Chapter XIII: Ninian's Defence

Olwen's heart gave a throb, and for a moment she was afraid. Then she remembered how quickly Ninian had been disarmed by the sight of her distress. She lifted a beseeching face to him.

"Please, Mr. Guyse! Please believe what I say. I would rather know nothing of your private affairs. I am not likely to remain long at the Pele, and it is best that we remain strangers."

"We can't do that," he said with sharp decision. "Ask Sunia."

"Your spy!" she said, throwing into the words an amount of scorn which brought the colour to his face. He did not falter, however. Taking her arm, just above the elbow, he led her to the hearth, and pushed her gently into a chair. "This is the last time I am going to misbehave," said he. "After this you shall do as you like with me; but you have got to hear me now. Sorry, but really you've got to."

"But why? Why?" she cried.

"Because I insist."

She wavered. He was standing over her, and it seemed to her quite probable that, if she made as if to rise, he would push her back into her chair. She could see that he was putting all the force of his will into the affair, and, after all, was it worth fighting him about? She hardly cared, for herself, whether she heard him or no, and was chiefly conscious of a wish that he would leave off importuning her. With a shrug of the shoulders she resigned herself, and Ninian, with a sigh of relief, seated himself upon a big pouffe which stood on the rug facing her, Daff's head between his knees.

Thus settled, he looked up with an impertinent grin.

"The Head of the Reformatory has given leave to the latest arrival to explain to her how he first came to leave the paths of virtuous rectitude," he said. "She faces him, calmly judicial, and he proceeds to make a clean breast of it."

She had some ado not to laugh. "Get on and don't be silly," said she.

He drew a deep breath. "One black dark night a band of robbers," he began. "No. That's the wrong gambit Ahem! 'I was not ever thus, believe, fair maid----'"

Olwen made to rise from her place, and he caught and detained her.

"Oh, dash, how is it that I can't resist playing the goat?" cried he. "Just one more chance, and that will be the very last, but the mischief of it is I don't know where to begin. Afraid I shall have to go back to our first coming to live here. I was about eighteen then, and it really was the only thing to do, my father had left us in such a tight place. Madam had been accustomed to something very different, it was horribly rough on her, and I dare say you'll think I was a selfish hound to bring her to such a place. But I couldn't help myself. I'm Guyse, through and through; and though I felt that I would give up most things for her, I simply couldn't sell the last Guyse stronghold and the last few poor acres. So there it is. The first crime's off my chest."

"I can make every allowance for you there," said Olwen with a rush of sudden sympathy.

He looked at her under his lashes. "That's something. You see, by coming to live here I managed to send my brother Wilfrid to Oxford. He's a credit to the family--brains and manners, and so on. The other reason was that I knew I could make a living out of the land, and also that, if I lived here, Madam need not lose all her friends, and I could get across a horse and carry a gun. If we had lived in a city I couldn't have earned bread and cheese, I've no commercial ability; and Madam would have suffered more, though she doesn't think so. Hallo! I'm sorry I'm boring you with what doesn't matter a bit. When we had been here a few years and Wolf had left the University, he was suddenly bitten with the notion of going to Klondyke. This upset my mother very much, made her so ill, in fact, that we thought she would go melancholy mad. Wolf and I talked it over, and he said she was moped to death and too much alone, and the best thing we could do was to hire a young lady to live with her, somebody young and jolly who would take her out of herself. We did as we did in your case, looked down a list of advertisers, and at last we chose Miss Lily Martin. She came, and she was a girl with high spirits, very good-natured, and used to make Madam laugh. She was here some time, more than a year, and we jogged along well enough, only Sunia never took to her."

"Do you know why that was?"

"Sunia said she was not 'pukka'--I expect you know what that means. Said also that she had something up her sleeve. Said she had a lover." He was speaking with his gaze fixed on Daff's silky head, but on that he raised his face, and his eyes were hard as jade in the lamplight. "Of course, Balmayne thinks I was her lover," said he.

"Why does he think so?"

