I stared, fascinated. Here was Jim-of-the-rose-arbour, and a new
Jim-of-the-war--a browner, thinner, sterner Jim, a Jim that looked at me
with a look I could not read. It may have been cruel, but it was not
cold, and it pierced like a hot sword-blade through my flesh into my
soul.
"_You_--after all!" he said. The remembered voice I had so often heard
in dreams, struck on my nerves like a hand on the strings of a harp. I
felt the vibration thrill through me.
"Yes--it's I." The answer came in a whisper from dry lips. "I'm sorry!"
"What are you sorry for? Because you are you?"
"It wouldn't be--_quite_ so horrible if--I'd been a stranger."
"You think not?"
"I--it seems as if I took advantage of--oh, that's just what I did! I'm
not asking you to forgive me----"
"It isn't so much a question of forgiving, as putting things straight.
We _must_ put them straight----"
"I'll do whatever you wish," I promised. "Only--let me go soon."
"Are you afraid of me?" There was sharpness in his tone.
"Not afraid. I am--utterly humiliated."
"Why did you do this--thing? Let's have that out first."
"The thought came into my head when I was at my wits' end--for my
brother. Not that that's an excuse!"
"I'm not worrying about excuses. It's explanations I need, I had my own
theories--thinking it all over--and wondering--whether it would be you
or a stranger I should find. The name was the one thing I had to go on:
'O'Malley' and its likeness to Ommalee. That was the way I heard your
name pronounced, you know, when we met. I was coming back to see you and
make sure. But I was laid up in Paris with an attack of typhoid. Perhaps
Mother told you?"
"Yes. But please, let us not talk of that! There isn't much time. You'll
have to go back to Fath--to Mr. and Mrs. Beckett. Tell me quickly what
you want me to do."
"I was forgetting for a minute. You look very pale, Miss O'Malley.
Hadn't you better sit down?"
"No, thank you. I like standing--where I am."
"Ah!" he gave a sudden exclamation. At last he had seen Brian's sketch.
He had not noticed it, or any of the "den treasures," before. He had
looked only at me.
"Why--it's _the_ picture! And--Gee!"--his eyes travelled round the
room--"all my dear old things! What a mother I've got!" He gazed about
during a full minute of silence, then turned abruptly back to me. "You
love her--don't you?"
"Who could help loving her?"
"And the dear old Governor--you're fond of him?"
"I should be even worse than I am, if I didn't adore them both. They
have been--angels to me and my brother."
"I'm told that you and he have been something of the same sort to them."
"Oh, they would speak kindly of us, of course!--They're so noble,
themselves, they judge----"
"It was another person who told me the particular thing I'm thinking of
now."
"Another person? Doctor Paul, I suppose."
"You must guess again, Miss O'Malley."
"I can't think of any one else who would----"
"What about your friend, Mr. O'Farrell?"
"He's not my friend!" I cried. "Oh, I _knew_ he'd somehow contrive a
chance to talk to you alone, about me!"
"He certainly did. And what he said impressed me a good deal."
"Most likely it's untrue."
"_Too_ likely! I'm very anxious to find out from headquarters if it's
true or not."
"If you ask me, I'll answer honestly. I can't and won't lie to you."
"I'll take you at your word and ask you--in a minute. You may be angry
when I do. But--it will save time. It'll clear up all my difficulties at
one fell swoop."
"Why wait a minute, then?" I ventured, with faint bitterness, because
_his_ "difficulties" seemed so small compared with mine. He was in the
right in everything. This was his home. The dear Becketts were his
people. All the world was his.
"I wait a minute, because something has to be told you before I can ask
you to answer any more questions. When I didn't know who or what
my--er--official fiancée would turn out to be, this was the plan I made,
to save my parents' feelings--and yours. I thought that, when we'd had
the interview I asked you to give me, we could manage to quarrel, or
discover that we didn't like each other as well as before. We could
break off our engagement, and Father and Mother need never know--how it
began."
"A very generous idea of yours!" I cried, the blood so hot in my cheeks
that it forced tears to my eyes. "It had occurred to me, too, that for
_their_ sakes we might manage that way. Thank you, Mr. Beckett, for
sparing me the pain--I deserve. I couldn't have dared hope for such a
happy solution----"
"Couldn't you?"
"No. I----"
"Well, I'm hoping for an even happier one--a lot happier. But of course
it depends on what you say to Mr. O'Farrell's--accusation."
"He--made an accusation?"
"Listen, and tell me what you'd call it. He said you told him at Amiens,
when he asked you to marry him, that--_you loved me_."
