“In your ideal?” questioned Mary, raising her eyes and letting them rest observantly upon his face.
“Yes. I’ll come to that presently. I was telling you how I graduated at St. Andrews, and came out with M.A. tacked to my name, but with no other fortune than those two letters. I had made a few friends, however, and one of them, a worthy old professor, gave me a letter of recommendation to a man in Glasgow, who was the proprietor of one of the newspapers there. He was a warm-hearted, kindly fellow, and gave me a berth at once. It was hard work for little pay, but I got into thorough harness, and learnt all the ins and outs of journalism. I can’t say that I ever admired the general mechanism set up for gulling the public, but I had to learn how it was done, and I set myself to master the whole business. I had rather a happy time of it in Glasgow, for though it’s the dirtiest, dingiest and most depressing city in the world, with its innumerable drunkards and low Scoto-Irish ne’er-do-weels loafing about the streets on Saturday nights, it has one great charm — you can get away from it into some of the loveliest scenery in the world. All my spare time was spent in taking the steamer up the Clyde, and sometimes going as far as Crinan and beyond it — or what I loved best of all, taking a trip to Arran, and there roaming about the hills to my heart’s content. Glorious Arran! It was there I first began to feel my wings growing!”
“Was it a pleasant feeling?” enquired Helmsley, jocosely.
“Yes — it was!” replied Angus, clenching his right hand and bringing it down on his knee with emphasis; “whether they were goose wings or eagle wings didn’t matter — the pricking of the budding quills was an alive sensation! The mountains, the burns, the glens, all had something to say to me — or I thought they had — something new, vital and urgent. God Himself seemed to have some great command to impose upon me — and I was ready to hear and obey. I began to write — first verse — then prose — and by and by I got one or two things accepted here and there — not very much, but still enough to fire me to further endeavours. Then one summer, when I was taking a holiday at a little village near Loch Lomond, I got the final dig of the spur of fate — I fell in love.”
Mary raised her eyes again and looked at him. A slow smile parted her lips.
“And did the girl fall in love with you?” she asked.
“For a time I believe she did,” — said Reay, and there was an under-tone of whimsical amusement in his voice as he spoke— “She was spending the summer in Scotland with her mother and father, and there wasn’t anything for her to do. She didn’t care for scenery very much — and I just came in as a sort of handy man to amuse her. She was a lovely creature in her teens, — I thought she was an angel — till — till I found her out.”
“And then?” queried Helmsley.
“Oh well, then of course I was disillusioned. When I told her that I loved her more than anything else in the world, she laughed ever so sweetly, and said, ‘I’m sure you do!’ But when I asked her if she loved me, she laughed again, and said she didn’t know what I was talking about — she didn’t believe in love. ‘What do you believe in?’ I asked her. And she looked at me in the prettiest and most innocent way possible, and said quite calmly and slowly— ‘A rich marriage.’ And my heart gave a great dunt in my side, for I knew it was all over. ‘Then you won’t marry me?’ — I said— ‘for I’m only a poor journalist. But I mean to be famous some day!’ ‘Do you?’ she said, and again that little laugh of hers rippled out like the tinkle of cold water— ‘Don’t you think famous men are very tiresome? And they’re always dreadfully poor!’ Then I took hold of her hands, like the desperate fool I was, and kissed them, and said, ‘Lucy, wait for me just a few years! Wait for me! You’re so young’ — for she was only seventeen, and still at school in Brighton somewhere— ‘You can afford to wait, — give me a chance!’ And she looked down at the water — we were ‘on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond,’ as the song says — in quite a picturesque little attitude of reflection, and sighed ever so prettily, and said— ‘I can’t, Angus! You’re very nice and kind! — and I like you very much! — but I am going to marry a millionaire!’ Now you know why I hate millionaires.”
“Did you say her name was Lucy?” asked Helmsley.
“Yes. Lucy Sorrel.”
