“May I know how you are?”Wholly yours,“Jim Airth.”
“May I know how you are?
”Wholly yours,
“Jim Airth.”
To this Lady Ingleby replied on the following day.
“Dear Jim,
“I shall always want you; but I could never send unless the coming would mean happiness for you.
“I know you decided as you felt right,
“I am quite well.
“God bless you always.“Myra.”
“God bless you always.
“Myra.”
CHAPTER XXA BETTER POINT OF VIEW
In the days which followed, Jim Airth suffered all the pangs which come to a man who has made a decision prompted by pride rather than by conviction.
It had always seemed to him essential that a man should appear in all things without shame or blame in the eyes of the woman he loved. Therefore, to be obliged suddenly to admit that a fatal blunder of his own had been the cause, even in the past, of irreparable loss and sorrow to her, had been an unacknowledged but intolerable humiliation. That she should have anything to overlook or to forgive in accepting himself and his love, was a condition of things to which he could not bring himself to submit; and her sweet generosityand devotion, rather increased than soothed his sense of wounded pride.
He had been superficially honest in the reasons he had given to Myra regarding the impossibility of marriage between them. He had said all the things which he knew others might be expected to say; he had mercilessly expressed what would have been his own judgment had he been asked to pronounce an opinion concerning any other man and woman in like circumstances. As he voiced them they had sounded tragically plausible and stoically just. He knew he was inflicting almost unbearable pain upon himself and upon the woman whose whole love was his; but that pain seemed necessary to the tragic demands of the entire ghastly situation.
Only after he had finally left her and was on his way back to town, did Jim Airth realise that the pain he had thus inflicted upon her and upon himself, had been a solace to his own wounded pride. His had been the mistake, and it re-established him in his own self-respect and sense of superiority, that hisshould be the decision, so hard to make—so unfalteringly made—bringing down upon his own head a punishment out of all proportion to the fault committed.
But, now that the strain and tension were over, his natural honesty of mind reasserted itself, forcing him to admit that his own selfish pride had been at the bottom of his high-flown tragedy.
Myra’s simple loving view of the case had been the right one; yet, thrusting it from him, he had ruthlessly plunged himself and her into a hopeless abyss of needless suffering.
By degrees he slowly realised that in so doing he had deliberately inflicted a more cruel wrong upon the woman he loved, than that which he had unwittingly done her in the past.
Remorse and regret gnawed at his heart, added to an almost unbearable hunger for Myra. Yet he could not bring himself to return to her with this second and still more humiliating confession of failure.
His one hope was that Myra would find their separation impossible to endure, andwould send for him. But the days went by, and Myra made no sign. She had said she would never send for him unless assured that coming to her would mean happiness to him. To this decision she quietly adhered.
In a strongly virile man, love towards a woman is, in its essential qualities, naturally selfish. Its keynote is, “I need”; its dominant, “I want”; its full major chord, “I must possess.”
On the other hand, the woman’s love for the man is essentially unselfish. Its keynote is, “He needs”; its dominant, “I am his, to do with as he pleases”; its full major chord, “Let me give all.” In the Book of Canticles, one of the greatest love-poems ever written, we find this truth exemplified; we see the woman’s heart learning its lesson, in a fine crescendo of self-surrender. In the first stanza she says: “My Belovèd is mine, and I am his”; in the second, “I am my Belovèd’s and he is mine.” But in the third, all else is merged in the instinctive joy of giving: “Iam my Belovèd’s, and his desire is towards me.”
This is the natural attitude of the sexes, designed by an all-wise Creator; but designed for a condition of ideal perfection. No perfect law could be framed for imperfection. Therefore, if the working out prove often a failure, the fault lies in the imperfection of the workers, not in the perfection of the law. In those rare cases where the love is ideal, the man’s “I take” and the woman’s “I give” blend into an ideal union, each completing and modifying the other. But where sin of any kind comes in, a false note has been struck in the divine harmony, and the grand chord of mutual love fails to ring true.
Into their perfect love, Jim Airth had introduced the discord of false pride. It had become the basis of his line of action, and their symphony of life, so beautiful at first in its sweet theme of mutual love and trust, now lost its harmony, and jarred into a hopeless jangle. The very fact that she faithfully adhered to her trustful unselfishness, acquiescing withouta murmur in his decision, made readjustment the more impossible. Thus the weeks went by.
Jim Airth worked feverishly at his proofs; drinking and smoking, when he should have been eating and sleeping; going off suddenly, after two or three days of continuous sitting at his desk, on desperate bouts of violent exercise.
He walked down to Shenstone by night; sat, in bitterness of spirit under the beeches, surrounded by empty wicker chairs;—a silent ghostly garden-party!—watched the dawn break over the lake; prowled around the house where Lady Ingleby lay sleeping, and narrowly escaped arrest at the hands of Lady Ingleby’s night-watchman; leaving for London by the first train in the morning, more sick at heart than when he started.
