explained to him Helmsley's presence in her
cottage by a pious falsehood, which Heaven surely forgave her as soon as
it was uttered. She had said that he was a friend of her late father's,
who had sought her out in the hope that she might help him to find some
light employment in his old age, and that not knowing the country at
all, he had lost his way across the hills during the blinding fury of
the storm. This story quickly ran through the little village, of which
Mary's house was the last, at the summit of the "coombe," and many of
its inhabitants came to inquire after "Mr. David," while he lay tossing
and moaning between life and death, most of them seriously commiserating
Mary herself for the "sight o' trouble" she had been put to,--"all for a
trampin' stranger like!"
"Though,"--observed one rustic sage--"Bein' a lone woman as y' are, Mis'
Deane, m'appen if he knew yer father 'twould be pleasant to talk to him
when 'is 'ed comes clear, if clear it iver do come. For when we've put
our owd folk under the daisies, it do cheer the 'art a bit to talk of
'em to those as knew 'em when they was a standin' upright, bold an'
strong, for all they lays so low till last trumpet."
Mary smiled a grave assent, and with wise tact and careful forethought
for the comfort and well-being of her unknown guest, quietly accepted
the position she had brought upon herself as having given shelter and
lodging to her "father's friend," thus smoothing all difficulties away
for him, whether he recovered from his illness or not. Had he died, she
would have borne the expenses of his burial without a word of other
explanation than that which she had offered by way of appeasing the
always greedy curiosity of any community of human beings who are
gathered in one small town or village,--and if he recovered, she was
prepared to treat him in very truth as her "father's friend."
"For,"--she argued with herself, quite simply--"I am sure father would
have been kind to him, and when once _he_ was kind, it was impossible
not to be his friend."
And, little by little, Helmsley struggled back to life,--life that was
very weak and frail indeed, but still, life that contained the whole
essence and elixir of being,--a new and growing interest. Little by
little his brain cleared and recovered its poise,--once more he found
himself thinking of things that had been done, and of things that were
yet worth doing. Watching Mary Deane as she went softly to and fro in
constant attendance on his needs, he was divided in his mind between
admiration, gratitude, and--a lurking suspicion, of which he was
ashamed. As a business man, he had been taught to look for interested
motives lying at the back of every action, bad or good,--and as his
health improved, and calm reason again asserted its sway, he found it
difficult and well-nigh impossible to realise or to believe that this
woman, to whom he was a perfect stranger, no more than a vagrant on the
road, could have given him so much of her time, attention, and care,
unless she had dimly supposed him to be something other than he had
represented himself. Unable yet to leave his bed, he lay, to all
appearances, quietly contented, acknowledging her gentle ministrations
with equally gentle words of thanks, while all the time he was mentally
tormenting himself with doubts and fears. He knew that during his
illness he had been delirious,--surely in that delirium he might have
raved and talked of many things that would have yielded the entire
secret of his identity. This thought made him restless,--and one
afternoon when Mary came in with the deliciously prepared cup of tea
which she always gave him about four o'clock, he turned his eyes upon
her with a sudden keen look which rather startled her by its piercing
brightness suggesting, as it did, some return of fever.
"Tell me,"--he said--"Have I been ill long? More than a week?"
She smiled.
"A little more than a week,"--she answered, gently--"Don't worry!"
"I'm not worrying. Please tell me what day it is!"
"What day it is? Well, to-day is Sunday."
"Sunday! Yes--but what is the date of the month?"
She laughed softly, patting his hand.
"Oh, never mind! What does it matter?"
"It does matter,"--he protested, with a touch of petulance--"I know it
is July, but what time of July?"
She laughed again.
"It's not July," she said.
"Not July!"
"No. Nor August!"
He raised himself on his pillow and stared at her in questioning
amazement.
"Not July? Not August? Then----?"
She took his hand between her own kind warm palms, stroking it
soothingly up and down.
"It's not July, and it's not August!" she repeated, nodding at him as
though he were a worried and fractious child--"It's the second week in
September. There!"
His eyes turned from right to left in utter bewilderment. "But how----"
he murmured----
Then he suddenly caught her hands in the one she was holding.
"You mean to say that I have been ill all those weeks--a burden upon
you?"
"You've been ill all those weeks--yes!" she answered "But you haven't
been a burden. Don't you think it! You've--you've been a pleasure!" And
her blue eyes filled with soft tears, which she quickly mastered and
sent back to the tender source from which they sprang; "You have,
really!"
He let go her hand and sank back on his pillows with a smothered groan.
"A pleasure!" he muttered--"I!" And his fuzzy eyebrows met in almost a
frown as he again looked at her with one of the keen glances which those
who knew him in business had learned to dread. "Mary Deane, do not tell
me what is not and what cannot be true! A sick man--an old man--can be
no 'pleasure' to anyone;--he is nothing but a bore and a trouble, and
the sooner he dies the better!"
The smiling softness still lingered in her eyes.
"Ah well!"--she said--"You talk like that because you're not strong yet,
and you just feel a bit cross and worried! You'll be better in another
few days----"
"Another few days!" he interrupted her--"No--no--that cannot be--I must
be up and tramping it again--I must not stay on here--I have already
stayed too long."
A slight shadow crossed her face, but she was silent. He watched her
narrowly.
"I've been off my head, haven't I?" he queried, affecting a certain
brusqueness in his tone--"Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose?"
"Yes--sometimes,"--she replied--"But only when you were _very_ bad."
"And what did I say?"
She hesitated a moment, and he grew impatient.
"Come, come!" he demanded, irritably--"What did I say?"
She looked at him candidly.
"You talked mostly about 'Tom o' the Gleam,'"--she answered--"That was a
poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left
to him in the world--its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor
car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it--and Tom----"
"Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run
over his child and killed _him_!" said Helmsley, with grim
satisfaction--"I saw it done!"
Mary shuddered.
"I saw it done!" repeated Helmsley--"And I think it was rightly done!
But--I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness--with his dead child in
his arms--and _that!_--that broke something in my heart and brain and
made me think God was cruel!"
She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.
"I knew Tom,"--she said, presently, in a soft voice--"He was a wild
creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had
been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him
take to the gypsy life--but that's only a story. Anyway his little
child--'kiddie'--as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow
in the world--so playful and affectionate!--I don't wonder Tom went mad
when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?"
"Yes, I saw it all!" And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his
eyes as he spoke--"I was tramping from Watchett,--and the motor passed
me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a
lodging at Blue Anchor--and while I was having my supper at the public
house Tom came in,--and--and it was all over in less than fifteen
minutes! A horrible sight--a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now!--I
shall never forget it!" |
