Part 64 (1/2)

”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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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.