Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  Helmsley could not speak, — he was too deeply moved. The sound of the in-coming tide grew fuller and more sonorous, and Twitt presently turned to look critically at the heaving waters.

  “There’s a cry in the sea to-day,” — he said,— “M’appen it’ll be rough to-night.”

  They were silent again, till presently Helmsley roused himself from the brief melancholy abstraction into which he had been plunged by the story of Tom o’ the Gleam’s funeral.

  “I think I’ll go down on the shore for a bit,” — he said; “I like to get as close to the waves as I can when they’re rolling in.”

  “Well, don’t get too close,” — said Twitt, kindly— “We’ll be havin’ ye washed away if ye don’t take care! There’s onny an hour to tea-time, an’ Mary Deane’s a punctooal ‘ooman!”

  “I shall not keep her waiting — never fear!” and Helmsley smiled as he said good-day, and jogged slowly along his favourite accustomed path to the beach. The way though rough, was not very steep, and it was becoming quite easy and familiar to him. He soon found himself on the firm brown sand sprinkled with a fringe of seaweed and shells, and further adorned in various places with great rough boulders, picturesquely set up on end, like the naturally hewn memorials of great heroes passed away. Here, the ground being level, he could walk more quickly and with greater comfort than in the one little precipitous street of Weircombe, and he paced up and down, looking at the rising and falling hollows of the sea with wistful eyes that in their growing age and dimness had an intensely pathetic expression, — the expression one sometimes sees in the eyes of a dog who knows that its master is leaving it for an indefinite period.

  “What a strange chaos of brain must be that of the suicide!” he thought— “Who, that can breathe the fresh air and watch the lights and shadows in the sky and on the waves, would really wish to leave the world, unless the mind had completely lost its balance! We have never seen anything more beautiful than this planet upon which we are born, — though there is a sub-consciousness in us which prophesies of yet greater beauty awaiting higher vision. The subconscious self! That is the scientist’s new name for the Soul, — but the Soul is a better term. Now my subconscious self — my Soul, — is lamenting the fact that it must leave life when it has just begun to learn how to live! I should like to be here and see what Mary will do when — when I am gone! Yet how do I know but that in very truth I shall be here? — or in some way be made aware of her actions? She has a character such as I never thought to find in any mortal woman, — strong, pure, tender, — and sincere! — ah, that sincerity of hers is like the very sunlight! — so bright and warm, and clean of all ulterior motive! And measured by a worldly estimate only — what is she? The daughter of a humble florist, — herself a mere mender of lace, and laundress of fine ladies’ linen! And her sweet and honest eyes have never looked upon that rag-fair of nonsense we call ‘society’; — she never thinks of riches; — and yet she has refined and artistic taste enough to love the lace she mends, just for pure admiration of its beauty, — not because she herself desires to wear it, but because it represents the work and lives of others, and because it is in itself a miracle of design. I wonder if she ever notices how closely I watch her! I could draw from memory the shapely outline of her hand, — a white, smooth, well-kept hand, never allowed to remain soiled by all her various forms of domestic labour, — an expressive hand, indicating health and sanity, with that deep curve at the wrist, and the delicately shaped fingers which hold the needle so lightly and guide it so deftly through the intricacies of the riven lace, weaving a web of such fairy-like stitches that the original texture seems never to have been broken. I have sat quiet for an hour or more studying her when she has thought me asleep in my chair by the fire, — and I have fancied that my life is something like the damaged fabric she is so carefully repairing, — holes and rents everywhere, — all the symmetry of design dropping to pieces, — the little garlands of roses and laurels snapped asunder, — and she, with her beautiful white hands is gently drawing the threads together and mending it, — for what purpose? — to what end?”

  And here the involuntary action of some little brain-cell gave him the memory of certain lines in Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra”: —

  “Therefore I summon age

  To grant youth’s heritage

  Life’s struggle having so far reached its term;

  Thence shall I pass, approved

  A man, for aye removed

  From the developed brute; a god, though in the germ.

  And I shall thereupon

  Take rest ere I be gone

  Once more on my adventures brave and new —

  Fearless — and unperplexed

  When I wage battle next,

  What weapons to select, what armour to indue!”

  He turned his eyes again to the sea just as a lovely light, pale golden and clear as topaz, opened suddenly in the sky, shedding a shower of luminant reflections on the waves. He drew a deep breath, and unconsciously straightened himself.

  “When death comes it shall find me ready!” he said, half aloud; — and then stood, confronting the ethereal glory. The waves rolled in slowly and majestically one after the other, and broke at his feet in long wreaths of creamy foam, — and presently one or two light gusts of a rather chill wind warned him that he had best be returning homeward. While he yet hesitated, a leaf of paper blew towards him, and danced about like a large erratic butterfly, finally dropping just where the stick on which he leaned made a hole in the sand. He stooped and picked it up. It was covered with fine small handwriting, and before he could make any attempt to read it, a man sprang up from behind one of the rocky boulders close by, and hurried forward, raising his cap as he came.

  “That’s mine!” he said, quickly, with a pleasant smile— “It’s a loose page from my notebook. Thank-you so much for saving it!”

