There was no return of the storm. The heavens, with their mighty burden of stars, remained clear and tranquil, — the raging voice of ocean was gradually sinking into a gentle crooning song of sweet content, — and within the little cottage complete silence reigned, unbroken save for the dash of the stream outside, rushing down through the “coombe” to the sea.
CHAPTER XIII
The next morning Helmsley was too ill to move from his bed, or to be conscious of his surroundings. And there followed a long period which to him was well-nigh a blank. For weeks he lay helpless in the grasp of a fever which over and over again threatened to cut the last frail thread of his life asunder. Pain tortured every nerve and sinew in his body, and there were times of terrible collapse, — when he was conscious of nothing save an intense longing to sink into the grave and have done with all the sharp and cruel torment which kept him on the rack of existence. In a semi-delirious condition he tossed and moaned the hours away, hardly aware of his own identity. In certain brief pauses of the nights and days, when pain was momentarily dulled by stupor, he saw, or fancied he saw a woman always near him, with anxiety in her eyes and words of soothing consolation on her lips; — and then he found himself muttering, “Mary! Mary! God bless you!” over and over again. Once or twice he dimly realised that a small dark man came to his bedside and felt his pulse and looked at him very doubtfully, and that she, Mary, called this personage “doctor,” and asked him questions in a whisper. But all within his own being was pain and bewilderment, — sometimes he felt as though he were one drop in a burning whirlpool of madness — and sometimes he seemed to himself to be spinning round and round in a haze of blinding rain, of which the drops were scalding hot, and heavy as lead, — and occasionally he found that he was trying to get out of bed, uttering cries of inexplicable anguish, while at such moments, something cool was placed on his forehead, and a gentle arm was passed round him till the paroxysm abated, and he fell down again among his pillows exhausted. Slowly, and as it were grudgingly, after many days, the crisis of the illness passed and ebbed away in dull throbs of agony, — and he sank into a weak lethargy that was almost like the comatose condition preceding death. He lay staring at the ceiling for hours, heedless as to whether he ever moved or spoke again. Some-one came and put spoonfuls of liquid nourishment between his lips, and he swallowed it mechanically without any sign of conscious appreciation. White as white marble, and aged by many years, he remained stretched in his rigid corpse-like attitude, his eyes always fixedly upturned, till one day he was roused from his deepening torpor by the sound of sobbing. With a violent effort he brought his gaze down from the ceiling, and saw a figure kneeling by his bed, and a mass of bronze brown hair falling over a face concealed by two shapely white hands through which the tears were falling. Feebly astonished, he stretched out his thin, trembling fingers to touch that wonderful bright mesh of waving tresses, and asked —
“What is this? Who — who is crying?”
The hidden face was uplifted, and two soft eyes, wet with weeping, looked up hopefully.
“It’s Mary!” said a trembling voice— “You know me, don’t you? Oh, dearie, if you would but try to rouse yourself, you’d get well even now!”
He gazed at her in a kind of childish admiration.
“It’s Mary!” he echoed, faintly— “And who is Mary?”
“Don’t you remember?” And rising from her knees, she dashed away her tears and smiled at him— “Or is it too hard for you to think at all about it just now? Didn’t I find you out on the hills in the storm, and bring you home here? — and didn’t I tell you that my name was Mary?”
He kept his eyes upon her wistful face, — and presently a wan smile crossed his lips.
“Yes! — so you did!” he answered— “I know you now, Mary! I’ve been ill, haven’t I?”
She nodded at him — the tears were still wet on her lashes.
“Very ill!”
“Ill all night, I suppose?”
She nodded again.
“It’s morning now?”
“Yes, it’s morning!”
“I shall get up presently,” — he said, in his old gentle courteous way— “I am sorry to have given you so much trouble! I must not burden your hospitality — your kindness — —”
His voice trailed away into silence, — his eyelids drooped — and fell into a sound slumber, — the first refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many weary nights and days.