Another time he suddenly turned in at Paddington, took the train down to Cornwall, and astonished the Miss Murgatroyds by stalking into the coffee-room, the gaunt ghost of his old gay self. Afterwards hewent off to Horseshoe Cove, climbed the cliff and spent the night on the ledge, dwelling in morbid misery on the wonderful memories with which that place was surrounded.
It was then that fresh hope, and the complete acceptance of a better point of view, came to Jim Airth.
As he sat on the ledge, hugging his lonely misery, he suddenly became strangely conscious of Myra’s presence. It was as if the sweet wistful grey eyes, were turned upon him in the darkness; the tender mouth smiled lovingly, while the voice he knew so well asked in soft merriment, as under the beeches at Shenstone: “What has come to you, you dearest old boy?”
He had just put his hand into his pocket and drawn out his spirit-flask. He held it for a moment, while he listened, spellbound, to that whisper; then flung it away into the darkness, far down to the sea below. “Davy Jones may have it,” he said, and laughed aloud; “who e’er he be!” It was the first time JimAirth had laughed since that afternoon beneath the Shenstone beeches.
Then, with the sense of Myra’s presence still so near him, he lay with his back to the cliff, his face to the moonlit sea. It seemed to him as if again he drew her, shaking and trembling but unresisting, into his arms, holding her there in safety until her trembling ceased, and she slept the untroubled sleep of a happy child.
All the best and noblest in Jim Airth awoke at that hallowed memory of faithful strength on his part, and trustful peace on hers.
“My God,” he said, “what a nightmare it has been! And what a fool, I, to think anything could come between us. Has she not been utterly mine since that sacred night spent here? And I have left her to loneliness and grief?.... I will arise and go to my belovèd. No past, no shame, no pride of mine, shall come between us any more.”
He raised himself on his elbow and looked over the edge. The moonlight shone on rippling water lapping the foot of the cliff.He could see his watch by its bright light. Midnight! He must wait until three, for the tide to go down. He leaned back again, his arms folded across his chest; but Myra was still safely within them.
Two minutes later, Jim Airth slept soundly.
The dawn awoke him. He scrambled down to the shore, and once again swam up the golden path toward the rising sun.
As he got back into his clothes, it seemed to him that every vestige of that black nightmare had been left behind in the gay tossing waters.
On his way to the railway station, he passed a farm. The farmer’s wife had been up since sunrise, churning. She gladly gave him a simple breakfast of home-made bread, with butter fresh from the churn.
He caught the six o’clock express for town; tubbed, shaved, and lunched, at his Club.
At a quarter to three he was just coming down the steps into Piccadilly, very consciously “clothed and in his right mind,” debating which train he could take for Shenstone if—asin duty bound—he looked in at his publishers’ first; when a telegraph boy dashed up the steps into the Club, and the next moment the hall-porter hastened after him with a telegram.
Jim Airth read it; took one look at his watch; then jumped headlong into a passing taxicab.
“Charing Cross!” he shouted to the chauffeur. “And a sovereign if you do it in five minutes.”
As the flag tinged down, and the taxi glided swiftly forward into the whirl of traffic, Jim Airth unfolded the telegram and read it again.
It had been handed in at Shenstone at 2.15.
Come to me at once.
Myra.
A shout of exultation arose within him.
CHAPTER XXIMICHAEL VERITAS
On the morning of that day, while Jim Airth, braced with a new resolve and a fresh outlook on life, was speeding up from Cornwall, Lady Ingleby sat beneath the scarlet chestnuts, watching Ronald and Billy play tennis.
They had entered for a tournament, and discovered that they required constant practice such as, apparently, could only be obtained at Shenstone. In reality they came over so frequently in honest-hearted trouble and anxiety over their friend, of whose unexpected sorrow they chanced to be the sole confidants. Lady Ingleby refused herself to all other visitors. In the trying uncertainty of these few weeks while Jim Airth was still in England, she dreaded questions or comments. ToJane Dalmain she had written the whole truth. The Dalmains were at Worcester, attending a musical festival in that noblest of English cathedrals; but they expected soon to return to Overdene, when Jane had promised to come to her.
Meanwhile Ronald and Billy turned up often, doing their valiant best to be cheerful; but Myra’s fragile look, and large pathetic eyes, alarmed and horrified them. Obviously things had gone more hopelessly wrong than they had anticipated. They had known at once that Airth would not marry Lady Ingleby; but it had never occurred to them that Lady Ingleby would still wish to marry Airth. Ronald stoutly denied that this was the case; but Billy affirmed it, though refusing to give reasons.
Ronald had never succeeded in extorting from Billy one word of what had taken place when he had told Lady Ingleby that Jim Airth was the man.
