The Treasure of Heaven Part 72

MORE PRECIOUS THAN MANY MILLIONS.

And I request that the said casket containing these coins may be retained by Mary Deane as a valued possession in her family, to be handed down as a talisman and cornerstone of fortune for herself and her heirs in perpetuity."

Finally the list of bequests ended with one sufficiently unusual to be called eccentric. It ran thus:--"To Angus Reay I leave Mary Deane--and with Her, all that I value, and more than I have ever possessed!"

Gradually, very gradually, Mary, sitting alone in Sir Francis Vesey's office, realised the whole position,--gradually the trouble and excitation of her mind calmed down, and her naturally even temperament rea.s.serted itself. She was rich,--but though she tried to realise the fact, she could not do so, till at last the thought of Angus and how she might be able now to help him on with his career, roused a sudden rush of energy within her--which, however, was not by any means actual happiness. A great weight seemed to have fallen on her life--and she was bowed down by its heaviness. Kissing David Helmsley's letter, she put it in her bosom,--he had asked that its contents might be held sacred, and that no eyes but her own should scan his last words, and to her that request of a dead man was more than the command of a living King. The list of bequests she held in her hand ready to show Sir Francis Vesey when he entered, which he did as soon as she touched the bell. He saw that, though very pale, she was now comparatively calm and collected, and as she raised her eyes and tried to smile at him, he realised what a beautiful woman she was.

"Please forgive me for troubling you so much,"--she said, gently--"I am very sorry! I understand it all now,--I have read David's letter,--I shall always call him David, I think!--and I quite see how it all happened. I can't help being sorry--very sorry, that he has left his money to me--because it will be so difficult to know how to dispose of it for the best. But surely a great deal of it will go in these legacies,"--and she handed him the paper she held--"You see he names you first."

Sir Francis stared at the doc.u.ment, fairly startled and overcome by his late friend's generosity, as well as by Mary's nave candour.

"My dear Miss Deane,"--he began, with deep embarra.s.sment.

"You will tell me how to do everything, will you not?" she interrupted him, with an air of pathetic entreaty--"I want to carry out all his wishes exactly as if he were beside me, watching me--I think--" and her voice sank a little--"he may be here--with us--even now!" She paused a moment. "And if he is, he knows that I do not want money for myself at all--but that if I can do good with it, for his sake and memory, I will.

Is it a very great deal?"

"Is it a great deal of money, you mean?" he queried.

She nodded.

"I should say that at the very least my late friend's personal estate must be between six and seven millions of pounds sterling."

She clasped her hands in dismay.

"Oh! It is terrible!" she said, in a low strained voice--"Surely G.o.d never meant one man to have so much money!"

"It was fairly earned,"--said Sir Francis, quietly--"David Helmsley, to my own knowledge, never wronged or oppressed a single human being on his way to his own success. His money is clean! There's no brother's blood on the gold--and no 'sweated' labour at the back of it. That I can vouch for--that I can swear! No curse will rest on the fortune you inherit, Miss Deane--for it was made honestly!"

Tears stood in her eyes, and she wiped them away furtively.

"Poor David!" she murmured--"Poor lonely old man! With all that wealth and no one to care for him! Oh yes, the more I think of it the more I understand it! But now there is only one thing for me to do--I must get home as quickly as possible and tell Angus"--here she pointed to the last paragraph in Helmsley's list of bequests--"You see,"--she went on--"he leaves Mary Deane--that's me--to Angus Reay, 'and with Her all that I value.' I am engaged to be married to Mr. Reay--David wished very much to live till our wedding-day--"

She broke off, pa.s.sing her hand across her brow and looking puzzled.

"Mr. Reay is very much to be congratulated!"--said Sir Francis, gently.

She smiled rather sadly.

"Oh, I'm not sure of that," she said--"He is a very clever man--he writes books, and he will be famous very soon--while I--" She paused again, then went on, looking very earnestly at Sir Francis--"May I--would you--write out something for me that I might sign before I go away to-day, to make it sure that if I die, all that I have--including this terrible, terrible fortune--shall come to Angus Reay? You see anything might happen to me--quite suddenly,--the very train I am going back in to-night might meet with some accident, and I might be killed--and then poor David's money would be lost, and his legacies never paid. Don't you see that?"

Sir Francis certainly saw it, but was not disposed to admit its possibility.

