The Mistress of Shenstone. Barclay Florence Louisa
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. If they had to tell me Michael was in great danger, I should share his danger in receiving the news without flinching. If he were wounded, as I read the telegram I should receive a wound myself, and try to be as brave as he. All which came direct from the war, would unite me to Michael. But interfering friends, however well-meaning, would come between. If he had not been shielded from a bullet or a sword-thrust, why should I be shielded from the knowledge of his wound?”
The doctor screened his face with his hand,
“I see,” he said.
The clock struck six.
“But that was not the only reason I left town,” continued Lady Ingleby, with evident effort. Then she flung out both hands towards him. “Oh, doctor! I wonder if I might tell you a thing which has been a burden on my heart and life for years!”
There followed a tense moment of silence; but the doctor was used to such moments, and could usually determine during the silence, whether the confidence should be allowed or avoided. He turned and looked steadily at the lovely wistful face.
It was the face of an exceedingly beautiful woman, nearing thirty. But the lovely eyes still held the clear candour of the eyes of a little child, the sweet lips quivered with quickly felt emotion, the low brow showed no trace of shame or sin. The doctor knew he was in the presence of one of the most popular hostesses, one of the most admired women, in the kingdom. Yet his keen professional insight revealed to him an arrested development; possibilities unfulfilled; a problem of inadequacy and consequent disappointment, to which he had not the key. But those outstretched hands eagerly held it towards him. Could he bring help, if he accepted a knowledge of the solution; or – did help come too late?
“Dear Lady Ingleby,” he said, quietly; “tell me anything you like; that is to say, anything which you feel assured Lord Ingleby would allow discussed with a third person.”
Myra leaned back among the cushions and laughed – a gay little laugh, half of amusement, half of relief.
“Oh, Michael would not mind!” she said. “Anything Michael would mind, I have always told straight to himself; and they were silly little things; such as foolish people trying to make love to me; or a foreign prince, with moustaches like the German Emperor’s, offering to shoot Michael, if I would promise to marry him when his period of consequent imprisonment was over. I cut the idiots who had presumed to make love to me, ever after; and assured the foreign prince, I should undoubtedly kill him myself, if he hurt a hair of Michael’s head! No, dear doctor. My life is clear of all that sort of complication. My trouble is a harder one, involving one’s whole life-problem. And that problem is incompetence and inadequacy – not towards the world, I should not care a rap for that; but towards the one to whom I owe most: towards Michael, – my husband.”
The doctor moved uneasily in his chair, and glanced at the clock.
“Oh, hush!” he said. “Do not – ”
“No!” cried Myra. “You must not stop me. Let me at last have the relief of speech! My friend, I am twenty-eight; I have had ten years of married life; yet I do not believe I have ever really grown up! In heart and brain I am an undeveloped child, and I know it; and, worse still, Michael knows it, and —Michael does not mind. Listen! It dates back to years ago. Mamma never allowed any of her daughters to grow up. We were permitted no individuality of our own, no opinions, no independence. All that was required of us, was to ‘do her behests, and follow in her train.’ Forgive the misquotation. We were always children in mamma’s eyes. We grew tall; we grew good-looking; but we never grew up. We remained children, to be snubbed, domineered over, and bullied. My sisters, who were good children, had plenty of jam and cake; and, eventually, husbands after mamma’s own heart were found for them. Perhaps you know how those marriages have turned out?”
Lady Ingleby paused, and the doctor made an almost imperceptible sign of assent. One of the ladies in question, a most unhappy woman, was under treatment in his Mental Sanatorium at that very moment; but he doubted whether Lady Ingleby knew it.
“I was the black sheep,” continued Myra, finding no remark forthcoming. “Nothing I did was ever right; everything I did was always wrong. When Michael met me I was nearly eighteen, the height I am now, but in the nursery, as regards mental development or knowledge of the world; and, as regards character, a most unhappy, utterly reckless, little child. Michael’s love, when at last I realised it, was wonderful to me. Tenderness, appreciation, consideration, were experiences so novel that they would have turned my head, had not the elation they produced been counterbalanced by a gratitude which was overwhelming; and a terror of being handed back to mamma, which would have made me agree to anything. Years later, Michael told me that what first attracted him to me was a look in my eyes just like the look in those of a favourite spaniel of his, who was always in trouble with everyone else, and had just been accidentally shot, by a keeper. Michael told me this himself; and really thought I should be pleased! Somehow it gave me the key to my standing with him – just that of a very tenderly-loved pet dog. No words can say how good he has always been to me. If I lost him, I should lose my all – everything which makes home, home; and life a safe, and certain, thing. But if he lost little Peter, it would be a more real loss to him than if he lost me; because Peter is more intelligent for his size, and really more of an actual companion to Michael, than I am. Many a time, when he has passed through my room on the way to his, with Peter tucked securely under his arm; and saying, ‘Good-night, my dear,’ to me, has gone in and shut the door, I have felt I could slay little Peter, because he had the better place, and because he looked at me through his curls, as he was carried away, as if to say: ‘You are out of it!’ Yet I knew I had all I deserved; and Michael’s kindness and goodness and patience were beyond words. Only – only – ah, can you understand? I would sooner he had found fault and scolded; I would sooner have been shaken and called a fool, than smiled at, and left alone. I was in the nursery when he married me; I have been in the school-room ever since, trying to learn life’s lessons, alone, without a teacher. Nothing has helped me to grow up. Michael has always told me I am perfect, and everything I do is perfect, and he does not want me different. But I have never really shared his life and interests. If I make idiotic mistakes he does not correct me. I have to find them out, when I repeat them before others. When I made that silly blunder about the brazen serpent, you so kindly put me right. Michael would have smiled and let it pass as not worth correcting; then I should have repeated it before a roomful of people, and wondered why they looked amused! Ah, but what do I care for people, or the world! It is my true place beside Michael I want to win. I want to ‘grow up unto him in all things.’ Yes, I know that is a text. I am famous for misquotations, or rather, misapplications. But it expresses my meaning – as the duchess remarks, when she has said something mild under provocation, and her parrot swears! – And now tell me, dear wise kind doctor; you, who have been the lifelong friend of that grand creature, Jane Dalmain; you, who have done so much for dozens of women I know; tell me how I can cease to be inadequate towards my husband.”
The passionate flow of words ceased suddenly. Lady Ingleby leaned back against the cushions.
Peter sighed in his sleep.
A clock in the hall chimed the quarter after six.
The doctor looked steadily into the fire. He seemed to find speech difficult.
At last he said, in a voice which shook slightly: “Dear Lady Ingleby, he did not – he does not – think you so.”
“No, no!” she cried, sitting forward again. “He thinks of me nothing but what is kind and right. But he never expected me to be more than a nice, affectionate, good-looking dog; and I – I have not known how to be better than his expectations. But, although he is so patient, he sometimes grows unutterably tired of being with me. All other pet creatures are dumb; but I love talking, and I constantly say silly things, which do not sound silly, until I have said them. He goes off to Norway, fishing; to the Engadine, mountain-climbing; to this horrid war, risking his precious life. Anywhere to get away alone; anywhere to – ”
“Hush,” said the doctor, and laid a firm brown hand,