Читать книгу The Lonely Stronghold - Baillie Mrs. Reynolds - Страница 4

For a moment Olwen gripped the letter in her young fist as if she wished its writer were there instead. Then her sense of humour triumphed. Bursting into hearty laughter, she crushed the impertinence into a ball and tossed it into the fender.

"Well," she mused, "I think that is the limit! And there is my sole reply to an advertisement which cost me five shillings!"

Fiercely she brushed the thick mane of dun-coloured hair that shaded to gold. "And I thought my destiny lay in that envelope!" she whispered quite fiercely. Her eyes seemed to blaze. They were pale grey eyes, made beautiful by noticeably fine lashes, which, with her eyebrows, were too dark for such fair hair. She was not going to be discouraged. She would write to London, to a first-class agency, and pay whatever fee they demanded. To go to London would be to escape from Ben.

She laughed and sighed both at once. Aunt Maud would have liked her to marry Ben—poor Aunt Maud, who knew nothing of the discontent which had grown up within the daughter of Madoc Innes. She had feared it in Ollie's early girlhood—had watched for signs of it. But by degrees she had reached the comforting conviction that Olwen inherited from her Wilson relatives too good a strain of steady devotion to duty to be troubled by her father's vagabond instincts.

She loved Olwen, and confided in her. Olwen loved her, but never reciprocated the confidences. Aunt Maud might have inferred much from the circumstance, but she belonged to a type which does not draw inferences.

CHAPTER III

"WHAT IS A PELE EXACTLY?"

"Ollie has changed a good deal during these last three years," remarked Mrs. Whitefield, as she reclined in the least uncomfortable of the Vicarage drawing-room chairs, beside a huge and glowing fire such as seldom burned in the little-used grate.

Aunt Ada, opposite, was knitting, with fingers knobby with rheumatism. "We think we see a great likeness to poor Mamma in her at times," she remarked, with that softening of the voice in which she always spoke of her niece, and which vaguely stirred Ethel's resentment.

"Likeness to Mamma?" she repeated scornfully, "why, she is as like Madoc Innes as two peas in a pod! See the way her eyes wrinkle when she laughs—and that mouthful of little short teeth—and the small-boned type, so Welsh, you know. When we took Lord Fishguard's place in Glamorgan last summer we were always meeting people who reminded me of Madoc! And she is just the same. Yet she seems fairly steady, you say?"

"She is the best girl in the world," put in Aunt Maud fervently. "Week after week she hands over nearly half her earnings to Ada and me; and she gives every satisfaction at the bank. You know Mrs. Barnes only took her post there because she was left a widow on very small means. She is a friend of the Otleys, and she told them that Ollie is highly thought of at the Palatine."

"Well, it is to her credit that she should earn her living, but in my opinion a private post would be more suitable," said the rich man's wife reflectively. "It's not a nice thing for the family, you know, having her in business in the very town where you reside—trudging out to work in all weathers. I wonder if George could get her a better berth. A good many of our friends keep a private secretary, and it is quite what George calls a soft job."

Though older than either of her maiden sisters, Mrs. Whitefield looked years younger. Her golden hair was not tinged with grey, and her faint suggestion of three chins suited her Juno type. Aunt Ada, with sparse, fading hair, brushed flat, pale face and spectacles, might have been her mother.

It was the afternoon of Christmas Day, and the young people were upstairs, planning a charade to be performed next evening. The Whitefield children had been born at what their mother described as easy intervals. Hugh and Marjorie were in their late teens, Lionel fourteen, and the two youngest still young enough to be in the nursery.

"She is rather pretty, you know," went on the lady, still considering her niece. "Though I don't know that I admire any type so mixed. Her mother's hair and eyes, with her father's dark skin and eyelashes, make rather a curious effect. Pity she can't marry, poor girl, but I don't suppose that's likely."

"She might marry to-morrow if she liked, as I happen to know," burst out Aunt Maud, who could not bear to hear Ollie patronized.

"Indeed? Anybody worth having?" was the somewhat surprised rejoinder.

"That depends on what you mean. In my opinion, not nearly good enough for her, but well enough off to marry and make her comfortable, and his family would welcome her with open arms."

"Bless me! Then why does she go fagging on at the bank like this? Doesn't the young man object?"

"She hasn't given him the right to object," sighed Aunt Maud, "and I don't think she will; at least, I should have said so a couple of days ago, but she told me yesterday that she is going out with him—that is, with his family—the day after to-morrow."

"Oh!" Mrs. Whitefield was half interested, half envious. "George and I would give her a handsome present," said she, speaking as though this fact, if known, should weigh heavy in the result. "I suppose I must be pricking up my ears about Marjorie soon," she added. "She hasn't inherited the Wilson beauty, but she'll be worth picking up, as George says."

"So far as I have observed," said Ada suddenly, "a girl needs only two things in order to get married. I don't mean a girl with money. Marjorie will get married in any case, she needs no internal charm. But for a poor girl, there are two essential things——"

"And they are——?"

"A pair of fine eyes and an empty mind. The fine eyes may now and then be dispensed with; but emptiness of mind is indispensable."

"Really, Ada, you mustn't talk like that, even to me! It sounds so embittered. It is sheer nonsense to say men like stupidity."

