Chapter XXIX: Bramforth Again

Some time later Olwen sat down by the roadside upon a very wet tree trunk, and wondered if she could get any farther.

Things might have been worse, for the rain had ceased at dawn and the weather was not so very cold. But her head ached excruciatingly, and she was conscious at the moment of hardly any desire, except to find herself back in her room in the Pele with Sunia in attendance.

A winter's morning and an empty stomach, taken together, do not make for heroism. She was wondering vaguely why she had acted thus--what had induced her to pass the night in such an ill-regulated fashion, and what she should say to the Vicarage circle at Bramforth when she got there.

The sound of an approaching motor upon the road gave her a faint hope of a lift. It caused her no apprehension, for she was not aware that the car which Wolf had chartered had been hired for the time of his stay and was stabled at the Pele. According to her calculation, there was not yet time for any pursuit to catch up with her even if they knew which way she had gone. Thus, as the car swung round the corner, she had no foreboding, and she stood up by the roadside, her arm outstretched to attract the attention of the occupants. But for this they might have passed her without notice, for they were travelling fast, and daylight was not fully come.

There was an exclamation, a sudden jamming on of brakes, they drew to a standstill, and she found herself caught. Both the Guyse twins had come in search of her. Ninian was driving, Wilfrid beside him.

In a moment the whole frame of Olwen's mind changed. The weakness of her spirit passed. She was almost free, and they had pursued.

_They did not mean her to escape_.

In her terror and distress, a cry broke from her. She held up her hands, like one at bay, and her voice was strangled as it is in nightmare as she gasped:

"Go away! Go away! I will not come with you!"

Wolf was at her side. He held his cap in his hand, and his expression was that of pitying kindness.

"Thank God we have found you!" he said. "What can have happened? Did you walk out of the house in your sleep?"

She put up her hands to her throat as if she were choking. "No! no! I have escaped," she panted. "I will not go back, I tell you! I will not go back!"

"Oh, but I think you must," was the gentle, regretful answer. "You could not be so unkind as to cast this slur upon our hospitality? We know that there have been difficulties, but I do most earnestly assure you that my mother has always wanted to do her very best to make you happy and comfortable. Surely--surely things were not so bad yesterday that nothing would do but a midnight flight? Come, come!" He took her helpless hands. "Try to quiet yourself. Try to reflect. You are feverish and overwrought--not fit to travel. Let me----"

He was drawing her gently towards the car where it waited. Ninian had kept his seat at the driving-wheel, his face hard set, looking straight in front of him as though he had turned into a chauffeur.

In her extremity, resisting the compulsion of Wilfrid's hands, the unspoken reproof of his eyes, she appealed passionately to the elder twin. "Ninian," she cried, "help me! Don't let me be taken back! I won't go back! I can't! ... You know I can't!"

Ninian flung himself into the road and approached.

"Why," Wolf was saying, half playfully, "if Ninian knows why you cannot stay with us another hour, he knows more than I do. Come, come, when the doctor has been and your temperature goes down, you will be grateful to us for having saved you from the consequences of a little temporary delirium--indeed you will!"

Ninian spoke suddenly. "She isn't going back if she doesn't want to," he announced.

"But, my dear chap, what can she do?" cried Wolf.

"What do you want to do?" asked Ninian, standing over her.

She lifted her white face to his. Her knees were shaking under her, she was within an ace of sheer breakdown, but his unimpassioned coldness steadied her a little. "I want to go--home--to Bramforth!" she brought out. "Oh, please, please!"

"Miss Innes, anybody would tell you that you are not fit for a long cold journey," began Wolf, but Ninian pushed him aside.

"You really mean it?" he demanded of her. "You are determined not to go back to the Pele? You insist on leaving us?"

His voice sounded lifeless and weary.

"Yes, yes," she faltered, bringing out her handkerchief and wiping the two drops which had overflowed her eyelids and lay on her white cheeks. "I must go. Can't you see I must?"

He stared along the dim road as though he stared into the future.

"This is the end then?"

She assented dumbly.

"All right. I'll take you to Raefell and see you into the train. There's a through carriage on the 8.20, and you can get to Newcastle without changing." He turned to open the door of the car, adding, as she hesitated, "You can't trust me even to do this?"

She yielded at that touch. She was wax in his hands. If he had caught her up in his arms, told her not to be silly, but to come back with him, she would have done it. Perhaps Wolf saw, and it may have been the reason why his fine lip curled as he looked at his brother rather contemptuously.

Miss Innes got into the car obediently. Ninian opened a bag which stood on the seat, and produced a thermos and a package of sandwiches. He poured out hot coffee and made her drink it. Then, wrapping the fur carriage rug warmly about her, he shut her in, took his place, with Wolf beside him, and they made best pace for Raefell.

