The Mistress of Shenstone Part 14

Myra leaned over, and smiled into his adoring eyes.

"How can I go?" she whispered, tenderly.

Jim Airth took both her hands in his. His eyes blazed up into hers.

"Myra," he said, "when shall we be married?"

Myra's face flamed, just as the soft white clouds had flamed when the sun arose. But she met the fire of his eyes without flinching.

"When you will, Jim," she answered gently.

"As soon as possible, then," said Jim Airth, eagerly.

Myra withdrew her hands, and mounted two more steps; then turned to bend and whisper: "Why?"

"Because," replied Jim Airth, "I do not know how to bear that there should be a day, or an hour, or a minute, when we cannot be together."

"Ah, do you feel that, too?" whispered Myra.

"Too?" cried Jim Airth. "Do _you_--Myra! Come back!"

But Lady Ingleby fled up the stairs like a hare. She had not run so fast since she was a little child of ten. He heard her happy laugh, and the closing of her door.

Then he unbarred the front entrance; and stepping out, stood in the sunshine, on the path where he had seen his Fairy-land Princess arrive.

He stretched his arms over his head.

"Mine!" he said. "Mine, altogether! Oh, my G.o.d! At last, I have won the Highest!"

Then he raced down the street to the beach; and five minutes later, in the full strength of his vigorous manhood, he was swimming up the golden path, towards the rising sun.

CHAPTER XIV

GOLDEN DAYS

The week which followed was one of ideal joy and holiday. Both knew, instinctively, that no after days could ever be quite as these first days. They were an experience which came not again, and must be realised and enjoyed with whole-hearted completeness.

At first Jim Airth talked with determination of a special licence, and pleaded for no delay. But Lady Ingleby, usually vague to a degree on all questions of law or matters of business, fortunately felt doubtful as to whether it would be wise to be married in a name other than her own; and, though she might have solved the difficulty by at once revealing her ident.i.ty to Jim Airth, she was anxious to choose her own time and place for this revelation, and had set her heart upon making it amid the surroundings of her own beautiful home at Shenstone.

"You see, Jim," she urged, "I _have_ a few friends in town and at Shenstone, who take an interest in my doings; and I could hardly reappear among them married! Could I, Jim? It would seem such an unusual and unexpected termination to a rest-cure. Wouldn't it, Jim?"

Jim Airth's big laugh brought Miss Susie to the window. It caused sad waste of Susannah's time, that her window looked out on the honeysuckle arbour.

"It might make quite a run on rest-cures," said Jim Airth.

"Ah, but they couldn't all meet _you_," said Myra; and the look he received from those sweet eyes, atoned for the vague inaccuracy of the rejoinder.

So they agreed to have one week of this free untrammelled life, before returning to the world of those who knew them; and he promised to come and see her in her own home, before taking the final steps which should make her altogether his.

So they went gay walks along the cliffs in the breezy sunshine; and Myra, clinging to Jim's arm, looked down from above upon their ledge.

They revisited Horseshoe Cove at low water, and Jim Airth spent hours cutting the hurried niches into proper steps, so as to leave a staircase to the ledge, up which people, who chanced in future to be caught by the tide, might climb to safety. Myra sat on the beach and watched him, her eyes alight with tender memories; but she absolutely refused to mount again.

"No, Jim," she said; "not until we come here on our honeymoon. Then, if you wish, you shall take your wife back to the place where we pa.s.sed those wonderful hours. But not now."

Jim, who expected always to have his own way, unless he was given excellent reasons in black and white for not having it, was about to expostulate and insist, when he saw tears on her lashes and a quiver of the sweet smiling lips, and gave in at once without further question.

They hired a tent, and pitched it on the sh.o.r.e at Tregarth, Myra telegraphed for a bathing-dress, and Jim went into the sea in his flannels and tried to teach her to swim, holding her up beneath her chin and saying; "One, two! ONE, TWO!" far louder than Myra had ever had it said to her before. Thus, amid much splashing and laughter, Lady Ingleby accomplished her swim of ten yards.

Miss Murgatroyd was shocked; nay, more than shocked. Miss Murgatroyd was scandalised! She took to her bed forthwith, expecting Miss Eliza and Miss Susannah to follow her example--in the spirit, if not to the letter. But, released from Amelia's personal supervision, romantic little Susie led Eliza astray; and the two took a furtive and fearful joy in seeing all they could of the "goings on" of the couple who had boldly converted the prosaic Cornish hotel into a land of excitement and romance.

