The Obstacle Race by Ethel May Dell (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📖

softly to her heart while she turned her eyes to his.
"Oh, Dick," she said, "are you sure--are you quite sure--that--that--I am worth keeping?"
"I am quite sure I am going to keep you," he answered very steadily.
Her two hands closed fast upon his. "Not--not as a prisoner?" she whispered, wanly smiling.
"Yes, a prisoner," he said, not without a certain grimness, "that is, until you have learnt your lesson."
"What lesson?" she asked him wonderingly.
"That you can't do without me," he said, a note of challenge in his voice.
Something in his look hurt her. She freed one hand and laid it pleadingly, caressingly, against his neck. "Oh, Dicky," she said, "try to understand!"
His face changed a little, and she thought his mouth quivered ever so slightly as he said. "It's now or never, Juliet. If I don't come to a perfect understanding with you to-night, we shall be strangers for the rest of our lives."
She shivered at the finality of his words, but they gave her light. "I have hurt you--horribly!" she said.
He was silent.
She pressed herself to him with a sudden passionate gesture. "Dick--my husband--will you forgive me--can you forgive me--before you understand?"
Her eyes implored him, yet just for a second he hesitated. Then very swiftly he gathered her closely, closely against his heart, and kissed her pleading, upturned face over and over. "Yes!" he said. "Yes!"
She clung to him with all her quivering strength. "I love you, darling! I love you,--only--only--you!" she whispered brokenly. "You believe that?"
"Yes," he said again between his kisses.
"And if I tried to do without you it was only because--only because--I loved you so," she faltered on. "Your anger is just--the end of the world for me, Dick. I can't face it. It tears my very self."
"My darling! My own love!" he said.
"And then--and then--I had such an awful doubt of you, Dicky. I thought your love was dead, and I thought--and I thought I couldn't hope to hold you--after that. I'd got to free you somehow. Oh, Dicky, what agony love can be!"
"Hush, darling, hush!" he said.
She lay in his arms, her eyes looking straight up to his. "I never meant to do it, dear,--never meant to win your love in the first place. I always knew I wasn't worthy of it. I think I told you so. Dicky, listen! I've had a horrid life. My mother was divorced when Muff and I were youngsters at school. My father died only a year after, and no one ever cared what happened to us after that. We had an aunt--Lady Beatrice Farringmore--and she launched me in society when I left school. But she never cared--she never cared. She was far too busy with her own concerns. I just went with the crowd and pleased myself. No one ever took anything seriously in our set. It was just a mad rush of gaiety from morning till night. We were like a lot of empty-headed, mischievous children, horribly selfish of course, but not meaning any harm--at least not most of us. Everyone had a nickname. It was the fashion. It was Saltash who first called me Juliet. He said I was so tragically in earnest--which was really not true in those days. And I called him Charles Rex."
She paused, for Dick's arms had tightened about her.
"Go on!" he said, in a low voice. "I suppose he--made love to you, did he?"
"Everyone did that," she said. "He was just a specimen of the rest--except that I always somehow knew he had more heart. It was just a game with us all. It used to frighten me rather at first till--till I got used to it. When I was quite young I had rather a bitter lesson. I began to care for a man who I thought was in earnest, and I found he wasn't. After that, I never needed another. I played the game with the rest. Sometimes I hurt people, but I didn't care. I always said it was their fault for being taken in."
"That doesn't sound like you," he said.
"That was me," she returned, with a touch of recklessness, "till I read that first book of yours--_The Valley of Dry Bones_. That brought me up short. It shocked me horribly. You cut very deep, Dicky. I'm carrying the scars still."
He bent without words and set his lips to her forehead, keeping them there in mute caress while she went on.
"I had just begun to play with Ivor Yardley. He was my latest catch, and--I was rather proud of him. He didn't trouble to pursue many women. And then--after reading that book--I felt so evil, so unspeakably ashamed, that, when I knew he was really in earnest, I didn't throw him off like the rest. I accepted him."
She shuddered suddenly and twined her arm about her husband's neck.
"Dicky, I--went through hell--after that. I tried--I tried very hard--to be honourable--to keep my word. But--when the time drew near--I simply couldn't. He always knew--he must have known--I didn't love him. But he just wanted me, and he didn't care. And so--almost at the last moment--I let him down--I ran away. And, oh, Dicky, the peace of this place after all that misery and turmoil! You can't imagine what it was like. It was heaven. And I thought--I thought it was going to be quite easy to be good!"
"And then I came and upset it all," murmured Dick, with his lips against her hair.
Her hold tightened. "It's been one perpetual struggle against appalling odds ever since," she said. "If it hadn't been for--Robin--I should never have married you."
"Yes, you would," he said quietly. "That was meant. I've realized that since."
"I am not sure," she said. "If you hadn't been so miserable, I should have told you the truth. You wouldn't have married me then."
