I left my bicycle at the hotel, and after some supper walked by
the sands to Whinnyfold, stopping to linger at each spot which was
associated with my wife. My wife! it was almost too much to think of; I
could hardly realise as yet that it was all real. As I sat on the Sand
Craigs I almost fancied I could see Marjory's figure once again on the
lonely rock. It seemed so long ago, for so much had happened since then.
And yet it was but a few days, all told, since we had first met. Things
had gone in a whirl indeed. There seemed to have been no pause; no room
for a pause. And now I was married. Marjory was my wife; mine for good
or ill, till death did us part. Circumstances seemed to have driven us
so close together that we seemed not new lovers, not bride and groom,
but companions of a lifetime.
And yet.... There was Marjory in Crom, compassed round by unknown
dangers, whilst I, her husband of a few hours, was away in another
place, unable even to gaze on her beauty or to hear her voice. Why, it
was not like a wedding day or a honeymoon at all. Other husbands instead
of parting with their wives were able to remain with them, free to come
and go as they pleased, and to love each other unfettered as they would.
Why....
I brought myself up sharp. This was grumbling already, and establishing
a grievance. I, who had myself proposed the state of things to Marjory,
to my wife. She was my wife; mine against all the rest of the world. My
love was with her, and my duty was to her. My heart and soul were in her
keeping, and I trusted her to the full. This was not my wedding day in
the ordinary sense of the word at all. This was _not_ my honeymoon.
Those things would come later, when our joy would be unfettered by
circumstances. Surely I had reason to rejoice. Already Marjory had
called me her husband, she had kissed me as such; the sweetness of her
kiss was still tingling on my lips. If anything but love and trust could
come to me from sitting still and sentimentalising and brooding, then
the sooner I started in to do some active work the better!...
I rose straightway and went across the headland to my house, unpacked
the box of tools which had come from Aberdeen, and set about my task of
trying to make an opening into the cave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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