"There is really no necessity to antic.i.p.ate evil," he began.

"There is perhaps no necessity--but I should like to be sure, quite sure, that in case of such evil all was right,"--she said, with great feeling--"And I know you could do it for me----"

"Why, of course, if you insist upon it, I can draw you up a form of Will in ten minutes,"--he said, smiling benevolently--"Would that satisfy you? You have only to sign it, and the thing is done."

It was wonderful to see how she rejoiced at this proposition,--the eager delight with which she contemplated the immediate disposal of the wealth she had not as yet touched, to the man she loved best in the world--and the swift change in her manner from depression to joy, when Sir Francis, just to put her mind at ease, drafted a concise form of Will for her in his own handwriting, in which form she, with the same precision as that of David Helmsley, left "everything of which she died possessed, absolutely and unconditionally," to her promised husband. With a smile on her face and sparkling eyes, she signed this doc.u.ment in the presence of two witnesses, clerks of the office called up for the purpose, who, if it had been their business to express astonishment, would undoubtedly have expressed it then.

"You will keep it here for me, won't you?" she said, when the clerks had retired and the business was concluded--"And I shall feel so much more at rest now! For when I have talked it over with Angus I shall realise everything more clearly--he will advise me what to do--he is so much wiser than I am! And you will write to me and tell me all that is needful for me to know--shall I leave this paper?"--and she held up the doc.u.ment in which the list of Helmsley's various legacies was written--"Surely you ought to keep it?"

Sir Francis smiled gravely.

"I think not!" he said--"I think I must urge you to retain that paper on which my name is so generously remembered, in your own possession, Miss Deane. You understand, I suppose, that you are not _by the law_ compelled to pay any of these legacies. They are left entirely to your own discretion. They merely represent the last purely personal wishes of my late friend, David Helmsley, and you must yourself decide whether you consider it practical to carry them out."

She looked surprised.

"But the personal wishes of the dead are more than any law" she exclaimed--"They are sacred. How could I"--and moved by a sudden impulse she laid her hand appealingly on his arm--"How could I neglect or fail to fulfil any one of them? It would be impossible!

Responding to her earnest look and womanly gentleness, Sir Francis who had not forgotten the old courtesies once practised by gentlemen to women whom they honoured, raised the hand that rested so lightly on his arm, and kissed it.

"I know" he said--"that it would be impossible for you to do what is not right and true and just! And you will need no advice from me save such as is purely legal and technical. Let me be your friend in these matters----"

"And in others too,"--said Mary, sweetly--"I do hope you will not dislike me!"

Dislike her? Well, well! If any mortal man, old or young, could "dislike" a woman with a face like hers and eyes so tender, such an one would have to be a criminal or a madman! In a little while they fell into conversation as naturally as if they had known each other for years: Sir Francis listening with profound interest to the story of his old friend's last days. And presently, despatching a telegram to his wife to say that he was detained in the city by pressing business, he took Mary out with him to a quiet little restaurant where he dined with her, and finally saw her off from Paddington station by the midnight train for Minehead. Nothing would induce her to stay in London,--her one aim and object in life now was to return to Weircombe and explain everything to Angus as quickly as possible. And when the train had gone, Sir Francis left the platform in a state of profound abstraction, and was driven home in his brougham feeling more like a sentimentalist than a lawyer.

"Extraordinary!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed--"The most extraordinary thing I ever heard of in my life? But I knew--I felt that Helmsley would dispose of his wealth in quite an unexpected way! Now I wonder how the man--Mary Deane's lover--will take it? I wonder! But what a woman she is!--how beautiful!--how simple and honest--above all how purely womanly!--with all the sweet grace and gentleness which alone commands, and ever will command man's adoration! Helmsley must have been very much at peace and happy in his last days! Yes!--the sorrowful 'king' of many millions must have at last found the treasure he sought and which he considered more precious than all his money! For Solomon was right: 'If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contemned!'"