She hardly knew what were her thoughts as they sped on. Probably she did not wholly trust Ninian, and was watchful to see whether he really would do as he promised. When they arrived in the pretty village, set among woods sloping to the river, they stopped before the inn, and Wolf dismounted, as it seemed to her, unwillingly.

"I will leave my brother to see you into the train," he said, coming to the window. "Good-bye. I am regretting every minute that your visit should have such a termination. It was doing my mother no end of good. Don't you think, even now----"

Nin started the motor, and he was obliged to stand back.

They crossed the river, and doubled back to the station on the further side. There was not much time to spare. Ninian opened the door and helped her out, with her handbag, leaving her a minute in the waiting-room while he went to get her ticket. The train drew in to the station as he returned. He put her into a first-class carriage, and covered her knees with the fur rug from the car. She began to object, both to the class and to the loan of the rug.

"You can send it back by post," he replied, tucking it about her. "There is your ticket. You have an hour at Newcastle, plenty of time for a good lunch. You are due at Bramforth at a quarter to three. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" The rush of feeling was overpowering. This was the end, and by her own act, her own wish! All the fervent life, the keen emotion of the last few weeks was over, and there was nothing to be said--nothing! She joined her hands, as if to hold herself back from stretching them out to him. For a moment her tear-dimmed eyes caught a green ray from his. "I leave you as I came," cried she with a gulp, "a little blue thing with a red nose!"

He nodded, speechless, and, to her mortification, shut the door upon her and departed there and then, though it was a long minute after before the train began to move. She gazed from the closed window upon the waiting car, but could not see its driver. He had not remained for so much as a parting glance.

With all her heart she then wished that she had consented to let him do as he asked, and "make a clean breast of it."

For some miles her mind held but one idea. There was a place on the line where, upon looking from the window of the train, one could see Guysewyke Pele square against the sky-line. Upon catching this last glimpse she set her whole attention. In vain. The mist was too thick. No distances were visible. She began to cry then, miserably and persistently. It was over. She was going back. It was an ignominious return. Had she felt less ill it is possible that she might, when she reached Newcastle, have taken a train for Liverpool instead of Bramforth. She dare not, however, risk such a proceeding to-day.

With her own hand she had pushed away a temptation whose strength appalled her. She had done her duty, but the thought brought no drop of consolation. She felt as if her very heart had been torn out of her and as though the gaping wound so left would never heal.

At Newcastle she was much too depressed to go to the restaurant, and she crept into the ladies' waiting-room, where she nursed her grief in a corner. Presently a boy came in, carrying a tea-basket. "Lady in here ordered a tea-basket?" he piped. All the dismal occupants of the place shook their heads. He advanced, doubtfully.

"Well, that's funny. I've been all over the station. It was a lady with a grey coat and veil," he went on, placing himself before Olwen.

"I did not order it, but I shall be very glad to take it," she replied. It was a fortunate blunder for her, as the hot tea was just what she needed; her thoughts winced away from the idea of dinner. This seemed an extra nice tea, with buttered toast and brown bread and butter.

As she emerged from the waiting room, a polite porter just outside relieved her of her bag and rug, putting her into a comfortable compartment, with a label "Ladies only" on the window.

Her night of wandering had tired her so much that, being able to lie down, she presently dropped asleep and forgot her misery for a time.

As she neared her journey's end, she reflected with vexation that she might have sent a telegram from Newcastle to tell the Vicarage to expect her. Even an obvious precaution such as this had not once occurred to a mind entirely preoccupied with its own distress.

However, when the train at last drew in to the dirty, noisy, clamorous platform, she had hardly opened the door of her compartment before she descried Aunt Maud's yellow mackintosh.

She almost fell into her aunt's hungry arms. "Oh!" she cried, "how did you happen to be here?"

"Why, I came to meet you, of course. You telegraphed this morning."

"Oh--did they?--that was kind," said the girl falteringly. "I--I thought I had better come home. I was ill. They didn't want me to travel, and I expect they were right, for I--I've left all my luggage behind."

Her aunt was looking at her with much concern and some consternation. She suggested an immediate visit to the lost property office, but Olwen said that she had seen to that--her things would be sent on.

"I'm afraid we must drive," she faltered, "I feel too crocky to walk. I can afford it, for they paid my railway fare."

They found a taxi and got in, Miss Wilson full of anxiety to hear fuller details of the circumstances, and her niece realising (and wondering why she had not sooner done so) that it was wholly out of the question for her to reveal what had actually happened.

"The doctor was taken ill," she explained slowly, "and he said it would be a long business; and I was at the top of the tower, having to be waited upon. I did not like to feel that I was being a trouble."