“If you wanted to know how she took it, you should have told her yourself,” saidBilly. “And it will be a saving of useless trouble, Ron, if you never ask me again.”
Thus the days went by; and, though she always seemed gently pleased to see them both, no possible opening had been given to Ronald for assuming the rôle of manly comforter.
“I shall give it up,” said Ronnie at last, in bitterness of spirit; “I tell you, I shall give it up; and marry the duchess!”
“Don’t be profane,” counselled Billy. “It would be more to the point to find Airth, and explain to him, in carefully chosen language, that letting Lady Ingleby die of a broken heart will not atone for blowing up her husband. I always knew our news would make no difference, from the moment I saw her go quite pink when she told us his name. She never went pink over Ingleby, you bet! I didn’t know they could do it, after twenty.”
“Much you know, then!” ejaculated Ronnie, scornfully. “I’ve seen the duchess go pink.”
“Scarlet, you mean,” amended Billy. “Sohave I, old chap; but that’s another pair o’ boots, as you very well know.”
“Oh, don’t be vulgar,” sighed Ronnie, wearily. “Let’s cut the whole thing and go to town. Henley begins to-morrow.”
But next day they turned up at Shenstone, earlier than usual.
And that morning, Lady Ingleby was feeling strangely restful and at peace; not with any expectations of future happiness; but resigned to the inevitable; and less apart from Jim Airth. She had fallen asleep the night before beset by haunting memories of Cornwall and of their climb up the cliff. At midnight she had awakened with a start, fancying herself on the ledge, and feeling that she was falling. But instantly Jim Airth’s arms seemed to enfold her; she felt herself drawn into safety; then that exquisite sense of strength and rest was hers once more.
So vivid had been the dream, that its effect remained with her when she rose. Thus she sat watching the tennis with a little smile of content on her sweet face.
“She is beginning to forget,” thought Ronnie, exultant. “My’vantage!” he shouted significantly to Billy, over the net.
“Deuce!” responded Billy, smashing down the ball with unnecessary violence.
“No!” cried Ronnie. “Outside, my boy! Game and a ‘love’ set to me!”
“Stay to lunch, boys,” said Lady Ingleby, as the gong sounded; and they all three went gaily into the house.
As they passed through the hall afterwards, their motor stood at the door; so they bade her good-bye, and turned to find their rackets.
At that moment they heard the sharp ting of a bicycle bell. A boy had ridden up with a telegram. Groatley, waiting to see them off, took it; picked up a silver salver from the hall table, and followed Lady Ingleby to her sitting-room.
There seemed so sudden a silence in the house, that Ronald and Billy with one accord stood listening.
“Twenty minutes to two,” said Billy, glancing at the clock. “Spirits are walking.”
The next moment a cry rang out from Lady Ingleby’s sitting-room—a cry of such mingled bewilderment, wonder, and relief, that they looked at one another in amazement. Then without waiting to question or consider, they hastened to her.
Lady Ingleby was standing in the middle of the room, an open telegram in her hand.
“Jim,” she was saying; “Oh, Jim!”
Her face was so transfigured by thankfulness and joy, that neither Ronald nor Billy could frame a question. They merely gazed at her.
“Oh, Billy! Oh, Ronald!” she said, “He didn’t do it!Oh think what this will mean to Jim Airth. Stop the boy! Quick! Bring me a telegram form. I must send for him at once.... Oh, Jim, Jim!.... He said he would give his life for the relief of the moment when some one should step into the tent and tell him he had not done it; and now I shall be that ‘some one’!.... Oh,howdo you spell ‘Piccadilly’.... Please call Groatley. If we lose no time, he may catch the threeo’clock express.... Groatley, tell the boy to take this telegram and have it sent off immediately. Give him half-a-crown, and say he may keep the change.... Now boys.... Shut the door!”
The whirlwind of excitement was succeeded by sudden stillness. Lady Ingleby sank upon the sofa, burying her face for a moment in the cushions.
In the silence they heard the telegraph boy disappearing rapidly into the distance, ringing his bell a very unnecessary number of times. When it could be heard no longer, Lady Ingleby lifted her head.
“Michael is alive,” she said.
“Great Scot!” exclaimed Ronnie, and took a step forward.
Billy made no sound, but he turned very white; backed to the door, and leaned against it for support.
“Think what it means to Jim Airth!” said Lady Ingleby. “Think of the despair and misery through which he passed; and, after all, he had not done it.”
“May we see?” asked Ronald eagerly, holding out his hand for the telegram.
Billy licked his dry lips, but no sound would come.
“Read it,” said Myra.
Ronald took the telegram and read it aloud.
“To Lady Ingleby, Shenstone Park, Shenstone, England.“Reported death a mistake. Taken prisoner Targai. Escaped. Arrived Cairo. Large bribes and rewards to pay. Cable five hundred pounds to Cook’s immediately.“Michael Veritas.”
