Florence L. Barclay

“ 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. ”

“ Surely somewhere on this earth the One Man walks, and works, and waits, to whom she is to be the One Woman? God send him her way, in the fulness of time.”
And in that very hour—while at last Myra slept, and the doctor watched, and mused, and wondered—in that very hour, under an Eastern sky, a strong man, sick of life, worn and disillusioned, fighting a deadly fever, in the sultry atmosphere of a soldier’s tent, cried out in bitterness of soul: “O God, let me die!” ”

“ Then Myra felt herself completely dominated. All fear slipped from her; but the assurance which took its place was his courage, not hers; and she knew it. Lifting her head, she smiled at him, with white lips.
“I shall not fall,” she said.
Another wave swept round their ankles, and remained there.
“Good,” said Jim Airth, and loosed her wrists. “We shall owe our lives to each other. Next time I look into your face, please God, we shall be in safety. Come!”
He sprang up the face of the cliff, standing in the highest niches he had made. ”

“ I should have devoted myself to pleasing Michael in all things, and made myself—yes, Jane; you need not look amused and incredulous; though I don’t wear collars and shooting-boots, I can make myself do things—I should have made myself forget that there was such a person in this world as the Earl of Airth and Monteith.”
“Oh spare him that!” laughed Mrs. Dalmain. “Don’t call the poor man by his titles. If he must be hanged, at least let him hang as plain Jim Airth. If one had to be wicked, it would be so infinitely worse to be a wicked earl, than wicked in any other walk of life. ”

“ He picked up Myra’s shoes and stockings, and put them into his big pockets.
At that moment an advance wave rushed up the sand and caught their bare feet.
“Oh, Jim Airth,” cried Myra, “go without me! I have not a steady head. I cannot climb.”
He put his hands upon her shoulders, and looked full into her eyes.
“You can climb,” he said. “You must climb. You shall climb. We must climb—or drown. And, remember: if you fall, I fall too. You will not be saving me, by letting yourself go.”
She looked up into his eyes, despairingly. They blazed into hers from beneath his bent brows. ”

“ But when the descent was over and she stood on the shore beside Jim Airth; when together they turned and looked in silence up the path of glory on the rippling waters, to the blazing beauty of the rising sun, thankful tears rushed to Lady Ingleby’s eyes.
“Oh, Jim,” she exclaimed, “God is good! It is so wonderful to be alive!”
Then Jim Airth turned, his face transfigured, the sunlight in his eyes, and opened his arms. “Myra,” he said. “We have found the Best.” ”

“ But if I ever learn, it will be from just such a man as Jim Airth. I have never really talked with him, yet I am so conscious of his strength and virility, that he stands to me, in the abstract, for all that is strongest in manhood, and most vital in life.
Much of the benefit of my time here, quite unconsciously to himself, comes to me from him. When he walks into the house, whistling like a blackbird; when he hangs up his cap on an antler a foot or two higher than other people could reach; when he ploughs unhesitatingly through his meals, with a book or a paper stuck up in front of him ”

“ They were in town for the production of his 39 symphony. I saw that ideal wedded life, and I realised something of what a perfect mating of souls could mean. And then—well, there were others; people who did not understand how wholly I am Michael’s; nothing actually wrong; but not so fresh and youthful as Billy’s innocent adoration; and I feared I should accidentally learn what only Michael must teach. Therefore I fled away! Oh, doctor; if I ever learned from another man, that which I have failed to learn from my own husband, I should lie at Michael’s feet and implore him to kill me! ”

“ All through the night Lady Ingleby lay gazing before her, with bright unseeing eyes.
The quiet woman from the Lodge, who had been, before her own marriage, a devoted maid-companion to Lady Ingleby, arrived in speechless sorrow, and helped the doctor tenderly with all there was to do.
But when consciousness returned, and realisation, they were accompanied by no natural expressions of grief; simply a settled stony silence; the white set face; the bright unseeing eyes.
Margaret O’Mara knelt, and wept, and prayed, kissing the folded hands upon the silken quilt. ”