"I'll tell you. After about a year things began to go wrong. I expect Miss Martin got a bit fed up with this place and the monotony of the life. I couldn't even send Madam away for a few weeks in the summer that year, for Wolf had got into difficulties and it took all I had to send him what he asked for. Miss Martin's temper changed. Sunia told us afterwards that when she first came she got letters constantly, always two or three a week, sometimes more. By degrees they had dropped off, until of late she had only one or two a month. I suppose this upset her; anyway, she became moody and had fits of temper. I didn't mind her working it off on me, but when it came to Madam I had to interfere, for she took to bullying her. One day she had a queer outburst. I had found Madam in hysterics, and I was obliged to call the girl over the coals about it. She flew out at me and said we were bloated aristocrats, but that she was as good as us any day, and that, if she only chose, she could make things hot for us. To this day I don't know what she meant by that. On my honour, I don't believe her change of manner had anything to do with me. I may have chaffed her a bit, but I never made love to her. However, the end of it was that I told her I thought she had better leave. She was evidently no longer happy with us, and, what was more, she didn't make Madam happy either. I couldn't have her upset--why, the only reason the silly fool was in the house at all was to keep Madam happy! ... So I gave her notice. After that we had a treat. The first week she was furious, the second sulky, the third tearful--oh, my word! She wept at meals, she wept in her bedroom--so Sunia said--she wept all over poor Madam, and one day she--she wept on me. I couldn't stick it, and I am afraid I told her so, more hotly than I meant. Ah, I can see your sympathy for her showing in your eyes."

"You are quite mistaken. I was thinking that when you succeeded in making me cry this evening you must have been forcibly reminded of poor Miss Martin!"

He grinned. "After that it seemed to me that it would be better if I kept out of the way until she took her departure. I was very busy at the time, as it happened, so I stayed down at Lachanrigg with the Kays, and had all my meals there next day. When I came home, late at night, Sunia and the Baxters were in a fearful state. Miss Martin had disappeared."

"You mean she had left?"

"Nobody knew. It seems she had spent the afternoon in the billiard-room by herself. Madam at that time used always to sit there, but she had got so fed up with the girl that, on that occasion, she went off to her own room and shut herself in. Sunia afterwards told us that Miss Martin, after an interval of five weeks, had got a letter that morning which had visibly upset her. She seems to have made a fire in the billiard-room and burned therein her whole collection of letters. Sunia took her a cup of tea, and found her kneeling on the hearth feeding the fire with torn letters, and noticed that she was in tears. Nobody saw her after that. She had not put on a hat, so they thought for a long time that she was concealed somewhere in the house, where there are a good many hiding-places. We began by searching pretty thoroughly, and when we proved unsuccessful, I thought I would go down to Lachanrigg by the short cut, down the hill, and get Kay to come and help me or advise me what to do."

"Did you know where she came from--who were her people?"

"She was living in rooms in London when we engaged her. She had no home. She came originally from Canada, I believe. We knew of no friends to whom she would be likely to go."

"Where did her letters come from?"

"Always London. We thought probably from a clerk in some bank, for the address was type-written... Well, as I was telling you, I went out and down the hill. It is almost precipitous down there, but there is a path of sorts, winding among the trees. Just as I went crashing down the steepest bit I thought I heard a moan. It was a very dark night, and I could see nothing, I had a lantern with me, and I turned it this way and that. The sound came several times, and it seemed to be behind me higher up the hill. After questing all about I found it was always above me, over my head, and at last I had the wit to peer up into the branches of the trees. There I found her. She had flung herself out of the big oriel in the banqueting hall, intending to commit suicide, and had stuck in the branches of an ash."

"Alive, of course?"

"Oh, yes, but she was badly injured. I had to go and rouse Ezra, and between us we got her down and carried her to the Gatehouse, where we laid her in Mrs. Baxter's parlour. It was not possible, with her broken bones, to get her upstairs at the Pele, so in the Baxters' parlour she stayed. Balmayne had only just come here then, and he was immensely interested in the case. Thought she was a poor martyred saint, victim of my heartless cruelty. As for me, I was just about fed up with her, and I kept clear of her all the time she was ill. She utterly declined to say why she had tried to kill herself, and only declared that she wished she had succeeded in her attempt. At first she said that the moment she was strong enough to get about she would have another try; but Balmayne explained to her that, unless she took a solemn oath not to repeat it, he would have to inform a magistrate and get her bound over. That frightened her a bit, but she remained in a queer state of mind; very unsatisfactory it was for all concerned."