"Not stupidity—emptiness. A man wants a woman into whose vacant mind he can pour the image of himself. Jane Austen describes the pose as intelligent ignorance; but I don't think the intelligence matters much so long as the ignorance is there."

"You are suggesting," said Ethel superciliously, "that Clara and I had vacant minds, and that you and Maud are single because you were more intelligent."

"Yes," said Ada bluntly, "I think it's true. I was every bit as handsome as you, but George would never have married me, because I had ideas of my own. So had Maud. Ideas get in the way. Life is far easier for a woman who has none. In that case, almost any man will do."

"Which makes one afraid for Ollie's happiness," said Maud softly. "She is just a mass of ideas—has a really original mind."

As she spoke, voices were heard, and Hugh, Marjorie and Olwen entered the room together. Marjorie, big and bouncing, with the hockey stride, a purplish complexion, and red patches where her eyebrows should have been, looked beside Olwen like a coloured supplement in an illustrated paper beside a Cosway miniature.

They came to obtain permission for Hugh and Marjorie to join the theatre party next day.

"The Holroyds," said Mrs. Whitefield vaguely, "the people who spoke to us after church this morning, do you mean? Ah, yes. Who are they, Ada? All right?"

"What do you mean by all right? They are friends of ours."

"Well, but you know how careful one has to be nowadays. In our position we must pick and choose, I can tell you. If you are in with one lot, you must be out with the other. There are so many jumped-up, common rich folks about. You should see some of the boys' parents at Oakstone (the big public school in the Midlands where her boys were educated) rolling up in their motors, all furs and diamonds, and then hear them talk! Yet you have to conform to the standard they set. Hugh used to tell me he would rather I didn't go to Oakstone at all than come without the car."

There was a slight pause after this exposition of Mrs. Whitefield's social views; then Aunt Ada said incisively:

"The Holroyds are good people, but they are nothing great socially—just mill-owners, like George."

Ethel's colour rose, but she was not abashed. "How much money have they, that's the point," said she. "Money talks. Have they enough to make people forget the mills? George has, you see."

Olwen was shaken with a gust of contempt such as her father might have felt. She spoke swiftly. "Everyone forgets to be snobbish in talking to Mrs. Holroyd, because she is sincere and generous and kind," she cried impetuously. "But, if mill-owning is a thing to be forgotten, don't on any account let Hugh and Marjorie run the risk of contamination. The awful truth must be confessed, the Holroyds don't keep a car."

Mrs. Whitefield laughed sleepily as she gazed at her niece's heightened colour. She saw something unusual, something compelling about Olwen. Married to a man with means, she might go far.

"Why, Ollie, we'll take them on your recommendation. I didn't know they were intimate friends."

"Gracie is my best and oldest friend."

"And what about the son? Is he, too, a diamond in a plain setting?"

"There are four sons," was the quick retort. "You saw the eldest this morning."

Her aunt smiled at the adroit evasion, and said she had no objection to the proposed expedition.

When the young people had left the room there was a short silence among the sisters. Presently Mrs. Whitefield remarked, "Well, Maud, judging by that ebullition, she means to have him, doesn't she?"

Maud made a gesture of helplessness. "She ought to have a future," said she quite passionately, "only we are so helpless——"

"And being in this bank is so against her. No young man in a good position hereabouts would marry a girl who, as all his friends must know, is merely a bank clerk."

"Why don't you invite her to Mount Prospect for six months and give her a chance, Ethel?" asked Ada sharply.

"She wouldn't come," was the placid response. "I can't picture Madoc Innes's daughter taking six months' holiday to find herself a husband, can you?"

"It's a case of these ideas Ada was talking of just now," said Maud. "I fear they will get in her matrimonial way, poor child."

"And after all, the men she would meet at your house are only Ben Holroyd over again," chimed in Ada, who was really on the warpath that day.

Mrs. Whitefield, however, prided herself upon making all allowance for the inevitable souring of her maiden sisters. "I don't think I should care in any case to make myself responsible for marrying that man's daughter to any friend of mine," said she, quite good-temperedly. "What's bred in the bone, you know. She might develop very undesirable traits. Think of poor Clara, with her large, fair beauty, and this little spitfire, her father's own daughter if ever a girl was!"

This was too true to be contradicted.

Olwen awoke, upon the day that followed Boxing Day, with a feeling much like that of Pippa on her holiday morning. The world, which had for the past two days displayed closed shutters, was now awake again, and going on its way as usual. The mill hooters had rung at six, everywhere the toilers were thronging back to work once more. Yet she still lay luxuriously in half Aunt Maud's bed, with a whole holiday before her, and a matinée into the bargain.

As she put on her prettiest blouse, in honour of the day's excursion, she heard the postman's knock; and when she took her place at table, a letter in an unknown hand lay upon her plate. Another reply to her advertisement!

Hugh and Marjorie were discussing the rival merits of two actresses who were to appear that afternoon. The vicar was behind his paper, nobody's eyes were upon her. After the sharp disappointment of the other answer, she had no superstitious feeling about this one, but she opened it forthwith.

The enclosure was in a slanting, spidery hand, and the address was plainly stamped upon the top of the sheet.

"Guysewyke Pele,"Caryngston,

"Northumberland.