Mary Deane stood looking at him thoughtfully. The turn had come for the better, and she silently thanked God. Night after night, day after day, she had nursed him with unwearying patience and devotion, having no other help or guidance save her own womanly instinct, and the occasional advice of the village doctor, who, however, was not a qualified medical man, but merely a herbalist who prepared his own simples. This humble Gamaliel diagnosed Helmsley’s case as one of rheumatic fever, complicated by heart trouble, as well as by the natural weakness of decaying vitality. Mary had explained to him Helmsley’s presence in her cottage by a pious falsehood, which Heaven surely forgave her as soon as it was uttered. She had said that he was a friend of her late father’s, who had sought her out in the hope that she might help him to find some light employment in his old age, and that not knowing the country at all, he had lost his way across the hills during the blinding fury of the storm. This story quickly ran through the little village, of which Mary’s house was the last, at the summit of the “coombe,” and many of its inhabitants came to inquire after “Mr. David,” while he lay tossing and moaning between life and death, most of them seriously commiserating Mary herself for the “sight o’ trouble” she had been put to,— “all for a trampin’ stranger like!”
“Though,” — observed one rustic sage— “Bein’ a lone woman as y’ are, Mis’ Deane, m’appen if he knew yer father ’twould be pleasant to talk to him when ’is ‘ed comes clear, if clear it iver do come. For when we’ve put our owd folk under the daisies, it do cheer the ‘art a bit to talk of ’em to those as knew ’em when they was a standin’ upright, bold an’ strong, for all they lays so low till last trumpet.”
Mary smiled a grave assent, and with wise tact and careful forethought for the comfort and well-being of her unknown guest, quietly accepted the position she had brought upon herself as having given shelter and lodging to her “father’s friend,” thus smoothing all difficulties away for him, whether he recovered from his illness or not. Had he died, she would have borne the expenses of his burial without a word of other explanation than that which she had offered by way of appeasing the always greedy curiosity of any community of human beings who are gathered in one small town or village, — and if he recovered, she was prepared to treat him in very truth as her “father’s friend.”
“For,” — she argued with herself, quite simply— “I am sure father would have been kind to him, and when once he was kind, it was impossible not to be his friend.”
And, little by little, Helmsley struggled back to life, — life that was very weak and frail indeed, but still, life that contained the whole essence and elixir of being, — a new and growing interest. Little by little his brain cleared and recovered its poise, — once more he found himself thinking of things that had been done, and of things that were yet worth doing. Watching Mary Deane as she went softly to and fro in constant attendance on his needs, he was divided in his mind between admiration, gratitude, and — a lurking suspicion, of which he was ashamed. As a business man, he had been taught to look for interested motives lying at the back of every action, bad or good, — and as his health improved, and calm reason again asserted its sway, he found it difficult and well-nigh impossible to realise or to believe that this woman, to whom he was a perfect stranger, no more than a vagrant on the road, could have given him so much of her time, attention, and care, unless she had dimly supposed him to be something other than he had represented himself. Unable yet to leave his bed, he lay, to all appearances, quietly contented, acknowledging her g
entle ministrations with equally gentle words of thanks, while all the time he was mentally tormenting himself with doubts and fears. He knew that during his illness he had been delirious, — surely in that delirium he might have raved and talked of many things that would have yielded the entire secret of his identity. This thought made him restless, — and one afternoon when Mary came in with the deliciously prepared cup of tea which she always gave him about four o’clock, he turned his eyes upon her with a sudden keen look which rather startled her by its piercing brightness suggesting, as it did, some return of fever.
“Tell me,” — he said— “Have I been ill long? More than a week?”
She smiled.
“A little more than a week,” — she answered, gently— “Don’t worry!”
“I’m not worrying. Please tell me what day it is!”
“What day it is? Well, to-day is Sunday.”
“Sunday! Yes — but what is the date of the month?”
She laughed softly, patting his hand.
“Oh, never mind! What does it matter?”
“It does matter,” — he protested, with a touch of petulance— “I know it is July, but what time of July?”
