Chapter XXXI: The Changed World

Olwen Innes stood in the hall of her house in Chelsea, bidding good-bye to her guests. It was a charming hall, for the wall of a room had been removed to make space for it, and the result was excellent, creating an effect quite unlike a London house.

Though years had elapsed since she acquired No. 2 Orchard Row, this was her house-warming; and the guests who were departing were all of them friends in more than name, since they had become acquainted under stress of the most terrible period of modern history.

Hardly had Olwen decided where she would make her home, hardly had the decorators completed their dainty work upon it, when the European War broke out. No furniture was as yet in the house, and Olwen and Aunt Maud promptly turned it into a hospital for wounded officers.

The expenses of its working were borne entirely by the mistress of the house, and Aunt Maud personally superintended all the catering. During the grim summers and winters when the fortunes of the Allies ebbed and flowed, the new heiress worked as hard as ever she had done in the Palatine Bank, with short and very occasional holidays.

Now that peace had returned and the war-worn nation was settling down once more, the hospital emptied gradually, the nurses departed, and the owner found herself at last able to indulge her taste for beauty and to remodel the place which for so many months had been a refuge for some of the bravest of all the splendid men who served their country.

Languidly, and like a patient who has undergone a severe operation, England opened her eyes upon Peace once more. It seemed incredible, and for long its unreal aspect was increased by the fact that the officers and men of the vast new armies returned only tardily and in small numbers from their regiments.

Crippled limbs, crippled incomes, crippled businesses were the order of the day; everywhere a brave attempt to hide financial wounds, to triumph over personal sorrow, to set the face steadfastly to the England of the future, wherein so much was changed, so much was gone, never to be replaced; so much, one felt, was in store, but not as yet near fruition.

A good many of the officer patients who had passed through what came to be known as the Orchard Row Hospital had been anxious to persuade Miss Innes to join them in founding at least one family for the future of England. But in vain. Aunt Maud said the war had changed Olwen. It had sobered her. Or was it, perhaps, her illness?

A somewhat severe breakdown followed her foolhardy midnight flight from the Pele. For a long time she was too ill even to write to Mrs. Guyse to thank her for her kindness during her stay. As soon as she was well enough to travel Aunt Maud took her abroad. They had returned to England in the June before war was declared. Since that time so much water had rushed under the bridges of life that one could hardly keep pace with the swift flow of events. Everything personal sank into the background and was lost. The war and the war only had been the preoccupation of existence ever since Olwen became rich. Except in the one direction of helping those she loved, she had not tasted the sweets of wealth. One of her first acts was to make her grandfather resign his living. He now resided, as had always been his ambition, in a pretty and comfortable house at Harrogate in company with Aunt Ada, and was happier than ever in his life.

His departure from Bramforth made intercourse with the Holroyds less easy. Grace became a V.A.D. worker as soon as war broke out, and she longed to come to London and help Olwen with her hospital. But there was too much to be done in Bramforth, and her mother disliked the idea of her going so far. Thus the girls had seen nothing of each other until Gracie came to town for her first taste of pleasure, since the V.A.D. work became a thing of the past.

She now stood beside the young hostess and watched the leave-taking with interest.

"What a lot of people you know!" she remarked, when the final guest had departed and they turned and went up the wide staircase to the drawing-room.

"A good many," said Olwen; "though when I took this house I knew nobody in London. These are almost all the families of our various patients or clergy with whom we have been brought in touch--doctors, visitors, or helpers of some kind. I feel rather like the upstart ladies who cut their steps to the abode of the upper ten by dint of big subscriptions to charity or the secret party funds. Really, I haven't tried to advertise myself, but the people with whom I have found myself thrown are mostly nice, and I don't believe they realise how rich I am." They passed into the drawing-room, and she sank down upon a low chair with a little lazy yawn and stretch. "We are getting deluged with invitations," said she. "You'll have to come with us to two or three houses to-morrow afternoon. What time does your brother's train arrive?"

"Somewhere about half-past four, at King's Cross."

"The small motor had better meet him," said the mistress thoughtfully. "He won't have very bulky luggage."