"Miss O. Innes, Dear Madam,——

"I have seen your advt in last week's paper, and write, in case you may not as yet have engaged yourself, to tell you that I am in want of a young lady as companion and secretary. I live in a very remote spot, and am not as young as I was. You would have no menial duties. Your salary would be £5 a month, and I would pay your railway fares. I suppose you can give me references. I am a widow, my late husband was first cousin to the present Lord Caryngston, to whom I can refer you if necessary.

"Should you think this suitable, please come as soon as you can. Even should you not desire such a post as a permanency, you might like to come for two or three months, until you find something else. Would next week be too soon?

"Faithfully yours,

"CHARLOTTE GUYSE."

Olwen looked doubtful as she laid the letter down. To be companion to a solitary elderly lady in the wilds of Northumberland was not at all what she desired. Her training would rust in such a place, she would be hopelessly bored. There was a postscript to the letter which she did not at first see, since it was written overpage.

"There is a valuable library here which requires cataloguing."

This modified her intentions. The writer perhaps really only wanted temporary assistance. When the catalogue was complete, she might be able to come away again. By that time she would have found out how she liked the post. She would not feel herself permanently cast away in the wilds.... And it was a way out. Until the offer of release lay before her she had not realized how strong was her craving for some change.

It sounded like what Mr. Whitefield would call "a soft job." If she found herself with a good deal of spare time it might be possible to indulge her secret ambition, which was to become a journalist like her father. If she could remain at the Pele for a twelvemonth, which did not sound impossible, she might be able during that time to lay by enough money to take her to London and give her a start.

Breakfast was over before she had come out of her dream. Shaking herself free of fancies, she ran off to help Aunt Maud with the beds, thrusting the letter out of sight for a while, though her mind ran upon the plan, and played about the thought of the future.

She started upon the day's expedition with an odd feeling of reinforcement against Ben. He was no longer the sole alternative to the bank. There was a tertium quid, should she decide to avail herself thereof.

Ben and Gracie awaited them with a simple eagerness which took no pains to hide itself. Mr. Witherly, the new curate, proved to be the sixth member of the party. Ben had ordered a motor to take them to the station, and had not, as Olwen had feared he might, attired himself in a frock coat. He wore a lounge suit which she thought was new, and looked better than she had ever seen him.

But it need not come to that! Every time she caught the deprecating glance of his uneasy eye she fortified herself with the assurance of the existence of the tertium quid.

Ben was well known on the line, where he travelled daily to and fro. The guard was attentive, they had an empty compartment, and travelled luxuriously first class; a pleasure in itself to the young bank clerk.

On reaching Leeds, they went and lunched at the Café Luxe, to the accompaniment of a good band. Afterwards, as they sat at coffee in the lounge, Ben as close as he dared sit to Olwen, she asked him suddenly,

"Did you ever hear of a place in Northumberland called Caryngston?"

"Yes, it's a small market town, out on the moors, miles from anywhere."

"No railway?"

"Not to Caryngston. You go on a branch line to a place called Picton Bars, I think. It is between the Roman Wall and the Cheviots."

"It sounds remote! Have you heard of a family thereabouts called Guyse?"

"Lord Carnygston's family name is Guyse. I fancy there are several of them in that part."

"Living at a place called Guysewyke Pele?"

"I've heard Guysewyke Pele spoken of several times. It is supposed to be the finest Pele remaining, next to the one at Chipchase."

"What is a Pele exactly? I thought it was a watch-tower?"

"That's more or less right, but it was a fortress, too. When the borderers went raiding, the women and children and cattle were driven into the Pele and shut up there. The ground floor was used as a stable, and the larger Peles had a well inside, so that the inmates could hold out for some time."

"Have you seen one?"

"Yes. Quite a small one though. It is in the churchyard at Corbridge-on-the-Tyne. The parson lived there in raiding times. It is quite interesting. You like such things, don't you?"

"Love them. I hate places like Leeds and Bramforth, where the present day has stamped out and obliterated every trace of former ages."

"But you wouldn't like to live in a very lonely place, would you?"

She laughed. "I am trying to make up my mind."

He went quite pale. "To make up your mind?" he stammered, with such a stricken look that her heart reproached her.

"Oh, only an invitation to go and stay in those parts," she replied hurriedly. "I don't fancy I should like it for long."

"Ben," said Gracie, "we ought to be on the move. This thing begins at half-past two, you know."

They rose, and went to find taxi-cabs.

CHAPTER IV

HER FIRST OFFER

Ben was badly shaken.

So long as Olwen was in Bramforth and he knew where she went and the people who were her friends, there did not seem to be so much need of haste. If she were going away, however, he had no intention of allowing her to vanish from his sight without arriving at an understanding. He was not a quick-witted man. Often as his beloved had sheered off, leading him away from the point, he yet was not certain that this was intentional. Girls very often, or so he was told, did not know their own minds until a man had actually spoken the fatal words.

He meant that Miss Innes should hear them, and he carried out his purpose with a ruthlessness which left no room for evasion.