“To Lady Ingleby, Shenstone Park, Shenstone, England.
“Reported death a mistake. Taken prisoner Targai. Escaped. Arrived Cairo. Large bribes and rewards to pay. Cable five hundred pounds to Cook’s immediately.
“Michael Veritas.”
“Great Scot!” said Ronnie again.
Billy said nothing; but his eyes never left Lady Ingleby’s radiant face.
“Think what it will mean to Jim Airth,” she repeated.
“Er—yes,” said Ronnie. “It considerably changes the situation—for him. What does ‘Veritas’ mean?”
“That,” replied Lady Ingleby “is our private code, Michael’s and mine. My mother once wired to me in Michael’s name, and toMichael in mine—dear mamma occasionally does eccentric things—and it made complications. Michael was very much annoyed; and after that we took to signing our telegrams ‘Veritas,’ which means: ‘This is really from me.’”
“Just think!” said Ronnie. “He, a prisoner; and we, all marching away! But I remember now, we always suspected prisoners had been taken at Targai. And positive proofs of Lord Ingleby’s death were difficult to—well, don’t you know—to find. I mean—there couldn’t be a funeral. We had to conclude it, because we believed him to have been right inside the tunnel. He must have got clear after all, before Airth sent the flash, and getting in with the first rush, been unable to return. Of course he has reached Cairo with no money and no means of getting home. And the chaps who helped him, will stick to him like leeches till they get their pay. What shall you do about cabling?”
Lady Ingleby seemed to collect her thoughts with difficulty.
“Of course the money must be sent—and sent at once,” she said. “Oh, Ronnie,couldyou go up to town about it, for me? I would give you a cheque, and a note to my bankers; they will know how to cable it through. Could you, Ronnie? Michael must not be kept waiting; yet I must stay here to tell Jim. It never struck me that I might have gone up to town myself; and now I have wired to Jim to come down here. Oh, my dear Ronnie, could you?”
“Of course I could,” said Ronald, cheerfully. “The motor is at the door. I can catch the two-thirty, if you write the note at once. No need for a cheque. Just write a few lines authorising your bankers to send out the money; I will see them personally; explain the whole thing, and hurry them up. The money shall be in Cairo to-night, if possible.”
Lady Ingleby went to her davenport.
No sound broke the stillness save the rapid scratching of her pen.
Then Billy spoke. “I will come with you,” he said, hoarsely.
“Why do that?” objected Ronald. “You may as well go on in the motor to Overdene, and tell them there.”
“I am going to town,” said Billy, decidedly. Then he walked over to where the telegram still lay on the table. “May I copy this?” he asked of Lady Ingleby.
“Do,” she said, without looking round.
“And Ronnie—you take the original to show them at the bank. Ah, no! I must keep that for Jim. Here is paper. Make two copies, Billy.”
Billy had already copied the message into his pocket-book. With shaking fingers he copied it again, handing the sheet to Ronald, without looking at him.
The note written, Lady Ingleby rose.
“Thank you, Ronald,” she said. “Thank you, more than I can say. I think you will catch the train. And good-bye, Billy.”
But Billy was already in the motor.
CHAPTER XXIILORD INGLEBY’S WIFE
The journey down from town had been as satisfactorily rapid as even Jim Airth could desire. He had caught the train at Charing Cross by five seconds.
The hour’s run passed quickly in glowing anticipation of that which was being brought nearer by every turn of the wheels.
Myra’s telegram was drawn from his pocket-book many times. Each word seemed fraught with tender meaning, “Come to me at once.” It was so exactly Myra’s simple direct method of expression. Most people would have said, “Come here,” or “Come to Shenstone,” or merely “Come.” “Cometo me” seemed a tender, though unconscious, response to his resolution of the night before: “I will arise and go to my belovèd.”
Now that the parting was nearly over, he realised how terrible had been the blank of three weeks spent apart from Myra. Her sweet personality was so knit into his life, that he needed her—not at any particular time, or in any particular way—but always; as the air he breathed; or as the light, which made the day.
And she? He drew a well-worn letter from his pocket-book—the only letter he had ever had from Myra.
“I shall always want you,” it said; “but I could never send, unless the coming would mean happiness for you.”
Yet shehadsent. Then she had happiness in store for him. Had she instinctively realised his change of mind? Or had she gauged his desperate hunger by her own, and understood that the satisfying of that,mustmean happiness, whatever else of sorrow might lie in the background?
