God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

bit like it, even though I am crippled and more or less useless. You will teach me, won’t you? I want to have your faith—your goodness---”

He interrupted her.

“Do not call me good!” he said, faintly—“I cannot bear it—I cannot!”

She looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes.

“I’m afraid you will have to bear it!” she said, softly—“For you ARE good!—you have always been good to ME! And I do honestly believe that God means everything for the best as you say, because now I am a cripple, I have escaped once and for all from the marriage my aunt was trying to force me into with Lord Roxmouth. I thank God every minute of my life for that!”

“You never loved him?”

John’s voice was very low and tremulous as he asked this question.

“Never!” she answered, in the same low tone. “How could you think it?”

“I did not know—I was not quite sure---” he murmured.

“No, I never loved him!” she said, earnestly—“I always feared and hated him! And he did not love me,—he only cared for the money my aunt would have left me had I married him. But I have always wanted to be loved for myself—and this has been my great trouble. If anyone had ever really cared for me, I think it would have made me good and wise and full of trust in God—I should have been a much better woman than I am—I am sure I should! People say that the love I want is only found in poems and story books, and that my fancies are quite ridiculous. Perhaps they are. But I can’t help it. I am just myself and no other!” She smiled a little—then went on—“Lord Roxmouth has a great social position,—but, to my mind, he has degraded it. I could not have married a man for whom I had no respect. You see I can talk quite easily about all this because it is past. For of course now I am a cripple, the very idea of marriage for me is all over. And I am really very glad it is so. No one can spread calumnies about me, or compromise my name any more. And even the harm Lord Roxmouth meant to try and do to YOU, has been stopped. So this time God HAS answered my prayers.”

John looked up suddenly.

“Did you pray---?” he began in a choked voice-then checked himself, and said quickly—“Dear child, I do not think Lord Roxmouth could have ever done me any harm!”

“Ah, you don’t know him as I do!” and she sighed—“He stops at nothing. He will employ any base tool, any mean spy, to gain his own immediate purposes. And—and—” she hesitated—“you know I wrote to you about it---he saw us in the picture gallery---”

“Well!” said John, and his eyes kindled into a sudden light and fire—“What if he did?”

“You were telling me how much you disliked seeing women smoke”—she faltered—“And—and—you spoke of Psyche,—you remember---”

“I remember!” And John grew bolder and more resolute in spirit as he saw the soft rose flush on her cheeks and listened to the dulcet tremor of her voice—“I shall never forget!”

“And he thought—he thought---” here her words sank almost to a whisper—“that I—that you---”

He turned suddenly and looked down upon her where she lay. Their eyes met,—and in that one glance, love flashed a whole unwritten history. Stooping over her, he caught her little hands in his own, and pressed them against his heart with strong and passionate tenderness.

“If he thought I loved you,”—he said—“he was right! I loved you then—I love you now!—I shall love you for ever—till death, and beyond it! My darling, my darling! You know I love you!”

A half sob, a little smile answered him,—and then soft, broken words.

“Yes—I know!—I always knew!”

He folded his arms about her, and drew her into an embrace from which he wildly thought not Death itself should tear her.

“And you care?” he whispered.

“I care so much that I care for nothing else!” she said—then, all suddenly she broke down and began to weep pitifully, clinging to him and murmuring the grief she had till now so bravely restrained—“But it is all too late!” she sobbed—“Oh my dearest, you love me,—and I love you,—ah!—you will never know how much!—but it is too late!— I can be of no use to you!—I can never be of use! I shall only be a trouble to you,—a drag and a burden on your days!—oh John!—and a little while ago I might have been your joy instead of your sorrow!”

He held her to him more closely.

“Hush, hush!” he said softly, soothing her as he would have soothed a child,—and with mingled tenderness and reverence, he kissed the sweet trembling lips, the wet eyes, the tear-stained cheeks—“Hush, my little girl! You are all my joy in this world—can you not feel that you are?” And he kissed her again and yet again. “And I am so unworthy of you!—so old and worn and altogether unpleasing to a woman—I am nothing! Yet you love me! How strange that seems!—how wonderful!—for I have done nothing to deserve your love. And had you been spared your health and strength, I should never have spoken—never! I would not have clouded your sunny life with my selfish shadow. No! I should have let you go on your way and have kept silence to the end! For in all your vital brightness and beauty I should never have dared to say I love you, Maryllia!”

At this she checked her sobs, and looked up at him in vague amazement.

“You would never have spoken?”

“Never!”

“You would have let me live on here, quite close to you, seeing you every day, perhaps, without a word of the love in your heart?”