A bright flame leaped up in the fire and showed all three faces to one another — Mary’s face, with its quietly absorbed expression of attentive interest — Reay’s strongly moulded features, just now somewhat sternly shadowed by bitter memories — and Helmsley’s thin, worn, delicately intellectual countenance, which in the brilliant rosy light flung upon it by the fire-glow, was like a fine waxen mask, impenetrable in its unmoved austerity and calm. Not so much as the faintest flicker of emotion crossed it at the mention of the name of the woman he knew so well, — the surprise he felt inwardly was not apparent outwardly, and he heard the remainder of Reay’s narration with the most perfectly controlled imperturbability of demeanour.
“She told me then,” proceeded Reay— “that her parents had spent nearly all they had upon her education, in order to fit her for a position as the wife of a rich man — and that she would have to do her best to ‘catch’ — that’s the way she put it — to ‘catch’ this rich man as soon as she got a good opportunity. He was quite an old man, she said — old enough to be her grandfather. And when I asked her how she could reconcile it to her conscience to marry such a hoary-headed rascal — —”
Here Helmsley interrupted him.
“Was he a hoary-headed rascal?”
“He must have been,” replied Angus, warmly— “Don’t you see he must?”
Helmsley smiled.
“Well — not exactly!” he submitted, with a gentle air of deference— “I think — perhaps — he might deserve a little pity for having to be ‘caught’ as you say just for his money’s sake.”
“Not a bit of it!” declared Reay— “Any old man who would marry a young girl like that condemns himself as a villain. An out-an-out, golden-dusted villain!”
“But has he married her?” asked Mary.
Angus was rather taken aback at this question, — and rubbed his forehead perplexedly.
“Well, no, he hasn’t — not yet — not that I know of, and I’ve watched the papers carefully too. Such a marriage couldn’t take place without columns and columns of twaddle about it — all the dressmakers who made gowns for the bride would want a mention — and if they paid for it of course they’d get it. No — it hasn’t come off yet — but it will. The venerable bridegroom that is to be has just gone abroad somewhere — so I see by one of the ‘Society’ rags, — probably to the States to make some more ‘deals’ in cash before his wedding.”
“You know his name, then?”
“Oh yes! Everybody knows it, and knows him too! David Helmsley’s too rich to hide his light under a bushel! They call him ‘King David’ in the city. Now your name’s David — but, by Jove, what a difference in Davids!” And he laughed, adding quickly— “I prefer the David I see before me now, to the David I never saw!”
“Oh! You never saw the old rascal then?” murmured Helmsley, putting up one hand to stroke his moustache slowly down over the smile which he could not repress.
“Never — and don’t want to! If I become famous — which I will do,” — and here Angus set his teeth hard— “I’ll make my bow at one of Mrs. Millionaire Helmsley’s receptions one day! And how will she look then!”
“I should say she would look much the same as usual,” — said Helmsley, drily— “If she is the kind of young woman you describe, she is not likely to be overcome by the sight of a merely ‘famous’ man. You would have to be twice or three times as wealthy as herself to move her to any sense of respect for you. That is, if we are to judge by what our newspapers tell us of ‘society’ people. The newspapers are all we poor folk have got to go by.”
“Yes — I’ve often thought of that!” and Angus rubbed his forehead again in a vigorous way as though he were trying to rub ideas out of it— “A
nd I’ve pitied the poor folks from the bottom of my heart! They get pretty often misled — and on serious matters too.”
“Oh, we’re not all such fools as we seem,” — said Helmsley— “We can read between the lines as well as anyone — and we understand pretty clearly that it’s only money which ‘makes’ the news. We read of ‘society ladies’ doing this, that and t’ other thing, and we laugh at their doings — and when we read of a great lady conducting herself like an outcast, we feel a contempt for her such as we never visit on her poor sister of the streets. The newspapers may praise these women, but we ‘common people’ estimate them at their true worth — and that is — nothing! Now the girl you made an ideal of — —”
“She was to be bought and sold,” — interrupted Reay; “I know that now. But I didn’t know it then. She looked a sweet innocent angel, — with a pretty face and beautiful eyes — just the kind of creature we men fall in love with at first sight — —”
“The kind of creature who, if you had married her, would have made you wretched for life,” — said Helmsley. “Be thankful you escaped her!”