But there should be no background of anything but perfect joy, when Myra was his wife. Would he not have the turningof the fair leaves of her book of life? Each page should unfold fresh happiness, hold new surprises as to what life and love could mean. He would know how to guard her from the faintest shadow of disillusion. Even now it was his right to keep her from that. How much, after all, should he tell her of the heart-searchings of these wretched weeks? Last night he had meant to tell her everything; he had meant to say: “I have sinned against heaven—the heaven of our love—and before thee; and am no more worthy....” But was it not essential to a woman’s happiness to believe the man she loved, to be in all ways, worthy? Out of his pocket came again the well-worn letter. “I know you decided as you felt right,” wrote Myra. Why perplex her with explanations? Let the dead past bury its dead. No need to cloud, even momentarily, the joy with which they could now go forward into a new life. And what a life! Wedded life with Myra——
“Shenstone Junction!” shouted a porterand Jim Airth was across the platform before the train had stopped.
The tandem ponies waited outside the station, and this time Jim Airth gathered up the reins with a gay smile, flicking the leader, lightly. Before, he had said: “I never drive other people’s ponies,” in response to “Her ladyship’s” message; but now—“All that’s mine, is thine, laddie.”
He whistled “Huntingtower,” as he drove between the hayfields. Sprays of overhanging traveller’s-joy brushed his shoulder in the narrow lanes. It was good to be alive on such a day. It was good not to be leaving England, in England’s most perfect weather.... Should he take her home to Scotland for their honeymoon, or down to Cornwall?
What a jolly little church!
Evidently Myra never slacked pace for a gate. How the ponies dashed through, and into the avenue!
Poor Mrs. O’Mara! It had been difficult to be civil to her, when she had appeared instead of Myra to give him tea.
Of course Scotland would be jolly, with so much to show her; but Cornwall meant more, in its associations. Yes; he would arrange for the honeymoon in Cornwall; be married in the morning, up in town; no fuss; then go straight down to the old Moorhead Inn. And after dinner, they would sit in the honeysuckle arbour, and——
Groatley showed him into Myra’s sitting-room.
She was not there.
He walked over to the mantelpiece. It seemed years since that evening when, in a sudden fury against Fate, he had crashed his fists upon its marble edge. He raised his eyes to Lord Ingleby’s portrait. Poor old chap! He looked so content, and so pleased with himself, and his little dog. But he must have always appeared more like Myra’s father than her—than anything else.
On the mantelpiece lay a telegram. After the manner of leisurely country post-offices, the full address was written on the envelope. It caught Jim Airth’s eye, and hardly consciousof doing so, he took it up and read it. “Lady Ingleby, Shenstone Park, England.” He laid it down. “England?” he wondered, idly. “Who can have been wiring to her from abroad?”
Then he turned. He had not heard her enter; but she was standing behind him.
“Myra!” he cried, and caught her to his heart.
The rapture and relief of that moment were unspeakable. No words seemed possible. He could only strain her to him, silently, with all his strength, and realise that she was safely there at last.
Myra had lifted her arms, and laid them lightly about his neck, hiding her face upon his breast.... He never knew exactly when he began to realise a subtle change about the quality of her embrace; the woman’s passionate tenderness seemed missing; it rather resembled the trustful clinging of a little child. An uneasy foreboding, for which he could not account, assailed Jim Airth.
“Kiss me, Myra!” he said, peremptorily,and she, lifting her sweet face to his, kissed him at once. But it was the pure loving kiss of a little child.
Then she withdrew herself from his embrace; and, standing back, he looked at her, perplexed. The light upon her face seemed hardly earthly.
“Oh, Jim,” she said, “God’s ways are wonderful! I have such news for you, my friend. I thank God, it came before you had gone beyond recall. And I, who had been the one, unwittingly, to add so terribly to the weight of the lifelong cross you had to bear, am privileged to be the one to lift it quite away. Jim—you did not do it!”
Jim Airth gazed at her in troubled amazement. Into his mind, involuntarily, came the awesome Scotch word “fey.”
“I did not do what, dear?” he asked, gently, as if he were speaking to a little child whom he was anxious not to frighten.
“You did not kill Michael.”
“What makes you think I did not kill Michael, dear?” questioned Jim Airth, gently.
“Because,” said Myra, with clasped hands, “Michael is alive.”
“Dearest heart,” said Jim Airth, tenderly, “you are not well. These awful three weeks, and what went before, have been too much for you. The strain has upset you. I was a brute to go off and leave you. But you knew I did what I thought right at the time; didn’t you, Myra? Only now I see the whole thing quite differently. Your view was the true one. We ought to have acted upon it, and been married at once.”
“Oh, Jim,” said Myra, “thank God we didn’t! It would have been so terrible now. It must have been a case of ‘Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.’ In our unconscious ignorance, we might have gone away together, not knowing Michael was alive.”
Beads of perspiration stood on Jim Airth’s forehead.
“My darling, you are ill,” he said, in a voice of agonised anxiety. “I am afraid you are very ill. Do sit down quietly on the couch,and let me ring. I must speak to the O’Mara woman, or somebody. Why didn’t the fools let me know? Have you been ill all these weeks?”