As she spoke, they were passing, having been held up by the stream of traffic, out into the main road from the station approach. Her eyes, fixed vaguely upon the passing show, suddenly dilated. A tall man, coming from the station, had just gained the island in the centre of the thoroughfare, and was detained by the passage of a huge motor lorry from moving on immediately. He had his back to her, but had she not known the figure, the clothes were familiar to her. It was Ninian Guyse.

An instant and the fast-running taxi had carried them away.

"This sumptuous fur rug," Aunt Maud was saying. "It will cost something to send back!"

She did not notice the sudden pallor, the stifled silence of her niece; or, if she did, ascribed it to exhaustion. Olwen's emotions were turbulent. Ninian must have come in her train all the way. It was to him, doubtless, that she owed the persistence of the boy with the super-tea-basket; also the courtesy of the porter. During those hours of anguish, when she had been imagining them parted for ever, he had actually been within a few yards of her--perhaps in the next compartment!

The force of the shock of joy was enough to show her her own heart. She could hardly say a word for some minutes.

Miss Wilson gathered the impression that Olwen was more ill than she was willing to admit. She thought the best thing to do was to put her to bed at once, and leave her unquestioned until she had had a long rest. On receipt of the telegram, her room had been prepared by her aunt's own hands before she set out for the station. Olwen was very grateful.

Aunt Ada, no less than Aunt Maud, was quite evidently glad to see her on any terms, although she detected behind their affection a jealous hope that their darling had not been a failure--that she was not in any sense of the word coming home in disgrace.

She could hardly give as emphatic a denial to the suspicion as she could have wished, for she dreaded very much what Madam might say should she take it into her head to write to her grandfather.

She remembered the threat held over her, and knew that her flight would cause deep displeasure. It seemed almost certain that Mrs. Guyse would indulge her anger to the extent of a severe letter.

... But Ninian was in Bramforth! ...

Nothing could take from the joy of that. For what had he come?

The answer which her heart returned was that he had come to make to her, under the shelter of her home roof, the confession which he had not been able to make at the Pele.

Her bedroom was very cold, and her bed very hard. She thought of Sunia with a yearning which made her wonder whether she had been induced by the ayah to swallow some nostrum, unawares, which should produce acute craving for the Pele the moment she left it.

She fought, however, with such thoughts. She must pull herself together, rest, be ready for the morrow. He would know her to be too tired to-day for him to venture upon a call.

She passed, however, a disturbed night, awakening with bad dreams every time she went to sleep. They most kindly insisted upon bringing some breakfast upstairs to her. After she had eaten it, she slipped out of bed, and started to rummage among her things, to find a clean blouse which she might put on.

Before she was dressed she heard the familiar click of the gate latch, and from behind her muslin blind saw Ninian stalking up the gravel path.

The door-bell pealed, and with a small giggle of delight she hugged the thought of keeping my lord waiting, chafing, cooling his heels in the ugly, cold drawing-room.

He was shown in; of that she was certain. But no message came up to her. After waiting a while, during which she completed her toilette--not without an ill-tempered struggle over the arrangement of her hair to conceal the scar--she crept out upon the landing. The cook was sweeping the hall, and a cautious signal brought her half-way upstairs.

"Cook, is there a gentleman here?"

"Yes, miss," said the woman, who was a new arrival since Olwen's departure.

"Did you let him in?"

"Yes, miss."

"For whom did he ask?"

"For the vicar, miss."

"For the vicar?"

"Yes, miss. He asked how you was, and I said you wasn't downstairs yet. Then he asked for the vicar, and they're talking together now, in the study."

Olwen crept back, shaking with anxiety. What was Ninian doing? Why did he want to see her grandfather? Was he assuring him that she had left without their desire? Was he giving that full account of their nocturnal adventure on the Fell of which Madam had warned her? He was taking time enough over it, anyway.

Restlessly she wandered about, up and down her room, every moment expecting a summons, and every moment growing more excited, more apprehensive. The hands of the old tin alarum clock upon her mantelpiece moved on; yet still the visitor was closeted with Mr. Wilson.

At last she heard a noise--the sound of an opening door. Softly she crept to the balustrade, and saw the top of Nin's black head as he came out into the hall. Her grandfather accompanied him to the entrance. There they shook hands. In a moment, as it seemed to her, the door had opened and closed upon him. He was gone. He had left the house without seeing her, without--or so she must suppose--even asking to see her.

Almost at once she told herself that he would return. He had been asked to lunch, doubtless--or he was coming back after dinner.... So far had pride sunk that she wished she had been out in the hall to waylay him--just to look into his face and judge what he was feeling.

Her grandfather stood in the empty hall, his hands clasped behind his back, as if plunged in deepest thought At last he lifted his head.

"Cook! Is Miss Innes dressed?"

"Yes, sir, I believe she is."

"Kindly tell her that I wish to speak with her at once upon matters of grave importance."