“ Michael always has that effect upon me; because—though he himself is so great and clever—he really thinks trivial and unimportant things are a woman’s vocation in life. But oh, Jim—Jim Airth—with you I am always lifted straight to the big things; and our big thing to-day is this:—that you never killed Michael. Do you remember telling me how, as you lay in your tent recovering from the fever, if some one could have come in and told you Michael was alive and well, and that you had not killed him after all, you would have given your life for the relief of that moment? ”

“ She rose and stood on the hearthrug, looking intently at her husband’s painting of Lord Ingleby.
“And, Myra,” she said at last, “I do entreat you to remember, you are dealing with an unknown quantity. You have never before known intimately a man of Jim Airth’s temperament. His love for you, and yours for him, hold elements as yet not fully understood by you. Remember this, in drawing your conclusions. I had almost said, Let instinct guide, rather than reason.”
“I understand your meaning,” said Lady Ingleby. “But I dare not depend upon either instinct or reason. ”

“ Poor Walker! I do not wish him punished, because I know Michael would think it was largely my own fault for putting banjo-playing before character. If Walker had written me a begging letter, I should most likely have sent him the money. I have a fatal habit of believing in people, and of wanting everybody to be happy.” 298
Then, as if these last words recalled a momentarily forgotten wound, the stony apathy returned to voice and face.
“If Michael is not coming back,” said Lady Ingleby, “I am indeed alone.” ”

“ 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. 330 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. ”

“ Then, in the darkness, she saw the mutinous fire of Jim Airth’s blue eyes, and 189 felt the grip of his strong hands on hers. “How can I say ‘Good-night’?” protested his deep voice, passionately. And, with a rush of happy tears, Myra clasped her hands, whispering: “Dear God, am I at last to know the Best?”
And up the stairs came Jim Airth, whistling like a nightingale. But, as a concession to Miss Murgatroyd’s ideas concerning suitable Sabbath music, he discarded “Nancy Lee,” and whistled:
And, kneeling beside her bed, in the darkness, Myra made of it her evening prayer. ”

“ You see only the man and his temptation. I knew the priceless treasure of the love; therefore the sin against that love seems to me unforgivable.”
Mrs. Dalmain looked earnestly at her friend. Her steadfast eyes were deeply troubled.
“Myra,” she said, “you are absolutely right in your definitions, and correct in your conclusions. But your mistake is this. You make no allowance for the sudden, desperate, overwhelming nature of the temptation before which Jim Airth fell. Remember all that led up to it. Think of it, Myra! He stood so alone in the world; no mother, no wife, no woman’s tenderness. ”

“ Then, without looking round, reached up, took a cap from the antler of a stag’s head high up on the wall, stuck it on the back of his head; swung round, and went out through the porch, whistling like a blackbird.
“Jim Airth,” said Myra to herself, as she moved slowly on; “Jim Airth of London. What an address! He might just as well have put: ‘of the world!’ A cross between a guardsman and a cowboy; and very likely he will turn out to be a commercial-traveller.” ”

“ The friendly Cornish folk, sitting on their doorsteps in the sunshine, smiled at the lovely woman in white serge, who passed down their village street, so tall and graceful, beneath the shade of her scarlet parasol. An item in the doctor’s prescription had been the discarding of widow’s weeds, and it had seemed quite natural to Myra to come down to her first Cornish breakfast in a cream serge gown. ”

“ But tell me, Lady Ingleby. If bad news were to come, would you sooner receive it direct from the War Office, in the terribly crude wording which cannot be avoided in those telegrams; or would you rather that a friend—other than your mother—broke it to you, more gently?”
Myra’s eyes flashed. She sat up with instant animation.
“Oh, I would receive it direct,” she said. “It would be far less hard, if it were official. I should hear the roll of the drums, and see the wave of the flag. For England, and for Honour! A soldier’s daughter, and a soldier’s wife, should be able to stand up to anything. ”

“ Myra laughed. “The duchess’s views are always refreshing. I wonder whether Michael and I made the mistake of not realising each other to be human; of not admitting there was anything to forgive, and therefore never forgiving?”
“Well, don’t make it with Jim Airth,” advised Mrs. Dalmain, “for he is the most human man I ever met; also the strongest, and one of the most lovable. Myra, there is nothing to be gained by waiting. Let me send him to you now; and, remember, all he asks or expects is one word of forgiveness.” 323
“Oh, Jane!” cried Lady Ingleby, with clasped hands. ”

