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

leaving England in a few hours. It would have been hard to go--without this. Now it will be easy."

She lifted her eyes to his, and waited in silence.

"Myra," he said, "can you forgive me?"

"I do not know, Jim," she answered, gently. "I want to be quite honest with you, and with myself. If I had cared less, I could have forgiven more easily."

"I know," he said. "Oh, Myra, I know. And I would not have you forgive lightly, so great a sin against our love. But, dear--if, before I go, you could say, 'I understand,' it would mean almost more to me, than if you said, 'I forgive.'"

"Jim," said Myra, gently, a tremor of tenderness in her sweet voice, "I understand."

He came quite near, and took her hands in his, holding them for a moment, with tender reverence.

"Thank you, dear," he said. "You are very good."

He loosed her hands, and again she folded them in her lap. He walked to the mantelpiece and stood looking down upon the ferns and lilies.

She marked the stoop of his broad shoulders; the way in which he seemed to find it difficult to hold up his head. Where was the proud gay carriage of the man who swung along the Cornish cliffs, whistling like a blackbird?

"Jim," she said, "understanding fully, of course I forgive fully, if it is possible that between you and me, forgiveness should pass. I have been thinking it over, since I knew you were in the house, and wondering why I feel it so impossible to say, 'I forgive you.' And, Jim--I think it is because you and I are so _one_ that there is no room for such a thing as forgiveness to pass from me to you, or from you to me. Complete comprehension and unfailing love, take the place of what would be forgiveness between those who were less to each other."

He lifted his eyes, for a moment, full of a dumb anguish, which wrung her heart.

"Myra, I must go," he said, brokenly. "There was so much I had to tell you; so much to explain. But all need of this seems swept away by your divine tenderness and comprehension. All my life through I shall carry with me, deep hidden in my heart, these words of yours. Oh, my dear--my dear! Don't speak again! Let them be the last. Only--may I say it?--never let thoughts of me, sadden your fair life. I am going to America--a grand place for fresh beginnings; a land where one can work, and truly live; a land where earnest endeavour meets with fullest success, and where a man's energy may have full scope. I want you to think of me, Myra, as living, and working, and striving; not going under. But, if ever I feel like going under, I shall hear your dear voice singing at my shoulder, in the little Cornish church, on the quiet Sabbath evening, in the sunset: 'Eternal Father, strong to save,' ... And--when I think of you, my dear--my dear; I shall know your life is being good and beautiful every hour, and that you are happy with--" he lifted his eyes to Lord Ingleby's portrait; they dwelt for a moment on the kind quiet face--"with one of the best of men," said Jim Airth, bravely

He took a last look at her face. Silent tears stole slowly down it, and fell upon her folded hands.

A spasm of anguish shot across Jim Airth's set features.

"Ah, I must go," he said, suddenly. "God keep you, always."

He turned so quickly, that his hand was actually upon the handle of the door, before Myra reached him, though she sprang up, and flew across the room.

"Jim," she said, breathlessly. "Stop, Jim! Ah, stop! Listen! Wait!--Jim, I have always known--I told Jane so--that if I forgave you, I could not let you go." She flung her arms around his neck, as he stood gazing at her in dumb bewilderment. "Jim, my beloved! I cannot let you go; or, if you go, you must take me with you. I cannot live without you, Jim Airth!"

For the space of a dozen heart-beats he stood silent, while she hung around him; her head upon his breast, her clinging arms about his neck.

Then a cry so terrible burst from him, that Myra's heart stood still.

"Oh, my God," he cried, "this is the worst of all! Have I, in falling, dragged _her_ down? Now, indeed am I broken--broken. What was the loss of my own pride, my own honour, my own self-esteem, to this? Have I soiled her fair whiteness; weakened the noble strength of her sweet purity? Oh, not this--my God, not this!"

He lifted his hands to his neck, took hers by the wrists, and forcibly drew them down, stepping back a pace, so that she must lift her head.

Then, holding her hands against his breast: "Lady Ingleby," he said, "lift your eyes, and look into my face."

Slowly--slowly--Myra lifted her grey eyes. The fire of his held her; she felt the strength of him mastering her, as it had often done before. She could scarcely see the anguish in his face, so vivid was the blaze of his blue eyes.

