Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  “He must be on the tramp again,” said Mary. “But he isn’t strong enough to tramp. I went up the coombe this morning and right out to the highroad, for I thought I might see him and catch up with him — because I know it would take him ever so long to walk a mile. But he had gone altogether.”

  Reay stood thinking.

  “I tell you what, Mary,” he said at last, “I’ll take a brisk walk down the road towards Minehead. I should think that’s the only place where he’d try for work. I daresay I shall overtake him.”

  Her eyes brightened.

  “Yes, that’s quite possible,” — and she was evidently pleased at the suggestion. “He’s so old and feeble, and you’re so strong and quick on your feet — —”

  “Quick with my lips, too,” said Angus, promptly kissing her. “But I shall have to be on my best behaviour now you’re all alone in the cottage, Mary! David has left you defenceless!”

  He laughed, but as she raised her eyes questioningly to his face, grew serious.

  “Yes, my Mary! You’ll have to stay by your own sweet lonesome! Otherwise all the dear, kind, meddlesome old women in the village will talk! Mrs. Twitt will lead the chorus, with the best intentions, unless — and this is a dreadful alternative! — you can persuade her to come up and play propriety!”

  The puzzled look left her face, and she smiled though a wave of colour flushed her cheeks.

  “Oh! I see what you mean, Angus! But I’m too old to want looking after — I can look after myself.”

  “Can you?” And he took her into his arms and held her fast. “And how will you do it?”

  She was silent a moment, looking into his eyes with a grave and musing tenderness. Then she said quietly —

  “By trusting you, my love, now and always!”

  Very gently he released her from his embrace — very reverently he kissed her.

  “And you shall never regret your trust, you dear, sweet angel of a woman! Be sure of that! Now I’m off to look for David — I’ll try and bring him back with me. By the way, Mary, I’ve told Mr. and Mrs. Twitt and good old Bunce that we are engaged — so the news is now the public property of the whole village. In fact, we might just as well have put up the banns and secured the parson!”

  He laughed his bright, jovial laugh, and throwing on his cap went out, striding up the coombe with swift, easy steps, whistling joyously “My Nannie O” as he made the ascent. Twice he turned to wave his hand to Mary who stood watching him from her garden gate, and then he disappeared. She waited a moment among all the sweetly perfumed flowers in her little garden, looking at the bright glitter of the hill stream as it flowed equably by.

  “How wonderful it is,” she thought, “that God should have been so good to me! I have done nothing to deserve any love at all, and yet Angus loves me! It seems too beautiful to be real! I am not worthy of such happiness! Sometimes I dare not think too much of it lest it should all prove to be only a dream! For surely no one in the world could wish for a better life than we shall live — Angus and I — in this dear little cottage together, — he with his writing, which I know will some day move the world, — and I with my usual work, helping as much as I can to make his life sweet to him. For we have the great secret of all joy — we love each other!”

  With her eyes full of the dreamy light of inward heart’s content, she turned and went into the house. The sight of David’s empty chair by the fire troubled her, — but she tried to believe that Angus would succeed in finding him on the highroad, and in persuading him to return at once. Towards noon Mrs. Twitt came in, somewhat out of breath, on account of having climbed the village street more rapidly than was her custom on such a warm day as it had turned out to be, and straightway began conversation.

  “Wonders ‘ull never cease, Mis’ Deane, an’ that’s a fact!” she said, wiping her hot face with the corner of her apron— “An’ while there’s life there’s ‘ope! I’d as soon ‘a thought o’ Weircombe Church walkin’ down to the shore an’ turnin’ itself into a fishin’ smack, as that you’d a’ got engaged to be married! I would, an’ that’s a Gospel truth! Ye seemed so steady like an’ settled — lor’ a mussy me!” And here, despite her effort to look serious, a broad smile got the better of her. “An’ a fine man too you’ve got, — none o’ your scallywag weaklings as one sees too much of nowadays, but a real upright sort o’ chap wi’ no nonsense about ’im. An’ I wishes ye well, Mary, my dear,” — and the worthy soul took Mary’s hand in hers and gave her a hearty kiss. “For it’s never too late to mend, as the Scripter tells us, an’ forbye ye’re not in yer green gooseberry days there’s those as thinks ripe fruit better than sour-growin’ young codlings. An’ ye may take ‘art o’ grace for one thing — them as marries young settles quickly old — an’ to look at the skin an’ the ‘air an’ the eyes of ye, you beat ivery gel I’ve ivir seen in the twenties, so there’s good preservin’ stuff in ye wot’ll last. An’ I bet you’re more fond o’ the man ye’ve got late than if ye’d caught ’im early!”