Myra let him place her on the couch; smiling up at him reassuringly, as he stood before her.
“You must not ring the bell, Jim,” she said. “Maggie is at the Lodge; and Groatley would be so astonished. I am quite well.”
He looked around, in man-like helplessness; yet feeling something must be done. A long ivory fan, of exquisite workmanship, lay on a table near. He caught it up, and handed it to her. She took it; and to please him, opened it, fanning herself gently as she talked.
“I am not ill, Jim; really dear, I am not. I am only strangely happy and thankful. It seems too wonderful for our poor earthly hearts to understand. And I am a little frightened about the future—but you will help me to face that, I know. And I am rather worried about little things I have done wrong. It seems foolish—but as soon as I realisedMichael was coming home, I became conscious of hosts of sins of omission, and I scarcely know where to begin to set them right. And the worst of all is—Jim! we have lost little Peter’s grave! No one seems able to locate it. It is so trying of the gardeners; and so wrong of me; because of course I ought to have planted it with flowers. And Michael would have expected a little marble slab, by now. But I, stupidly, was too ill to see to the funeral; and now Anson declares they put him in the plantation, and George swears it was in the shrubbery. I have been consulting Groatley who always has ideas, and expresses them so well, and he says: ‘Choose a suitable spot, m’ lady; order a handsome tomb; plant it with choice flowers; and who’s to be the wiser, till the resurrection?’ Groatley is always resourceful; but of course I never deceive Michael. Fancy little Peter rising from the shrubbery, when Michael had mourned for years over a marble tomb on the lawn! But it really is a great worry. They must all begin digging, and keep on until theyfind something definite. It will be good for the shrubbery and the plantation, like the silly old man in the parable—no, I mean fable—who pretended he had hidden a treasure. Oh, Jim, don’t look so distressed. I ought not to pour out all these trivial things to you; but since I have known Michael is coming back, my mind seems to have become foolish and trivial again. Michael always has that effect upon me; because—though he himself is so great and clever—he really thinks trivial and unimportant things are a woman’s vocation in life. But oh, Jim—Jim Airth—withyouI am always lifted straight to the big things; and our big thing to-day is this:—that you never killed Michael. Do you remember telling me how, as you lay in your tent recovering from the fever, if some one could have come in and told you Michael was alive and well, and that you had not killed him after all, you would have given your life for the relief of that moment? Well,Iam that ‘some one,’ andthisis the ‘moment’; and when first I had the telegram I could think of nothing—absolutelynothing, Jim—but what it would be to you.”
“What telegram?” gasped Jim Airth. “In heaven’s name, Myra, what do you mean?”
“Michael’s telegram. It lies on the mantelpiece. Read it, Jim.”
Jim Airth turned, took up the telegram and drew it from the envelope with steady fingers. He still thought Myra was raving.
He read it through, slowly. The wording was unmistakable; but he read it through again. As he did so he slightly turned, so that his back was toward the couch.
The blow was so stupendous. He could only realise one thing, for the moment:—that the woman who watched him read it, must not as yet see his face.
She spoke.
“Is it not almost impossible to believe, Jim? Ronald and Billy were lunching here, when it came. Billy seemed stunned; but Ronnie was delighted. He said he had always believed the first men to rush in had been captured, and that no actual proofs ofMichael’s death had ever been found. They never explained to me before, that there had been no funeral. I suppose they thought it would seem more horrible. But I never take much account of bodies. If it weren’t for the burden of having a weird little urn about, and wondering what to do with it, I should approve of cremation. I sometimes felt I ought to make a pilgrimage to see the grave. I knew Michael would have wished it. He sets much store by graves—all the Inglebys lie in family vaults. That makes it worse about Peter. Ronnie went up to town at once to telegraph out the money. Billy went with him. Do you think five hundred is enough? Jim?—Jim! Are you not thankful? Do say something, Jim.”
Jim Airth put back the telegram upon the mantelpiece. His big hand shook.
“What is ‘Veritas’?” he asked, without looking round.
“That is our private code, Jim; Michael’s and mine. My mother once wired to me in Michael’s name, and to him in mine—poormamma often does eccentric things, to get her own way—and it made complications, Michael was very much annoyed. So we settled always to sign important telegrams ‘Veritas,’ which means: ‘This is really from me.’”
“Then—your husband—is coming home to you?” said Jim Airth, slowly.
“Yes, Jim,” the sweet voice faltered, for the first time, and grew tremulous. “Michael is coming home.”
Then Jim Airth turned round, and faced her squarely. Myra had never seen anything so terrible as his face.
“You are mine,” he said; “not his.”
Myra looked up at him, in dumb sorrowful appeal. She closed the ivory fan, clasping her hands upon it. The unquestioning finality of her patient silence, goaded Jim Airth to madness, and let loose the torrent of his fierce wild protest against this inevitable—this unrelenting, fate.
