The Treasure of Heaven Part 69

"Go away!" he echoed. "What for? Where to?"

She told him then of "old David's" last request to her, and of the duty she had undertaken to perform.

He listened gravely.

"You must do it, of course," he said. "But will you have to travel far?"

"Some distance from Weircombe," she answered, evasively.

"May I not go with you?" he asked.

She hesitated.

"I promised----" she began.

"And you shall not break your word," he said, kissing her. "You are so true, my Mary, that I wouldn't tempt you to change one word or even half a word of what you have said to any one, living or dead. When do you want to take this journey?"

"To-morrow, or the next day," she said. "I'll ask Mrs. Twitt to see to the house and look after Charlie, and I'll be back again as quickly as I can. Because, when I've given the papers over to David's friend, whoever he is, I shall have nothing more to do but just come home."

This being settled, it was afterwards determined that the next day but one would be the most convenient for her to go, as she could then avail herself of the carrier's cart to take her as far as Minehead. But she was not allowed to start on her unexpected travels without a burst of prophecy from Mrs. Twitt.

"As I've said an' allus thought," said that estimable lady--"Old David 'ad suthin' 'idden in 'is 'art wot 'e never giv' away to n.o.body. Mark my words, Mis' Deane!--'e 'ad a sin or a sorrer at the back of 'im, an'

whichever it do turn out to be I'm not a-goin' to blame 'im either way, for bein' dead 'e's dead, an' them as sez unkind o' the dead is apt to be picked morsels for the devil's gridiron. But now that you've got a packet to take to old David's friends somewheres, you may take my word for 't, Mis' Deane, you'll find out as 'e was wot ye didn't expect. Onny last night, as I was a-sittin' afore the kitchen fire, for though bein'

summer I'm that chilly that I feels the least change in the temper o'

the sea,--as I was a-sittin', I say, out jumps a cinder as long as a pine cone, red an' glowin' like a candle at the end. An' I stares at the thing, an' I sez: 'That's either a purse o' money, or a journey with a coffin at the end'--an' the thing burns an' s.h.i.+nes like a reg'lar spark of old Nick's cookin' stove, an' though I pokes an' pokes it, it won't go out, but lies on the 'erth, frizzlin' all the time. An' I do 'ope, Mis' Deane, as now yer goin' off to 'and over old David's eff.e.c.ks to the party interested, ye'll come back safe, for the poor old dear 'adn't a penny to bless 'isself with, so the cinder must mean the journey, an'

bein' warned, ye'll guard agin the coffin at the end."

Mary smiled rather sadly.

"I'll take care!" she said. "But I don't think anything very serious is likely to happen. Poor old David had no friends,--and probably the few papers he has left are only for some relative who would not do anything for him while he was alive, but who, all the same, has to be told that he is dead."

"Maybe so!" and Mrs. Twitt nodded her head profoundly--"But that cinder worn't made in the fire for nowt! Such a shape as 'twas don't grow out of the flames twice in twenty year!"

And, with the conviction of the village prophetess she a.s.sumed to be, she was not to be shaken from the idea that strange discoveries were pending respecting "old David." Mary herself could not quite get rid of a vague misgiving and anxiety, which culminated at last in her determination to show Angus Reay the packet left in her charge, in order that he might see to whom it was addressed.

"For that can do no harm," she thought--"I feel that he really ought to know that I have to go all the way to London."

Angus, however, on reading the superscription, was fully as perplexed as she was. He was familiar with the street near Chancery Lane where the mysterious "Mr. Bulteel" lived, but the name of Bulteel as a resident in that street was altogether unknown to him. Presently a bright idea struck him.

"I have it!" he said. "Look here, Mary, didn't David say he used to be employed in office-work?"

"Yes," she answered,--"He had to give up his situation, so I understand, on account of old age."

"Then that makes it clear," Angus declared. "This Mr. Bulteel is probably a man who worked with him in the same office--perhaps the only link he had with his past life. I think you'll find that's the way it will turn out. But I hate to think of your travelling to London all alone!--for the first time in your life, too!"

"Oh well, that doesn't matter much!" she said, cheerfully,--"Now that you know where I am going, it's all right. You forget, Angus!--I'm quite old enough to take care of myself. How many times must I remind you that you are engaged to be married to an old maid of thirty-five? You treat me as if I were quite a young girl!"

"So I do--and so I will!" and his eyes rested upon her with a proud look of admiration. "For you _are_ young, Mary--young in your heart and soul and nature--younger than any so-called young girl I ever met, and twenty times more beautiful. So there!"