The day at the theatre closed, as, according to Mrs. Holroyd's programme, with a supper at their house. It was a merry, noisy party, and after the meal, Gracie took Hugh and Marjorie to the morning room to hear the new gramophone. Olwen and Ben remained in the drawing-room, and after a while, Mrs. Holroyd, having been warned by her son, melted away, leaving the two tête-à-tête. The gramophone was playing "Tales from Hoffmann," and Olwen, feeling a little tired and dreamy, leaned back in a big chair, looking very young and small. Ben, standing before the mantelpiece, asked her gravely whether she was thinking of leaving the "Baank."

"You would approve of such a course, would you not?" she asked mischievously.

"I've never thought it suitable. But what have you in mind instead?"

"I have been there three years, and I want a change," said Olwen.

"Yes, I daresay. You are young. I suppose you don't feel in any hurry to settle down once for all?"

"Settle down once for all? Oh, I could never do that!"

"Never?" echoed Ben, in a voice faint from astonishment.

"I'm not domestic! I've told you so before. I want to go all over the world and try everything. If I thought I had to spend my life in Bramforth, I should go crazy, I believe."

He was silent, turning over this speech, so subversive of all moral order, in his keen, though narrow intelligence.

"Bramforth's not much of a place," he remarked, "I'm not set on it myself. But a man—or a woman, if you come to that—must stay in one place if they have their living to earn."

"Oh, no, not at all. I might be a newspaper correspondent, and travel from place to place. Splendid fun to write one's experiences!"

Ben shook his head. "All that's beyond me. When I've been all day at the Mills I like to come back to my own fireside, and I should like the same woman always there. If she was there I shouldn't mind where the house stood."

"Quite wonderful, isn't it, how different people's ideals are," said she conversationally.

"Are ours different? Perhaps not so much as you think." He turned so as to face her. "Miss Innes, you can't have been unconscious of the fact that I love you and want you for my wife."

There was a simple directness in this which Olwen liked better than she had ever liked anything in Ben before. It reminded her of his mother. She grew crimson, and gave a little gasp, for she had not expected quite such an onslaught.

"Oh!" her voice was horribly wobbly, "I—I have wondered if—it has seemed so—but I thought it must be my fancy. You see, it was so unlikely, we are not suited to each other in the least."

"Likely or unlikely, it's true, and it has been true for years. I know you pretty well, and I don't agree that we aren't suited. Anyway, I have told you at last. What are you going to say?"

She gave a sound like a sob. Ben was leaning nearer. Before she could speak again he was on his knees, his arms folded on the arm of her chair. "What are you going to say, darling?" he muttered, huskily.

She saw that she must be swift and definite. "I must say 'No,'" she uttered, fear of some untimely demonstration on his part rushing in to banish her nervousness. "I hate to seem so blunt, but it is No, and when you have time to think it over you will see that I am right. You want a good, affectionate girl, who would love to sweep up the hearth and bring your slippers and sit at home and do the mending. And I—I couldn't be happy—like that! No, I couldn't! Ben, it is no use, indeed, indeed! You know I am sincere. If I thought it possible that I could ever settle down to—to that, I would tell you in a minute. But I can't! I am Madoc Innes's daughter, one of the wild ones. I'm not a fireside woman. I'm not the woman for you."

He was silent for a long moment, and his face changed sadly. "I had not really very much hope," he said at last, "but one never knows. I was determined that you should understand what I feel.... But I don't think you quite realise that if you married me you would be far more your own mistress than you are now. You needn't live in Bramforth if you don't like. You needn't sweep up your own hearth or do your own mending. I could give you servants to do that. You could travel. It—it would be my greatest happiness to let you do as you liked. If—if you could have brought yourself.... You could make pretty well anything you chose out of me."

He broke off. She had shaken her head, slowly and miserably. The motion caused the ripples of her hair to shine like the tarnished gold of an old Florentine frame. It came to the man's mind that he had always wanted so desperately to see that hair once more free as he used to see it in her girlhood; and that now he never would.

"Dear good Ben," she was saying, "I like you too well to marry you and make you unhappy ever after. I have a devil in me, I really have, and nothing would rouse it so completely as to find myself tied for life to a man I did not love. Oh, Ben, I hate, I hate saying No to you! Please take it; please don't make me say it again!"

He got to his feet, drew out a handkerchief, and passed it over his agitated countenance. "I won't," he then said firmly. "That is, not at present. But I won't go so far as to say that I consider it quite all over. There's no other man so far!"

"Oh, no, no!"

"Then, as long as that is so, I take it that you might change your mind."

She tried earnestly to prevent his indulging any such false hopes. But as the idea seemed to make it easier for him not to importune her further, she gave in after a while, only uttering a fervent wish that he might find just the right girl before long.

A pang shot through her as she went to find her kind hostess, and timidly tell her that she thought they ought to be going. Mrs. Holroyd looked from the girl to her son. Her eyes filled, her sweet-tempered mouth quivered. Olwen's vivid fancy leapt up to picture what her reception would have been had she given Ben the right to place her in those kind arms. How delighted they would all have been! How completely a daughter of the house she would have become! With her uncanny intuition she knew that she could have made herself just such a woman as they all desired—had she loved Ben she would have become such an one—have lived her monotonous life and died her peaceful death among the Holroyds and their kind, with only an occasional pang! ... But she was not fool enough to give way now; though that picture also rose before her mind's eye. She could conjure up Ben's face should she suddenly surrender; could fancy him embracing her publicly, before his family, herself strained to his stout form, recipient of his kisses....

