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. “Li
fe 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 ba
re 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!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 650
