Chapter XVI: A Little Friction

Olwen lingered, after his departure, in the glowing warmth of the hearth. She curled herself up beside Daffodil on the rug, and gave herself the treat of reading Grace's letter.

"Two such contradictory accounts as you have given me in the last few days I never read," wrote her friend. "What a place this Pele must be! And what deplorable people for the likes of you to have to live with! The only point that gives me any hope at all is that you seem, even in your second letter, to have made up your mind not to stay. It is absurd that you should be wasting your talent and your technical training upon a post which any silly spinster could fill with ease. Even I could measure out an old lady's physic and feed her fowls! I could even go sleighing with the cheeky young man, who sounds rather attractive to me. Trust you to roll him out quite flat! I can see you a-doing of it! Anyway, you will have had your experience, and into the bargain a month's country air, which you really needed. I am not afraid that the place will conquer you, in spite of all you prate to me about the atmosphere of the past and the ayah's magic, which seems to consist merely of joss-sticks. You are too wholly a child of your age, and 'the need of a world of men' is as strong in you as it was in the young man who once landed at a farmhouse for a brief night's love-making. You will come back all right where you belong, but in the meantime I hope you are not having too thin a time. Oh, my dearly beloved, having had your little adventure, _couldn't_ you settle down to make poor old Ben happy? You know you could do just anything you like with him, strong-minded old thing that he is in most ways. Without you he will close like an oyster, never to open again--the process is beginning now; I watch it day by day. With you he would bloom like a dull-coloured bud in water, that may, when open, be a flaming cactus for all you know to the contrary. You did confess to me that he surprised you when it came to love-making. It is my impression that he could surprise you a great deal more if he got the chance. Am I a selfish little pig to talk like that? It is frankly one for Ben and two for myself. I want, want, want you for a sister; you make the world so different somehow. The taste goes out of things when you are not here. If I were a man I would make you marry me. You are a sort of 'porte-bonheur,' which I should insist upon annexing. Write again soon, your letters are absorbing, and I am discretion itself; I don't give away anything to Ben, though he looks at me like a hurt dog begging for water when he sees me sniggering over them. Good-bye, and God bless you.

"P.S.--I wonder if the Guyses know how lucky they are. I don't expect it. They think you are just an ordinary young female, glad of any job that prevents her eating the bread of dependence; instead of being (as you are) a pocket miracle!"

Olwen let the paper fall with a long sigh. She had the impression of hearing a voice which came from a vast distance. What was real and vivid at the moment was the snowy fell, the hoary Pele, wild weather, solitude, and the Hindu woman's spells. The High Street of Bramforth, with its electric trams, was becoming misty and dream-like.

Grace's metaphor struck her--was all this just a night of adventure?--something to be flung aside as soon as the "need of a world of men" should once more grip her?

For a few minutes she sat on, chin in hand, staring into the depths of the flames; then, with a suddenness for which she could hardly account, she sprang to her feet and flew upstairs--in the pitch dark, for she forgot to take the indispensable candle. She knew the way by now, and it was far too narrow for error to be possible. Without a pause she sped on upward, until she reached the haven of her own room, wherein Sunia and Sunia's care awaited her. It was like coming into realities out of a nasty glimpse of something ugly. She was too content to notice the significance of her frame of mind.

When she went down to supper that evening, Mr. Guyse's mood had completely changed. He was gloomy and silent. He had the aspect of one who has received bad news and is plunged in depression.

He quite failed to second her attempts at conversation, and once or twice, when addressed, came with an effort out of some apparently painful train of thought. His eyes rested upon Olwen with a puzzled speculation, as if either she or her actions had hurt and surprised him.

She became convinced that he was a moody man--veering in his temper, altogether unreliable and uncertain.

As soon as supper was over he rose, went to the mantel-piece, lit his pipe, and muttered something about wanting to speak to Baxter. Moving to the door he turned, his fingers on the handle, and said, "I shall stay over there with Baxter and smoke a pipe. Don't stay up later than you care to."