"Lady Ingleby," he said, and the grip of his hands on hers, tightened. "Lady Ingleby--we stood like this together, you and I, on a fast narrowing strip of sand. The cruel sea swept up, relentless. A high cliff rose in front--our only refuge. I held you thus, and said: 'We must climb--or drown.' Do you remember?--I say it now, again. The only possible right thing to do is steep and difficult; but we must climb. We must mount above our lower selves; away from this narrowing strip of dangerous sand; away from this cruel sea of fierce temptation; up to the breezy cliff-top, up to the blue above, into the open of honour and right and perfect purity. You stood there, until now; you stood there--brave and beautiful. I dragged you down--God forgive me, I brought you into danger--Hush! listen! You must climb again; you must climb alone; but when I am gone, your climbing will be easy. You will soon find yourself standing, safe and high, above these treacherous dangerous waters. Forgive me, if I seem rough." He forced her gently backwards to the couch. "Sit there," he said, "and do not rise, until I have left the house. And if ever these moments come back to you, Lady Ingleby, remember, the whole blame was mine.... Hush, I tell you; hush! And will you loose my hands?"

But Myra clung to those big hands, laughing, and weeping, and striving to speak.

"Oh, Jim--my Jim!--you can't leave me to climb alone, because I am all your own, and free to be yours and no other man's, and together, thank God, we can stand on the cliff-top where His hand has led us. Dearest--Jim, dearest--don't pull away from me, because I must cling on, until you have read these telegrams. Oh, Jim, read them quickly! ... Sir Deryck Brand brought them down from town this afternoon. And oh, forgive me that I did not tell you at once.... I wanted you to prove yourself, what I knew you to be, faithful, loyal, honourable, brave, the man of all men whom I trust; the man who will never fail me in the upward climb, until we stand together beneath the blue on the heights of God's eternal hills.... Oh, Jim----"

Her voice faltered into silence; for Jim Airth knelt at her feet, his head in her lap, his arms flung around her, and he was sobbing as only a strong man can sob, when his heart has been strained to breaking point, and sudden relief has come.

Myra laid her hands, gently, upon the roughness of his hair. Thus they stayed long, without speaking or moving.

And in those sacred minutes Myra learned the lesson which ten years of wedded life had failed to teach: that in the strongest man there is, sometimes, the eternal child--eager, masterful, dependent, full of needs; and that, in every woman's love there must therefore be an element of the eternal mother--tender, understanding, patient; wise, yet self-surrendering; able to bear; ready to forgive; her strength made perfect in weakness.

At length Jim Airth lifted his head.

The last beams of the setting sun, entering through the western window, illumined, with a ray of golden glory, the lovely face above him. But he saw on it a radiance more bright than the reflected glory of any earthly sunset.

"Myra?" he said, awe and wonder in his voice. "Myra? What is it?"

And clasping her hands about his neck as he knelt before her, she drew his head to her breast, and answered:

"I have learnt a lesson, my beloved; a lesson only you could teach. And I am very happy and thankful, Jim; because I know, that at last, I--even I--am ready for wifehood."


CHAPTER XXVI


"WHAT SHALL WE WRITE?"

The hall at the Moorhead Inn seemed very homelike to Jim Airth and Myra, as they stood together looking around it, on their arrival.

Jim had set his heart upon bringing his wife there, on the evening of their wedding day. Therefore they had left town immediately after the ceremony; dined _en route_, and now stood, as they had so often stood before when bidding one another good-night, in the lamp-light, beside the marble table.

"Oh, Jim dear," whispered Myra, throwing back her travelling cloak, "doesn't it all seem natural? Look at the old clock! Five minutes past ten. The Miss Murgatroyds must have gone up, in staid procession, exactly four minutes ago. Look at the stag's head! There is the antler, on the topmost point of which you always hung your cap."

"Myra----"

"Yes, dear. Oh, I hope the Murgatroyds are still here. Let's look in the book.... Yes, see! Here are their names with date of arrival, but none of departure. And, oh, dearest, here is 'Jim Airth,' as I first saw it written; and look at 'Mrs. O'Mara' just beneath it! How well I remember glancing back from the turn of the staircase, seeing you come out and read it, and wishing I had written it better. You can set me plenty of copies now, Jim."

"Myra!----"

"Yes, dear. Do you know I am going to fly up and unpack. Then I will come out to the honeysuckle arbour and sit with you while you smoke. And we need not mind being late; because the dear ladies, not knowing we have returned, will not all be sleeping with doors ajar. But oh Jim, you _must_--however late it is--plump your boots out into the passage, just for the fun of making Miss Susannah's heart jump unexpectedly."

"Myra! Oh, I say! My wife----"

"Yes, darling, I know! But I am perfectly certain 'Aunt Ingleby' is peeping out of her little office at the end of the passage; also, Polly has finished helping Sam place our luggage upstairs, and I can _feel_ her, hanging over the top banisters! Be patient for just a little while, my Jim. Let's put our names in the visitors' book. What shall we write? Really we shall be obliged eventually to let them know who you are. Think what an excitement for the Miss Murgatroyds. But, just for once, I am going to write myself down by the name, of all others, I have most wished to bear."

So, smiling gaily up at her husband, then bending over the table to hide her happy face from the