"Yes, I should," he said.
She drew a little away to look into his face. "Dick, are you sure of that?"
"I am quite sure," he said, and faintly smiled. "It's just because I am sure, that I am with you now--instead of Saltash. It was his own test."
Her eyes met his unflinching. "Dick, you believe that Saltash and I are just--friends?"
"I believe it," he said.
"And you are not angry with him?"
"No." He spoke with slight effort. "I am--grateful to him."
"But you don't like him?" she said.
He hesitated momentarily. "Do you?"
"Yes, of course." Her brows contracted a little. "I can't help it. I always have," she said rather wistfully.
He bent abruptly and kissed them. "All right, darling. So do I," he said.
She smiled at him, clinging closely. "Dicky, that's the most generous thing you ever did!"
"Oh, I can afford to be generous," he said, "now that I know your secrets and you know mine. Will you tell me something else now, Juliet?"
"Yes, dear," she whispered.
He laid his cheek against hers. "I was going to tell you my secret when you had read that last book of mine. When were you going to tell me yours?"
"Oh, Dicky!" she said in some confusion, and hid her face against his neck.
"No, tell me!" he said. "I want to know."
But Juliet only clung a little faster to him and buried her face a little deeper.
"Weren't you ever going to tell me?" he said, after a moment.
"Oh, yes--some time," she murmured from his breast.
"Well, when?" he persisted. "Just--any time?"
"No, dear, of course not!" A muffled sound that was half-sob and half-laugh came with the words.
Dick waited for a space, and then very gently began to feel for the hidden face. She tried to resist him, then, finding he would not be resisted, she took his hand and pressed it over her eyes, holding it as a shield between them.
"Won't you tell me?" he said.
She trembled a little in his hold. "That--that--is another secret, Dicky," she said very softly.
"Mayn't I--share it, sweetheart?" he said.
She uncovered her eyes with a little tremulous laugh, and lifted them to his. "Oh, I'm a coward, Dicky, a horrid coward. I thought--I thought I would tell you everything when--when you were holding your son in your arms. I thought you would have to--forgive me then."
"Oh, Juliet--Juliet!" he said, and tried to smile in answer, but could not. His lips quivered suddenly, and he laid his head down upon her breast.
And so, with her arms around him and the warm throbbing of her heart against his face, he came to the perfect understanding.
They saw the morning break through a silver mist, standing side by side on deck with the water sweeping snow-white from their keel.
Juliet, within the circle of her husband's arm, looked up and broke the silence with a sigh and a smile.
"Good morning, Romeo! And now that I've learnt my lesson, hadn't we better be going home?"
He kissed her, and drew her cloak more closely round her. "Do you want to go home?" he said.
She looked at him with a whimsical frown. "Well, I think I am at home wherever you are. But you are such a busy man. You can't be spared."
"They've got to spare me for to-day," he said.
"Ah! And to-morrow?"
"To-morrow too, Juliet. I'm giving up my work at Little Shale."
"But you can't give it up at a moment's notice," she said.
"The squire is managing it. They can close the school for a week anyway. Then he can find a substitute."
Juliet pondered this. Then, "Let's go back till the end of the term, Dicky!" she said.
He looked at her. "You want to, my Lady Joanna?"
She shook her head at him. "You're not to call me that. Yes, I'd like to go back and finish there, but only as your wife--nothing else."
"My lady wife!" he said, patting her cheek.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. "Yes, and there are the miners to settle. Do you think they'll ever be friends with me, Dick?"
"Of course they will," he said. "By the way, Juliet, I've a piece of news for you. You know what Yardley came for?"
"No, I don't," she said, looking momentarily startled.
His hand reassured her. "No, not for you, darling. He didn't expect to find you. No, he came because he had been told--by Jack, if you want to know--that I was doing the work of an agitator among the men."
"Dick!" she said, with quick indignation. "How dared he?"
His touch restrained her. "It doesn't matter. He came to see for himself, and he knows better now. He told me after the meeting that I could take over his share of the concern if I liked. And I took him at his word then and there. I've got some money put by, and the squire can put up the rest. Do you think your brother will mind?"
"Muff!" she said. "Oh no! He never minds anything."
"I'll buy him out too then some day, and we'll make that mine a going concern, Juliet. I'll teach those men to use their brains instead of being led by these infernal revolutionists. They shall learn that those who fight for themselves alone never get there. I'll teach 'em the rules of the game. They shall learn to be sportsmen."
Juliet's eyes were shining. "Bravo, Dick!" she said softly.
He met her look. "You'll have to help me, sweetheart," he said.
She gave him her hands. "I will help you in all that you do, Dick," she said.
It was at this point that Columbus, who had been sitting a little apart with his back turned, got up, shook himself vigorously as if to give warning of his approach, and went to Juliet.
He set his paws against her with a loud pathetic yawn.