He kissed her, half-smiling.

“I think I should!”

“Then”—said Maryllia, with grave sweetness—“I know that God does mean everything for the best—and I thank Him for having made me a cripple! Because if my trouble has warmed your heart,—your cold, cold heart, John!”—and she smiled at him through her tears—“and has made you say you love me, then it is the most blessed and beautiful trouble I could possibly have, and has brought me the greatest happiness of my life! I am glad of it and proud of it,—I glory in it! For I would rather know that you love me than be the straightest, brightest, loveliest woman in the world! I would rather be here in your arms—so—” and she nestled close against him—“than have all the riches that were ever counted!—and—listen, John!” Here, with her clinging, caressing arms, she drew his head down close to her breast—“Even if I have to die and leave you soon, I shall know that all is right with my soul!—yes, dear, dear John!— because you will have taken away all its faults and made it beautiful with your love!—and God will love it for love’s sake, almost as much as He must love you for your own, John!”

There was only one way—there never has been more than one way—to answer such tender words, and John took that way by silencing the sweet lips that spoke them with a kiss in which the pent-up passion of his soul was concentrated. The shadows of the winter gloaming deepened;—the firelight died down to a mass of rosy embers;and when Cicely softly opened the door an hour later, the room was almost dark. But the scent of violets was in the air-she heard soft whisperings, and saw that two human beings at least, out of all a seeking world, had found the secret of happiness. And she stole away unseen, smiling, yet with glad tears in her eyes, and a little unuttered song in her heart—

“If to love is the best of all things known, We have gain’d the best in the world, mine own! We have touch’d the summit of love—and live God Himself has no more to give!”

XXXII

The prime of youth is said to be the only time of life when lovers are supposed by poets and romancists to walk ‘on air,’ so as John Walden was long past the age when men are called young, it is difficult to determine the kind of buoyant element on which he trod when he left the Manor that evening. Youth!—what were its vague inchoate emotions, its trembling hesitations, its more or less selfish jealousies, doubts and desires, compared to the strong, glowing and tender passion which filled the heart of this man, so long a solitary in the world, who now awaking to the consciousness of love in its noblest, purest form, knew that from henceforth he was no longer alone! A life,—delicate and half broken by cruel destiny, hung on his for support, help and courage,—a soul, full of sweetness and purity, clung to him for its hope of Heaven! The glad blood quickened in his veins,—he was twice a man,—never had he felt so proud, so powerful, and withal so young. Like the Psalmist he could have said ‘My days are renewed upon the earth’—and he devoutly thanked God for the blessing and glory of the gift of love which above all others makes existence sweet.

“My darling!” he murmured, as he walked joyously along the little distance stretching between the lodge gates of the Manor and his own home—“She shall never miss one joy that I can give her! How fortunate it is that I am tall and strong, for when the summer days come I can lift her from her couch and carry her out into the garden like a little child in my arms, and she will rest under the trees, and perhaps gradually get accustomed to the loss of her own bright vitality if I do my utmost best to be all life to her! I will fill her days with varied occupations and try to make the time pass sweetly,—she shall keep all her interests in the village—nothing shall be done without her consent—ah yes!—I know I shall be able to make her happier than she would be if left to bear her trouble quite alone! If she were strong and well, I should be no fit partner for her—but as it is—perhaps my love may comfort her, and my unworthiness be forgiven!”

Thus thinking, he arrived at his rectory, and entering, pushed open the door of his study. There, somewhat to his surprise, he found Dr. ‘Jimmy’ Forsyth standing in a meditative attitude with his back to the fire.

“Hullo, Walden!” he said—“Here you are at last! I’ve been waiting for you ever so long!”

“Have you?” and John, smiling radiantly, threw off his hat, and pushed back his grey-brown curls from his forehead—“I’m sorry! Anything wrong?” Dr. ‘Jimmy’ shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing particular. Oliver Leach is dead,—that’s all!”

Walden started back. The smile passed from his face, for, remembering the scarcely veiled threats of his parishioners, he began to fear lest they should have taken some unlawful vengeance on the object of their hatred.

“Dead!” he echoed amazedly—“Surely no one—no one has killed him?”

“Not a bit of it!” said Forsyth, complacently—“It just happened!”

“How?”

“Well, it appears that the rascal has been lying low for a considerable time in the house of our reverend friend, Putwood Leveson. That noble soul has been playing ‘sanctuary’ to him, and no doubt warned him of the very warm feeling with which the villagers of St. Rest regarded him. He has been maturing certain plans, and waiting till an opportunity should arise for