  Mary laughed, but her eyes were full of wistful tenderness.

  “I love him very dearly,” she said simply— “And I know he’s a great deal too good for me.”

  Mrs. Twitt sniffed meaningly.

  “Well, I’m not in any way sure o’ that,” she observed. “When a man’s too good for a woman it’s what we may call a Testymen’ miracle. For the worst wife as ivir lived is never so bad as a bad ‘usband. There’s a suthin’ in a man wot’s real devil-like when it gits the uppermost of ’im — an’ ‘e’s that crafty born that I’ve known ’im to be singin’ hymns one hour an’ drinkin’ ‘isself silly the next. ‘Owsomever, Mister Reay seems a decent chap, forbye ’e do give ’is time to writin’ which don’t appear to make ’is pot boil — —”

  “Ah, but he will be famous!” interrupted Mary exultantly. “I know he will!”

  “An’ what’s the good o’ that?” enquired Mrs. Twitt. “If bein’ famous is bein’ printed about in the noospapers, I’d rather do without it if I wos ’im. Parzon Arbroath got famous that way!” And she chuckled. “But the great pint is that you an’ ’e is a-goin’ to be man an’ wife, an’ I’m right glad to ‘ear it, for it’s a lonely life ye’ve been leadin’ since yer father’s death, forbye ye’ve got a bit o’ company in old David. An’ wot’ll ye do with David when you’re married?”

  “He’ll stay on with us, I hope,” said Mary. “But this morning he has gone away — and we don’t know where he can have gone to.”

  Mrs. Twitt raised her eyes and hands in astonishment.

  “Gone away?”

  “Yes.” And Mary showed her the letter Helmsley had written, and explained how Angus Reay had started off to walk towards Minehead, in the hope of overtaking the wanderer.

  “Well, I never!” And Mrs. Twitt gave a short gasp of wonder. “Wants to find employment, do ’e? The poor old innercent! Why, Twitt would ‘a given ’im a job in the stoneyard if ‘e’d ‘a known. He’ll never find a thing to do anywheres on the road at ’is age!”

  And the news of David’s sudden and lonely departure affected her more powerfully than the prospect of Mary’s marriage, which had, in the first place, occupied all her mental faculties.

  “An’ that reminds me,” she went on, “of ‘ow the warnin’ came to me yesterday when I was a-goin’ out to my wash-tub an’ I slipt on a bit o’ potato peelin’. That’s allus a sign of a partin’ ‘twixt friends. Put that together with the lump o’ clinkers as flew out o’ the fire last week and split in two in the middle of the kitchen, an’ there ye ‘ave it all writ plain. I sez to Twitt— ‘Suthin’s goin’ to ‘appen’ — an’ ’e sez in ’is fool way— ‘G’arn, old woman, suthin’s allus a-’appenin’ somewheres’ — then when Mister Reay looked in all smiles an’ sez ‘Good-mornin’, Twitt! I’m goin’ to marry Miss Mary Deane! Wish us joy!’ Twitt, ’e up an’ sez, ‘There’s your suthin’, old gel! A marriage!’ an’ I sez, ‘Not at all, Twitt — not at all, Mister Reay, if I may make
so bold, but slippin’ on peel don’t mean marriage, nor yet clinkers, though two spoons in a saucer does convey ‘ints o’ the same, an’ two spoons was in Twitt’s saucer only this very mornin’. Which I wishes both man an’ woman as runs the risk everlastin’ joy!’ An’ Twitt, as is allus puttin’ in ’is word where ‘taint wanted, sez, ‘Don’t talk about everlastin’ joy, mother, ’tis like a hepitaph’ — which I answers quick an’ sez, ‘Your mind may run on hepitaphs, Twitt, seein’ ’tis your livin’, but mine don’t do no such thing, an’ when I sez everlastin’ joy for man an’ wife, I means it.’ An’ then Mister Reay comes an’ pats me on the shoulder cosy like an’ sez, ‘Right you are, Mrs. Twitt!’ an’ ’e walks off laughin’, an’ Twitt ’e laughs too an’ sez, ‘Good luck to the bridegroom an’ the bride,’ which I aint denyin’, but there was still the thought o’ the potato peel an’ the clinker, an’ it’s come clear to-day now I’ve ‘eerd as ‘ow poor old David’s gone!” She paused to take breath, and shook her head solemnly. “It’s my opinion ‘e’ll never come back no more!”