  Helmsley gave him the paper at once, with a courteous inclination of the head.

  “I’ve been scribbling down here all day,” — proceeded the new comer— “And there’s not been much wind till now. But” — and he glanced up and about him critically; “I think we shall have a puff of sou’wester to-night.”

  Helmsley looked at him with interest. He was a man of distinctive appearance, — tall, well-knit, and muscular, with a fine intellectual face and keen clear grey eyes. Not a very young man; — he seemed about thirty-eight or forty, perhaps more, for his dark hair was fairly sprinkled with silver. But his manner was irresistibly bright and genial, and it was impossible to meet his frank, open, almost boyish gaze, without a desire to know more of him, and an inclination to like him.

  “Do you make the seashore your study?” asked Helmsley, with a slight gesture towards the notebook into which the stranger was now carefully putting the strayed leaflet.

  “Pretty much so!” and he laughed— “I’ve only got one room to live in — and it has to serve for both sleeping and eating — so I come out here to breathe and expand a bit.” He paused, and then added gently— “May I give you my arm up to Miss Deane’s cottage?”

  “Why, how do you know I live there?” and Helmsley smiled as he put the question.

  “Oh, well, all the village knows that! — and though I’m quite new to the village — I’ve only been here a week — I know it too. You’re old David, the basket-maker, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” And Helmsley nodded emphatically— “That’s me!”

  “Then I know all about you! My name’s Angus Reay. I’m a Scotchman, — I am, or rather, I was a journalist, and as poor as Job! That’s me! Come along!”

  The cheery magnetism of his voice and look attracted Helmsley, and almost before he knew it he was leaning on this new friend’s arm, chatting with him concerning the village, the scenery, and the weather, in the easiest way possible.

  “I came on here from Minehead,” — said Reay— “That was too expensive a place for me!” And a bright smile flashed from lips to eyes with an irresisti
ble sunny effect; “I’ve got just twenty pounds in the world, and I must make it last me a year. For room, food, fuel, clothes, drink and smoke! I’ve promptly cut off the last two!”

  “And you’re none the worse for it, I daresay!” rejoined Helmsley.

  “Not a bit! A good deal the better. In Fleet Street the men drank and smoked pretty heavily, and I had to drink and smoke with them, if I wanted to keep in with the lot. I did want to keep in with them, and yet I didn’t. It was a case of ‘needs must when the devil drives!’”

  “You say you were a journalist. Aren’t you one now?”

  “No. I’m ‘kicked off’!” And Reay threw back his head and laughed joyously. “‘Off you go!’ said my editor, one fine morning, after I had slaved away for him for nearly two years— ‘We don’t want any canting truth-tellers here!’ Now mind that stone! You nearly slipped. Hold my arm tighter!”

  Helmsley did as he was told, quite meekly, looking up with a good deal of curiosity at this tall athletic creature, with the handsome head and masterful manner. Reay caught his enquiring glance and laughed again.

  “You look as if you wanted to know more about me, old David!” he said gaily— “So you shall! I’ve nothing to conceal! As I tell you I was ‘kicked off’ out of journalism — my fault being that I published a leaderette exposing a mean ‘deal’ on the part of a certain city plutocrat. I didn’t know the rascal had shares in the paper. But he had — under an ‘alias.’ And he made the devil’s own row about it with the editor, who nearly died of it, being inclined to apoplexy — and between the two of them I was ‘dropped.’ Then the word ran along the press wires that I was an ‘unsafe’ man. I could not get any post worth having — I had saved just twenty pounds — so I took it all and walked away from London — literally walked away! I haven’t spent a penny in other locomotion than my own legs since I left Fleet Street.”

  Helmsley listened with eager interest. Here was a man who had done the very thing which he himself had started to do;— “tramped” the road. But — with what a difference! Full manhood, physical strength, and activity on the one side, — decaying power, feebleness of limb and weariness on the other. They had entered the village street by this time, and were slowly walking up it together.

  “You see,” — went on Reay,— “of course I could have taken the train — but twenty pounds is only twenty pounds — and it must last me twelve solid months. By that time I shall have finished my work.”

  “And what’s that?” asked Helmsley.

  “It’s a book. A novel. And” — here he set his teeth hard— “I intend that it shall make me — famous!”

  “The intention is good,” — said Helmsley, slowly— “But — there are so many novels!”

  “No, there are not!” declared Reay, decisively— “There are plenty of rag-books called novels — but they are not real ‘novels.’ There’s nothing ‘new’ in them. There’s no touch of real, suffering, palpitating humanity in them! The humanity of to-day is infinitely more complex than it was in the days of Scott or Dickens, but there’s no Scott or Dickens to epitomise its character or delineate its temperament. I want to be the twentieth century Scott and Dickens rolled into one stupendous literary Titan!”

  His mellow laughter was hearty and robust. Helmsley caught its infection and laughed too.

  “But why,” — he asked— “do you want to write a novel? Why not write a real book?”

  “What do you call a real book, old David?” demanded Reay, looking down upon him with a sudden piercing glance.