She laughed again.
“It’s not July,” she said.
“Not July!”
“No. Nor August!”
He raised himself on his pillow and stared at her in questioning amazement.
“Not July? Not August? Then —— ?”
She took his hand between her own kind warm palms, stroking it soothingly up and down.
“It’s not July, and it’s not August!” she repeated, nodding at him as though he were a worried and fractious child— “It’s the second week in September. There!”
His eyes turned from right to left in utter bewilderment. “But how — —” he murmured ——
Then he suddenly caught her hands in the one she was holding.
“You mean to say that I have been ill all those weeks — a burden upon you?”
“You’ve been ill all those weeks — yes!” she answered “But you haven’t been a burden. Don’t you think it! You’ve — you’ve been a pleasure!” And her blue eyes filled with soft tears, which she quickly mastered and sent back to the tender source from which they sprang; “You have, really!”
He let go her hand and sank back on his pillows with a smothered groan.
“A pleasure!” he muttered— “I!” And his fuzzy eyebrows met in almost a frown as he again looked at her with one of the keen glances which those who knew him in business had learned to dread. “Mary Deane, do not tell me what is not and what cannot be true! A sick man — an old man — can be no ‘pleasure’ to anyone; — he is nothing but a bore and a trouble, and the sooner he dies the better!”
The smiling softness still lingered in her eyes.
“Ah well!” — she said— “You talk like that because you’re not strong yet, and you just feel a bit cross and worried! You’ll be better in another few days — —”
“Another few days!” he interrupted her— “No — no — that cannot be — I must be up and tramping it again — I must not stay on here — I have already stayed too long.”
A slight shadow crossed her face, but she was silent. He watched her narrowly.
“I’ve been off my head, haven’t I?” he queried, affecting a certain brusqueness in his tone— “Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose?”
“Yes — sometimes,” — she replied— “But only when you were very bad.”
“And what did I say?”
She hesitated a moment, and he grew impatient.
“Come, come!” he demanded, irritably— “What did I say?”
She looked at him candidly.
“You talked mostly about ‘Tom o’ the Gleam,’” — she answered— “That was a poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left to him in the world — its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it — and Tom — —”
“Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run over his child and killed him!” said Helmsley, with grim satisfaction— “I saw it done!”
Mary shuddered.
“I saw it done!” repeated Helmsley— “And I think it was rightly done! But — I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness — with his dead child in his arms — and that! — that broke something in my heart and brain and made me think God was cruel!”
She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.
“I knew Tom,” — she said, presently, in a soft voice— “He was a wild creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him take to the gypsy life — but that’s only a story. Anyway his little child— ‘kiddie’ — as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow in the world — so playful and affectionate! — I don’t wonder Tom went mad when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?”
“Yes, I saw it all!” And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his eyes as he spoke— “I was tramping from Watchett, — and the motor passed me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a lodging at Blue Anchor — and while I was having my supper at the public house Tom came in, — and — and it was all over in less than fifteen minutes! A horrible sight — a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now! — I shall never forget it!”
“Enough to make you ill, poor dear!” said Mary, gently— “Don’t think of it now! Try and sleep a little. You mustn’t talk too much. Poor Tom is dead and buried now, and his little child with him — God rest them both! It’s better he should have died than lived without anyone to love him in the world.”
“That’s true!” And opening his eyes widely again, he gazed full at her— “That’s the worst fate of all — to live in the world without anyone to love you! Tell me — when I was delirious did I only talk of Tom o’ the Gleam?”
“That’s the only person whose name you seemed to have on your mind,” — she answered, smiling a little— “But you did make a great noise about money!”
“Money?” he echoed— “I — I made a noise about money?”
“Yes!” And her smile deepened— “Often at night you quite startled me by shouting ‘Money! Money!’ I’m sure you’ve wanted it very badly!”
He moved restlessly and avoided her gaze. Presently he asked querulously:
“Where is my old vest with all my papers?”