  “Oh, don’t say that!” exclaimed Mary, distressed. “Don’t even think it!”

  But Mrs. Twitt was not to be shaken in her pronouncement.

  “‘E’ll never come back no more!” she said. “An’ the children on the shore ‘ull miss ’im badly, for ’e was a reg’lar Father Christmas to ’em, not givin’ presents by any manner o’ means, ‘avin’ none to give, but tellin’ ’em stories as kep’ ’em quiet an’ out of ‘arms way for ‘ours, — an’ mendin’ their toys an’ throwin’ their balls an’ spinnin’ their tops like the ‘armless old soul ’e was! I’m right sorry ‘e’s gone! Weircombe ‘ll miss ’im for sartin sure!”

  And this was the general feeling of the whole village when the unexpected departure of “old David” became known. Angus Reay, returning in the afternoon, reported that he had walked half the way, and had driven the other half with a man who had given him a lift in his trap, right into Minehead, but had seen and heard nothing of the missing waif and stray. Coming back to Weircombe with the carrier’s cart, he had questioned the carrier as to whether he had seen the old man anywhere along the road, but this inquiry likewise met with failure.

  “So the only thing to do, Mary,” said Angus, finally, “is to believe his own written word, — that he will be back with us before Sunday. I don’t think he means to leave you altogether in such an abrupt way, — that would be churlish and ungrateful — and I’m sure he is neither.”

  “Oh, he’s anything but churlish!” she answered quickly. “He has always been most thoughtful and kind to me; and as for gratitude! — why, the poor old dear makes too much of it altogether — one would think I had given him a fortune instead of just taking common human care of him. I expect he must have worked in some very superior house of business, for though he’s so poor, he has all the ways of a gentleman.”

  “What are the ways of a gentleman, my Mary?” demanded Angus, gaily. “Do you know? I mean, do you know what they are nowadays? To stick a cigar in one’s mouth and smoke it all the time a woman is present — to keep one’s hat on before her, and to talk to her in such a loose, free and easy fashion as might bring one’s grandmother out of her grave and make her venerable hair curl! Those are the ‘ways’ of certain present-time ‘gentlemen’ who keep all the restaurants and music-halls of London going — and I don’t rank good old David with these. I know what you mean — you mean that he has all the fine feeling, delicacy and courtesy of a gentleman, as ‘gentlemen’ used to be before our press was degraded to its present level by certain clowns and jesters who make it their business to jeer at every “gentlemanly” feeling that ever inspired humanity — yes, I understand! He is a gentleman of the old school, — well, — I think he is — and I think he would always be that, if he tramped the road till he died. He must have seen better days.”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure of that!” said Mary. “So many really capable men get turned out of work because they are old — —”

  “Well, there’s one advantage about my profession,” interrupted Angus. “No one can turn me out of literature either for young or old age, if I choose to make a name in it! Think of that, my Mary! The glorious independence of it! An author is a law unto himself, and if he succeeds, he is the master of his own fate. Publishers are his humble servants — waiting eagerly to snatch up his work that they may get all they can for themselves out of it, — and the public — the great public which, apart from all ‘interested’ critical bias, delivers its own verdict, is always ready to hearken and to applaud the writer of its choice. There is no more splendid and enviable life! — if I could only make a hundred pounds a year by it, I would rather be an author than a king! For if one has something in one’s soul to say — something that is vital, true, and human as well as divine, the whole world will pause to listen. Yes, Mary! In all its toil and stress, its scheming for self-advantage, its political changes, its little temporary passing shows of empires and monarchies, the world will stop to hear what the Thinker and the Writer tells it! The words of old Socrates still ring down the ages — the thoughts of Shakespeare are still the basis of English literature! — what a grand life it is to be among the least of one of the writing band! I tell you, Mary, that even if I fail, I shall be proud to have at any rate tried to succeed!”