“You are mine,” he said, “not his. Your love is mine! Your body is mine! Yourwhole life is mine! I will not leave you to another man. Ah, I know I said we could not marry! I know I said I should go abroad. But you would have remained faithful to me; and I, to you. We might have been apart; we might have been lonely; we might have been at different ends of the earth; but—we should have been each other’s. I could have left you to loneliness; but, by God, I will not leave you to another!”
Myra rose, moved forward a few steps and stood, leaning her arm upon the mantelpiece and looking down upon the bank of ferns and lilies.
“Hush, Jim,” she said, gently. “You forget to whom you are speaking.”
“I am speaking,” cried Jim Airth, in furious desperation, “to the woman I have won for my own; and who is mine, and none other’s. If it had not been for my pride and my folly, we should have been married by now—married, Myra—and far away. I left you, I know; but—by heaven, I may as well tell you all now—it was pride—damnable falsepride—that drove me away. I always meant to come back. I was waiting for you to send; but anyhow I should have come back. Would to God I had done as you implored me to do! By now we should have been together—out of reach of this cursed telegram,—and far away!”
Myra slowly lifted her eyes and looked at him. He, blinded by pain and passion, failed to mark the look, or he might have taken warning. As it was, he rushed on, headlong.
Myra, very white, with eyelids lowered, leaned against the mantelpiece; slowly furling and unfurling the ivory fan.
“But, darling,” urged Jim Airth, “it is not yet too late. Oh, Myra, I have loved you so! Our love has been so wonderful. Have I not taught you what love is? The poor cold travesty you knew before—thatwas not love! Oh, Myra! you will come away with me, my own belovèd? You won’t put me through the hell of leaving you to another man? Myra, look at me! Say you will come.”
Then Lady Ingleby slowly closed the fan,grasping it firmly in her right hand. She threw back her head, and looked Jim Airth full in the eyes.
“Sothisis your love,” she said. “This is what it means? Then I thank God I have hitherto only known the ‘cold travesty,’ which at least has kept me pure, and held me high. What? Would you dragmedown to the level of the woman you have scorned for a dozen years? And, dragging me down, would you also trail, with me, in the mire, the noble name of the man whom you have ventured to call friend? My husband may not have given me much of those things a woman desires. But he has trusted me with his name, and with his honour; he has left me, mistress of his home. When he comes back he will find me what he himself made me—mistress of Shenstone; he will find me where he left me, awaiting his return. You are no longer speaking to a widow, Lord Airth; nor to a woman left desolate. You are speaking to Lord Ingleby’s wife, and you may as well learn how Lord Ingleby’s wife guards LordIngleby’s name, and defends her own honour, and his.” She lifted her hand swiftly and struck him, with the ivory fan, twice across the cheek. “Traitor!” she said, “and coward! Leave this house, and never set foot in it again!”
Jim Airth staggered back, his face livid—ashen, his hand involuntarily raised to ward off a third blow. Then the furious blood surged back. Two crimson streaks marked his cheek. He sprang forward; with a swift movement caught the fan from Lady Ingleby’s hands, and whirled it above his head. His eyes blazed into hers. For a moment she thought he was going to strike her. She neither flinched nor moved; only the faintest smile curved the corners of her mouth into a scornful question.
Then Jim Airth gripped the fan in both hands; with a twist of his strong fingers snapped it in half, the halves into quarters, and again, with another wrench, crushed those into a hundred fragments—flung them at her feet; and, turning on his heel, left the room, and left the house.
CHAPTER XXIIIWHAT BILLY KNEW
Ronald and Billy had spoken but little, as they sped to the railway station, earlier on that afternoon.
“Rummy go,” volunteered Ronald, launching the tentative comment into the somewhat oppressive silence.
Billy made no rejoinder.
“Why did you insist on coming with me?” asked Ronald.
“I’m not coming with you,” replied Billy laconically.
“Where then, Billy? Why so tragic? Are you going to leap from London Bridge? Don’t do it Billy-boy! You never had a chance. You were merely a nice kid. I’m the chapwho might be tragic; and see—I’m going to the bank to despatch the wherewithal for bringing the old boy back. Take example by my fortitude, Billy.”
Billy’s explosion, when it came, was so violent, so choice, and so unlike Billy, that Ronald relapsed into wondering silence.
But once in the train, locked into an empty first-class smoker, Billy turned a white face to his friend.
“Ronnie,” he said, “I am going straight to Sir Deryck Brand. He is the only man I know, with a head on his shoulders.”
“Thank you,” said Ronnie. “I suppose I dandle mine on my knee. But why this urgent need of a man with his head so uniquely placed?”
“Because,” said Billy, “that telegram is a lie.”