From the moment when on the morning after their adventure, Myra, with yellow roses in the belt of her white gown, had swept into the coffee-room at five minutes past nine, saying: "My dear Jim, have I kept you waiting? I hope the coffee is not cold?"--all life had seemed transformed to Miss Susie. Turning quickly, she had caught the look Jim Airth gave to the lovely woman who took her place opposite him at his. .h.i.therto lonely table, and, still smiling into his eyes, lifted the coffee-pot.

Amelia's stern whisper had recalled her to her senses, and prevented any further glancing round; but she had heard Myra say: "I forgot your sugar, Jim. One lump, or two?" and Jim Airth's reply: "As usual, thanks, dear,"

not knowing, that with a silent twinkle of fun, he laid an envelope over his cup, as a sign to Myra, waiting with poised sugar-tongs, that "as usual" meant no sugar at all!

Later on, when she one day met Lady Ingleby alone in a pa.s.sage, Miss Susannah ventured two hurried questions.

"Oh, tell me, my dear! Is it _really_ true that you are going to marry Mr. Airth? And have you known him long?"

And Myra smiling down into Susie's plump anxious face replied: "Well, as a matter of fact, Miss Susannah, Jim Airth is going to marry _me_. And I cannot explain how long I have known him. I seem to have known him all my life."

"Ah," whispered Miss Susannah with a knowing smile of conscious perspicacity; "Eliza and I felt sure it was a tiff."

This remark appeared absolutely incomprehensible to Lady Ingleby; and not until she had repeated it to Jim, and he had shouted with laughter, and called her a bare-faced deceiver, did she realise that the "tiff" was supposed to have been operative during the whole time she and Jim Airth had sat at separate tables, and showed no signs of acquaintance.

However, she smiled kindly into the archly nodding face. Then, in the consciousness of her own great happiness, enveloped little Susie in her beautiful arms, and kissed her.

Miss Susannah never forgot that embrace. It was to her a reflected realisation of what it must be to be loved by Jim Airth. And, thereafter, whenever Miss Murgatroyd saw fit to use such adjectives as "indecent,"

"questionable," or "highly improper," Miss Susie bravely gathered up her wool-work, and left the room.

Thus the golden days went by, and a letter came for Jim Airth from Lady Ingleby's secretary. Her ladyship was away at present but would be returning to Shenstone on the following Monday, and would be pleased to give him an interview on Tuesday afternoon. The two o'clock express from Charing Cross would be met at Shenstone station, unless he wrote suggesting another.

"Now that is very civil," said Jim to Myra, as he pa.s.sed her the letter, "and how well it suits our plans. We had already arranged both to go up to town on Monday, and you on to Shenstone. So I can come down by that two o'clock train on Tuesday, get my interview with Lady Ingleby over as quickly as may be, and dash off to my girl at the Lodge. I hope to goodness she won't want to give me tea!"

"Which 'she'?" asked Myra, smiling. "_I_ shall certainly want to give you tea."

"Then I shall decline Lady Ingleby's," said Jim with decision.

Even during those wonderful days he went on steadily with his book, Myra sitting near him in the smoking-room, writing letters or reading, while he worked. "I do better work if you are within reach, or at all events, within sight," Jim had said; and it was impossible that Lady Ingleby's mind should not have contrasted the thrill of pleasure this gave her, with the old sense of being in the way if work was to be done; and of being shut out from the chief interests of Michael's life, by the closing of the laboratory door. Ah, how different from the way in which Jim already made her a part of himself, enfolding her into his every interest.

She wrote fully of her happiness to Mrs. Dalmain, telling her in detail the unusual happenings which had brought it so rapidly to pa.s.s. Also a few lines to her old friend the d.u.c.h.ess of Meldrum, merely announcing the fact of her engagement and the date of her return to Shenstone, promising full particulars later. This letter held also a message for Ronald and Billy, should they chance to be at Overdene.

Sunday evening, their last at Tregarth, came all too soon. They went to the little church together, sitting among the simple fisher folk at Evensong. As they looked over one hymn book, and sang "Eternal Father, strong to save," both thought of "Davy Jones" in the middle of the hymn, and had to exchange a smile; yet with an instant added reverence of pet.i.tion and thanksgiving.