  Helmsley was for a moment confused. He was thinking of such books as Carlyle’s “Past and Present” — Emerson’s “Essays” and the works of Ruskin. But he remembered in good time that for an old “basket-maker” to be familiar with such literary masterpieces might seem strange to a wide-awake “journalist,” therefore he checked himself in time.

  “Oh, I don’t know! I believe I was thinking of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’!” he said.

  “‘Pilgrim’s Progress’? Ah! A fine book — a grand book! Twelve years and a half of imprisonment in Bedford Jail turned Bunyan out immortal! And here am I — not in jail — but free to roam where I choose, — with twenty pounds! By Jove! I ought to be greater than Bunyan! Now ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ was a ‘novel,’ if you like!”

  “I thought,” — submitted Helmsley, with the well-assumed air of a man who was not very conversant with literature— “that it was a religious book?”

  “So it is. A religious novel. And a splendid one! But humanity’s gone past that now — it wants a wider view — a bigger, broader outlook. Do you know—” and here he stopped in the middle of the rugged winding street, and looked earnestly at his companion— “do you know what I see men doing at the present day? — I see them rushing towards the verge — the very extreme edge of what they imagine to be the Actual — and from that edge getting ready to plunge — into Nothingness!”

  Something thrilling in his voice touched a responsive chord in Helmsley’s own heart.

  “Why — that is where we all tend!” he said, with a quick sigh— “That is where I am tending! — where you, in your time, must also tend — nothingness — or death!”

  “No!” said Reay, almost loudly— “That’s not true! That’s just what I deny! For me there is no ‘Nothingness’ — no ‘death’! Space is full of creative organisms. Dissolution means re-birth. It is all life — life: — glorious life! We live — we have always lived — we shall always live!” He paused, flushing a little as though half ashamed of his own enthusiasm — then, dropping his voice to its normal tone he said— “You’ve got me on my hobby horse — I must come off it, or I shall gallop too far! We’re just at the top of the street now. Shall I leave you here?”

  “Please come on to the cottage,” — said Helmsley— “I’m sure Mary — Miss Deane — will give you a cup of tea.”

  Angus Reay smiled.

  “I don’t allow myself that luxury,” — he said.

  “Not when you’re invited to share it with others?”

  “Oh yes, in that way I do — but I’m not overburdened with friends just now. A man must have more than twenty pounds to be ‘asked out’ anywhere!”

  “Well, I ask you out!” — said Helmsley, smiling— “Or rather, I ask you in. I’m sure Miss Deane will be glad to talk to you. She is very fond of books.”

  “I’ve seen her just once in the village,” — remarked Reay— “She seems to be very much respected here. And what a beautiful woman she is!”

  “You think so?” and Helmsley’s eyes lighted with pleasure— “Well, I think so, too — but they tell me that it’s only because I’m old, and apt to see everyone beautiful who is kind to me. There’s a good deal in that! — there’s certainly a good deal in that!”

  They could now see the garden gate of Mary’s cottage through the boughs of the great chestnut tree, which at this season was nearly stripped of all its leaves, and which stood like a lonely forest king with some scanty red and yellow rags of woodland royalty about him, in solitary grandeur at the bending summit of the hill. And while they were yet walking the few steps which remained of the intervening distance, Mary herself came out to the gate, and, leaning one arm lightly across it, watched them approaching. She wore a pale lilac print gown, high to the neck and tidily finished off by a plain little muslin collar fastened with a coquettish knot of black velvet, — her head was uncovered, and the fitful gleams of the sinking sun shed a russet glow on her shining hair and reddened the pale clear transparency of her skin. In that restful waiting attitude, with a smile on her face, she made a perfect picture, and Helmsley stole a side-glance at his companion, to see if he seemed to be in any way impressed by her appearance. Angus Reay was certainly looking at her, but what he thought could hardly be guessed by his outward expression. They reached the gate, and she opened it.

  “I was getting anxious about you, David!” — she said; “you aren’t quite strong enough to be out in such a cold wind.” Th
en she turned her eyes enquiringly on Reay, who lifted his cap while Helmsley explained his presence.

  “This is a gentleman who is staying in the village — Mr. Reay,” — he said— “He’s been very kind in helping me up the hill — and I said you would give him a cup of tea.”

  “Why, of course!” — and Mary smiled— “Please come in, sir!”

  She led the way, and in another few minutes, all three of them were seated in her little kitchen round the table and Mary was busy pouring out the tea and dispensing the usual good things that are always found in the simplest Somersetshire cottage, — cream, preserved fruit, scones, home-made bread and fresh butter.

  “So you met David on the seashore?” she said, turning her soft dark-blue eyes enquiringly on Reay, while gently checking with one hand the excited gambols of Charlie, who, as an epicurean dog, always gave himself up to the wildest enthusiasms at tea-time, owing to his partiality for a small saucer of cream which came to him at that hour— “I sometimes think he must expect to pick up a fortune down among the shells and seaweed, he’s so fond of walking about there!” — And she smiled as she put Helmsley’s cup of tea before him, and gently patted his wrinkled hand in the caressing fashion a daughter might show to a father whose health gave cause for anxiety.