“Oh, I’m thankful enough now!” and Reay pushed back his rebellious lock of hair again— “For when one has a great ambition in view, freedom is better than love — —”
Helmsley raised his wrinkled, trembling hand.
“No, don’t say that!” he murmured, gently— “Nothing — nothing in all the world is better than love!”
Involuntarily his eyes turned towards Mary with a strange wistfulness. There was an unspoken yearning in his face that was almost pain. Her quick instinctive sympathy responded to his thought, and rising, she went to him on the pretext of re-arranging the cushion in his chair, so that he might lean back more comfortably. Then she took his hand and patted it kindly.
“You’re a sentimental old boy, aren’t you, David!” she said, playfully— “You like being taken care of and fussed over! Of course you do! Was there ever a man that didn’t!”
He was silent, but he pressed her caressing hand gratefully.
“No one has ever taken care of or fussed over me,” said Reay— “I should rather like to try the experiment!”
Mary laughed good-humouredly.
“You must find yourself a wife,” — she said— “And then you’ll see how you like it.”
“But wives don’t make any fuss over their husbands it seems to me,” replied Reay— “At any rate in London, where I have lived for the past five years — husbands seem to be the last persons in the world whom their wives consider. I don’t think I shall ever marry.”
“I’m sure I shan’t,” — said Mary, smiling — and as she spoke, she bent over the fire, and threw a fresh log of wood on to keep up the bright glow which was all that illuminated the room, from which almost every pale glimmer of the twilight had now departed— “I’m an old maid. But I was an engaged girl once!”
Helmsley lifted up his head with sudden and animated interest.
“Were you, Mary?”
“Oh, yes!” And the smile deepened round her expressive mouth and played softly in her eyes— “Yes, David, really! I was engaged to a very good-looking young man in the electrical engineering business. And I was very fond of him. But when my father lost every penny, my good-looking young man went too. He said he couldn’t possibly marry a girl with nothing but the clothes on her back. I cried very much at the time, and thought my heart was broken. But — it wasn’t!”
“I should hope it wouldn’t break for such a selfish rascal!” said Reay, warmly.
“Do you think he was more selfish than most?” queried Mary, thoughtfully— “There’s a good many who would do as he did.”
A silence followed. She sat down and resumed her work.
“Have you finished your story?” she asked Reay— “It has interested me so much that I’m hoping there’s some more to tell.”
As she spoke to him he started as if from a dream. He had been watching her so earnestly that he had almost forgotten what he had previously been talking about. He found himself studying the beautiful outline of her figure, and wondering why he had never before seen such gracious curves of neck and shoulder, waist and bosom as gave symmetrical perfection of shape to this simple woman born of the “common” people.
“More to tell?” he echoed, hastily,— “Well, there’s a little — but not much. My love affair at Loch Lomond did one thing for me, — it made me work hard. I had a sort of desperate idea that I might wrest a fortune out of journalism by dint of sheer grinding at it — but I soon found out my mistake there. I toiled away so steadily and got such a firm hold of all the affairs of the newspaper office where I was employed, that one fine morning I was dismissed. My proprietor, genial and kindly as ever, said he found ‘no fault’ — but that he wanted ‘a change.’ I quite understood that. The fact is I knew too much — that’s all. I had saved a bit, and so, with a few good letters of introduction, went on from Glasgow to London. There, in that great black ant-hill full of crawling sooty human life, I knocked about for a time from one newspaper office to another, doing any sort of work that turned up, just to keep body and soul together, — and at last I got a fairly good berth in the London branch of a big press syndicate. It was composed of three or four proprietors, ever so many editors, and an army of shareholders representing almost every class in Great Britain. Ah, those shareholders! There’s the whole mischief of the press nowadays!”
