The Mistress of Shenstone Part 22

A 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 generosity and 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 p.r.o.nounce an opinion concerning any other man and woman in like circ.u.mstances. 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 his should 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 rea.s.serted 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, and would send for him. But the days went by, and Myra made no sign. She had said she would never send for him unless a.s.sured 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 Beloved is mine, and I am his"; in the second, "I am my Beloved's and he is mine." But in the third, all else is merged in the instinctive joy of giving: "I am my Beloved's, and his desire is towards me."

This is the natural att.i.tude of the s.e.xes, 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 without a 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 he went 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 Jim Airth 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 n.o.blest in Jim Airth awoke at that hallowed memory of faithful strength on his part, and trustful peace on hers.

"My G.o.d," 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 beloved. 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sed a farm. The farmer's wife had been up since sunrise, churning. She gladly gave him a simple breakfast of home-made bread, with b.u.t.ter 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--as in 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 pa.s.sing 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 XXI

MICHAEL 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. To Jane Dalmain she had written the whole truth. The Dalmains were at Worcester, attending a musical festival in that n.o.blest 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 antic.i.p.ated. 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," said Billy. "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 a.s.suming the role 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 d.u.c.h.ess!"