“I’m sorry, Tom,” faltered Miss Tranter, herself quite overcome by his fierce emotion— “I didn’t mean — —”
“Yes — yes! — that’s right! Say you didn’t mean it!” muttered Tom, with a pained smile— “You didn’t —— ?”
“I didn’t mean it!” declared Miss Tranter earnestly. “Upon my word I didn’t, Tom!”
He loosened his hold of her arm.
“Thank you! God bless you!” and a shudder ran through his massive frame. “But it’s all one with the dark hour! — all one with the wicked tongue of a dream that whispers to me of a coming storm!”
He pulled his rough cap over his brows, and strode forward a step or two. Then he suddenly wheeled round again, and doffed the cap to Miss Tranter.
“It’s unlucky to turn back,” he said, “yet I’m doing it, because — because — I wouldn’t have you think me sullen or ill-tempered with you! Nor ungrateful. You’re a good woman, for all that you’re a bit rough sometimes. If you want to know where we are, we’ve camped down by Cleeve, and we’re on the way to Dunster. I take the short cuts that no one else dare venture by — over the cliffs and through the cave-holes of the sea. When the old man comes down, tell him I’ll have a care of him if he passes my way. I like his face! I think he’s something more than he seems.”
“So do I!” agreed Miss Tranter. “I’d almost swear that he’s a gentleman, fallen on hard times.”
“A gentleman!” Tom o’ the Gleam laughed disdainfully— “What’s that? Only a robber grown richer than his neighbours! Better be a plain Man any day than your up-to-date ‘gentleman’!”
With another laugh he swung away, and Miss Tranter remained, as already stated, at the door of the inn for many minutes, watching his easy stride over the rough stones and clods of the “by-road” winding down to the sea. His figure, though so powerfully built, was singularly graceful in movement, and commanded the landscape much as that of some chieftain of old might have commanded it in that far back period of time when mountain thieves and marauders were the progenitors of all the British kings and their attendant nobility.
“I wish I knew that man’s real history!” she mused, as he at last disappeared from her sight. “The folks about here, such as Mr. Joltram, for instance, say he was never born to the gypsy life, — he speaks too well, and knows too much. Yet he’s wild enough — and — yes! — I’m afraid he’s bad enough — sometimes — to be anything!”
Her meditations were here interrupted by a touch on her arm, and turning, she beheld her round-eyed handmaiden Prue.
“The old man you sez is a gentleman is down, Mis’ Tranter!”
Miss Tranter at once stepped indoors and confronted Helmsley, who, amazed to find it nearly ten o’clock, now proffered humble excuses to his hostess for his late rising. She waived these aside with a good-humoured nod and smile.
“That’s all right!” she said. “I wanted you to have a good long rest, and I’m glad you got it. Were you disturbed at all?”
“Only by kindness,” answered Helmsley in a rather tremulous voice. “Some one came into my room while I was asleep — and — and — I found a ‘surprise packet’ on my pillow — —”
“Yes, I know all about it,” interrupted Miss Tranter, with a touch of embarrassment— “Tom o’ the Gleam did that. He’s just gone. He’s a rough chap, but he’s got a heart. He thinks you’re not strong enough to tramp it to Cornwall. And all those great babies of men put their heads together last night after you’d gone upstairs, and clubbed up enough among them to give you a ride part of the way — —”
“They’re very good!” murmured Helmsley. “Why should they trouble about an old fellow like me?”
“Oh well!” said Miss Tranter cheerfully, “it’s just because you are an old fellow, I suppose! You see you might walk to a station to-day, and take the train as far as Minehead before starting on the road again. Anyhow you’ve time to think it over. If you’ll step into the room yonder, I’ll send Prue with your breakfast.”
She turned her back upon him, and with a shrill call of “Prue! Prue!” affected to be too busy to continue the conversation. Helmsley, therefore, went as she bade him into the common room, which at this hour was quite empty. A neat white cloth was spread at one end of the table, and on this was set a brown loaf, a pat of butter, a jug of new milk, a basin of sugar, and a brightly polished china cup and saucer. The window was open, and the inflow of the pure fresh morning air had done much to disperse the odours of stale tobacco and beer that subtly clung to the walls as reminders of the drink and smoke of the previous evening.
