The Treasure of Heaven Part 34

he murmured----

Then he suddenly caught her hands in the one she was holding.

"You mean to say that I have been ill all those weeks--a burden upon you?"

"You've been ill all those weeks--yes!" she answered "But you haven't been a burden. Don't you think it! You've--you've been a pleasure!" And her blue eyes filled with soft tears, which she quickly mastered and sent back to the tender source from which they sprang; "You have, really!"

He let go her hand and sank back on his pillows with a smothered groan.

"A pleasure!" he muttered--"I!" And his fuzzy eyebrows met in almost a frown as he again looked at her with one of the keen glances which those who knew him in business had learned to dread. "Mary Deane, do not tell me what is not and what cannot be true! A sick man--an old man--can be no 'pleasure' to anyone;--he is nothing but a bore and a trouble, and the sooner he dies the better!"

The smiling softness still lingered in her eyes.

"Ah well!"--she said--"You talk like that because you're not strong yet, and you just feel a bit cross and worried! You'll be better in another few days----"

"Another few days!" he interrupted her--"No--no--that cannot be--I must be up and tramping it again--I must not stay on here--I have already stayed too long."

A slight shadow crossed her face, but she was silent. He watched her narrowly.

"I've been off my head, haven't I?" he queried, affecting a certain brusqueness in his tone--"Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose?"

"Yes--sometimes,"--she replied--"But only when you were _very_ bad."

"And what did I say?"

She hesitated a moment, and he grew impatient.

"Come, come!" he demanded, irritably--"What did I say?"

She looked at him candidly.

"You talked mostly about 'Tom o' the Gleam,'"--she answered--"That was a poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left to him in the world--its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it--and Tom----"

"Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run over his child and killed _him_!" said Helmsley, with grim satisfaction--"I saw it done!"

Mary shuddered.

"I saw it done!" repeated Helmsley--"And I think it was rightly done!

But--I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness--with his dead child in his arms--and _that!_--that broke something in my heart and brain and made me think G.o.d was cruel!"

She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.

"I knew Tom,"--she said, presently, in a soft voice--"He was a wild creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him take to the gypsy life--but that's only a story. Anyway his little child--'kiddie'--as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow in the world--so playful and affectionate!--I don't wonder Tom went mad when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?"

"Yes, I saw it all!" And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his eyes as he spoke--"I was tramping from Watchett,--and the motor pa.s.sed me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a lodging at Blue Anchor--and while I was having my supper at the public house Tom came in,--and--and it was all over in less than fifteen minutes! A horrible sight--a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now!--I shall never forget it!"

"Enough to make you ill, poor dear!" said Mary, gently--"Don't think of it now! Try and sleep a little. You mustn't talk too much. Poor Tom is dead and buried now, and his little child with him--G.o.d rest them both!

It's better he should have died than lived without anyone to love him in the world."

"That's true!" And opening his eyes widely again, he gazed full at her--"That's the worst fate of all--to live in the world without anyone to love you! Tell me--when I was delirious did I only talk of Tom o' the Gleam?"

"That's the only person whose name you seemed to have on your mind,"--she answered, smiling a little--"But you _did_ make a great noise about money!"

"Money?" he echoed--"I--I made a noise about money?"

"Yes!" And her smile deepened--"Often at night you quite startled me by shouting 'Money! Money!' I'm sure you've wanted it very badly!"

He moved restlessly and avoided her gaze. Presently he asked querulously:

"Where is my old vest with all my papers?"

"It's just where I put it the night you came,"--she answered--"I haven't touched it. Don't you remember you told me to keep the key of the cupboard which is right here close to your bed? I've got it quite safe."

He turned his head round on the pillow and looked at her with a sudden smile.

"Thank you! You are very kind to me, Mary! But you must let me work off all I owe you as soon as I'm well."

She put one finger meditatively on her lips and surveyed him with a whimsically indulgent air.

"Let you work it off? Well, I don't mind that at all! But a minute ago you were saying you must get up and go on the tramp again. Now, if you want to work for me, you must stay----"

"I will stay till I have paid you my debt somehow!" he said--"I'm old--but I can do a few useful things yet."

"I'm sure you can!" And she nodded cheerfully--"And you shall! Now rest a while, and don't fret!"

