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 matinee 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 L5 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 Cafe 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.