The Treasure of Heaven Part 67

And placing her hand in his, she repeated it slowly word for word. He watched her closely as she spoke, her eyes gazing candidly into his own.

Then he heaved a deep sigh.

"Thank you, my dear! That will do. G.o.d bless you! And now to bed!"

He rose somewhat unsteadily, and she saw he was very weak.

"Don't you feel so well, David?" she asked, anxiously. "Would you like me to sit up with you?"

"No, no, my dear, no! All I want is a good sleep--a good long sleep. I'm only tired."

She saw him into his room, and, according to her usual custom, put a handbell on the small table which was at the side of his bed. Charlie, trotting at her heels, suddenly began to whimper. She stooped and picked the little creature up in her arms.

"Mind you ring if you want me," she said to Helmsley then,--"I'm just above you, and I can hear the least sound."

He looked at her earnestly. His eyes were almost young in their brightness.

"G.o.d bless you, Mary!" he said--"You've been a good angel to me! I never quite believed in Heaven, but looking at you I know there is such a place--the place where you were born!"

She smiled--but her eyes were soft with unshed tears.

"You think too well of me, David," she said. "I'm not an angel--I wish I were! I'm only a very poor, ordinary sort of woman."

"Are you?" he said, and smiled--"Well, think so, if it pleases you.

Good-night--and again G.o.d bless you!"

He patted the tiny head of the small Charlie, whom she held nestling against her breast.

"Good-night, Charlie!"

The little dog licked his hand and looked at him wistfully.

"Don't part with him, Mary!" he said, suddenly--"Let him always have a home with you!"

"Now, David! You really are tired out and over-melancholy! As if I should ever part with him!" And she kissed Charlie's silky head--"We'll all keep together! Good-night, David!"

"Good-night!" he answered. He watched her as she went through the doorway, holding the dog in her arms and turning back to smile at him over her shoulder--anon he listened to her footfall ascending the stairway to her own room--then, to her gentle movements to and fro above his bed--till presently all was silent. Silence--except for the measured plash of the sea, which he heard distinctly echoing up through the coombe from the sh.o.r.e. A great loneliness environed him--touched by a great awe. He felt himself to be a solitary soul in the midst of some vast desert, yet not without the consciousness that a mystic joy, an undreamed-of glory, was drawing near that should make that desert "blossom like the rose." He moved slowly and feebly to the window--against one-half of the latticed pane leaned a bunch of white roses, s.h.i.+ning with a soft pearl hue in the light of a lovely moon.

"It is a beautiful world!" he said, half aloud--"No one in his right mind could leave it without some regret!"

Then an inward voice seemed to whisper to him--

"You knew nothing of this world you call so beautiful before you entered it; may there not be another world still more beautiful of which you equally know nothing, but of which you are about to make an experience, all life being a process of continuous higher progress?"

And this idea now not only seemed to him possible but almost a certainty. For as our last Laureate expresses it:--

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death.

'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant-- More life, and fuller, that I want!"

His brain was so active and his memory so clear that he was somewhat surprised to feel his body so feeble and aching, when at last he undressed, and lay down to sleep. He thought of many things--of his boyhood's home out in Virginia--of the stress and excitement of his business career--of his extraordinary successes, piled one on the top of the other--and then of the emptiness of it all!

"I should have been happier and wiser," he said, "if I had lived the life of a student in some quiet home among the hills--where I should have seen less of men and learned more of G.o.d. But it is too late now--too late!"

And a curious sorrow and pity moved him for certain men he knew who were eating up the best time of their lives in a mad struggle for money, losing everything of real value in their scramble for what was, after all, so valueless,--sacrificing peace, honour, love, and a quiet mind, for what in the eternal countings is of no more consideration than the dust of the highroad. Not what a man _has_, but what he _is_,--this is the sole concern of Divine Equity. Earthly ideas of justice are in direct opposition to this law, but the finite can never overbalance the infinite. We may, if we so please, honour a king as king,--but with G.o.d there are no kings. There are only Souls, "made in His image." And whosoever defaces that Divine Image, whether he be base-born churl or crowned potentate, must answer for the wicked deed. How many of us view our social acquaintances from any higher standard than the extent of their cash accounts, or the "usefulness" of their influence? Yet the inexorable Law works silently on,--and day after day, century after century, shows us the vanity of riches, the fall of pride and power, the triumph of genius, the immutability of love! And we are still turning over the well-worn pages of the same old school-book which was set before Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Babylon--the same, the very same, with one saving exception--that a Divine Teacher came to show us how to spell it and read it aright--and He was crucified! Doubtless were He to come again and once more try to help us, we should re-enact that old-time Jewish murder!

Lying quietly in his bed, Helmsley conversed with his inner self, as it were, reasoning with his own human perplexities and gradually unravelling them. After all, if his life had been, as he considered, only a lesson, was it not good for him that he had learned that lesson?