Her involuntary shudder was the measure of her repugnance. With an air of shamefaced apology she took her leave, feeling, as she and her cousins walked home, that this had made it impossible for her to stay in Bramforth—that the Border Pele and the cataloguing of the library must be her way out.

Before she slept she wrote a letter to Mrs. Guyse, saying that the post was not quite such as the advertiser had contemplated, but that she was not yet suited, and would like further details. She knew nothing of nursing, and could not take a post where she would have the care of an invalid.

She decided to say nothing to her aunts until she received a reply to this; and for two days she sat in the bank and worked her typewriter, feeling as if her life had suddenly become a dream. She made jokes, ate surreptitious sweets, cooked cocoa, and chattered as usual. Her whole mind was meanwhile fixed upon the breaking of the news at home and the handing in of her notice at the Palatine.

Mrs. Guyse's reply was that her health was not very strong, but that she did not call herself an invalid, and that in any case she had an old and trusted servant who waited upon her. She renewed her suggestion that Miss Innes should come experimentally. She was directed to travel by train to Picton Bars, whence Mrs. Guyse would arrange that a fly should bring her on to Caryngston, at which place she would be met.

The mere fact that the Pele was evidently difficult of access acted as a lure to Olwen. She choked, she pined for adventure, for wild country, for something as unlike Bramforth as could be had. However elderly and dull this Mrs. Guyse, she came of good family, and must have some friends, who would be of the right kind.

That evening she took her courage in her hands and broke the matter to her aunts.

"Am I a beast?" she asked piteously. "I feel like a deserter leaving you two, who have made such sacrifices for me, and going off. But, oh, my dears, the world is so big and life is so short! I simply must try my wings! I don't feel as if I could hold on here any longer."

She spoke with her arms round Aunt Maud, who said nothing, but began to cry quietly. Aunt Ada made no pause in her endless knitting, but turned the heel of her sock before replying in a calm voice.

"There's no need to apologise, Ollie. I approve of the idea, and had thoughts of suggesting that you should give up your daily work and seek a resident post. This does not seem quite what one would have chosen, but if it is clear that you go to see how you like it, no great harm can be done. If you catalogue the books ably, Mrs. Guyse can give you a good reference, which will be more valuable in seeking another post than any reference from the Palatine."

Olwen sat incredulous. "Aunt Ada! You really advise me to go?"

"If you want to go, I agree with everything that Ada says," gulped Aunt Maud; "but, oh, my darling, I do hope it isn't because you are not h-happy—because you want something you can't have—because you c-care for——"

"I want heaps of things I can't have," broke in her niece hastily. "I want to go round the world and see its wonders! I want to go and work in London at the heart of things. But most of all I think I want fresh air. I almost forget what the far horizon looks like! Except for you two and Gracie Holroyd, there's not a creature in Bramforth that I shall regret leaving. I just want to be off!"

"Then you will go quite soon?"

"If I give in my notice tomorrow I could travel on the 8th or 9th. I shan't want many grand clothes up there, I suppose. I wonder how one does one's shopping in a place like that?"

"The present Aunt Ethel gave you will come in useful," said Aunt Maud, wiping her eyes, and beginning to feel interested.

"Why, so it will! I never thought of that! I am always inclined to turn up my nose at Marjorie's cast-offs, but that motor-coat ought to be the very thing for the Cheviots in January."

"There's a difference," observed Aunt Ada, "between cast-offs and outgrowns. It's lucky for you that Marjorie is such a giantess. She only wore that coat about a dozen times, her mother told me."

They entered into all the intricacies of the girl's wardrobe, making valuable suggestions as to various garments which could be "done up." They were as eager as though she were their own child. Aunt Maud produced a bit of lace, Aunt Ada an amethyst pendant. The guilty feeling began to fade away.

Sincerely as Olwen was attached to these two, her youth prevented her from appreciating their wonderful unselfishness. Impatience of their limitations had often vexed her. She had not insight to value their renunciations.

When Faber wrote his lines on unselfishness:

"Oh, could I live my whole life through for others

With no ends of my own——"

he was probably unaware of the many educated women in England whose daily life is a repetition of his formula. Ada and Maud Wilson had no ends of their own. Their nearest relatives would have been astounded to learn that they had any personal interests to turn them aside from their quite obvious duty of running a household on insufficient means, doing their best to counteract the ill effects of an old man's parochial neglect, and showing hospitality to the various members of the family who simply claimed it as a right. Their father's death would throw them on the world practically unprovided for. Nobody deplored this. Nobody tried to alter it. Nobody gave it a thought.

When their best-loved niece had run off to rummage in her drawers, for a couple of frocks to be looked over, and have their claims to restoration considered, the two sisters fell silent.

They did not look at one another, for they were not demonstrative women; but they understood each other.

"There is nobody else in Bramforth," said Ada, as though in reply to something said by Maud. "If she stays here she will marry Ben Holroyd, simply because she will find that she has to.... I feel the child is made for better things."

Maud gave a long sigh, charged with the wasted regrets of her vanished youth. "Oh, Ada! Was not that perhaps the mistake we made? We demanded more than we could get. Are you so certain that she does not like Ben? You don't think she is going off because he has not spoken?"

