"Why yes, of course!" said Reay. "There"s nothing more faithful on earth than a faithful dog--except"--and he smiled--"a faithful husband!"
Mary laughed.
"Or a faithful wife--which?" she playfully demanded. "How does the old rhyme go--
"A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree, The more you beat "em, the better they be!"
Are you going to try that system when we are married, Angus?"
She laughed again, and without waiting for an answer, ran on a little in front, in order to be first across the natural bridge which separated them from the opposite side of the "coombe," and from the spot where the big chestnut-tree waved its fan-like green leaves and plumes of pinky white blossom over her garden gate. Another few steps made easily with the support of Reay"s strong arm, and Helmsley found himself again in the simple little raftered cottage kitchen, with Charlie tearing madly round and round him in ecstasy, uttering short yelps of joy. Something struggled in his throat for utterance,--it seemed ages since he had last seen this little abode of peace and sweet content, and a curious impression was in his mind of having left one ident.i.ty here to take up another less pleasing one elsewhere. A deep, unspeakable grat.i.tude overwhelmed him,--he felt to the full the sympathetic environment of love,--that indescribable sense of security which satisfies the heart when it knows it is "dear to some one else."
"If I be dear to some one else, Then I should be to myself more dear."
For there is nothing in the whole strange symphony of human life, with its concordances and dissonances, that strikes out such a chord of perfect music as the consciousness of love. To feel that there is one at least in the world to whom you are more dear than to any other living being, is the very centralisation of life and the mainspring of action.
For that one you will work and plan,--for that one you will seek to be n.o.ble and above the average in your motives and character--for that one you will, despite a mult.i.tude of drawbacks, agree to live. But without this melodious note in the chorus all the singing is in vain.
Led to his accustomed chair by the hearth, Helmsley sank into it restfully, and closed his eyes. He was so thoroughly tired out mentally and physically with the strain he had put upon himself in undertaking his journey, as well as in getting through the business he had set out to do, that he was only conscious of a great desire to sleep. So that when he shut his eyes for a moment, as he thought, he was quite unaware that he fell into a dead faint and so remained for nearly half an hour.
When he came to himself again, Mary was kneeling beside him with a very pale face, and Angus was standing quite close to him, while no less a personage than Mr. Bunce was holding his hand and feeling his pulse.
"Better now?" said Mr. Bunce, in a voice of encouraging mildness. "We have done too much. We have walked too far. We must rest."
Helmsley smiled--the little group of three around him looked so troubled, while he himself felt nothing unusual.
"What"s the matter?" he asked. "I"m all right--quite all right. Only just a little tired!"
"Exactly!" And Mr. Bunce nodded profoundly. "Just a little tired! We have taken a very unnecessary journey away from our friends, and we are suffering for it! We must now be very good; we must stay at home and keep quiet!"
Helmsley looked from one to the other questioningly.
"Do you think I"m ill?" he asked. "I"m not, really! I feel very well."
"That"s all right, David, dear!" said Mary, patting his hand. "But you _are_ tired--you know you are!"
His eyes rested on her fondly.
"Yes, I"m tired," he confessed. "But that"s nothing." He waited a minute, looking at them all. "That"s nothing! Is it, Mr. Bunce?"
"When we are young it is nothing," replied Mr. Bunce cautiously. "But when we are old, we must be careful!"
Helmsley smiled.
"Shake hands, Bunce!" he said, suiting the action to the word. "I"ll obey your orders, never fear! I"ll sit quiet!"
And he showed so much cheerfulness, and chatted with them all so brightly, that, for the time, anxiety was dispelled. Mr. Bunce took his departure promptly, only pausing at the garden gate to give a hint to Angus Reay.
"He will require the greatest care. Don"t alarm Miss Deane--but his heart was always weak, and it has grown perceptibly weaker. He needs complete repose."
Angus returned to the cottage somewhat depressed after this, and from that moment Helmsley found himself surrounded with evidences of tender forethought for his comfort such as no rich man could ever obtain for mere cash payment. The finest medical skill and the best trained nursing are, we know, to be had for money,--but the soothing touch of love,--the wordless sympathy which manifests itself in all the looks and movements of those by whom a life is really and truly held precious--these are neither to be bought nor sold. And David Helmsley in his a.s.sumed character of a man too old and too poor to have any so-called "useful"
friends--a mere wayfarer on the road apparently without a home, or any prospect of obtaining one,--had, by the simplest, yet strangest chance in the world, found an affection such as he had never in his most successful and most brilliant days been able to win. He upon whom the society women of London and Paris had looked with greedy and speculative eyes, wondering how much they could manage to get out of him, was now being cared for by one simple-hearted sincere woman, who had no other motive for her affectionate solicitude save gentlest compa.s.sion and kindness;--he whom crafty kings had invited to dine with them because of his enormous wealth, and because is was possible that, for the "honour"
of sitting at the same table with them he might tide them over a financial difficulty, was now tended with more than the duty and watchfulness of a son in the person of a poor journalist, kicked out of employment for telling the public certain important facts concerning financial "deals" on the part of persons of influence--a journalist, who for this very cause was likely never more to be a journalist, but rather a fighter against bitter storm and stress, for the fair wind of popular favour,--that being generally the true position of any independent author who has something new and out of the common to say to the world.
Angus Reay, working steadily and hopefully on his gradually diminishing little stock of money, with all his energies bent on cutting a diamond of success out of the savagely hard rock of human circ.u.mstance, was more filial in his respect and thought for Helmsley than either of Helmsley"s own sons had been; while his character was as far above the characters of those two ne"er-do-weel sprouts of their mother"s treachery as light is above darkness. And the multi-millionaire was well content to rest in the little cottage where he had found a real home, watching the quiet course of events,--and waiting--waiting for something which he found himself disposed to expect--a something to which he could not give a name.
There was quite a little rejoicing in the village of Weircombe when it was known he had returned from his brief wanderings, and there was also a good deal of commiseration expressed for him when it was known that he was somewhat weakened in physical health by his efforts to find more paying work. Many of the children with whom he was a favourite came up to see him, bringing little knots of flowers, or curious trophies of weed and sh.e.l.ls from the seash.o.r.e--and now that the weather was settled fine and warm, he became accustomed to sit in his chair outside the cottage door in the garden, with the old sweetbriar bush shedding perfume around him, and a clambering rose breaking into voluptuous creamy pink blossom above his head. Here he would pursue his occupation of basket-making, and most of the villagers made it their habit to pa.s.s up and down at least once or twice a day in their turns, to see how he fared, or, as they themselves expressed it, "to keep old David going."
His frail bent figure, his thin, intellectual face, with its composed expression of peace and resignation, his soft white hair, and his slow yet ever patiently working hands, made up a picture which, set in the delicate framework of leaf and blossom, was one to impress the imagination and haunt the memory. Mr. and Mrs. Twitt were constant visitors, and many were the would-be jocose remarks of the old stonemason on David"s temporary truancy.
"Wanted more work, did ye?" And thrusting his hands deep in the pockets of his corduroys, Twitt looked at him with a whimsical complacency.
"Well, why didn"t ye come down to the stoneyard an" learn "ow to cut a hepitaph? Nice chippy, easy work in its way, an" no "arm in yer sittin"
down to it. Why didn"t ye, eh?"
"I"ve never had enough education for such work as that, Mr. Twitt,"
answered David mildly, with something of a humorous sparkle in his eyes.
"I"m afraid I should spoil more than I could pay for. You want an artist--not an untrained clumsy old fellow like me."
"Oh, blow artists!" said Mr. Twitt irreverently. "They talks a lot--they talks yer "ed off--but they doos onny "arf the labour as they spends in waggin" their tongues. An" for a hepitaph, they none of "em aint got an idee. It"s allus Scripter texes with "em,--they aint got no "riginality.
Now I"m a reg"lar Scripter reader, an" nowheres do I find it writ as we"re to use the words o" G.o.d Himself to carve on tombstones for our speshul convenience, cos we aint no notions o" feelin" an" respect of our own. But artists can"t think o" nothin", an" I never cares to employ "em. Yet for all that there"s not a sweeter, pruttier place than our little cemetery nowheres in all the world. There aint no tyranny in it, an" no pettifoggin" interference. Why, there"s places in England where ye can"t put what ye likes over the grave o" yer dead friends!--ye"ve got to "submit" yer idee to the parzon, or wot"s worse, the Corporation, if ser be yer last go-to-bed place is near a town. There"s a town I know of," and here Mr. Twitt began to laugh,--"wheer ye can"t "ave a moniment put up to your dead folk without "subjectin"" the design to the Town Council--an" we all knows the fine taste o" Town Councils! They"se "artists," an" no mistake! I"ve got the rules of the cemetery of that town for my own eddification. They runs like this--" And drawing a paper from his pocket, he read as follows:--
""All gravestones, monuments, tombs, tablets, memorials, palisades, curbs, and inscriptions shall be subject to the approval of the Town Council; and a drawing, showing the form, materials, and dimensions of every gravestone, monument, tomb, tablet, memorial, palisades, or curb proposed to be erected or fixed, together with a copy of the inscription intended to be cut thereon (if any), on the form provided by the Town Council, must be left at the office of the Clerk at least ten days before the first Tuesday in any month. The Town Council reserve to themselves the right to remove or prevent the erection of any monument, tomb, tablet, memorial, etc., which shall not have previously received their sanction." There! What d" ye think of that?"
Helmsley had listened in astonishment.
"Think? I think it is monstrous!" he said, with some indignation. "Such a Town Council as that is a sort of many-headed tyrant, resolved to persecute the unhappy townspeople into their very graves!"
"Right y" are!" said Twitt. "But there"s a many on "em! An" ye may thank yer stars ye"re not anywheres under "em. Now when _you_ goes the way o"
all flesh----"
He paused, suddenly embarra.s.sed, and conscious that he had perhaps touched on a sore subject. But Helmsley rea.s.sured him.
"Yes, Twitt? Don"t stop!--what then?"
"Why, then," said Twitt, almost tenderly, "ye"ll "ave our good old parzon to see ye properly tucked under a daisy quilt, an" wotever ye wants put on yer tomb, or wotever"s writ on it, can be yer own desire, if ye"ll think about it afore ye goes. An" there"ll be no expense at all--for I tell ye just the truth--I"ve grown to like ye that well that I"ll carve ye the pruttiest little tombstone ye ever seed for nothin"!"
Helmsley smiled.
"Well, I shan"t be able to thank you then, Mr. Twitt, so I thank you now," he said. "You know a good deed is always rewarded, if not in this world, then in the next."
"I b"leeve that," rejoined Twitt; "I b"leeve it true. And though I know Mis" Deane is that straight an" "onest, she"d see ye properly mementoed an" paid for, I wouldn"t take a penny from "er--not on account of a kindly old gaffer like yerself. I"d do it all friendly."
"Of course you would!" and Helmsley shook his hand heartily; "And of course you _will_!"
This, and many other conversations he had with Twitt and a certain few of the villagers, showed him that the little community of Weircombe evidently thought of him as being not long for this world. He accepted the position quietly, and pa.s.sed day after day peacefully enough, without feeling any particular illness, save a great weakness in his limbs. He was in himself particularly happy, for Mary was always with him, and Angus pa.s.sed every evening with them both. Another great pleasure, too, he found in the occasional and entirely un.o.btrusive visits of the parson of the little parish--a weak and ailing man physically, but in soul and intellect exceptionally strong. As different from the Reverend Mr. Arbroath as an old-time Crusader would be from a modern jockey, he recognised the sacred character of his mission as an ordained minister of Christ, and performed that mission simply and faithfully. He would sit by Helmsley"s chair of a summer afternoon and talk with him as friend to friend--it made no difference to him that to all appearances the old man was poor and dependent on Mary Deane"s bounty, and that his former life was, to him, the clergyman, a sealed book; he was there to cheer and to comfort, not to inquire, reproach, or condemn. He was the cheeriest of companions, and the most hopeful of believers.
"If all clergymen were like you, sir," said Helmsley to him one day, "there would be no atheists!"
The good man reddened at the compliment, as though he had been accused of a crime.
"You think too kindly of my efforts," he said gently. "I only speak to you as I would wish others to speak to me."
""For this is the Law and the Prophets!"" murmured Helmsley. "Sir, will you tell me one thing--are there many poor people in Weircombe?"