With that he walked out, and she heard him bang the door.

A good deal relieved by his absence, she went up to Madam with a clear conscience.

She thought the invalid's eyes brightened at the sight of her, but she declined offers of reading or having her bed made, saying, "Nin will be lonely downstairs; you had better go to him."

"He has deserted me," said Olwen gaily. "He has gone to the Gatehouse to smoke a pipe with Baxter, so you and I can have a cosy evening. Very considerate of him, I call it."

Blank surprise seemed the predominant expression on Madam's face.

"Don't you mind?"

"Mind? Mind what? Being able to devote the evening to you? Dear lady, why did I come here but to be with you and do all I can?"

A fleeting smile crossed the faded lips. "I suppose you really did. I never mentioned Nin in my letter to you, did I?"

"No, you didn't. If you had, perhaps I shouldn't have come," was the mischievous reply, as Olwen went to the door and clapped her hands to summon the ayah.

Sunia came in, looking anything but pleased. She glanced at the girl's careful toilet and coiffure, and said sullenly that one did not make beds when dressed for the evening.

"Pukka mem-sahibs don't, but you see, I am quite different. I belong to the working classes, Sunia--see?" teased the girl.

"Ayah knows better," muttered the woman, with a glance of mingled affection and resentment. She condescended, however, to help her mistress from bed to the big chair by the fire. "Why you unkind my sahib! Why send him away?" she whispered to Olwen, as they turned the mattress together.

"I didn't do anything of the sort," replied the girl aloud; "I went down quite prepared to be nice to him, but he was as cross as two sticks, and hardly spoke all dinner time. He's a spoilt, disagreeable thing, Sunia, and it is you who have spoilt him."

This speech appeared to give quite remarkable pleasure to Madam, who looked rather spitefully at the ayah. "Hear what she says?"

"Yes, I hear," very sulkily.

"You shouldn't go telling tales about me, Sunia. You have made mischief," went on Olwen gleefully.

"I told no tales--not since yesterday evening: Missis here, my Madam, perhaps she tell tales this day," was the vexed retort.

"I?" The colour flew hotly into Madam's face. "Sunia! You forget yourself! Remember your place! How dare you speak so?"

Olwen stood a minute, glancing from one woman to the other. Her mind went seeking back over what had passed that evening. Madam had asked her whether she had a lover, and had seemed disturbed by her reply. She had told her to send up Ninian, but not for a moment had she connected this summons with herself. Yet his manner, since he saw his mother, had completely changed. It seemed too preposterous to imagine that he could be in the sulks because his mother had told him that another man wanted to marry Miss Innes. Yet Madam had all the aspect of a guilty person, and Sunia was watching her with angry eyes.

"It's all nonsense, I am only teasing Sunia, dear Madam," she threw in quickly. "I am afraid I ought not to speak so disrespectfully of your son. Forgive me."

The ayah, after a long searching glance, said no more, and they devoted themselves to putting Madam back into bed, and bringing her supper, after which she submitted, with evident pleasure, to be read to sleep.

By the time she was soundly in slumber it was still early--about nine, and Olwen thought it too soon to go to bed. Taking her candle, she went down to the banqueting hall, in which each day since her arrival there had been a fire and lights in the evening. As she opened the door, a sudden gust blew out her candle, in spite of its protecting shade. She paused in the open doorway, fascinated by the spectacle of the great hall in moonlight.

The snow without made the effect singularly brilliant. Each mullion of the great south window lay in velvet blackness across the floor. One casement of the oriel was open, which was the cause of the draught which had put out her light. She closed the door noiselessly behind her, and stood enveloped in the complete silence of the vast empty place. To her right the closed door of the chapel seemed as though it might open at any moment and disclose the figure of the chaplain, turning from his prayers to seek his bed in the tiny stone chamber in the wall.