She went away from him then to fetch the little dog, Charlie, who, now that his master was on the fair road to complete recovery, was always brought in to amuse him after tea. Charlie was full of exuberant life, and his gambols over the bed where Helmsley lay, his comic interest in the feathery end of his own tail, and his general intense delight in the fact of his own existence, made him a merry and affectionate little playmate. He had taken immensely to his new home, and had attached himself to Mary Deane with singular devotion, trotting after her everywhere as close to her heels as possible. The fame of his beauty had gone through the village, and many a small boy and girl came timidly to the cottage door to try and "have a peep" at the smallest dog ever seen in the neighbourhood, and certainly the prettiest.

"That little dawg be wurth twenty pun!"--said one of the rustics to Mary, on one occasion when she was sitting in her little garden, carefully brus.h.i.+ng and combing the silky coat of the little "toy"--"Th'owd man thee's been a' nussin' ought to give 'im to thee as a thank-offerin'."

"I wouldn't take him,"--Mary answered--"He's perhaps the only friend the poor old fellow has got in the world. It would be just selfish of me to want him."

And so the time went on till it was past mid-September, and there came a day, mild, warm, and full of the soft subdued light of deepening autumn, when Mary told her patient that he might get up, and sit in an armchair for a few hours in the kitchen. She gave him this news when she brought him his breakfast, and added--

"I'll wrap you up in father's dressing gown, and you'll be quite cosy and safe from chill. And after another week you'll be so strong that you'll be able to dress yourself and do without me altogether!"

This phrase struck curiously on his ears. "Do without her altogether!"

That would be strange indeed--almost impossible! It was quite early in the morning when she thus spoke--about seven o'clock,--and he was not to get up till noon, "when the air was at its warmest," said Mary--so he lay very quietly, thinking over every detail of the position in which he found himself. He was now perfectly aware that it was a position which opened up great possibilities. His dream,--the vague indefinable longing which possessed him for love--pure, disinterested, unselfish love,--seemed on the verge of coming true. Yet he would not allow himself to hope too much,--he preferred to look on the darker side of probable disillusion. Meanwhile, he was conscious of a sweetness and comfort in his life such as he had never yet experienced. His thoughts dwelt with secret pleasure on the open frankness and calm beauty of the face that had bent over him with the watchfulness of a guardian angel through so many days and nights of pain, delirium, and dread of death,--and he noted with critically observant eyes the noiseless graceful movement of this humbly-born woman, whose instincts were so delicate and tender, whose voice was so gentle, and whose whole bearing expressed such unaffected dignity and purity of mind. On this particular morning she was busy ironing;--and she had left the door open between his bedroom and the kitchen, so that he might benefit by the inflow of fresh air from the garden, the cottage door itself being likewise thrown back to allow a full entrance of the invigorating influences of the light breeze from the sea and the odours of the flowers. From his bed he could see her slim back bent over the fine muslin frills she was pressing out with such patient precision, and he caught the glint of the sun on the rich twist of her bronze brown hair. Presently he heard some one talking to her,--a woman evidently, whose voice was pitched in a plaintive and almost querulous key.

"Well, Mis' Deane, say 'ow ye will an' what ye will,--there's a spider this very blessed instant a' crawlin' on the bottom of the ironin'

blanket, which is a sure sign as 'ow yer was.h.i.+n' won't come to no good try iver so 'ard, for as we all knows--'See a spider at morn, An' ye'll wish ye wornt born: See a spider at night, An' yer wrongs'll come right!'"

Mary laughed; and Helmsley listened with a smile on his own lips. She had such a pretty laugh,--so low and soft and musical.

"Oh, never mind the poor spider, Mrs. Twitt!"--she said--"Let it climb up the ironing blanket if it likes! I see dozens of spiders 'at morn,'

and I've never in my life wished I wasn't born! Why, if you go out in the garden early, you're bound to see spiders!"

"That's true--that's Testymen true!" And the individual addressed as Mrs. Twitt, heaved a profound sigh which was loud enough to flutter through the open door to Helmsley's ears--"Which, as I sez to Twitt often, shows as 'ow we shouldn't iver tempt Providence. Spiders there is, an' spiders there will be 'angin' on boughs an' 'edges, frequent too in September, but we aint called upon to look at 'em, only when the devil puts 'em out speshul to catch the hi, an' then they means mischief. An' that' just what 'as 'appened this present minit, Mis'

Deane,--that spider on yer ironin' blanket 'as caught my hi."