Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  “Well, I certainly don’t go down to the shore in any such expectation!” said Reay, laughing— “Fortunes are not so easily picked up, are they, David?”

  “No, indeed!” replied Helmsley, and his old eyes sparkled up humorously under their cavernous brows; “fortunes take some time to make, and one doesn’t meet millionaires every day!”

  “Millionaires!” exclaimed Reay— “Don’t speak of them! I hate them!”

  Helmsley looked at him stedfastly.

  “It’s best not to hate anybody,” — he said— “Millionaires are often the loneliest and most miserable of men.”

  “They deserve to be!” declared Reay, hotly— “It isn’t right — it isn’t just that two or three, or let us say four or five men should be able to control the money-markets of the world. They generally get their wealth through some unscrupulous ‘deal,’ or through ‘sweating’ labour. I hate all ‘cornering’ systems. I believe in having enough to live upon, but not too much.”

  “It depends on what you call enough,” — said Helmsley, slowly— “We’re told that some people never know when they have enough.”

  “Why this is enough!” said Reay, looking admiringly round the little kitchen in which they sat— “This sweet little cottage with this oak raftered ceiling, and all the dear old-fashioned crockery, and the ingle-nook over there, — who on earth wants more?”

  Mary laughed.

  “Oh dear me!” she murmured, gently— “You praise it too much! — it’s only a very poor place, sir, — —”

  He interrupted her, the colour rushing to his brows.

  “Please don’t!”

  She glanced at him in surprise.

  “Don’t — what?”

  “Don’t call me ‘sir’! I’m only a poor chap, — my father was a shepherd, and I began life as a cowherd — I don’t want any titles of courtesy.”

  She still kept her eyes upon him thoughtfully.

  “But you’re a gentleman, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “I hope so!” And he laughed. “Just as David is! But we neither of us wish the fact emphasised, do we, David? It goes without saying!”

  Helmsley smiled. This Angus Reay was a man after his own heart.

  “Of course it does!” — he said— “In the way you look at it! But you should tell Miss Deane all about yourself — she’ll be interested.”

  “Would you really care to hear?” enquired Reay, suddenly, turning his clear grey eyes full on Mary’s face.

  “Why certainly I should!” she answered, frankly meeting his glance, — and then, from some sudden and inexplicable embarrassment, she blushed crimson, and her eyelids fell. And Reay thought what a clear, healthy skin she had, and how warmly the blood flowed under it.

  “Well, after tea I’ll hold forth!” he said— “But there isn’t much to tell. Such as there is, you shall know, for I’ve no mysteries about me. Some fellows love a mystery — I cannot bear it! Everything must be fair, open and above board with me, — else I can’t breathe! Pouf!” And he expanded his broad chest and took a great gulp of air in as he spoke— “I hate a man who tries to hide his own identity, don’t you, David?”

  “Yes — yes — certainly!” murmured Helmsley, absently, feigning to be absorbed in buttering a scone for his own eating— “It is often very awkward — for the man.”

  “I always say, and I always will maintain,” — went on Reay— “let a man be a man — a something or a nothing. If he is a criminal, let him say he is a criminal, and not pretend to be virtuous — if he is an atheist, let him say he is an atheist, and not pretend to be religious — if he’s a beggar and can’t help himself, let him admit the fact — if he’s a millionaire, don’t let him skulk round pretending he’s as poor as Job — always let him be himself and no other! — eh? — what is it, David?”

  For Helmsley was looking at him intently with eyes that were almost young in their sudden animation and brilliancy.

  “Did you ever meet a millionaire who skulked round pretending he was as poor as Job?” he enquired, with a whimsical air— “I never did!”

  “Well no, I never did, either!” And Reay’s mellow laughter was so loud and long that Mary was quite infected by it, and laughed with him— “But you see millionaires are all marked men. Everybody knows them. Their portraits are in all the newspapers — horrid-looking rascals most of them! — Nature doesn’t seem to endow them with handsome features anyway. ‘Keep your gold, and never mind your face,’ — she seems to say— ‘I’ll take care of that!’ And she does take care of it! O Lord! The only millionaire I ever saw in my life was ugly enough to frighten a baby into convulsions!”

