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

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 XXII


LORD 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." "Come _to me_" seemed a tender, though unconscious, response to his resolution of the night before: "I will arise and go to my beloved."

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 she _had_ sent. 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, _must_ mean 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 turning of 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 porter and 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 conscious of 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 realised Michael 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 they find 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;