Part 15 (1/2)
”Thus evermore, shall rise to Thee, Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.”
Jim Airth's big ba.s.s boomed through the little church; and Myra, close to his shoulder, sang with a face so radiant that none could doubt the reality of her praise.
Then back to a cold supper at the Moorhead Inn; after which they strolled out to the honeysuckle arbour for Jim's evening pipe, and a last quiet talk.
It was then that Jim Airth said, suddenly: ”By the way I wish you would tell me more about Lady Ingleby. What kind of a woman is she? Easy to talk to?”
For a moment Myra was taken aback. ”Why, Jim--I hardly know. Easy? Yes, I think _you_ will find her easy to talk to.”
”Does she speak of her husband's death, or is it a tabooed subject?”
”She speaks of it,” said Myra, softly, ”to those who can understand.”
”Ah! Do you suppose she will like to hear details of those last days?”
”Possibly; if you feel inclined to give them, Jim--do you know who did it?”
A surprised silence in the arbour. Jim removed his pipe, and looked at her.
”Do I know--who--did--what?” he asked slowly.
”Do you know the name of the man who made the mistake which killed Lord Ingleby?”
Jim returned his pipe to his mouth.
”Yes, dear, I do,” he said, quietly. ”But how came you to know of the blunder? I thought the whole thing was hushed up, at home.”
”It was,” said Myra; ”but Lady Ingleby was told, and I heard it then.
Jim, if she asked you the name, should you tell her?”
”Certainly I should,” replied Jim Airth. ”I was strongly opposed, from the first, to any mystery being made about it. I hate a hus.h.i.+ng-up policy. But there was the fellow's future to consider. The world never lets a thing of that sort drop. He would always have been pointed out as 'The chap who killed Ingleby'--just as if he had done it on purpose; and every man of us knew that would be a millstone round the neck of any career. And then the whole business had been somewhat irregular; and 'the powers that be' have a way of taking all the kudos, if experiments are successful; and making a what-on-earth-were-you-dreaming-of row, if they chance to be a failure. Hence the fact that we are all such stick-in-the-muds, in the service. n.o.body dares be original. The risks are too great, and too astonis.h.i.+ngly unequal. If you succeed, you get a D.S.O. from a grateful government, and a laurel crown from an admiring nation. If you fail, an indignant populace derides your name, and a pained and astonished government claps you into jail. That's not the way to encourage progress, or make fellows prompt to take the initiative. The right or the wrong of an action should not be determined by its success or failure.”
Lady Ingleby's mind had paused at the beginning of Jim's tirade.
”They could not have taken Michael's kudos,” she said. ”It must have been patented. He was always most careful to patent all his inventions.”
”Eh, what?” said Jim Airth. ”Oh, I see. 'Kudos,' my dear girl, means 'glory'; not a new kind of explosive. And why do you call Lord Ingleby 'Michael'?”
”I knew him intimately,” said Lady Ingleby.
”I see. Well, as I was saying, I protested about the hus.h.i.+ng up, but was talked over; and the few who knew the facts pledged their word of honour to keep silence. Only, the name was to be given to Lady Ingleby, if she desired to know it; and some of us thought you might as well put it in _The Times_ at once, as tell a woman. Then we heard she had decided not to know.”
”What do you think of her decision?” asked Lady Ingleby.
”I think it proved her to be a very just-minded woman, and a very unusual one, if she keeps to it. But it would be rather like a woman, to make a fine decision such as that during the tension of a supreme moment, and then indulge in private speculation afterwards.”
”Did you hear her reason, Jim? She said she did not wish that a man should walk this earth, whose hand she could not bring herself to touch in friends.h.i.+p.”
”Poor loyal soul!” said Jim Airth, greatly moved. ”Myra, if _I_ got accidentally done for, as Ingleby was,--should _you_ feel so, for my sake?”