The Mistress of Shenstone by Florence Louisa Barclay (fantasy novels to read TXT) 📕

I felt when Billy told me, after the first bewildering shock was over? First: sorrow for you, my dearest; a realisation of how appalling the mental anguish must have been, at the time. Secondly: thankfulness--yes, intense overwhelming thankfulness--to know at last what had come between us; and to know it was this thing--this mere ghost out of the past--nothing tangible or real; no wrong of mine against you, or of yours against me; nothing which need divide us."

Jim Airth slowly unlocked his arms, took her by the wrists, holding her hands against his breast. Then he looked into her eyes with a silent sadness, more forcible than speech.

"My own poor girl," he said, at length; "it is impossible for me to marry Lord Ingleby's widow."

The strength of his will mastered hers; and, just as in Horseshoe Cove her fears had yielded to his dauntless courage, so now Myra felt her confidence ebbing away before his stern resolve. Fearful of losing it altogether, she drew away her hands, and turned to the sofa.

"Oh, Jim," she said, "sit down and let us talk it over."

She sank back among the cushions and drawing a bowl of roses hastily toward her, buried her face in them, fearing again to meet the settled sadness of his eyes.

Jim Airth sat down--in the chair left vacant by Lord Ingleby and Peter.

"Listen, dear," he said. "I need not ask you never to doubt my love. That would be absurd from me to you. I love you as I did not know it was possible for a man to love a woman. I love you in such a way that every fibre of my being will hunger for you night and day--through all the years to come. But--well, it would always have come hard to me to stand in another man's shoes, and take what had been his. I did not feel this when I thought I was following Sergeant O'Mara, because I knew he must always have been in all things so utterly apart from you. I could, under different circumstances, have brought myself to follow Ingleby, because I realise that he never awakened in you such love as is yours for me. His possessions would not have weighted me, because it so happens I have lands and houses of my own, where we could have lived. But, to stand in a dead man's shoes, when he is dead through an act of mine; to take to myself another man's widow, when she would still, but for a reckless movement of my own right hand, have been a wife--Myra, I could not do it! Even with our great love, it would not mean happiness. Think of it--think! As we stood together in the sight of God, while the Church, in solemn voice, required and charged us both, as we should answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts should be disclosed, that if either of us knew any impediment why we might not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, we should then confess it--I should cry: 'Her husband died by my hand!' and leave the church, with the brand of Cain, and the infamy of David, upon me."

Myra lifted frightened eyes; met his, beseechingly; then bent again over the roses.

"Or, even if I passed through that ordeal, standing mute in the solemn silence, what of the moment when the Church bade me take your right hand in my right hand--Myra, _my_ right hand?"

She rose, came swiftly over, and knelt before him. She took his hand, and covered it with tears and kisses. She held it, sobbing, to her heart.

"Dearest," she said, "I will never ask you to do, for my sake, anything you feel impossible or wrong. But, oh, in this, I know you are mistaken. I cannot argue or explain. I cannot put my reasons into words. But I _know_ our living, longing, love _ought_ to come before the happenings of a dead past. Michael lost his life through an accident. That the accident was caused by a mistake on your part, is fearfully hard for you. But there is no moral wrong in it. You might as well blame the company whose boat took him abroad; or the government which decided on the expedition; or the War Office people, who accepted him when he volunteered. I am sure I don't know what David did; I thought he was a quite excellent person. But I _do_ know about Cain; and I am perfectly certain that the brand of Cain could never rest on anyone, because of an unpremeditated accident. Oh, Jim! Cannot you look at it reasonably?"

"I looked at it reasonably--after a while--until yesterday," said Jim Airth. "At first, of course, all was blank, ghastly despair. Oh, Myra, let me tell you! I have never been able to tell anyone. Go back to the couch; I can't let you kneel here. Sit down over there, and let me tell you."

Lady Ingleby rose at once and returned to her seat; then sat listening--her yearning eyes fixed upon his bowed head. He had momentarily forgotten what the events of that night had cost her; so also had she. Her only thought was of his pain.

Jim Airth began to speak, in low, hurried tones; haunted with a horror of reminiscence.

"I can see it now. The little stuffy tent; the hidden light. I was already sickening for fever, working with a temperature of 102. I hadn't slept for two nights, and my head felt as if it were two large eyes, and those eyes, both bruises. I knew I ought to knock under and give the job to another man; but Ingleby and I had worked it all out together, and I was dead keen on it. It was a place where no big guns could go; but our little arrangement which you could carry in one hand, would do better and surer work, than half a dozen big guns.