  “What was his name?” asked Helmsley.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be fair to tell his name now, after what I’ve said!” laughed Reay— “Besides, he lives in America, thank God! He’s one of the few who have spared the old country his patronage!”

  Here a diversion was created by the necessity of serving the tiny but autocratic Charlie with his usual “dish of cream,” of which he partook on Mary’s knee, while listening (as was evident from the attentive cocking of his silky ears) to the various compliments he was accustomed to receive on his beauty. This business over, they rose from the tea-table. The afternoon had darkened into twilight, and the autumnal wind was sighing through the crannies of the door. Mary stirred the fire into a brighter blaze, and drawing Helmsley’s armchair close to its warm glow, stood by him till he was comfortably seated — then she placed another chair opposite for Reay, and sat down herself on a low oaken settle between the two.

  “This is the pleasantest time of the day just now,” — she said— “And the best time for talking! I love the gloaming. My father loved it too.”

  “So did my father!” and Reay’s eyes softened as he bent them on the sparkling fire— “In winter evenings when the darkness fell down upon our wild Highland hills, he would come home to our shieling on the edge of the moor, shaking all the freshness of the wind and the scent of the dying heather out of his plaid as he threw it from his shoulders, — and he would toss fresh peat on the fire till it blazed red and golden, and he would lay his hand on my head and say to me: ‘Come awa’ bairnie! Now for a bogle story in the gloamin’!’ Ah, those bogle stories! They are answerable for a good deal in my life! They made me want to write bogle stories myself!”

  “And do you write them?” asked Mary.

  “Not exactly. Though perhaps all human life is only a bogle tale! Invented to amuse the angels!”

  She smiled, and taking up a delicate piece of crochet lace, which she called her “spare time work,” began to ply the glittering needle in and out fine intricacies of thread, her shapely hands gleaming like alabaster in the fire-light reflections.

  “Well, now tell us your own bogle tale!” she said— “And David and I will play the angels!”

  CHAPTER XV

  He watched her working for a few minutes before he spoke again. And shading his eyes with one hand from the red glow of the fire, David Helmsley watched them both.

  “Well, it’s rather cool of me to take up your time talking about my own affairs,” — began Reay, at last— “But I’ve been pretty much by myself for a good while, and it’s pleasant to have a chat with friendly people — man wasn’t made to live alone, you know! In fact, neither man nor beast nor bird can stand it. Even a sea cormorant croaks to the wind!”

  Mary laughed.

  “But not for company’s sake,” — she said— “It croaks when it’s hungry.”

  “Oh, I’ve often croaked for that reason!” and Reay pushed from his forehead a wayward tuft of hair which threatened to drop over his eye in a thick silvery brown curl— “But it’s wonderful how little a fellow can live upon in the way of what is called food. I know all sorts of dodges wherewith to satisfy the greedy cravings of the vulgar part of me.”

  Helmsley took his hand from his eyes, and fixed a keenly observant look upon the speaker. Mary said nothing, but her crochet needle
moved more slowly.

  “You see,” went on Reay, “I’ve always been rather fortunate in having had very little to eat.”

  “You call it ‘fortunate’?” queried Helmsley, abruptly.

  “Why, of course! I’ve never had what the doctors call an ‘overloaded system’ — therefore I’ve no lading bill to pay. The million or so of cells of which I am composed are not at all anxious to throw any extra nourishment off, — sometimes they intimate a strong desire to take some extra nourishment in — but that is an uneducated tendency in them which I sternly repress. I tell all those small grovelling cells that extra nourishment would not be good for them. And they shrink back from my moral reproof ashamed of themselves — and become wiry instead of fatty. Which is as it should be.”

  “You’re a queer chap!” said Helmsley, with a laugh.