Ben Holroyd had not been to the war. Government had taken over his mills, and he was indispensable to their management. Olwen had given but little thought to him during the stress of the past years. Now she was idly reflecting that he was the only man she knew, of whose disinterestedness she could ever henceforth be sure as long as she lived. He had loved her honestly and with no thought of money. He was to arrive on the morrow to spend a couple of nights and take his sister home. Olwen and he had not met since the outbreak of war.

The change wrought in both girls by the passage of those years, packed with destiny, was noticeably great. Gracie, who had been threatened, even at the time when Olwen went to Guysewyke, with a repetition of her mother's unwieldy embonpoint, was now almost slender, fined down to a muscular trimness, the result of unremitting work. She was happily betrothed to a north country "Temporary Captain," who in peace time was a solicitor, and was now busily employed gathering up the threads of his interrupted practice in preparation for marriage.

Olwen bore more plainly still the traces of what she had gone through. Her face had acquired, as it were, new meanings. Her beauty, which had always been largely a matter of expression, was now much more evident than formerly. Those who met her for the first time never failed to be struck by her, to remember her voice, her look--"What a _memorable_ face Miss Innes has!" said old Lady Cumberdale when she came to visit her nephew, one of those officers who had implored Olwen to marry him. "I never remember to have seen an English girl with quite so much distinction; but she looks sad."

The remark was repeated to Olwen. She sighed, remembering who had once described her as a "dainty rogue in porcelain." Not much of the rogue was now left. Everyone always added that little conclusion to any criticism of her appearance. "She looks sad."

The sadness had been there throughout the weary months of war; but as long as the necessity of the moment kept her at work, it had been an undercurrent, far below the surface. Like the hopelessly estranged husband in "A Confession," she might have said:

"_Therefore I kept my memory down, by stress_
_Of work._"

But memory, howsoever held down, arose the moment the grip slackened, and stood upon her feet. Each day that passed seemed now to bring the heiress back a step, across the dim gulf of separation, to the re-living of the old days at the Pele.

Since the moment when, overlooking the balusters at Bramforth, she had seen the top of Ninian's sleek black head, a little bent, as he moved to the door, no word of him had ever reached her. He might have stepped from the vicarage threshold clean over the rim of the world, for all she ever knew to the contrary.

Her own severe illness had almost immediately supervened. Everyone thought it natural enough, not only that she should return post-haste from Guysewyke on receiving the news of her fortune and her father's death, but also that she should succumb to the double shock. There was no need for her to say anything to anybody in explanation of her proceedings. The Holroyds knew that she had hurt her head when skating, and had thought it best to come home in consequence; but no suspicion of the true state of affairs ever leaked out. Old Mr. Wilson kept his granddaughter's counsel faithfully. The plot revealed by Ninian remained in his own memory alone.

By the time she was well again, enough of the business resulting from her father's death had been completed for her to be in possession of ample funds; and she only craved to utilise this unlooked-for aid, to transport her out of the old groove, to enable her to go where she might find the means to turn her thoughts from contemplation of her tortured aching heart.

For a while, the two powerful agents, wealth and change of scene, were more successful than she had dared to hope. In the crowding of new impressions, she let the thought of her humiliation sleep.

Steadily she set herself to face the world as it was, to consider the position fairly.

Ninian had indeed trampled her maiden pride in the dust. He owned that he had meant to marry her for her money. He gave, as the reason why he had not fulfilled this intention, his own consciousness that he was playing a base part. This was, this must be, only a courteous way of saying that it seemed to him a shame to marry this girl, a nice little thing enough, for her money--that is, without caring about her.

In other words, her attraction had proved insufficient to hold him to his purpose.

In the light shed by this atrocious thought, she went over endlessly all that had passed between them from the time of their first meeting. She remembered the disappointment which had been plainly observable in Ninian when he met her first in the inn; his subsequent changes of mood. Sometimes he had seemed as though he really liked her. Then he had veered, as though he felt he could never keep it up. His unreal, jeering manner was quite accounted for. From the first he had felt unable to be natural with her. Then, as time went on, he had realised that as a chum, as a little sister, he could have liked her well enough; and it had seemed cruel to cheat her any longer. She saw it all with horrible clearness; and the worst pang was occasioned by the knowledge that he must have seen and known that she was taking his sham attentions for the real thing--in short, that he had been quite aware that the girl he could not bring himself to marry was in love with him all the time.