“I suppose it’s money again!” said Helmsley.
“Of course it is. Here’s how the matter stands. A newspaper syndicate is like any other trading company, composed for the sole end and object of making as much profit out of the public as possible. The lion’s portion naturally goes to the heads of the concern — then come the shareholders’ dividends. The actual workers in the business, such as the ‘editors,’ are paid as little as their self-respect will allow them to take, and as for the other fellows under the editors — well! — you can just imagine they get much less than the little their self-respect would claim, if they were not, most of them, so desperately poor, and so anxious for a foothold somewhere as to be ready to take anything. I took the first chance I could get, and hung on to it, not for the wretched pay, but for the experience, and for the insight it gave me into men and things. I witnessed the whole business; — the ‘doctoring up’ of social scandals, — the tampering with the news in order that certain items might not affect certain shares on the Stock Exchange, — the way ‘discussions’ of the most idiotic kind were started in the office just to fill up space, such as what was best to make the hair grow; what a baby ought to weigh at six months; what food authors write best on; and whether modern girls make as good wives as their mothers did, and so on. These things were generally got up by ‘the fool of the office’ as we called him — a man with a perpetual grin and an undyingly good opinion of himself. He was always put into harness when for some state or financial reason the actual facts had to be euphonised or even suppressed and the public ‘let down gently.’ For a time I was drafted off on the ‘social’ business — ugh? — how I hated it?”
“What did you have to do?” asked Mary, amused.
“Oh, I had to deal with a motley crowd of court flunkeys, Jews, tailors and dressmakers, and fearful-looking women catering for ‘fashion,’ who came with what they called ‘news,’ which was generally that ‘Mrs. “Bunny” Bumpkin looked sweet in grey’ — or that ‘Miss “Toby” Tosspot was among the loveliest of the débutantes at Court.’ Sometimes a son of Israel came along, all in a mortal funk, and said he ‘didn’t want it mentioned’ that Mrs. So-and-So had dined with him at a certain public restaurant last night. Generally, he was a shareholder, and his orders had to be obeyed. The shareholders in fact had most to do with the ‘society’ news, — and they bored me nearly to death. The trifles they wanted ‘mentioned’ were innumerable — the other trifles they didn’t want mentioned, were quite as endless. One day there was a regular row — a sort of earthquake in the place. Somebo
dy had presumed to mention that the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup had smoked several cigarettes with infinite gusto at a certain garden party, — now what are you laughing at, Miss Deane?”
“At the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!” and Mary’s clear laughter rippled out in a silvery peal of purest merriment— “That’s not her name surely!”
“Oh no, that’s not her name!” and Angus laughed too— “It wouldn’t do to give her real name! — but Ketchup’s quite as good and high-sounding as the one she’s got. And as I tell you, the whole ‘staff’ was convulsed. Three shareholders came down post haste to the office — one at full speed in a motor, — and said how dare I mention Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup at all? It was like my presumption to notice that she had smoked! Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup’s name must be kept out of the papers — she was a ‘lady’! Oh, by Jove! — how I laughed! — I couldn’t help myself! I just roared with laughter in the very faces of those shareholders! ‘A lady!’ said I— ‘Why, she’s — —’ But I wasn’t allowed to say what she was, for the shareholder who had arrived in the motor, fixed a deadly glance upon me and said— ‘If you value your po-seetion’ — he was a Lowland Scot, with the Lowland accent— ‘if you value your po-seetion on this paper, you’ll hold your tongue!’ So I did hold my tongue then — but only because I meant to wag it more violently afterwards. I always devote Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup to the blue blazes, because I’m sure it was through her I lost my post. You see a shareholder in a paper has a good deal of influence, especially if he has as much as a hundred thousand shares. You’d be surprised if I told you the real names of some of the fellows who control newspaper syndicates! — you wouldn’t believe it! Or at any rate, if you did believe it, you’d never believe the newspapers!”
“I don’t believe them now,” — said Helmsley— “They say one thing to-day and contradict it to-morrow.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 678