"I think she is going because the indirect pressure of her friendship with his sister, and the fact that there is nobody else, is pushing her," replied Ada decisively.

Maud said no more. Her own tragedy had been the long waiting for the beloved to speak—the vain waiting, while other men came forward.

She felt that, whether Ben had spoken, or whether he had not, it was best that Ollie should go away.

CHAPTER V

TRAVELLER'S JOY

The 8th of January dawned still and cold. A black frost was on the ground, and in the sky the yellowish greyness which usually precedes a heavy snowfall.

It was, however, perfectly fine and dry at Bramforth when Olwen set out upon her northward journey. At Newcastle she had to change, and later on must change again, for the little local line which would carry her to Picton Bars.

The lonely station stands high upon the fells, and the snow had begun to fall when she alighted upon the small, dreary platform.

A fly sent by Askwith, landlord of the Seven Spears at Caryngston, was duly in waiting, and when she and her baggage were safely bestowed they started off, up a hill so steep that the driver did not mount his box until they had gone a mile and a half. The Seven Spears was the curious name of the hostelry to which Mrs. Guyse in her last letter had directed her new secretary, with the information that at this point upon her journey she would be met.

By the time they had gained a wide, exposed plateau, the snow was falling with surprising and increasing rapidity. The great flakes were like lumps of wool, and the whole face of the country was white in half an hour. As they breasted the hill they encountered a keen icy wind from the north, against which the horses could make but slow progress. The train had been warmed, but the interior of the fly was very chilly. It seemed to Olwen that in all the miles they travelled they never passed a single human habitation. How far they went she could not tell, but she was blue with cold, and very hungry by the time they reached the outskirts of a small town or a large village. The grey stone cottages were huddled in true Northumbrian fashion one against the other, right upon the road, with no intervening garden plots as in southern counties. Owing to the storm, nobody was in the streets; and against all walls which faced the north the snow had already drifted deeply. Darkness was closing in as they reached the market square, white and empty in the pitiless weather.

Olwen felt a little nervous at the thought that the last, and presumably the wildest, stage of her journey still lay before her. She had hardly realised that England contained a place so remote as Guysewyke.

The inn stood on the north side of the square, facing south. A wooden porch projected above the door, and wooden benches were ranged below the windows.

As the horses stopped before the entrance, a middle-aged woman, in felt slippers, drying her hands upon a large print apron, came and stood in the light of the doorway.

"Is it the yoong leddy for t' Pele?" she asked in a hearty voice, which was strangely comfortable in the circumstances.

"Yes," said Olwen as she jumped out eagerly. "Are you Mrs. Askwith? What dreadful weather you have here! It was quite fine at Bramforth this morning!"

"To think o' that! Coom away, Missie, and Saam'll put trooks doon in't baack kitchen. There's a canny bit o' snaw doon already, and we'll have more'n enoof, coom morrning. Bad time o' year to be travelling, and you sooch a bit lassie!"

The last words were tinged with wonder as Miss Innes walked into the passage, which was papered in imitation blocks of grey granite, divided into oblongs by bands of bright blue.

Olwen laughed. "I think it's fun—quite an adventure, you know," she replied gaily. "Is there anybody here to meet me from Guysewyke?"

"Ow ay, there be," said the hostess; and as she spoke she pushed open a door leading into the bar parlour, whence issued loud laughter and a whiff of mingled tobacco smoke, leather gaiters, beer, sawdust and hot humanity.

Olwen caught sight of several men on benches, three farmers round a central table, and the host, in a green baize apron, with a tankard in each hand.

The face of the farmer seated facing her was clearly visible for a few moments—a long dark face, with a pronounced chin, a slight black moustache, and eyes as green as jade. He seemed just to have said something to amuse his companions, and was himself smiling, showing two rows of teeth as perfect as those of an animal. He looked, she thought, like a picture of Der Freischütz, the demon huntsman.

In her hasty survey she saw nobody who looked like Mrs. Guyse's servant, but somebody must have been there, for the landlady called out:

"She've coom! Yoong lass've coom!" before banging the door and shutting in the noise and warm odours.

She turned to the other side of the central passage and ushered the girl into a second parlour, where a fire burned, but dully. Striking a match, the woman lit a paraffin lamp, and disclosed the typical, square, small-windowed inn sitting-room, with the usual rag hearthrug, china dogs on the mantelpiece, stuffed gamecock in a glass case, and corner cupboard with treasures of old cut glass and lustre ware. The panelled walls had been painted in a vile yellowish imitation of the real oak which the paint in all probability masked.

Kneeling down with a pair of bellows, the landlady quickly blew the sluggish fire into a leaping blaze, upon which she placed a huge log. Then rising and dusting her knees with one hand, she looked doubtfully at her guest.

"Ye'll no get to t' Pele to-night, loov," said she not unkindly. "It's drifting very hard oop on t' fell already. Muster Nin won't risk it in the dark."

Then, in reply to Olwen's "Oh!" of consternation she added, "Well, well, you'll hear what he says himself."

She paused and listened to a new burst of wild merriment, which was plainly audible from the bar. Her lips twisted into an indulgent smile.