"What did Madam say?"

"Madam behaved very queerly. I suppose Balmayne got at her, for she certainly believed that I was seriously to blame. She said she pitied the poor girl from the bottom of her heart, but for all that, she could not be persuaded to go and see her. I thought it would be a jolly good thing if she did, as she might get something out of her; but no. Never once did she see Miss Martin from the day of the accident to the day of her departure."

"Departure? She went away then?"

"Yes. I was at my wits' end, wondering what on earth was to become of the poor thing, and making up my mind that I must screw myself to the point of making Madam go and see her and ask what her plans were, when she got a letter from the usual source. This letter seemed to buck her up no end. She told Mrs. Baxter next day that she was going to London as soon as the doctor would allow her to travel. And she was as good as her word. When she went off she informed me that I should see her again a great deal sooner than I expected; and I was fully prepared for a letter from some firm of lawyers, threatening an action of some kind. But from that day to this we haven't any of us heard a word of her. The earth might have opened and swallowed her. She was a queer one. Sunia says she had a wedding-ring slung round her neck, under her clothes, but I don't know if that is true. There! Now you have heard the history of Miss Lily Martin and myself to date. When Balmayne gives you his version, you can put the two together and see what they amount to."

Olwen rested her elbows on her knees, her chin cupped in her hands, and gazed thoughtfully at the glowing logs. "And all that happened--when?"

"More than three years ago."

"I wonder what made you tell me?"

"It's pretty obvious. If you stay on you are bound to hear it, and I wanted you to hear it from me."

"I--I think I am glad you told me." She was in fact conscious of considerable relief. The story explained many things. Deb's distrust of the young man, Balmayne's uneasiness that another girl should be placed in the same position as the unlucky Lily; Mrs. Guyse's reticence and anxiety, Sunia's careful spying, and, most of all, Ninian's self-consciousness and inability to be natural with her.

"Well, after hearing this pretty tale, shall you funk staying in the Dark Tower?" he asked, after a prolonged survey of her grave little face, lit by the flickering flame-light.

"I think I am safe enough," she replied, not turning her head to look at him. "I am not a bit a Lily-Martin kind of girl."

"Give a chap a chance! Can't I see that much? But you know there is another kind of girl just as bad, and when first I saw you I thought you were that kind."

"Indeed. What?"

"A prude."

"Well," the fire-light emphasised the dimple, "I think I am rather that kind. That is, I am apt to be thorny, except with----"

"People who speak your language?" The tone was soft and insinuating.

"That's it."

"Well," said Nin, laying his olive cheek down on Daff's yellow head, "I'm going to learn, if it takes me a year. As I just told you, I've misbehaved for the last time. I am now a reformed character, your word is my law. If you say, 'Detestable young man, leave the room,' hard as that command will be, I shall obey. I'll be like a lover out of Richardson or Mrs. Radcliffe----"

"Oh, but please! I don't want you to be like a lover of any kind."

"My mistake! I'm a pupil, am I not? And you're my teacher, if you'll take me on. Oh, do! 'I know it the only thing to save my yet young life in the wilds of time!'"

"With the poets at your finger-ends there is no excuse for you," she laughed. "Don't be so ridiculous."

"Oh, come, you'll have to let me be ridiculous! Prunesprism was never my line."

"It need not be your line, or mine either, when once you have mastered the 'simple little rules and few' which lie at the root of the language you have to learn."

"Can't we begin now?"

"Not now. Really I don't want to be crabby any more, but you do see that while Madam is so poorly I must look after her, don't you?" She broke off and a wicked smile flashed at him, "_Why, all the silly fool is in the house for at all is to keep Madam happy!_"

"Jove, you're quick! I must mind my p's and q's with you!"

"Yes, they are rather important letters in your new alphabet!"