"Oh!"
"Is it true?"
"Yes, I did tell him that----"
"I mean, is it true that you've loved me?"
"Mr. Beckett, after all, you are cruel! You're punishing me very hard."
"I don't wish to 'punish you hard'--or at all. Why am I 'cruel,' simply
asking if it's true that you've loved me? Of course, when Mother told
you of my fever, and what I'd said of this cathedral picture, she told
you that I was dead in love with 'the Girl,' as I called you, and just
about crazy because I'd lost her. Why shouldn't you have loved me a
little bit--say, the hundredth part as much as I loved you? I'm not a
monster, am I? And we both had exactly the same length of time to fall
in love--whole hours on end. Cruel or not cruel, I've got to know. Was
it the truth you told the O'Farrell man?"
I could not speak. I didn't try to speak. I looked up at him. It must
have been some such look as the Princess gave St. George when he
appeared at the last minute, to rescue her from the dragon. The tears
I'd been holding back splashed over my cheeks. Jim gave a low cry of
pity--or love (it sounded like love) as he saw them; and the next thing,
he was kissing them away. I was in his arms so closely held that my
breath was crushed out of my lungs. I wanted to sob. But how can you sob
without breath? I could only let him kiss me on cheeks, and eyes, and
mouth, and kiss him back again, with eager haste, lest I should wake up
to find he had loved me for a fleeting instant, in a divine dream.
When he let me breathe for a second, I gasped that, of course, it
_couldn't_ be true, this wonderful thing that was happening?
"I've dreamed of you--a hundred times," I stammered. "Waking
dreams--sleeping dreams. They've seemed as real--almost as real--as
this."
"Did I kiss you like this, in the dreams?"
"Sometimes. But not in the realest ones. It never seemed real that you
could care, in spite of all--that you'd forgive me, if you should come
back----"
"Did you want me to come?"
"Oh, 'want' isn't the word to express it!"
"Even though you dreaded--being found out!"
"That didn't count, against having you alive, and knowing you were in
the world--if only for your parents' sake. I wanted them to be happy,
more than I wanted anything for myself except Brian's good. I had you
for my own, in my dreams, while you were dead, and I expected to lose
you if you were alive. But----"
"You really expected that?"
"Oh, indeed, yes!"
"Although you knew from Mother how I'd loved you, and searched for you?"
"You thought I was _good_--then."
"I think so now."
"But you can't! You know what a wicked, wicked wretch I was! Why, when
you came into this room and looked at me, I _saw_ how you felt! And your
letter----"
"Don't you understand, I was testing you? If you hadn't cared for me,
what you did might have been--(only 'might', mind you, for what man can
judge a girl's heart?) what you did to my people _might_ have been cruel
and calculating. I had to find out the truth of things, before letting
myself go. The letter was written to let a stranger see--if you turned
out to be a stranger--what to expect. But O'Farrell made me sure in a
minute, that the girl here must be _my_ Girl. After that, I'd only to
see you--to ask if he told the truth--to watch your face--your precious,
beautiful face! I thought of it and pictured it. But I never thought of
those tears! Forgive me, my darling, for making them come. If you'll let
me love you all your life, they shall be the last I'll ever cause."
I laughed, and cried a little more, at the same time. "What a word from
you to me--'Forgive'!"
"Well, it's more suitable than from you to me, because there's nothing
you could do that I wouldn't forgive before you did it, or even be sure
it was just the one right thing to do. My Girl--my lost, found love--do
you suppose it was of your own accord you came to my people and said you
belonged to me? No. It was the Great Power that's in us all, which made
you do what you did--the Power they call Providence. You understand now
what I meant, when I said that one question from me and an answer from
you, would smooth away all my difficulties at once? Bless that O'Farrell
fellow!"
I'd never thought to bless Julian O'Farrell, but now I willingly agreed.
Sometimes, dimly, I had divined latent goodness in him, as one divines
vague, lovely shapes floating under dark depths of water. And he had
said once that love for me was bringing out qualities he hadn't credited
himself with possessing. I had taken that as one of Puck's pleasantries!
But I knew the true inwardness of him now, as I had learned to know the
true inwardness of Dierdre. Julian had had his chance to hurt me with
his rival. He had used it instead to do me good. He had laughed the
other day, "Well, I'll always be _something_ to you anyhow, if only a
brother-in-law." But now, he would be more than that, even if he went
out of my life, and I never saw him again.