Just outside, a tangle of climbing roses hung like a delicate pink curtain between Helmsley’s eyes and the sunshine, while the busy humming of bees in and out the fragrant hearts of the flowers, made a musical monotony of soothing sound. He sat down and surveyed the simple scene with a quiet sense of pleasure. He contrasted it in his memory with the weary sameness of the breakfasts served to him in his own palatial London residence, when the velvet-footed butler creeping obsequiously round the table, uttered his perpetual “Tea or coffee, sir? ‘Am or tongue? Fish or heggs?” in soft sepulchral tones, as though these comestibles had something to do with poison rather than nourishment. With disgust at the luxury which engendered such domestic appurtenances, he thought of the two tall footmen, whose chief duty towards the serving of breakfast appeared to be the taking of covers off dishes and the putting them on again, as if six-footed able-bodied manhood were not equipped for more muscular work than that!
“We do great wrong,” he said to himself— “We who are richer than what are called the rich, do infinite wrong to our kind by tolerating so much needless waste and useless extravagance. We merely generate mischief for ourselves and others. The poor are happier, and far kindlier to each other than the moneyed classes, simply because they cannot demand so much self-indulgence. The lazy habits of wealthy men and women who insist on getting an unnecessary number of paid persons to do for them what they could very well do for themselves, are chiefly to blame for all our tiresome and ostentatious social conditions. Servants must, of course, be had in every well-ordered household — but too many of them constitute a veritable hive of discord and worry. Why have huge houses at all? Why have enormous domestic retinues? A small house is always cosiest, and often prettiest, and the fewer servants, the less trouble. Here again comes in the crucial question — Why do we spend all our best years of youth, life, and sentiment in making money, when, so far as the sweetest and highest things are concerned, money can give so little!”
At that moment, Prue entered with a brightly shining old brown “lustre” teapot, and a couple of boiled eggs.
“Mis’ Tranter sez you’re to eat the eggs cos’ they’se new-laid an’ incloodid in the bill,” she announced glibly— “An’ ‘opes you’ve got all ye want.”
Helmsley looked at her kindly.
“You’re a smart little girl!” he said. “Beginning to earn your own living already, eh?”
“Lor’, that aint much!” retorted Prue, putting a knife by the brown loaf, and setting the breakfast things even more straightly on the table than they originally were. “I lives on nothin’ scarcely, though I’m turned fifteen an’ likes a bit o’ fresh pork now an’ agen. But I’ve got a brother as is on’y ten, an’ when ’e aint at school ‘e’s earnin’ a bit by gatherin’ mussels on the beach, an’ ’e do collect a goodish bit too, though ‘taint reg’lar biziness, an’ ’e gets hisself into such a pickle o’ salt water as never was. But he brings mother a shillin’ or two.”
“And who is your mother?” asked Helmsley, drawing up his chair to the table and sitting down.
“Misses Clodder, up at Blue-bell Cottage, two miles from ’ere across the moor,” replied Prue. “She goes out a-charing, but it’s ‘ard for ‘er to be doin’ chars now — she’s gettin’ old an’ fat — orful fat she be gettin’. Dunno what we’ll do if she goes on fattenin’.”
It was difficult not to laugh at thi
s statement, Prue’s eyes were so round, her cheeks were so red, and she breathed so spasmodically as she spoke. David Helmsley bit his lips to hide a broad smile, and poured out his tea.
“Have you no father?”
“No, never ‘ad,” declared Prue, quite jubilantly. “’E droonk ‘isself to death an’ tumbled over a cliff near ’ere one dark night an’ was drowned!” This, with the most thrilling emphasis.
“That’s very sad! But you can’t say you never had a father,” persisted Helmsley. “You had him before he was drowned?”
“No, I ‘adn’t,” said Prue. “’E never comed ‘ome at all. When ’e seed me ’e didn’t know me, ’e was that blind droonk. When my little brother was born ’e was ‘owlin’ wild down Watchet way, an’ screechin’ to all the folks as ‘ow the baby wasn’t his’n!”