“Nonsense, Billy! The wish is father to the thought! Oh, shame on you, Billy! Poor old Ingleby!”
“It is a lie,” repeated Billy, doggedly.
“But look,” objected Ronald, unfoldingthe telegram. “Here you are. ‘Veritas.’ What do you make of that?”
“Veritas be hanged!” said Billy. “It’s a lie; and we’ve got to find out what damned rascal has sent it.”
“But what possible reason have you to throw doubt on it?” inquired Ronald, gravely.
“Oh, confound you!” burst out Billy at last; “I picked up the pieces!”
A very nervous white-faced young man sat in the green leather armchair in Dr. Brand’s consulting-room. He had shown the telegram, and jerked out a few incoherent sentences; after which Sir Deryck, by means of carefully chosen questions, had arrived at the main facts. He now sat at his table considering them.
Then, turning in his revolving-chair, he looked steadily at Billy.
“Cathcart,” he said, quietly, “what reason have you for being so certain of Lord Ingleby’sdeath, and that this telegram is therefore a forgery?”
Billy moistened his lips. “Oh, confound it!” he said. “I picked up the pieces!”
“I see,” said Sir Deryck; and looked away.
“I have never told a soul,” said Billy. “It is not a pretty story. But I can give you details, if you like.”
“I think you had better give me details,” said Sir Deryck, gravely.
So, with white lips, Billy gave them.
The doctor rose, buttoning his coat. Then he poured out a glass of water and handed it to Billy.
“Come,” he said. “Fortunately I know a very cute detective from our own London force who happens just now to be in Cairo. We must go to Scotland Yard for his address, and a code. In fact we had better work it through them. You have done the right thing, Billy; and done it promptly; but we have no time to lose.”
Twenty-four hours later, the doctor calledat Shenstone Park. He had telegraphed his train requesting to be met by the motor; and he now asked the chauffeur to wait at the door, in order to take him back to the station.
“I could only come between trains,” he explained to Lady Ingleby, “so you must forgive the short notice, and the peremptory tone of my telegram. I could not risk missing you. I have something of great importance to communicate.”
The doctor waited a moment, hardly knowing how to proceed. He had seen Myra Ingleby under many varying conditions. He knew her well; and she was a woman so invariably true to herself, that he expected to be able to foresee exactly how she would act under any given combination of circumstances.
In this undreamed of development of Lord Ingleby’s return, he anticipated finding her gently acquiescent; eagerly ready to resume again the duties of wifehood; with no thought of herself, but filled with anxious desire in all things to please the man who, with his whims and fancies, his foibles and ideas, had for ninemonths passed completely out of her life. Deryck Brand had expected to find Lady Ingleby in the mood of a typical April day, sunshine and showers rapidly alternating; whimsical smiles, succeeded by ready tears; then, with lashes still wet, gay laughter at some mistake of her own, or at incongruous behaviour on the part of her devoted but erratic household; speedily followed by pathetic anxiety over her own supposed short-comings in view of Lord Ingleby’s requirements on his return.
Instead of this charming personification of unselfish, inconsequent, tender femininity, the doctor found himself confronted by a calm cold woman, with hard unseeing eyes; a woman in whom something had died; and dying, had slain all the best and truest in her womanhood.
“Another man,” was the prompt conclusion at which the doctor arrived; and this conclusion, coupled with the exigency of his own pressing engagements, brought him without preamble, very promptly to the point.
“Lady Ingleby,” he said, “a cruel and heartless wrong has been done you by a despicable scoundrel, for whom no retribution would be too severe.”
“I am perfectly aware of that,” replied Lady Ingleby, calmly; “but I fail to understand, Sir Deryck, why you should consider it necessary to come down here in order to discuss it.”
This most unexpected reply for a moment completely nonplussed the doctor. But rapid mental adjustment formed an important part of his professional equipment.
“I fear we are speaking at cross-purposes,” he said, gently. “Forgive me, if I appear to have trespassed upon a subject of which I have no knowledge whatever. I am referring to the telegram received by you yesterday, which led you to suppose the report of Lord Ingleby’s death was a mistake, and that he might shortly be returning home.”
“My husband is alive,” said Lady Ingleby. “He has telegraphed to me from Cairo, and I expect him back very soon.”
For answer, Deryck Brand drew from his pocket-book two telegrams.
“I am bound to tell you at once, dear Lady Ingleby,” he said, “that you have been cruelly deceived. The message from Cairo was a heartless fraud, designed in order to obtain money. Billy Cathcart had reason to suspect its genuineness, and brought it to me. I cabled at once to Cairo, with this result.”
He laid two telegrams on the table before her.
“The first is a copy of one we sent yesterday to a detective out there. The second I received three hours ago. No one—not even Billy—has heard of its arrival. I have brought it immediately to you.”
Lady Ingleby slowly lifted the paper containing the first message. She read it in silence.