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
pronounce an opinion concerning any other man and woman in like
circumstances. 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 reasserted 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 assured 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
Belovèd is mine, and I am his"; in the second, "I am my Belovèd's and he
is mine." But in the third, all else is merged in the instinctive joy of
giving: "I am my Belovèd's, and his desire is towards me."
This is the natural attitude of the sexes, 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 noblest in Jim Airth awoke at that hallowed memory of
faithful strength on his part, and trustful peace on hers.
"My God," 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 belovèd. 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 shore, 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 passed a farm. The farmer's wife
had been up since sunrise, churning. She gladly gave him a simple
breakfast of home-made bread, with butter 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 passing 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.