This was a doubtful subject, — a “delicate and burning question,” as reviewers for the press say when they want to praise some personal friend’s indecent novel and pass it into decent households, — and Helmsley let it drop. He devoted himself to the consideration of his breakfast, which was excellent, and found that he had an appetite to enjoy it thoroughly.
Prue watched him for a minute or two in silence.
“Ye likes yer food?” she demanded, presently.
“Very much!”
“Thought yer did! I’ll tell Mis’ Tranter.”
With that she retired, and shutting the door behind her left Helmsley to himself.
Many and conflicting were the thoughts that chased one another through his brain during the quiet half-hour he gave to his morning meal, — a whole fund of new suggestions and ideas were being generated in him by the various episodes in which he was taking an active yet seemingly passive part. He had voluntarily entered into his present circumstances, and so far, he had nothing to complain of. He had met with friendliness and sympathy from persons who, judged by the world’s conventions, were of no social account whatever, and he had seen for himself men in a condition of extreme poverty, who were nevertheless apparently contented with their lot. Of course, as a well-known millionaire, his secretaries had always had to deal with endless cases of real or assumed distress, more often the latter, — and shoals of begging letters from people representing themselves as starving and friendless, formed a large part of the daily correspondence with which his house and office were besieged, — but he had never come into personal contact with these shameless sort of correspondents, shrewdly judging them to be undeserving simply by the very fact that they wrote begging letters. He knew that no really honest or plucky-spirited man or woman would waste so much as a stamp in asking money from a stranger, even if such a stranger were twenty times a millionaire. He had given huge sums away to charitable institutions anonymously; and he remembered with a thrill of pain the “Christian kindness” of some good “Church” people, who, when the news accidentally slipped out that he was the donor of a particularly munificent gift to a certain hospital, remarked that “no doubt Mr. Helmsley had given it anonymously at first, in order that it might be made public more effectively afterwards, by way of a personal advertisement!” Such spiteful comment often repeated, had effectually checked the outflow of his naturally warm and generous spirit, nevertheless he was always ready to relieve any pressing cases of want which were proved genuine, and many a wretched family in the East End of London had cause to bless him for his timely and ungrudging aid. But this present kind of life, — the life of the tramp, the poacher, the gypsy, who is content to be “on the road” rather than submit to the trammels of custom and ordinance, was new to him and full of charm. He took a peculiar pleasure in reflecting as to what he could do to make these men, with whom he had casually foregathered, happier? Did it lie in his power to give them any greater satisfaction than that which they already possessed? He doubted whether a present of money to Matt Peke, for instance, would not offend that rustic philosopher, more than it would gratify him; — while, as for Tom o’ the Gleam, that handsome ruffian was more likely to rob a man of gold than accept it as a gift from him. Then involuntarily, his thoughts reverted to the “kiddie.” He recalled the look in Tom’s wild eyes, and the almost womanish tremble of tenderness in his rough voice, when he had spoken of this little child of his on whom he openly admitted he had set all his love.
“I should like,” mused Helmsley, “to see that kiddie! Not that I believe in the apparent promise of a child’s life, — for my own sons taught me the folly of indulging in any hopes on that score — and Lucy Sorrel has completed the painful lesson. Who would have ever thought that she, — the little angel creature who seemed too lovely and innocent for this world at ten, — could at twenty have become the extremely commonplace and practical woman she is, — practical enough to wish to marry an old man for his money! But that talk among the men last night about the ‘kiddie’ touched me somehow, — I fancy it must be a sturdy little lad, with a bright face and a will of its own. I might possibly do something for the child if, — if its father would let me! And that’s very doubtful! Besides, should I not be interfering with the wiser and healthier dispensations of nature? The ‘kiddie’ is no doubt perfectly happy in its wild state of life, — free to roam the woods and fields, with every chance of building up a strong and vigorous constitution in the simple open-air existence to which it has been born and bred. All the riches in the world could not make health or freedom for it, — and thus again I confront myself with my own weary problem — Why have I toiled all my life to make money, merely to find money so useless and comfortless at the end?”
