"Her voice is the sweetest _I_ ever heard,"--replied Helmsley--"But then I"m not much of a judge."
And his thoughts went roving back to certain entertainments in London which he had given for the benefit of his wealthy friends, when he had paid as much as five or six hundred guineas in fees to famous opera singers, that they might shriek or warble, as their respective talents dictated, to crowds of indifferent loungers in his rooms, who cared no more for music than they did for religion. He almost smiled as he recalled those nights, and contrasted them with this New Year"s evening, when seated in an humble cottage, he had for his companions only a lowly-born poor woman, and an equally lowly-born poor man, both of whom evinced finer education, better manners, greater pride of spirit, and more resolute independence than nine-tenths of the "society" people who had fawned upon him and flattered him, simply because they knew he was a millionaire. And the charm of his present position was that these two, poor, lowly-born people were under the impression that even in their poverty and humility they were better off than he was, and that because fortune had been, as they considered, kind to them, they were bound to treat him in a way that should not remind him of his dependent and defenceless condition. It was impossible to imagine greater satisfaction than that which he enjoyed in the contemplation of his own actual situation as compared with that which he had impressed upon the minds of these two friends of his who had given him their friendship trustingly and frankly for himself alone. And he listened placidly, with folded hands and half shut eyes, while Angus, at Mary"s request, trolled forth "The Standard on the Braes o" Mar" and "Sound the pibroch,"--varying those warlike ditties with "Jock o" Hazledean," and "Will ye no come back again,"--till all suddenly Mary rose from her chair, and with her finger to her lips said "Hark!" The church-bells were ringing out the Old Year, and glancing at the clock, they saw it wanted but ten minutes to midnight. Softly Mary stepped to the cottage door and opened it. The chime swung melodiously in, and Angus Reay went to the threshold, and stood beside Mary, listening. Had they glanced back that instant they would have seen Helmsley looking at them both, with an intensity of yearning in his pale face and sad old eyes that was pitiful and earnest beyond all expression--they would have seen his lips move, as he murmured--"G.o.d grant that I may make their lives beautiful! G.o.d give me this peace of mind before I die! G.o.d bless them!" But they were absorbed in listening--and presently with a deep clang the bells ceased. Mary turned her head.
"The Old Year"s out, David!"
Then she went to him and knelt down beside him.
"It"s been a kind old year!"--she said--"It brought you to me to take care of, and _me_ to you to take care of you--didn"t it?"
He laid one hand on hers, tremblingly, but was silent. She turned up her kind, sweet face to his.
"You"re not tired, are you?"
He shook his head.
"No, my dear, no!"
A rush and a clang of melody swept suddenly through the open door--the bells had begun again.
"A Happy New Year, Miss Mary!" said Angus, looking towards her from where he stood on the threshold--"And to you, David!"
With an irrepressible movement of tenderness Helmsley raised his trembling hands and laid them gently on Mary"s head.
"Take an old man"s blessing, my dear!" he said, softly, "And from a most grateful heart!"
She caught his hands as he lifted them again from her brow, and kissed them. There were tears in her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away.
"You talk just like father!" she said, smiling--"He was always grateful for nothing!"
And rising from her kneeling att.i.tude by Helmsley"s chair, she went again towards the open cottage door, holding out her two hands to Reay.
Looking at her as she approached he seemed to see in her some gracious angel, advancing with all the best possibilities of life for him in her sole power and gift.
"A Happy New Year, Mr. Reay! And success to the book!"
He clasped the hands she extended.
"If you wish success for it, success is bound to come!" he answered in a low voice--"I believe in your good influence!"
She looked at him, and whatever answer rose to her lips was suddenly silenced by the eloquence of his eyes. She coloured hotly, and then grew very pale. They both stood on the threshold of the open door, silent and strangely embarra.s.sed, while the bells swung and clanged musically through the frosty air, and the long low swish of the sea swept up like a harmonious ba.s.s set to the silvery voice of the chimes. They little guessed with what pa.s.sionate hope, yearning, and affection, Helmsley watched them standing there!--they little knew that on them the last ambition of his life was set!--and that any discovery of sham or falsehood in their natures would make cruel havoc of his dearest dreams!
They waited, looking out on the dark quiet s.p.a.ce, and listening to the rush of the stream till the clamour of the bells ceased again, and sounded no more. In the deep stillness that followed Angus said softly--
"There"s not a leaf left on the old sweetbriar bush now!"
"No,"--answered Mary, in the same soft tone--"But it will be the first thing to bud with the spring."
"I"ve kept the little sprig you gave me,"--he added, apparently by way of a casual after-thought.
"Have you?"
Silence fell again--and not another word pa.s.sed between them save a gentle "Good-night" when, the New Year having fully come in, they parted.
[Footnote 1: A fact.]