  “You will not fail!” she said, her eyes glowing with enthusiasm. “I shall see you win your triumph!”

  “Well, if I cannot conquer everything with you by my side, I shall be but a poor and worthless devil!” he answered. “And now I must be off and endeavour to make up for my lost time this morning, running after David! Poor old chap! Don’t worry about him, Mary. I think you may take his word for it that he means to be back before Sunday.”

  He left her then, and all the day and all the evening too she spent the time alone. It would have been impossible to her to express in words how greatly she missed the companionship of the gentle old man who had so long been the object of her care. There was a sense of desolate emptiness in the little cottage such as had not so deeply affected her for years — not indeed since the first months following immediately on her own father’s death. That Angus Reay kept away was, she knew, care for her on his part. Solitary woman as she was, the villagers, like all people who live in very small, mentally restricted country places, would have idly gossiped away her reputation had she received her lover into her house alone. So she passed a very dismal time all by herself; and closing up the house early, took little Charlie in her arms and went to bed, where, much to her own abashment, she cried herself to sleep.

  Meanwhile, David himself, for whom she fretted, had arrived in Exeter. The journey had fatigued him considerably, though he had been able to get fairly good food and a glass of wine at one of the junctions where he had changed en route. On leaving the Exeter railway station, he made his way towards the Cathedral, and happening to chance on a very small and unpretending “Temperance Hotel” in a side street, where a placard intimating that “Good Accommodation for Travellers” might be had within, he entered and asked for a bedroom. He obtained it at once, for his appearance was by no means against him, being that of a respectable old working man who was prepared to pay his way in a humble, but perfectly honest fashion. As soon as he had secured his room, which was a curious little three-cornered apartment, partially obscured by the shadows of the many buttresses of the Cathedral, his next care was to go out into the High Street and provide himself with a good stock of writing materials. These obtained, he returned to his temporary lodging, where, after supper, he went to bed early in order to rise early. With the morning light he was up and dressed, eager to be at work, — an inrush of his old business energy came back on him, — his brain was clear, his mental force keen and active. There happened to be an old-fashioned oak table in his room, and drawing this to the window, he sat down to write the document which his solicitor and friend, Sir Francis Vesey, had so often urged him to prepare — his Will. He knew what a number of legal
technicalities might, or could be involved in this business, and was therefore careful to make it as short, clear, and concise as possible, leaving no chance anywhere open of doubt or discussion. And with a firm, unwavering pen, in his own particularly distinct and characteristic caligraphy, he disposed of everything of which he died possessed “absolutely and without any conditions whatsoever” to Mary Deane, spinster, at present residing in Weircombe, Somerset, adding the hope that she would, if she saw fit to do so, carry out certain requests of his, the testator’s, as conveyed privately to her in a letter accompanying the Will. All the morning long he sat thoughtfully considering and weighing each word he used — till at last, when the document was finished to his satisfaction, he folded it up, and putting it in his pocket, started out to get his midday meal and find a lawyer’s office. He was somewhat surprised at his own alertness and vigour as he walked through the streets of Exeter on this quest; — excitement buoyed him up to such a degree that be was not conscious of the slightest fatigue or lassitude — he felt almost young. He took his lunch at a small restaurant where he saw city clerks and others of that type going in, and afterwards, strolling up a dull little street which ended in a cul de sac, he spied a dingy archway, offering itself as an approach to a flight of equally dingy stairs. Here a brass plate, winking at the passer-by, stated that “Rowden and Owlett, Solicitors,” would be found on the first floor. Helmsley paused, considering a moment — then, making up his mind that “Rowden and Owlett” would suit his purpose as well as any other equally unknown firm, he slowly climbed the steep and unwashed stair. Opening the first door at the top of the flight, he saw a small boy leaning both arms across a large desk, and watching the gyrations of two white mice in a revolving cage.

  “Hullo!” said the boy sharply, “what d’ ye want?”