With a sigh he rose from the table. His simple breakfast was finished, and he went to the window to look at the roses that pushed their pretty pink faces up to the sun through a lattice-work of green leaves. There was a small yard outside, roughly paved with cobbles, but clean, and bordered here and there with bright clusters of flowers, and in one particularly sunny corner where the warmth from the skies had made the cobbles quite hot, a tiny white kitten rolled on its back, making the most absurd efforts to catch its own tail between its forepaws, — and a promising brood of fowls were clucking contentedly round some scattered grain lately flung out from the window of the “Trusty Man’s” wash-house for their delectation. There was nothing in the scene at all of a character to excite envy in the most morbid and dissatisfied mind; — it was full of the tamest domesticity, and yet — it was a picture such as some thoughtful Dutch artist would have liked to paint as a suggestion of rural simplicity and peace.
“But if one only knew the ins and outs of the life here, it might not prove so inviting,” he thought. “I daresay all the little towns and villages in this neighbourhood are full of petty discords, jealousies, envyings and spites, — even Prue’s mother, Mrs. Clodder, may have, and probably has, a neighbour whom she hates, and wishes to get the better of, in some way or other, for there is really no such thing as actual peace anywhere except — in the grave! And who knows whether we shall even find it there! Nothing dies which does not immediately begin to live — in another fashion. And every community, whether of insects, birds, wild animals, or men and women, is bound to fight for existence, — therefore those who cry: ‘Peace, peace!’ only clamour for a vain thing. The very stones and rocks and mountains maintain a perpetual war with destroying elements, — they appear immutable things to our short lives, but they change in their turn even as we do — they die to live again in other forms, even as we do. And what is it all for? What is the sum and substance of so much striving — if merest Nothingness is the end?”
He was disturbed from his reverie by the entrance of Miss Tranter. He turned round and smiled at her.
“Well!” she said— “Enjoyed your breakfast?”
“Very much indeed, thanks to your kindness!” he replied. “I hardly thought I had such a good appetite left to me. I feel quite strong and hearty this morning.”
“You look twice the man you were last night, certainly,” — and she eyed him thoughtfully— “Would you like a job here?�
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A flush rose to his brows. He hesitated before replying.
“You’d rather not!” snapped out Miss Tranter— “I can see ‘No’ in your face. Well, please yourself!”
He looked at her. Her lips were compressed in a thin line, and she wore a decidedly vexed expression.
“Ah, you think I don’t want to work!” he said— “There you’re wrong! But I haven’t many years of life in me, — there’s not much time left to do what I have to do, — and I must get on.”
“Get on, where?”
“To Cornwall.”
“Whereabouts in Cornwall?”
“Down by Penzance way.”
“You want to start off on the tramp again at once?”
“Yes.”
“All right, you must do as you like, I suppose,” — and Miss Tranter sniffed whole volumes of meaning in one sniff— “But Farmer Joltram told me to say that if you wanted a light job up on his place, — that’s about a mile from here, — he wouldn’t mind giving you a chance. You’d get good victuals there, for he feeds his men well. And I don’t mind trusting you with a bit of gardening — you could make a shilling a day easy — so don’t say you can’t get work. That’s the usual whine — but if you say it — —”
“I shall be a liar!” said Helmsley, his sunken eyes lighting up with a twinkle of merriment— “And don’t you fear, Miss Tranter, — I won’t say it! I’m grateful to Mr. Joltram — but I’ve only one object left to me in life, and that is — to get on, and find the person I’m looking for — if I can!”
“Oh, you’re looking for a person, are you?” queried Miss Tranter, more amicably— “Some long-lost relative?”
“No, — not a relative, only — a friend.”
“I see!” Miss Tranter smoothed down her neatly fitting plain cotton gown with both hands reflectively— “And you’ll be all right if you find this friend?”
“I shall never want anything any more,” he answered, with an unconsciously pathetic tremor in his voice— “My dearest wish will be granted, and I shall be quite content to die!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 662