“It’s just where I put it the night you came,” — she answered— “I haven’t touched it. Don’t you remember you told me to keep the key of the cupboard which is right here close to your bed? I’ve got it quite safe.”
He turned his head round on the pillow and looked at her with a sudden smile.
“Thank you! You are very kind to me, Mary! But you must let me work off all I owe you as soon as I’m well.”
She put one finger meditatively on her lips and surveyed him with a whimsically indulgent air.
“Let you work it off? Well, I don’t mind that at all! But a minute ago you were saying you must get up and go on the tramp again. Now, if you want to work for me, you must stay — —”
“I will stay till I have paid you my debt somehow!” he said— “I’m old — but I can do a few useful things yet.”
“I’m sure you can!” And she nodded cheerfully— “And you shall! Now rest a while, and don’t fret!”
She went away from him then to fetch the little dog, Charlie, who, now that his master was on the fair road to complete recovery, was always brought in to amuse him after tea. Charlie was full of exuberant life, and his gambols over the bed where Helmsley lay, his comic interest in the feathery end of his own tail, and his general intense delight in the fact of his own existence, made him a merry and affectionate little playmate. He had taken immensely to his new home, and had attached himself to Mary Deane with singular devotion, trotting after her everywher
e as close to her heels as possible. The fame of his beauty had gone through the village, and many a small boy and girl came timidly to the cottage door to try and “have a peep” at the smallest dog ever seen in the neighbourhood, and certainly the prettiest.
“That little dawg be wurth twenty pun!” — said one of the rustics to Mary, on one occasion when she was sitting in her little garden, carefully brushing and combing the silky coat of the little “toy”— “Th’owd man thee’s been a’ nussin’ ought to give ’im to thee as a thank-offerin’.”
“I wouldn’t take him,” — Mary answered— “He’s perhaps the only friend the poor old fellow has got in the world. It would be just selfish of me to want him.”
And so the time went on till it was past mid-September, and there came a day, mild, warm, and full of the soft subdued light of deepening autumn, when Mary told her patient that he might get up, and sit in an armchair for a few hours in the kitchen. She gave him this news when she brought him his breakfast, and added —
“I’ll wrap you up in father’s dressing gown, and you’ll be quite cosy and safe from chill. And after another week you’ll be so strong that you’ll be able to dress yourself and do without me altogether!”
This phrase struck curiously on his ears. “Do without her altogether!” That would be strange indeed — almost impossible! It was quite early in the morning when she thus spoke — about seven o’clock, — and he was not to get up till noon, “when the air was at its warmest,” said Mary — so he lay very quietly, thinking over every detail of the position in which he found himself. He was now perfectly aware that it was a position which opened up great possibilities. His dream, — the vague indefinable longing which possessed him for love — pure, disinterested, unselfish love, — seemed on the verge of coming true. Yet he would not allow himself to hope too much, — he preferred to look on the darker side of probable disillusion. Meanwhile, he was conscious of a sweetness and comfort in his life such as he had never yet experienced. His thoughts dwelt with secret pleasure on the open frankness and calm beauty of the face that had bent over him with the watchfulness of a guardian angel through so many days and nights of pain, delirium, and dread of death, — and he noted with critically observant eyes the noiseless graceful movement of this humbly-born woman, whose instincts were so delicate and tender, whose voice was so gentle, and whose whole bearing expressed such unaffected dignity and purity of mind. On this particular morning she was busy ironing; — and she had left the door open between his bedroom and the kitchen, so that he might benefit by the inflow of fresh air from the garden, the cottage door itself being likewise thrown back to allow a full entrance of the invigorating influences of the light breeze from the sea and the odours of the flowers. From his bed he could see her slim back bent over the fine muslin frills she was pressing out with such patient precision, and he caught the glint of the sun on the rich twist of her bronze brown hair. Presently he heard some one talking to her, — a woman evidently, whose voice was pitched in a plaintive and almost querulous key.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 672