"That's him. Troost him to set 'em all off!"

Her eyes wandered to the somewhat forlorn little figure of Olwen, who, doubtful as to whether she was to continue her travels or no, was standing by the table, cold, hungry and uncertain. "Bad time o' year for t' Pele," she remarked, as if puzzled. "Soommer's best, oop yander." Her expression was odd, and it seemed as if she was minded to say more, but instead she turned suddenly, marched out into the passage, half opened the bar door, and called loudly:

"Muster Nin! Coom you here! Didn't you hear me tell you yoong lass've coom?"

"All right, Deb, keep your hair on," said a voice from within; there was the sound of a chair being pushed back, and the young farmer with black hair and green eyes emerged, a pipe in his mouth, a tumbler of hot drink in his hand.

His eyes and those of the stranger girl met momentarily; and she was conscious of two very distinct impressions: first, of his real, though suppressed, anxiety to see her, and secondly, of his disappointment. She could not have explained how she knew this; but in some way she received the impression of his having expected something very different.

"Hallo!" he said, looking her up and down as she stood in cold dignity by the parlour table. "You Miss Innes—eh! How-de-do?"

She bowed. "You are——?"

"My name's Guyse. I drove down this morning to do some business in the town and bring you back. Didn't foresee this weather. Afraid it's no use hoping to get to the Pele to-night. What do you think, Deb?"

Deb's opinion, quite frankly and decidedly, was that it would be a fool's trick to attempt the journey. Madam would never expect them.

The Demon Huntsman, pipe in mouth, studied the silent girl with half-shut eyes. "Think you can make her comfortable here, Deb?" he asked at length.

"Ow ay, Muster Nin. I'll be going oop now and kindle a fire in her room. What time would you like supper—eh?"

"That's for the lady to say."

"You really think," began Olwen, summoning her courage, "that we had better not try to go on? You are not speaking on my account? I am not timid or nervous."

He grinned. "Dessay not. I am though."

"And you are sure that Mrs. Guyse will understand and approve?"

Both Mrs. Askwith and he were very sure of that.

"Then, if I am to stay here, might I beg for a cup of tea? I'm so cold and hungry."

"Tea?" The good woman was overcome with remorse that she had not thought of this. Off she went to prepare it forthwith, and Miss Innes and the young man were left together.

Slowly she laid down her muff and gloves, unfastened Marjorie's motor coat in which she had travelled, and laid it aside, disclosing her slim little person in a dark blue suit. Then she sat down in a big chair of the kind known as a porter's chair, and held her stiff hands to the comforting warmth of the fire.

Her escort had moved round to the fireside, and was sitting on a corner of the table, swinging one leg, and smoking away with a total disregard of her permission.

His eyes were on her, and after a while he took out his pipe, and chuckled, displaying his clean white teeth. "Mean to say you've been a bank clerk for three years?" he asked teasingly.

Olwen almost jumped, so much did this familiarity astonish her.

"Why not?" she countered stiffly.

"You look to me as if you were straight from boarding school, as if you had spent your days walking out in a crocodile, with a mistress behind to see that you didn't give the glad eye to anybody along the sea front."

Olwen was roused. She must give this offensive young cad something to remember. "You were never more mistaken in your life," said she coolly. "I am quite able to take care of myself, and people are rarely rude to me twice."

"Rude?" he laughed, not the least abashed. "I should think not! Fancy cheeking a kitten at the age of six weeks!"

"Your habits with regard to kittens or anyone else," she snapped, "are of no interest to me. Pray don't let me keep you from your—er—associates in the next room."

He laughed out, his head thrown back. "Fuff-fuff! I do love to hear a kitten swear!"

Olwen tilted her chin to a very haughty angle. "Mrs. Guyse has provided me with an unusual kind of escort," she said. "May I ask who you are? Do you live near Guysewyke Pele?"

"No, I don't. I live inside it. I'm the son of the house, and I hope you and I are going to have fine times together. You looked such a mouse that I thought you had no spunk in you; but you've got a spirit of your own, all right, all right."

Olwen rose, and gathered up her coat, with the intention of asking Mrs. Askwith to let her see her room. As she made for the door, it was opened by an apple-cheeked damsel who carried a tea-tray. This she set down upon the table, giving young Guyse what he would have called the glad eye as she did so.

"Hallo, Flossie," said he, taking up his glass, "I drink to your very good health. You see before you, Flossie, no less a person than the Queen of Sheba. Make your very lowest courtesy. Her Majesty is travelling incog., and I've got into hot water by failing to recognise her. Look out for yourself, my girl, or you'll get the set-down of your life."

Flossie began to titter, and young Guyse, rising, said, "Tarta, kitten!" and walked back into the bar parlour. As the door closed behind him there sounded an outburst of laughter, and Olwen wondered if it were caused by some remark he had made about herself. Her cheeks were warm with indignation. This creature—this tavern wit—was to be her house mate at the Pele! ... Why, Ben Holroyd was an aristocrat compared with this!

"Mr. Ninian's full of his nonsense, ain't he?" said Flossie cheerfully. "Known me from a baaby, he has. Me moother she says it's a fair wonder how he do keep up his spirits in that lonely plaace. There, Miss, your tea's ready, and should I carry your things oopstairs?"