CHAPTER XVII
The dreariest season of the year had now set in, but frost and cold were very seldom felt severely in Weircombe. The little village lay in a deep warm hollow, and was thoroughly protected at the back by the hills, while in the front its sh.o.r.es were washed by the sea, which had a warming as well as bracing effect on the atmosphere. To invalids requiring an equable temperature, it would have been a far more ideal winter resort than any corner of the much-vaunted Riviera, except indeed for the fact that feeding and gambling dens were not among its attractions. To "society" people it would have proved insufferably dull, because society people, lacking intelligence to do anything themselves, always want everything done for them. Weircombe folk would not have understood that method of living. To them it seemed proper and reasonable that men, and women too, should work for what they ate. The theory that only a few chosen persons, not by any means estimable either as to their characters or their abilities, should eat what others were starved for, would not have appealed to them. They were a small and unimportant community, but their ideas of justice and principles of conduct were very firmly established. They lived on the lines laid down by their forefathers, and held that a simple faith in G.o.d, coupled with honest hard labour, was sufficient to make life well worth living. And, on the whole they were made of that robust human material of which in the days gone by there was enough to compose and consolidate the greatness of Britain. They were kindly of heart, but plain in speech,--and their remarks on current events, persons and things, would have astonished and perhaps edified many a press man had he been among them, when on Sat.u.r.day nights they "dropped in" at the one little public-house of the village, and argued politics and religion till closing-time. Angus Reay soon became a favourite with them all, though at first they had looked upon him with a little distrust as a "gentleman _tow_-rist"; but when he had mixed with them freely and familiarly, making no secret of the fact that he was poor, and that he was endeavouring to earn a livelihood like all the rest of them, only in a different way, they abandoned all reserve, and treated him as one of themselves. Moreover, when it was understood that "Mis" Deane," whose reputation stood very high in the village, considered him not unworthy of her friendship, he rose up several degrees in the popular estimation, and many a time those who were the self-elected wits and wise-acres of the place, would "look in" as they termed it, at Mary"s cottage, and pa.s.s the evening talking with him and with "old David," who, if he did not say much, listened the more. Mr. Bunce, the doctor, and Mr. Twitt, the stonemason, were in particular profoundly impressed when they knew that Reay had worked for two years on a London newspaper.
"Ye must "ave a ter"uble knowledge of the world, Mister!" said Twitt, thoughtfully--"Just ter"uble!"
"Yes, I should a.s.sume it must be so,"--murmured Bunce--"I should think it could hardly fail to be so?"
Reay gave a short laugh.
"Well, I don"t know!" he said--"You may call it a knowledge of the world if you like--I call it an unpleasant glimpse into the shady side of life. I"d rather walk in the sunshine."
"And what would you call the sunshine, sir?" asked Bunce, with his head very much on one side like a meditative bird.
Honesty, truth, belief in G.o.d, belief in good!"--answered Angus, with some pa.s.sion--"Not perpetual scheming, suspicion of motives, personal slander, and pettiness--O Lord!--such pettiness as can hardly be believed! Journalism is the most educational force in the world, but its power is being put to wrong uses."
"Well,--said Twitt, slowly--"I aint so blind but I can see through a wall when there"s a c.h.i.n.k in it. An" when I gets my "Daily" down from Lunnun, an" sees harf a page given up to a kind o" poster about Pills, an" another harf a page praisin" up somethin" about Tonics, I often sez to myself: "Look "ere, Twitt! What are ye payin" yer pennies out for?
For a Patent Pill or for News? For a Nervy Tonic or for the latest pol"tics?" An" myself--me--Twitt--answers an" sez--"Why ye"re payin" for news an" pol"tics, of course!" Well then, I sez, "Twitt, ye aint gettin" nothin" o" the sort!" An" t" other day, blow"d if I didn"t see in my paper a long piece about ""Ow to be Beautiful"--an" that "adn"t nothin" to do wi" me nor no man, but was just mere gabble for fool women. ""Ow to be Beautiful," aint news o" the world!"
"No,"--said Reay--"You"re not intended to know the news of the world.
News, real news, is the property of the Stock Exchange. It"s chiefly intended for company gambling purposes. The People are not expected to know much about it. Modern Journalism seeks to play Pope and a.s.sert the doctrine of infallibility. What It does not authorise, isn"t supposed to exist."
"Is that truly so?" asked Bunce, solemnly.
"Most a.s.suredly!"
"You mean to say,"--said Helmsley, breaking in upon the conversation, and speaking in quiet unconcerned tones--"that the actual national affairs of the world are not told to the people as they should be, but are jealously guarded by a few whose private interests are at stake?"
"Yes. I certainly do mean that."
"I thought you did. You see," went on Helmsley--"when I was in regular office work in London, I used to hear a good deal concerning the business schemes of this, that and the other great house in the city,--and I often wondered what the people would say if they ever came to know!"
"Came to know what?" said Mr. Bunce, anxiously.
"Why, the names of the princ.i.p.al shareholders in the newspapers,"--said Reay, placidly--"_That_ might possibly open their eyes to the way their opinions are manufactured for them! There"s very little "liberty of the press" in Great Britain nowadays. The press is the property of a few rich men."
Mary, who was working very intently on a broad length of old lace she was mending, looked up at him--her eyes were brilliant and her cheeks softly flushed.
"I hope you will be brave enough to say that some day right out to the people as you say it to us,"--she observed.
"I will! Never fear about that! If I _am_ ever anything--if I ever _can_ be anything--I will do my level best to save my nation from being swallowed up by a horde of German-American Jews!" said Reay, hotly--"I would rather suffer anything myself than see the dear old country brought to shame."