  “Think so? Well, I daresay I am — all Scotsmen are. There’s always the buzzing of the bee in our bonnets. I come of an ancient Highland stock who were certainly ‘queer’ as modern ways go, — for they were famous for their pride, and still more famous for their poverty all the way through. As far back as I can go in the history of my family, and that’s a pretty long way, we were always at our wit’s end to live. From the days of the founder of our house, a glorious old chieftain who used to pillage his neighbour chieftain in the usual style of those glorious old times, we never had more than just enough for the bare necessities of life. My father, as I told you, was a shepherd — a strong, fine-looking man over six feet in height, and as broad-chested as a Hercules — he herded sheep on the mountains for a Glasgow dealer, as low-down a rascal as ever lived, a man who, so far as race and lineage went, wasn’t fit to scrape mud off my father’s boots. But we often see gentlemen of birth obliged to work for knaves of cash. That was the way it was with my father. As soon as I was old enough — about ten, — I helped him in his work — I used to tramp backwards and forwards to school in the nearest village, but after school hours I got an evening job of a shilling a week for bringing home eight Highland bull-heifers from pasture. The man who owned them valued them highly, but was afraid of them — wouldn’t go near them for his life — and before I’d been with them a fortnight they all knew me. I was only a wee laddie, but they answered to my call like friendly dogs rather than the great powerful splendid beasts they were, with their rough coats shining like floss silk in the sunset, when I went to drive them home, singing as I came. And my father said to me one night— ‘Laddie, tell me the truth — are ye ever scared at the bulls!’ ‘No, father!’ said I— ‘It’s a bonnie boy I am to the bulls!’ And he laughed — by Jove! — how he laughed! ‘Ye’re a wee raskell!’ he said— ‘An’ as full o’ conceit as an egg’s full o’ meat!’ I expect that was true too, for I always thought well of myself. You see, if I hadn’t thought well of myself, no one would ever have thought well of me!”

  “There’s something in that!” said Helmsley, the smile still lingering in his eyes— “Courage and self-reliance have often conquered more than eight bulls!”

  “Oh, I don’t call it either courage or self-reliance — it was just that I thought myself of too much importance to be hurt by bulls or anything else,” — and Angus laughed, — then with a sudden knitting of his brows as though his thoughts were making hard knots in his brain, he added— “Even as a laddie I had an idea — and I have it now — that there was something in me which God had put there for a purpose of His own, — something that he would not and could not destroy till His purpose had been fulfilled!”

  Mary stopped working and looked at him earnestly. Her breath came and went quickly — her eyes shone dewily like stars in a summer haze, — she was deeply interested.

  “That was — and is — a conceited notion, of course,” — went on Angus, reflectively— “And I don’t excuse it. But I’m not one of the ‘meek who shall inherit the earth.’ I’m a robustious combustious sort of chap — if a fellow knocks me down, I jump up and give it him back with as jolly good interest as I can — and if anyone plays me a dirty trick I’ll move all the mental and elemental forces of the universe to expose him. That’s my way — unfortunately — —”

  “Why ‘unfortunately’?” asked Helmsley.

  Reay threw back his head and indulged in one of his mellow peals of laughter.

  “Can you ask why? Oh David, good old David! — it’s easy to see you don’t know much of the world! If you did, you’d realise that the best way to ‘get on’ in the usual way of worldly progress, is to make up to all sorts of social villains and double-dyed millionaire-scoundrels, find out all their tricks and their miserable little vices and pamper them, David! — pamper them and flatter them up to the top of their bent till you’ve got them in your power — and then — then use them — use them for everything you want. For once you know what blackguards they are, they’ll give you anything not to tell!”

  “I should be sorry to think that’s true,” — murmured Mary.