At Weircombe next day there was a stiff gale of wind blowing inland, and the village, with its garlands and pyramids of summer blossom, was swept from end to end by warm, swift, salty gusts, that bent the trees and shook the flowers in half savage, half tender sportiveness, while the sea, shaping itself by degrees into "wild horses" of blue water bridled with foam, raced into the sh.o.r.e with ever-increasing hurry and fury. But notwithstanding the strong wind, there was a bright sun, and a dazzling blue sky, scattered over with flying ma.s.ses of cloud, like flocks of white birds soaring swiftly to some far-off region of rest. Everything in nature looked radiant and beautiful,--health and joy were exhaled from every breath of air--and yet in one place--one pretty rose-embowered cottage, where, until now, the spirit of content had held its happy habitation, a sudden gloom had fallen, and a dark cloud had blotted out all the sunshine. Mary's little "home sweet home" had been all at once deprived of sweetness,--and she sat within it like a mournful castaway, clinging to the wreck of that which had so long been her peace and safety. Tired out by her long night journey and lack of sleep, she looked very white and weary and ill--and Angus Reay, sitting opposite to her, looked scarcely less worn and weary than herself. He had met her on her return from London at the Minehead station, with all the ardour and eagerness of a lover and a boy,--and he had at once seen in her face that something unexpected had happened,--something that had deeply affected her--though she had told him nothing, till on their arrival home at the cottage, she was able to be quite alone with him.

Then he learned all. Then he knew that "old David" had been no other than David Helmsley the millionaire,--the very man whom his first love, Lucy Sorrel, had schemed and hoped to marry. And he realised--and G.o.d alone knew with what a pa.s.sion of despair he realised it!--that Mary--his bonnie Mary--his betrothed wife--had been chosen to inherit those very millions which had formerly stood between him and what he had then imagined to be his happiness. And listening to the strange story, he had sunk deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond, and now sat rigidly silent, with all the light gone out of his features, and all the ardour quenched in his eyes. Mary looking at him, and reading every expression in that dark beloved face, felt the tears rising thickly in her throat, but bravely suppressed them, and tried to smile.

"I knew you would be sorry when you heard all about it, Angus,"--she said--"I felt sure you would! I wish it had happened differently--" Here she stopped, and taking up the little dog Charlie, settled him on her knee. He was whimpering to be caressed, and she bent over his small silky head to hide the burning drops that fell from her eyes despite herself. "If it could only be altered!--but it can't--and the only thing to do is to give the money away to those who need it as quickly as possible----"

"Give it away!" answered Angus, bitterly--"Good G.o.d! Why, to give away seven or eight millions of money in the right quarters would occupy one man's lifetime!"

His voice was harsh, and his hand clenched itself involuntarily as he spoke. She looked at him in a vague fear.

"No, Mary,"--he said--"You can't give it away--not as you imagine.

Besides,--there is more than money--there is the millionaire's house--his priceless pictures, his books--his yacht--a thousand and one other things that he possessed, and which now belong to you. Oh Mary! I wish to G.o.d I had never seen him!"

She trembled.

"Then perhaps--you and I would never have met," she murmured.

"Better so!" and rising, he paced restlessly up and down the little kitchen--"Better that I should never have loved you, Mary, than be so parted from you! By money, too! The last thing that should ever have come between us! Money! Curse it! It has ruined my life!"

She lifted her tear-wet eyes to his.

"What do you mean, Angus?" she asked, gently--"Why do you talk of parting? The money makes no difference to our love!"

"No difference? No difference? Oh Mary, don't you see!" and he turned upon her a face white and drawn with his inward anguish--"Do you think--can you imagine that I would marry a woman with millions of money--I--a poor devil, with nothing in the world to call my own, and no means of livelihood save in my brain, which, after all, may turn out to be quite of a worthless quality! Do you think I would live on your bounty? Do you think I would accept money from you? Surely you know me better! Mary, I love you! I love you with my whole heart and soul!--but I love you as the poor working woman whose work I hoped to make easier, whose life it was my soul's purpose to make happy--but,--you have everything you want in the world now!--and I--I am no use to you! I can do nothing for you--nothing!--you are David Helmsley's heiress, and with such wealth as he has left you, you might marry a prince of the royal blood if you cared--for princes are to be bought,--like anything else in the world's market! But you are not of the world--you never were--and now--now--the world will take you! The world leaves nothing alone that has any gold upon it!"

She listened quietly to his pa.s.sionate outburst. She was deadly pale, and she pressed Charlie close against her bosom,--the little dog, she thought half vaguely, would love her just as well whether she was rich or poor.

"How can the world take me, Angus?" she said--"Am I not yours?--all yours!--and what has the world to do with me? Do not speak in such a strange way--you hurt me----"