Olwen sank down with relief to sip hot tea and eat excellent hot teacake. She was almost ready to cry at prospect before her, but the refreshment and the warmth revived her somewhat. It was not yet twelve hours since she left the Vicarage; she could not yet accept defeat! But she felt uneasy.

Mrs. Guyse had made no mention of her son. She had conveyed the impression that she lived alone. Was it wildly possible that her real escort had been delayed by the snow and this unspeakable young man was masquerading? That might account for the merriment in the bar, but it seemed impossible that the Askwiths should be conniving at such a trick. Her gloomy meditations were broken into by the entrance of Deb, who came to know if she had enjoyed her tea. She thanked her politely, and asked whether there were such a thing as a telegraph office within reach, as she was anxious to send a message to her people to explain that the weather had delayed her.

Mrs. Askwith approved of this idea. "You caan't tell, you might be snowed oop here, and days before you get to t' Pele," was her disquieting opinion. Then, not pausing to consult her guest, she once more pushed open the bar door and shouted for "Muster Nin."

She explained to him that the young lady wished to send a telegram, and he replied, "That's easy enough, if the snow hasn't broken down the wires, and I don't think it will have yet." Advancing into the parlour, he peeped in, a mocking devil in his eyes. "If your Majesty will condescend to allow her slave to hold an umbrella over her, we will at once fare forth across the market-place," said he.

He did not wait for a reply, but took up her fur coat from the chair where still it lay, and held it for her to put on. She was taken by surprise, and did so almost mechanically.

"Now, Deb, the big umbrella," said he, "and I can manage so that this midget shan't be blown away."

They emerged into the porch. As the wind was behind the house, they were here comparatively in shelter, and the snow seemed a mere sprinkling. "Now," said he, as he set the umbrella firmly on his shoulder so as to shield their backs, "cling to me for all you're worth, little 'un, and I'll have you across in a brace of shakes."

It was not a moment for standing on one's dignity. The readiness with which he had come from the warm room to do her a service mollified her somewhat, and she tucked her hand into his arm as directed.

As soon as they were beyond the shelter of the house, the blast drove them on furiously. She had the sensation of being attached to a live wire, so elastic yet so complete was young Guyse's resistance to the storm.

Soon the snow was over their boots, and she was jumping along in a fashion which could not but provoke them both to mirth. She was gasping for breath when they reached the opposite side of the market-place, and stood before the chemist's shop, which was also the post office. The chemist, with a sack over his head, was busy sweeping the drifts from his doorstep. The colour was high in Olwen's cheeks, and her eyes were starry as she made a dash for the comparative light and warmth of the shop within.

The postmaster came to attend them, read Olwen's message slowly and laboriously aloud, and discussed the storm with great fluency in a dialect which Olwen could only partly understand. They discussed the chance of getting to the Pele next day, and Olwen found that her escort had no intention at all of remaining weather-bound.

"This fall is going to stop soon after midnight," he said, "the wind will drop, and then we'll have out Askwith's sleigh and go up there in no time."

On their return journey they met the wind, and young Guyse thought it better not to hoist the umbrella. As the gust shrieked in their faces the girl recalled the prosaic, everyday aspect which the residential district of Bramforth had worn that morning. Everything grey, everything dull; everything just as it always had been and always would be! ... And now she was fighting the elements, the icy blast from the Cheviots like knives upon her face, ankle deep in snow, and clinging close to a young ruffian whom, an hour ago, she had never seen.

As they fought their way on, the white surrounding expanse of snow was broken by an approaching figure. There was a moon behind the snow-clouds, so that the night was not quite black, and she could see that it was a man in an oilskin coat and a cap with flaps tied down over his ears, who was moving towards them.

Young Guyse evidently had no wish to encounter the traveller. He flung his arm round Olwen and turned her in a slightly different direction. His attempt at evasion was thwarted by a shout from the man.

"Hi, Guyse! Guyse! Is that you?"

Guyse wheeled sulkily. "Hallo!" ungraciously, "what do you want?"

"Have you got ... knife in pocket ... with hook for clearing horse's hoof?"

The speaker was out of breath, but his voice was that of an educated man. Olwen saw that he had a short, pointed, fair beard, to which the moisture clung in drops.

Her escort most reluctantly felt in his pockets, and while he did so she knew herself the object of keen scrutiny on the part of the other.

"Thanks, I'm sure"—as the knife was produced—"I'm afraid I have kept this—er—lady standing. What shall I do with the knife, to return it?"

"Leave it with Askwith. I shall be at the Seven Spears till morning." With these words he dragged the girl away, ignoring the other's shout of thanks and good night.

"Who was that?" cried Olwen in his ear.

"That? The doctor. Fellow called Balmayne. Confounded busybody! Always spying!"

"Spying!"

"On me. Why can't he mind his own business? Out there in the snow just to get a look at you, I suppose."

"What nonsense!"

"Like to have been introduced to you, wouldn't he? No fear!"

As he spoke, they reached their haven, the lee of the storm, and she heard his words clearly. She disengaged herself from him, no longer in need of his support, which he nevertheless seemed disinclined to withdraw. The doctor, she thought, might well have felt curious as to who she was—careering across the market-place with young Guyse's arm round her waist!