"There was a long wait after Ingleby and the other fellow--it was Ingram--started. Cathcart, left behind with me, was in and out of the tent; but he couldn't stay still two minutes; he was afraid of missing the rush. So I was alone when the signal came. We found afterwards that Ingram had crawled out of the tunnel, and gone to take a message to the nearest ambush. Ingleby was left alone. He signalled: 'Placed,' as agreed. I took it to be 'Fire!' and acted instantly. The moment I had done it, I realised my mistake. But that same instant came the roar, and the hot silent night was turned to pandemonium. I dashed out of the tent, shouting for Ingleby. Good God! It was like hell! The yelling swearing Tommies, making up for the long enforced silence and inaction; the hordes of dark devilish faces, leering in their fury, and jeering at our discomfiture; for inside their outer wall, was a rampart of double the strength, and we were no nearer taking Targai.

"Afterwards--if I hadn't owned up at once to my mistake, nobody would have known how the thing had happened. Even then, they tried to persuade me the wrong signal had been given; but I knew better. And on the spot, it was impossible to find--well, any actual proofs of what had happened. The gap had been filled at once with crowds of yelling jostling Tommies, mad to get into the town. Jove, how those chaps fight when they get the chance. When all was over, several were missing who were not among the dead. They must have forced themselves in where they could not get back, and been taken prisoners. God alone knows their fate, poor beggars. Yet I envied them; for when the row was over, my hell began.

"Myra, I would have given my whole life to have had that minute over again. And it was maddening to know that the business might have been done all right with any old fuse. Only we were so keen over our new ideas for signalling, and our portable electric apparatus. Oh, good Lord! I knew despair, those days and nights! I was down with fever, and they took away my sword, and guns, and razors. I couldn't imagine why. Even despair doesn't take me that way. But if a chap could have come into my tent and said: 'You didn't kill Ingleby after all. He's all right and alive!' I would have given my life gladly for that moment's relief. But no present anguish can undo a past mistake.

"Well, I pulled through the fever; life had to be lived, and I suppose I'm not the sort of chap to take a morbid view. When I found the thing was to be kept quiet; when the few who knew the ins-and-outs stood by me like the good fellows they were, saying it might have happened to any of them, and as soon as I got fit again I should see the only rotten thing would be to let it spoil my future; I made up my mind to put it clean away, and live it down. You know they say, out in the great western country: 'God Almighty hates a quitter.' It is one of the stimulating tenets of their fine practical theology. I had fought through other hard times. I determined to fight through this. I succeeded so well, that it even seemed natural to go on with the work Ingleby and I had been doing together, and carry it through. And when notes of his were needed, I came to his own home without a qualm, to ask his widow--the woman I, by my mistake, had widowed--for permission to have and to use them.

"I came--my mind full of the rich joy of life and love, with scarcely room for a passing pang of regret, as I entered the house without a master, the home without a head, knowing I was about to meet the woman I had widowed. Truly 'The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.' I had thrown off too easily what should have been a lifelong burden of regret.

"In the woman I had widowed I found--the woman I was about to wed! Good God! Was there ever so hard a retribution?"

"Jim," said Myra, gently, "is there not another side to the picture? Does it not strike you that it should have seemed beautiful to find that God in His wonderful providence had put you in a position to be able to take care of Michael's widow, left so helpless and alone; that in saving her life by the strength of your right hand, you had atoned for the death that hand had unwittingly dealt; that, though the past cannot be undone, it can sometimes be wiped out by the present? Oh, Jim! Cannot you see it thus, and keep and hold the right to take care of me forever? My beloved! Let us never, from this moment, part. I will come away with you at once. We can get a special licence, and be married immediately. We will let Shenstone, and let the house in Park Lane, and live abroad, anywhere you will, Jim; only together--together! Take me away to-day. Maggie O'Mara can attend me, until we are married. But I can't face life without you. Jim--I can't! God knows, I can't!"

Jim Airth looked up, a gleam of hope in his sad eyes.

Then he looked away, that her appealing loveliness might not too much tempt him, while making his decision. He lifted his eyes; and, alas! they fell on the portrait over the mantelpiece.

He shivered.

"I can never marry Lord Ingleby's widow," he said. "Myra, how can