The Mistress of Shenstone Part 21

"Or, even if I pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d! It was like h.e.l.l! 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, n.o.body 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. G.o.d alone knows their fate, poor beggars. Yet I envied them; for when the row was over, my h.e.l.l 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: 'G.o.d 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d 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! G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+vered.

"I can never marry Lord Ingleby's widow," he said. "Myra, how can you wish it? The thing would haunt us! It would be evil--unnatural. Night and day, it would be there. It would come between us. Some day you would reproach me----"

"Ah, hus.h.!.+" cried Myra, sharply. "Not that! I am suffering enough. At least spare me that!" Then, putting aside once more her own pain: "Would it not be happiness to you, Jim?" she asked, with wistful gentleness.

"Happiness?" cried Jim Airth, violently, "It would be h.e.l.l!"

Lady Ingleby rose, her face as white as the large arum lily in the corner behind her.

"Then that settles it," she said; "and, do you know, I think we had better not speak of it any more. I am going to ring for tea. And, if you will excuse me for a few moments, while they are bringing it, I will search among my husband's papers, and try to find those you require for your book."

She pa.s.sed swiftly out. Through the closed door, the man she left alone heard her giving quiet orders in the hall.

He crossed the room, in two great strides, to follow her. But at the door he paused; turned, and came slowly back.

He stood on the hearthrug, with bent head; rigid, motionless.

Suddenly he lifted his eyes to Lord Ingleby's portrait.

"Curse you!" he said through clenched teeth, and beat his fists upon the marble mantelpiece. "Curse your explosives! And curse your inventions!

And curse you for taking her first!" Then he dropped into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. "Oh, G.o.d forgive me!" he whispered, brokenly. "But there is a limit to what a man can bear."

He scarcely noticed the entrance of the footman who brought tea. But when a lighter step paused at the door, he lifted a haggard face, expecting to see Myra.

A quiet woman entered, simply dressed in black merino. Her white linen collar and cuffs gave her the look of a hospital nurse. Her dark hair, neatly parted, was smoothly coiled around her head. She came in, deferentially; yet with a quiet dignity of manner.

"I have come to pour your tea, my lord," she said. "Lady Ingleby is not well, and fears she must remain in her room. She asks me to give you these papers."

Then the Earl of Airth and Monteith rose to his feet, and held out his hand.

"I think you must be Mrs. O'Mara," he said. "I am glad to meet you, and it is kind of you to give me tea. I have heard of you before; and I believe I saw you yesterday, on the steps of your pretty house, as I drove up the avenue. Will you allow me to tell you how often, when we stood shoulder to shoulder in times of difficulty and danger, I had reason to respect and admire the brave comrade I knew as Sergeant O'Mara?"

Before quitting Shenstone, Jim Airth sat at Myra's davenport and wrote a letter, leaving it with Mrs. O'Mara to place in Lady Ingleby's hands as soon as he had gone.

"I do not wonder you felt unable to see me again. Forgive me for all the grief I have caused, and am causing, you. I shall go abroad as soon as may be; but am obliged to remain in town until I have completed work which I am under contract with my publishers to finish. It will take a month, at most.

"If you want me, Myra--I mean if you _need_ me--I could come at any moment. A wire to my Club would always find me.

"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.

"G.o.d bless you always.

"MYRA."

CHAPTER XX