A pa.s.sing memory of Lucy Sorrel flitted across his brain--and he thought how singular it was that chance should have brought him into touch with the very man who would have given her that "rose of love" he desired she should wear, had she realised the value and beauty of that immortal flower. He, David Helmsley, had been apparently led by devious ways, not only to find an unselfish love for himself, but also to be the instrument of atoning to Angus Reay for his first love-disappointment, and uniting him to a woman whose exquisitely tender and faithful nature was bound to make the joy and sanct.i.ty of his life. In this, had not all things been ordered well? Did it not seem that, notwithstanding his, Helmsley's, self-admitted worthlessness, the Divine Power had used him for the happiness of others, to serve as a link of love between two deserving souls? He began to think that it was not by chance that he had been led to wander away from the centre of his business interests, and lose himself on the hills above Weircombe. Not accident, but a high design had been hidden in this incident--a design in which Self had been transformed to Selflessness, and loneliness to love. "I should like to believe in G.o.d--if I could!" This he had said to his friend Vesey, on the last night he had seen him. And now--did he believe? Yes!--for he had benefited by his first experience of what a truly G.o.d-like love may be--the love of a perfectly unselfish, tender, devout woman who, for no motive at all, but simply out of pure goodness and compa.s.sion for sorrow and suffering, had rescued one whom she judged to be in need of help. If therefore G.o.d could make one poor woman so divinely forbearing and gentle, it was certain that He, from whom all Love must emanate, was yet more merciful than the most merciful woman, as well as stronger than the strongest man. And he believed--believed implicitly;--lifted to the height of a perfect faith by the help of a perfect love. In the mirror of one sweet and simple human character he had seen the face of G.o.d--and he was of the same mind as the mighty musician who, when he was dying, cried out in rapture--"I believe I am only at the Beginning!"[2] He was conscious of a strange dual personality,--some spirit within him urgently expressed itself as being young, clamorous, inquisitive, eager, and impatient of restraint, while his natural bodily self was so weary and feeble that he felt as if he could scarcely move a hand. He listened for a little while to the ticking of the clock in the kitchen which was next to his room,--and by and by, being thoroughly drowsy, he sank into a heavy slumber. He did not know that Mary, anxious about him, had not gone to bed at all, but had resolved to sit up all night in case he should call her or want for anything. But the hours wore on peacefully for him till the moon began her downward course towards the west, and the tide having rolled in to its highest mark, began to ebb and flow out again. Then--all at once--he awoke--smitten by a shock of pain that seemed to crash through his heart and send his brain swirling into a blind chaos. Struggling for breath, he sprang up in his bed, and instinctively s.n.a.t.c.hed the handbell at his side. He was hardly aware of ringing it, so great was his agony--but presently, regaining a glimmering sense of consciousness, he found Mary's arms round him, and saw Mary's eyes looking tenderly into his own.

"David, dear David!" And the sweet voice was shaken by tears.

"David!--Oh, my poor dear, don't you know me?"

Know her? In the Valley of the Shadow what other Angel could there be so faithful or so tender! He sighed, leaning heavily against her bosom.

"Yes, dear--I know you!" he gasped, faintly. "But--I am very ill--dying, I think! Open the window--give me air!"

She laid his head gently back on the pillow, and ran quickly to throw open the lattice. In that same moment, the dog Charlie, who had followed her downstairs from her room, jumped on the bed, and finding his master's hand lying limp and pallid outside the coverlet, fawned upon it with a plaintive cry. The cool sea-air rushed in, and Helmsley's sinking strength revived. He turned his eyes gratefully towards the stream of silvery moonlight that poured through the open cas.e.m.e.nt.

"'Angels ever bright and fair!'" he murmured--then as Mary came back to his side, he smiled vaguely; "I thought I heard my little sister singing!"

Slipping her arm again under his head, she carefully administered a dose of the cordial which had been made up for him as a calmative against his sudden heart attacks.

He swallowed it slowly and with difficulty.

"I'm--I'm all right," he said, feebly. "The pain has gone. I'm sorry to have wakened you up, Mary!--but you're always kind and patient----"

His voice broke--and a grey pallor began to steal almost imperceptibly upwards over his wasted features. She watched him, her heart beating fast with grief and terror,--the tears rus.h.i.+ng to her eyes in spite of her efforts to restrain them. For she saw that he was dying. The solemnly musical plash of the sea sounded rhythmically upon the quiet air like the soothing murmur of a loving mother's lullaby, and the radiance of the moonlight flooded the little room with mystical glory.

In her womanly tenderness she drew him more protectingly into the embrace of her kind arm, as though seeking to hold him back from the abyss of the Unknown, and held his head close against her breast. He opened his eyes and saw her thus bending over him. A smile brightened his face--a smile of youth, and hope, and confidence.

"The end is near, Mary!" he said in a clear, calm voice; "but--it's not difficult! There is no pain. And you are with me. That is enough!--that is more than I ever hoped for!--more than I deserve! G.o.d bless you always!"

He shut his eyes again--but opened them quickly in a sudden struggle for breath.

"The papers!" he gasped. "Mary--Mary--you won't forget--your promise!"

"No, David!--dear David!" she sobbed. "I won't forget!"

The paroxysm pa.s.sed, and his hand wandered over the coverlet, where it encountered the soft, crouching head of the little dog who was lying close to him, s.h.i.+vering in every limb.

"Why, here's Charlie!" he whispered, weakly. "Poor wee Charlie! 'Take care of me' is written on his collar. Mary will take care of you, Charlie!--good-bye, little man!"

He lay quiet then, but his eyes were wide open, gazing not upward, but straight ahead, as though they saw some wondrous vision in the little room.

"Strange!--strange that I did not know all this before!" he murmured--and then was silent, still gazing straight before him. All at once a great shudder shook his body--and his thin features grew suddenly pinched and wan.

"It is almost morning!" he said, and his voice was like an echo of itself from very far away. "The sun will rise--but I shall not be here to see the sun or you, Mary!" and rallying his fast ebbing strength he turned towards her. "Keep your arms about me!--pray for me!--G.o.d will hear you--G.o.d must hear His own! Don't cry, dear! Kiss me!"

She kissed him, clasping his poor frail form to her heart as though he were a child, and tenderly smoothing back his venerable snow-white hair. A slumbrous look of perfect peace softened the piteousness of his dying eyes.

"The only treasure!" he murmured, faintly. "The treasure of Heaven--Love! G.o.d bless you for giving it to me, Mary!--good-bye, my dear!"