“ And those ten hard years of worse than loneliness, when he fought the horrors of disillusion, the shame of betrayal, the bitterness of desertion; the humiliation of the stain upon his noble name. Against all this, during ten long years, he struggled; fought a manful fight, and overcame. 313 Then—strong, hardened, lonely; a man grown to man’s full heritage of self-contained independence—he met you, Myra. His ideals returned, purified and strengthened by their passage through the fire. Love came, now, in such gigantic force, that the pigmy passion of early youth was dwarfed and superseded. ”

“ Jim Airth pressed it back to its hiding-place upon his breast.
“I am the man, Myra, whose hand you could never bring yourself to touch in friendship.”
Myra lifted her head again. The look in her eyes was that of a woman prepared to fight for happiness and life. 235
“You are the man,” she said, “whose little finger is dearer to me than the whole body of any one else has ever been. Do you suppose I will give you up, Jim, because of a thing which happened accidentally in the past, before you and I had ever met? Ah, how little you men understand a woman’s heart! ”

“ Therefore, if they mean to do the right thing in the end, they keep clear of the danger at the beginning. We cannot possibly forbid ourselves to go on loving, where love has once been allowed to reign supreme. I know you would not, in the first instance, have let yourself care for Jim Airth, had you not been free. But, once loving him, if so appalling a situation could have arisen as the unexpected return of your husband, your only safe and honourable course would have been to frankly tell Lord Ingleby: ‘I grew to love Jim Airth while I believed you dead. ”

“ No, I do not misunderstand your letter; nor do I credit you with any foolish sentimentality, or Susie-like flutterings. Jim Airth stands to you for an abstract thing—uncompromising manhood, in its strength and assurance; very attractive after the loneliness and sense of being cut adrift, which have been your portion lately. Only, remember—where living men and women are concerned, the safely abstract is apt suddenly to become the perilously personal; and your future happiness may be seriously involved, before you realise the danger. I confess, I fail to understand the man’s avoidance of you. ”

“ I cannot imagine why a great big man, such as Michael, is so devoted to a tiny scrap of a dog, such as you! Now, if you were a Great Dane, or a mighty St. Bernard—! However, Michael loves us both, and we both love Michael; so we must be nice to each other, little Peter, while he is away.”
Myra Ingleby smiled, drew the folds of her cloak more closely around her, and moved on. A small white shadow, with no wag to its tail, followed dejectedly behind. ”

“ The drear sadness of autumn, the deadness of winter, the chill uncertainty of spring—all these were over and gone. “Flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,” murmurs the lover of Canticles; and 63 in Myra Ingleby’s sad heart there blossomed timidly, flowers of hope; vague promise of future joy, which life might yet hold in store. A blackbird in the hawthorn, trilled gaily; and Myra softly sang, to an air of Garth Dalmain’s, the “Blackbird’s Song.” ”

“ Also, I really believe Jim Airth’s peculiar fascination consists in the fact that I am conscious of his 95 disapproval. If he thinks of me at all, it is not with admiration, nor even with liking. And this is a novel experience; for I have been spoilt by perpetual approval, and satiated by senseless and unmerited adulation.
Oh Jane! As I walk along these cliffs, and hear the Atlantic breakers pounding against their base, far down below; as I watch the sea-gulls circling around on their strong white wings; as I realise the strength, the force, the liberty, in nature ”

“ Yet girls of eighteen do foolish things, and repent ever after. A runaway match from an unhappy home; then cast off by her relations, and now left friendless and alone. But—Sergeant O’Mara! Yet no other O’Mara fell at Targai; and there was some link between him and Lord Ingleby.
Then, into his musing, came Myra’s soft voice, from close beside him, in the darkness: “My husband was always good to me; but——”
And Jim Airth laid his other hand over the one he held. “I am sure he was,” he said, gently. “But if you had been older, and had known more of love and life you would have done differently. ”