Picking up a shawl from some wraps on the settle, she folded it about her, and crept up to the oriel, seating herself upon the window seat. Outside the moonlit snow was so wonderful that she forgot all else in its contemplation. The tops of the trees were like snowy peaks of some distant range, upon which she looked down from an immeasurable height. As she leaned out, she could form some idea of the madness which had seized the unhappy girl who plunged into that underworld of mystery and gloom. There was an eerie fascination in it. It did look as though one might hurl oneself clean into eternity by merely letting go....

There came the notion that all life is effort--is holding on, is resisting the temptation to fall....

How simple, how curiously simple to cease that effort. Words of a hymn she had sung many times in church ran mockingly in her head--

_Oh, could we but relinquish all_
_Our earthly props, and simply fall_
_In Thine Almighty Arms!_

The words had always formerly seemed most inappropriate for the singing of a general congregation, among whom scarce a dozen had any such aspiration. Perhaps Lily Martin had really felt it. Was it, after all, an aspiration, or was it a temptation of the devil? Simply to fall ... simply fall....

The snow without was hypnotising her--or perhaps some emanation from the soul of her who had agonised there, in that very spot, was exercising a malign spell. She was so absorbed, so utterly carried away by her fancies, that she did not hear the door open nor the low, choked cry which Ninian gave as he came in.

He crossed the floor in a dozen hurried strides. "My God!"

She heard that. She had been leaning out over the sill, but she drew back suddenly, and herself uttered an exclamation on realising the presence of someone in the dark behind her.

"Who is it?" she cried sharply, and a voice replied:

"It's I--Ninian--who are you, in God's name?"

"Who should I be but myself," she said in common-place tones, the influence of the solitude and the entrancing night fading as she heard her own voice and his.

He laughed unsteadily. "Jove, but you gave me a fright! What in the name of all that's arctic are you doing there?"

"Is it cold? I believe it is," she replied, rising. "I had forgotten all about it, because fairyland is outside the window."

"What on earth made you come here in the cold and the dark?"

"I wasn't thinking. I expected to find it warm and lighted as usual. I opened the door, and then it was so weird I had to come in. Isn't it? ... but there is no word to paint it. I am going to enrich my language by a new adjective, I must find a word to express this Pele! But a word won't do it--you must have a long cumulative effect of built-up words, like the poem of 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.' ... I wonder if it was moonlight when he got there? ... Nobody knows what he found, do they? But I know what I think."

She was talking at random, to give him time, because she could hear him breathing short, and knew that the sight of her leaning out there had been a shock. He had at first taken her for someone else.

He answered her a trifle jerkily. "What do you think he found?"

"I think it was all glorious within. There was nothing to do him any harm. The danger was all in the getting there. Once arrived he had a splendid welcome."

"I like that idea. But come away. Let us talk of it by the fire downstairs."

"I think I won't come down. It is almost bedtime, and I am tired after my walk. Good night."

As she took his hand she could feel his arm vibrate, as with some very strong emotion which he could hardly curb. "You have odd fancies," he said, half impatiently. "I say--I'm sorry I was such a bear at supper-time."

"Oh, you realise it, then?"

"Of course. I can't think how I could behave so when only yesterday I promised to reform."

"But you must sometimes be out of spirits," she reassured him, lighting her candle as she spoke. "If you and I are to be friends we must make allowances for each others' moods, must we not? You will have to make your peace with Sunia, though. I warn you she is much displeased with you. She seems determined that you and I should be friends, doesn't she?"

"Do you think it's possible we ever could?" he asked wistfully, almost humbly.

"Why not?"

"You're--you're so unexpected, somehow. I never know what you will do, how you will take things."

"Isn't that more stimulating than if you always knew beforehand what I should do or say?"

"Well, of course it is."

"Perhaps a little friction is what you need," she laughed, as she took up the candle and escaped.