She smiled gravely.

"You are easily satisfied, Angus," she said--"But the world will not agree with you in your ideas of me. And when you become a famous man----"

"If I become a famous man----" he interrupted.

"No--not 'if'--I say 'when,'" she repeated. "When you become a famous man, people will say, 'what a pity he did not marry some one younger and more suited to his position----"

She could speak no more, for Angus silenced her with a kiss.

"Yes, what a pity it will be!" he echoed. "What a pity! When other men, less fortunate, see that I have won a beautiful and loving wife, whose heart is all my own,--who is pure and true as the sun in heaven,--'what a pity,' they will say, 'that we are not so lucky!' That's what the talk will be, Mary! For there's no man on earth who does not crave to be loved for himself alone--a selfish wish, perhaps--but it's implanted in every son of Adam. And a man's life is always more or less spoilt by lack of the love he needs."

She put her arms round his neck, and her true eyes looked straightly into his own.

"Your life will not be spoilt that way, dear!" she said. "Trust me for that!"

"Do I not know it!" he answered, pa.s.sionately. "And would I not lose the whole world, with all its chances of fame and fortune, rather than lose _you_!"

And in their mutual exchange of tenderness and confidence they forgot all save

"The time and place And the loved one all together!"

It was a perfect summer's morning when Mary, for the first time in many years, left her little home in Weircombe and started upon a journey she had never taken and never had thought of taking--a journey which, to her unsophisticated mind, seemed fraught with strange possibilities of difficulty, even of peril. London had loomed upon her horizon through the medium of the daily newspaper, as a vast over-populated city where (if she might believe the press) humanity is more selfish than generous, more cruel than kind,--where bitter poverty and starvation are seen side by side with criminal extravagance and luxury,--and where, according to her simple notions, the people were forgetting or had forgotten G.o.d. It was with a certain lingering and wistful backward look that she left her little cottage embowered among roses, and waved farewell to Mrs. Twitt, who, standing at the garden gate with Charlie in her arms, waved hearty response, cheerfully calling out "Good Luck!"

after her, and adding the further a.s.surance--"Ye'll find everything as well an' straight as ye left it when ye comes 'ome, please G.o.d!"

Angus Reay accompanied her in the carrier's cart to Minehead, and there she caught the express to London. On enquiry, she found there was a midnight train which would bring her back from the metropolis at about nine o'clock the next morning, and she resolved to travel home by it.

"You will be so tired!" said Angus, regretfully. "And yet I would rather you did not stay away a moment longer than you can help!"

"Don't fear!" and she smiled. "You cannot be a bit more anxious for me to come back than I am to come back myself! Good-bye! It's only for a day!"

She waved her hand as the train steamed out of the station, and he watched her sweet face smiling at him to the very last, when the express, gathering speed, rushed away with her and whirled her into the far distance. A great depression fell upon his soul,--all the light seemed gone out of the landscape--all the joy out of his life--and he realised, as it were suddenly, what her love meant to him.

"It is everything!" he said. "I don't believe I could write a line without her!--in fact I know I wouldn't have the heart for it! She is so different to every woman I have ever known,--she seems to make the world all warm and kind by just smiling her own bonnie smile!"

And starting off to walk part of the way back to Weircombe, he sang softly under his breath as he went a verse of "Annie Laurie"--

"Like dew on the gowan lyin'

Is the fa' o' her fairy feet; And like winds in simmer sighin'

Her voice is low an' sweet Her voice is low an' sweet; An' she's a' the world to me; An' for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me doun and dee!"

And all the beautiful influences of nature,--the bright suns.h.i.+ne, the wealth of June blossom, the clear skies and the singing of birds, seemed part of that enchanting old song, expressing the happiness which alone is made perfect by love.

Meanwhile, no adventures of a startling or remarkable kind occurred to Mary during her rather long and tedious journey. Various pa.s.sengers got into her third-cla.s.s compartment and got out again, but they were somewhat dull and commonplace folk, many of them being of that curiously unsociable type of human creature which apparently mistrusts its fellows. Contrary to her ingenuous expectation, no one seemed to think a journey to London was anything of a unique or thrilling experience. Once only, when she was nearing her destination, did she venture to ask a fellow-pa.s.senger, an elderly man with a kindly face, how she ought to go to Chancery Lane. He looked at her with a touch of curiosity.

"That's among the hornets' nests," he said.

She raised her pretty eyebrows with a little air of perplexity.