“And it’s just ten chances to one whether they would be grateful to you — —” Angus began. She silenced him by a slight gesture.
“But I shouldn’t care whether they were grateful or not,” she said. “I should be content to know that I had done what was right and just to my fellow-creatures.”
They had no more talk that day, and Helmsley, eagerly expectant, and watching them perhaps more intently than a criminal watches the face of a judge, was as usual disappointed. His inward excitement, always suppressed, made him somewhat feverish and irritable, and Mary, all unconscious of the cause, stayed in to “take care of him” as she said, and gave up her afternoon walks with Angus for a time altogether, which made the situation still more perplexing, and to Helmsley almost unbearable. Yet there was nothing to be done. He felt it would be unwise to speak of the matter in any way to her — she was a woman who would certainly find it difficult to believe that she had won, or could possibly win the love of a lover at her age; — she might even resent it, — no one could tell. And so the days of April paced softly on, in bloom and sunlight, till May came in with a blaze of colour and radiance, and the last whiff of cold wind blew itself away across the sea. The “biting nor’easter,” concerning which the comic press gives itself up to senseless parrot-talk with each recurrence of the May month, no matter how warm and beautiful that month may be, was a “thing foregone and clean forgotten,” — and under the mild and beneficial influences of the mingled sea and moorland air, Helmsley gained a temporary rush of strength, and felt so much better, that he was able to walk down to the shore and back again once or twice a a day, without any assistance, scarcely needing even the aid of his stick to lean upon. The shore remained his favourite haunt; he was never tired of watching the long waves roll in, edged with gleaming ribbons of foam, and roll out again, with the musical clatter of drawn pebbles and shells following the wake of the backward sweeping ripple, — and he made friends with many of the Weircombe fisherfolk, who were always ready to chat with him concerning themselves and the difficulties and dangers of their trade. The children, too, were all eager to run after “old David,” as they called him, — and many an afternoon he would sit in the sun, with a group of these hardy little creatures gathered about him, listening entranced, while he told them strange stories of foreign lands and far travels, — travels which men took “in search of gold” — as he would say, with a sad little smile— “gold, which is not nearly so much use as it seems to be.”
“But can’t us buy everything with plenty of money?” asked a seven-year-old urchin, on one of these occasions, looking solemnly up into his face with a pair of very round, big brown eyes.
“Not everything, my little man,” he answered, smoothing the rough locks of the small inquirer with a very tender hand. “I could not buy you, for instance! Your mother wouldn’t sell you!”
The child laughed.
“Oh, no! But I didn’t mean me!”
“I know you didn’t mean me!” and Helmsley smiled. “But suppose some one put a thousand golden sovereigns in a bag on one side, and you in your rough little torn clothes on the other, and asked your mother which she would like best to have — what do you think she would say?”
“She’d ‘ave me!” and a smile of confident satisfaction beamed on the grinning little face like a ray of sunshine.
“Of course she would! The bag of sovereigns would be no use at all compared to you. So you see we cannot buy everything with money.”
“But — most things?” queried the boy— “Eh?”
“Most things — perhaps,” Helmsley answered, with a slight sigh. “But those ‘most things’ are not things of much value even when you get them. You can never buy love, — and that is the only real treasure, — the treasure of Heaven!”
The child looked at him, vaguely impressed by his sudden earnestness, but scarcely understanding his words.
“Wouldn’t you like a little money?” And the inquisitive young eyes fixed themselves on his face with an expression of tenderest pity. “You’se a very poor old man!”
Helmsley laughed, and again patted the little curly head.
“Yes — yes — a very poor old man!” he repeated. “But I don’t want any more than I’ve got!”
One afternoon towards mid-May, a strong yet soft sou’wester gale blew across Weircombe, bringing with it light showers of rain, which, as they fell upon the flowering plants and trees, brought out all the perfume of the spring in such rich waves of sweetness, that, though as yet there were no roses, and the lilac was only just budding out, the whole countryside seemed full of the promised fragrance of the blossoms that were yet to be. The wind made scenery in the sky, heaping up snowy masses of cloud against the blue in picturesque groups resembling Alpine heights, and fantastic palaces of fairyland, and when, — after a glorious day of fresh and invigorating air which swept both sea and hillside, a sudden calm came with the approach of sunset, the lovely colours of earth and heaven, melting into one another, where so pure and brilliant, that Mary, always a lover of Nature, could not resist Angus Reay’s earnest entreaty that she would accompany him to see the splendid departure of the orb of day, in all its imperial panoply of royal gold and purple.
“It will be a beautiful sunset,” he said— “And from the ‘Giant’s Castle’ rock, a sight worth seeing.”
Helmsley looked at him as he spoke, and looking, smiled.
“Do go, my dear,” he urged— “And come back and tell me all about it.”
“I really think you want me out of your way, David!” she said laughingly. “You seem quite happy when I leave you!”
“You don’t get enough fresh air,” he answered evasively. “And this is just the season of the year when you most need it.”