"Bless O'Farrell. Bless Providence. Bless you. Bless me. Bless
everybody and everything!" Jim was going on, joyfully exploding, still
clasping me in his arms; for we clung as if to let each other go might
be to lose one another forever! "How happy Mother dear--and the good old
Governor are going to be! They absolutely adore you!"
"Did they say so?"
"They did. And almost hustled me into this room to meet you. I'm glad
the best thing in my life has come to me here, among all the odds and
ends of my childhood and youth, that I call my treasures! Of course
Mother planned it specially that you should welcome me here."
"Yes, the darling! But it seemed to me a terrible plan. I thought you'd
hate me so, I'd spoil the surprise of the room for you."
Those words were uttered with the last breath he let me draw for some
time. But oh, Padre, if it had been my last on earth, how well worth
while it would have been to live just till that minute, and no longer! I
am _so_ happy! I don't know how I am going to deserve this forgiveness,
this deliverance, this joy!
"Even if I'd found a strange girl looking after my parents and saving
their lives and winning their love, it would have been pretty difficult
to chuck her," Jim was laughing. "You, on this side of the door, waiting
to face the ogre Me, couldn't have felt much worse than I felt on my
side, not knowing what I should see--or do. Darling, one more kiss for
my people's sake, one more for myself, and then I must take you to them.
It's not fair to keep them waiting any longer. But no--first I must put
a ring on the Girl's finger--as I hoped to do long ago. You
remember--the ring of my bet, that almost made me lose you? I told you
about it, didn't I, on our day together, when I thought I should come
back in two weeks?"
"You told me you hoped not to lose a thing you wanted. You didn't say it
was a ring. But at Royalieu--the newspaper correspondents' château near
Compiègne--we came across a friend of yours, the one you made the bet
with----"
"Jack Curtis!"
"Yes. He told me about the ring. And he was sure you were alive."
"Good old Jack! Well, now I'm going to slip that magic ring on your
darling finger--the 'engaged' finger."
"But where is it?"
"The finger? Just now on the back of my neck, which it's making
throb--like a star!... Oh, the _ring_? That's in the hobby-horse which I
see over there, as large as life. At least, it's in him unless, unlike a
leopard, he's changed his spots."
Jim wouldn't let me go, but drew me with him, our arms interlaced, to
the tower end of the room where the hobby-horse he had once rescued from
fire endlessly pranced. "This used to be my bank, when I was a little
chap," he said. "Like a magpie, I always hid the things I valued most in
a hole I made under the third smudge to the left, on Spot Cash's breast.
'Spot Cash' is the old boy's name, you know! When I won the bet and took
the ring home, I had a fancy to keep it in this hidie hole, for luck,
till I could find the Girl. Mother knew. She was with me at the time.
But I was half ashamed of myself for my childishness, and asked her not
to tell--not even the Governor. I shouldn't wonder if that was why it
occurred to her to pack up my treasures for France. Maybe she had a
prophetic soul, and thought, if I found the Girl, I should want to lay
my hand on the ring. Here it is, safe and sound."
As he spoke, he had somehow contrived to extract a particularly black
smudge from the region of the hobby-horse's heart. It came out with a
block of wood underneath, and left a gap which gave Spot Cash the effect
of having suffered an operation. At the back of the cavity a second
hole, leading downward, had been burrowed in the softish wood; and in
this reposed a screwed-up wad of tissue paper. Jim hooked the tiny
packet out with a finger, opened the paper as casually as though it
enclosed a pebble, and brought to the light (which found and flashed to
the depths of a large blue diamond) a quaintly fashioned ring of
greenish gold.
"This belonged to the most beautiful woman of a day that's past," Jim
said. "Now, it's for the most beautiful woman of a better day and a
still grander to-morrow. May I wish it on your finger--with the greatest
wish in the world?"
I gave him my hand--for the ring, and for all time.
One more moment in his arms, and he opened the door, to take "his Girl"
to Father and Mother Beckett.
Somewhere in the distance Julian O'Farrell was singing, as he had sung
on the first night we met, Mario's heartbreaking song in "La Tosca"--the
song on the roof, at dawn. Always in remembering Julian I must remember
Mario's love and sacrifice! I knew that he meant it should be so with
me.
The voice was the voice of love itself, such love as mine for Jim, as
Jim's for me, which can never die. It made me sad and happy at the same
time. But, as Jim and I paused at the door to listen, hand in hand, the
music changed. Julian began to sing something new and strangely
beautiful--a song he has composed, and dedicated to Brian. I was sad no
longer, for this is a song of courage and triumph. He calls it:
"Everyman's Land."
THE END
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK