Part 20 (2/2)
Just outside, a tangle of climbing roses hung like a delicate pink curtain between Helmsley's eyes and the suns.h.i.+ne, 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 cla.s.ses, 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 const.i.tute 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 s.h.i.+ning old brown ”l.u.s.tre”
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 s.h.i.+llin' 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 pa.s.s 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 appet.i.te 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 pa.s.sive part. He had voluntarily entered into his present circ.u.mstances, 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 a.s.sumed 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 inst.i.tutions 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 _advertis.e.m.e.nt_!” 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'
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