She made no more demur, and putting on the simple straw hat, which, plainly trimmed with a soft knot of navy-blue ribbon, was all her summer head-gear, she left the house with Reay. After a while, Helmsley also went out for his usual lonely ramble on the shore, from whence he could see the frowning rampart of the “Giant’s Castle” above him, though it was impossible to discern any person who might be standing at its summit, on account of the perpendicular crags that intervened. From both shore and rocky height the scene was magnificent. The sun, dipping slowly down towards the sea, shot rays of glory around itself in an aureole of gold, which, darting far upwards, and spreading from north to south, pierced the drifting masses of floating fleecy cloud like arrows, and transfigured their whiteness to splendid hues of fiery rose and glowing amethyst, while just between the falling Star of Day and the ocean, a rift appeared of smooth and delicate watery green, touched here and there with flecks of palest pink and ardent violet. Up on the parapet of the “Giant’s Castle,” all this loyal panoply of festal colour was seen at its best, sweeping in widening waves across the whole surface of the Heavens; and there was a curious stillness everywhere, as though earth itself were conscious of a sudden and intense awe. Standing on the dizzy edge of her favourite point of vantage, Mary Deane gazed upon the sublime spectacle with eyes so passionately tender in their far-away expression, that, to Angus Reay, who watched those eyes with much more rapt admiration than he bestowed upon the splendour of the sunset, they looked like the eyes of some angel, who, seeing heaven all at once revealed, recognised her native home, and with the recognition, was prepared for immediate flight And on the impulse which gave him this fantastic thought, he said softly —
“Don’t go away, Miss Mary! Stay with us — with me — as long as you can!”
She turned her head and looked at him, smiling.
“Why, what do you mean? I’m not going away anywhere — who told you that I was?”
“No one,” — and Angus drew a little nearer to her— “But just now you seemed so much a part of the sea and the sky, leaning forward and giving yourself entirely over to the glory of the moment, that I felt as if you might float away from me altogether.” Here he paused — then added in a lower tone— “And I cou
ld not bear to lose you!”
She was silent. But her face grew pale, and her lips quivered. He saw the tremor pass over her, and inwardly rejoiced, — his own nerves thrilling as he realised that, after all, if — if she loved him, he was the master of her fate.
“We’ve been such good friends,” he went on, dallying with his own desire to know the best or worst— “Haven’t we?”
“Indeed, yes!” she answered, somewhat faintly. “And I hope we always will be.”
“I hope so, too!” he answered in quite a matter-of-fact way. “You see I’m rather a clumsy chap with women — —”
She smiled a little.
“Are you?”
“Yes, — I mean I never get on with them quite as well as other fellows do somehow — and — er — and — what I want to say, Miss Mary, is that I’ve never got on with any woman so well as I have with you — and — —”
He paused. At no time in his life had he been at such a loss for language. His heart was thumping in the most extraordinary fashion, and he prodded the end of his walking-stick into the ground with quite a ferocious earnestness. She was still looking at him and still smiling.
“And,” he went on ramblingly, “that’s why I hope we shall always be good friends.”
As he uttered this perfectly commonplace remark, he cursed himself for a fool. “What’s the matter with me?” he inwardly demanded. “My tongue seems to be tied up! — or I’m going to have lockjaw! It’s awful! Something better than this has got to come out of me somehow!” And acting on a brilliant flash of inspiration which suddenly seemed to have illumined his brain, he said —
“The fact is, I want to get married. I’m thinking about it.”
How quiet she was! She seemed scarcely to breathe.
“Yes?” and the word, accentuated without surprise and merely as a question, was spoken very gently. “I do hope you have found some one who loves you with all her heart!”
She turned her head away, and Angus saw, or thought he saw, the bright tears brim up from under her lashes and slowly fall. Without another instant’s pause he rushed upon his destiny, and in that rush grew strong.
“Yes, Mary!” he said, and moving to her side he caught her hand in his own— “I dare to think I have found that some one! I believe I have! I believe that a woman whom I love with all my heart, loves me in return! If I am mistaken, then I’ve lost the whole world! Tell me, Mary! Am I wrong?”
She could not speak, — the tears were thick in her eyes.
“Mary — dear, dearest Mary!” and he pressed the hand he held— “You know I love you! — you know — —”
She turned her face towards him — a pale, wondering face, — and tried to smile.
“How do I know?” she murmured tremulously— “How can I believe? I’m past the time for love!”
For all answer he drew her into his arms.
“Ask Love itself about that, Mary!” he said. “Ask my heart, which beats for you, — ask my soul, which longs for you! — ask me, who worship you, you, best and dearest of women, about the time for love! That time for us is now, Mary! — now and always!”
Then came a silence — that eloquent silence which surpasses all speech. Love has no written or spoken language — it is incommunicable as God. And Mary, whose nature was open and pure as the daylight, would not have been the woman she was if she could have expressed in words the deep tenderness and passion which at that supreme moment silently responded to her lover’s touch, her lover’s embrace. And when, — lifting her face between his two hands, he gazed at it long and earnestly, a smile, shining between tears, brightened her sweet eyes.
“You are looking at me as if you never saw me before, Angus!” she said, her voice sinking softly, as she pronounced his name.
“Positively, I don’t think I ever have!” he answered “Not as you are now, Mary! I have never seen you look so beautiful! I have never seen you before as my love! my wife!”
She drew herself a little away from him.
“But, are you sure you are doing right for yourself?” she asked— “You know you could marry anybody — —”
He laughed, and threw one arm round her waist.
“Thanks! — I don’t want to marry ‘anybody’ — I want to marry you! The question is, will you have me?”
She smiled.
“If I thought it would be for your good — —”
Stooping quickly he kissed her.
“That’s very much for my good!” he declared. “And now that I’ve told you my mind, you must tell me yours. Do you love me, Mary?”
“I’m afraid you know that already too well!” she said, with a wistful radiance in her eyes.
“I don’t!” he declared— “I’m not at all sure of you — —”
She interrupted him.
“Are you sure of yourself?”
“Mary!”
“Ah, don’t look so reproachful! It’s only for you I’m thinking! You see I’m nothing but a poor working woman of what is called the lower classes — I’m not young, and I’m not clever. Now you’ve got genius; you’ll be a great man some day, quite soon perhaps — you may even become rich as well as famous, and then perhaps you’ll be sorry you ever met me — —”
“In that case I’ll call upon the public hangman and ask him to give me a quick despatch,” he said promptly; “Though I shouldn’t be worth the expense of a rope!”
“Angus, you won’t be serious!”
“Serious? I never was more serious in my life! And I want my question answered.”
“What question?”
“Do you love me? Yes or no!”
He held her close and looked her full in the face as he made this peremptory demand. Her cheeks grew crimson, but she met his searching gaze frankly.
“Ah, though you are a man, you are a spoilt child!” she said. “You know I love you more than I can say! — and yet you want me to tell you what can never be told!”
He caught her to his heart, and kissed her passionately.
“That’s enough!” he said— “For if you love me, Mary, your love is love indeed! — it’s no sham; and like all true and heavenly things, it will never change. I believe, if I turned out to be an utter wastrel, you’d love me still!”
“Of course I should!” she answered.
“Of course you would!” and he kissed her again. “Mary, my Mary, if there were more women like you, there would be more men! — men in the real sense of the word — manly men, whose love and reverence for women would make them better and braver in the battle of life. Do you know, I can do anything now, with you to love me! I don’t suppose,” — and here he unconsciously squared his shoulders— “I really don’t suppose there is a single difficulty in my way that I won’t conquer!”
She smiled, leaning against him.
“If you feel like that, I am very happy!” she said.
As she spoke, she raised her eyes to the sky, and uttered an involuntary exclamation.
“Look, look!” she cried— “How glorious!”
The heavens above them were glowing red, — forming a dome of burning rose, deepening in hue towards the sea, where the outer rim of the nearly vanished sun was slowly disappearing below the horizon — and in the centre of this ardent glory, a white cloud, shaped like a dove with outspread wings, hung almost motionless. The effect was marvellously beautiful, and Angus, full of his own joy, was more than ever conscious of the deep content of a spirit attuned to the infinite joy of nature.
“It is like the Holy Grail,” he said, and, with one arm round the woman he loved, he softly quoted the lines: —
“And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,
Rose-red, with beatings in it as if alive!”
“That is Tennyson,” she said.
“Yes — that is Tennyson — the last great poet England can boast,” he answered. “The poet who hated hate and loved love.”
“All poets are like that,” she murmured.
�
�Not all, Mary! Some of the modern ones hate love and love hate!”
“Then they are not poets,” she said. “They would not see any beauty in that lovely sky — and they would not understand — —”
“Us!” finished Angus. “And I assure you, Mary at the present moment, we are worth understanding!”
She laughed softly.
“Do we understand ourselves?” she asked.
“Of course we don’t! If we did, we should probably be miserable. It’s just because we are mysterious one to another, that we are so happy. No human being should ever try to analyse the fact of existence. It’s enough that we exist — and that we love each other. Isn’t it, Mary?”
“Enough? It is too much, — too much happiness altogether for me, at any rate,” she said. “I can’t believe in it yet! I can’t really, Angus! Why should you love me?”
“Why, indeed!” And his eyes grew dark and warm with tenderness— “Why should you love me?”
“Ah, there’s so much to love in you!” and she made her heart’s confession with a perfectly naïve candour. “I daresay you don’t see it yourself, but I do!”
“And I assure you, Mary,” he declared, with a whimsical solemnity, “that there’s ever so much more to love in you! I know you don’t see it for yourself, but I do!”
Then they laughed together like two children, and all constraint was at an end between them. Hand in hand they descended the grassy steep of the “Giant’s Castle” — charmed with one another, and at every step of the way seeing some new delight which they seemed to have missed before. The crimson sunset burned about them like the widening petals of a rose in fullest bloom, — earth caught the fervent glory and reflected it back again in many varying tints of brilliant colour, shading from green to gold, from pink to amethyst — and as they walked through the splendid vaporous light, it was as though they were a living part of the glory of the hour.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 687