  “Don’t think it, then,” — said Angus— “You needn’t, — because millionaires are not likely to come in your way. Nor in mine — now. I’ve cut myself adrift from all chance of ever meeting them. But only a year ago I was on the road to making a good thing out of one or two of the so-called ‘kings of finance’ — then I suddenly took a ‘scunner’ as we Scots say, at the whole lot, and hated and despised myself for ever so much as thinking that it might serve my own ends to become their tool. So I just cast off ropes like a ship, and steamed out of harbour.”

  “Into the wide sea!” said Mary, looking at him with a smile that was lovely in its radiance and sympathy.

  “Into the wide sea — yes!” he answered— “And sea that was pretty rough at first. But one can get accustomed to anything — even to the high rock-a-bye tossing of great billows that really don’t want to put you to sleep so much as to knock you to pieces. But I’m galloping along too fast. From the time I made friends with young bulls to the time I began to scrape acquaintance with newspaper editors is a far cry — and in the interim my father died. I should have told you that I lost my mother when I was born — and I don’t think that the great wound her death left in my father’s heart ever really healed. He never seemed quite at one with the things of life — and his ‘bogle tales’ of which I was so fond, all turned on the spirits of the dead coming again to visit those whom they had loved, and from whom they had been taken — and he used to tell them with such passionate conviction that sometimes I trembled and wondered if any spirit were standing near us in the light of the peat fire, or if the shriek of the wind over our sheiling were the cry of some unhappy soul in torment. Well! When his time came, he was not allowed to suffer — one day in a great storm he was struck by lightning on the side of the mountain where he was herding in his flocks — and there he was found lying as though he were peacefully asleep. Death must have been swift and painless — and I always thank God for that!” He paused a moment — then went on— “When I found myself quite alone in the world, I hired myself out to a farmer for five years — and worked faithfully for him — worked so well that he raised my wages and would willingly have kept me on — but I had the ‘bogle tales’ in my head and could not rest. It was in the days before Andrew Carnegie started trying to rub out the memory of his ‘Homestead’ cruelty by planting ‘free’ libraries, (for which taxpayers are rated) all over the country — and pauperising Scottish University education by grants of money — I suppose he is a sort of little Pontiff unto himself, and thinks that money can pacify Heaven, and silence the cry of brothers’ blood rising from the Homestead ground. In my boyhood a Scottish University education had to be earned by the would-be student himself — earned by hard work, hard living, patience, perseverance and grit. That’s the one quality I had — grit — and it served me well in all I wanted. I entered at St. Andrews — graduated, and came out an M.A. That helped to give me my first chance with the press. But I’m sure I’m boring you by all this chatter about myself! David, you stop me when you think Miss Deane has h
ad enough!”

  Helmsley looked at Mary’s figure in its pale lilac gown touched here and there by the red sparkle of the fire, and noted the attentive poise of her head, and the passive quietude of her generally busy hands which now lay in her lap loosely folded over her lace work.

  “Have we had enough, Mary, do you think?” he asked, with the glimmering of a tender little smile under his white moustache.

  She glanced at him quickly in a startled way, as though she had been suddenly wakened from a reverie.

  “Oh no!” she answered— “I love to hear of a brave man’s fight with the world — it’s the finest story anyone can listen to.”

  Reay coloured like a boy.

  “I’m not a brave man,” — he said— “I hope I haven’t given you that idea. I’m an awful funk at times.”

  “When are those times?” and Mary smiled demurely, as she put the question.

  Again the warm blood rushed up to his brows.

  “Well, — please don’t laugh! I’m afraid — horribly afraid — of women!”

  Helmsley’s old eyes sparkled.

  “Upon my word!” he exclaimed— “That’s a funny thing for you to say!”

  “It is, rather,” — and Angus looked meditatively into the fire— “It’s not that I’m bashful, at all — no — I’m quite the other way, really, — only — only — ever since I was a lad I’ve made such an ideal of woman that I’m afraid of her when I meet her, — afraid lest she shouldn’t come up to my ideal, and equally afraid lest I shouldn’t come up to hers! It’s all conceit again! Fear of anything or anybody is always born of self-consciousness. But I’ve been disappointed once — —”