As she recalled scenes that had passed between them she felt able to trace each alternation of his feeling, between determination to take advantage of her folly and carry out his purpose, and the fits of self-contempt and shame which had from time to time overswept him.

Sunia, too! Olwen had even been led by her vanity to think that the Hindu woman really liked her. Nothing of the kind. The ayah was merely helping to catch the golden goose for the use of her sahib and his family.

These were racking thoughts. Her only consolation was the remembrance that, after all, she had had strength to tear herself away. Sometimes she wondered whether her dead father had known of her danger and had exerted some unseen influence to snatch her from the brink of the gulf which threatened her, and which she herself had so dimly perceived.

When war broke out she at first failed to realise that all the young manhood of England would volunteer. She did not begin to study the _Gazette_ until three months or thereabouts after the beginning of the campaign; and not once had her perseverance been rewarded by the discovery of any mention of the Guyse brothers. Not that her search had been exhaustive. There had been days let slip, under stress of a new flood of cases coming into hospital. She knew she had hoped that some day the unlikely might happen, and that one of those maimed heroes, so carefully carried on their stretchers into the quiet rooms, and tenderly laid upon the soft beds, might turn out to be one of the Pele twins.

Nothing of the kind had happened. As the war went on, patients were more and more methodically distributed, north to north, and south to south. Chelsea received none of the casualties among men born north of the Humber.

One result there had, however, been from the ayah's boasted incantations. The call of the north was for ever sounding in Olwen's ears.

Whether or no the woman had ever succeeded in administering the love philtre, Olwen felt fairly certain that she had found means to give her some unhallowed drug; for not poppy nor mandragora, nor the far more potent influences of money and the power that money gives, had availed to still the craving she felt to return to Guyseburndale.

No day had passed, since fighting began, during which she had not prayed for Ninian's safety. Now that all was over, the stress and strain a thing of the past, she began to feel more and more certain that he was dead.

She knew enough of him to be certain that he would be reckless. His love for the Pele and for the land on which the feet of his forefathers had trod for centuries was the main motive of his life. For this he had been ready to sacrifice himself and her, until his own nobler nature had risen and forbidden the banns. Deprived of this last chance of reinstating himself in the country, what would he do?

There was but one course open to him before the war broke out, and that was to marry Rose Kendall. He might have done this; but if he had not, then at the outbreak of war she felt he would have flung himself into the breach. Most likely he had been killed upon the Marne. She could fancy him going into battle with a jest upon his lips:

_No Guyse_
_Is ever wise_
_Until he dies._

It seemed certain that he was dead and that Wolf was master of the Pele. If it were so, then she felt sure that he had sold the place and that his mother had come to live in London to be near him.

Was that really so? Could it be so? The image of the Pele and of all that was in it was clearly before her mind's eye, and the picture had all the qualities of permanence. She felt that it literally could not change.

Then she tried to imagine Rose Kendall as its mistress. That seemed equally impossible.

The craving to know the truth was growing to such dimensions within her that she began to revolve wild plans for leaving town and going to stay somewhere in the neighbourhood--so that she might obtain news without seeming to ask for it.

"Are you frightfully tired, Ollie?" asked Grace wistfully, having spoken twice without receiving an answer.

Miss Innes came out of her reverie with a start. "Pardon, old girl, I was just thinking," said she, laughing, as she sat more upright and gazed about her with eyes still introspective.

"I was saying that those people who went almost last--I think you said it was Lady Cumberdale--seemed very nice. I liked the girl."

"Lilla Penrith? Yes, she is a dear," replied Olwen. "I told you we nursed the brother here, Captain Penrith. He made a very good recovery, much to the surprise of the doctors, since he developed enteric in addition to his wound. We are going there to-morrow afternoon. If you had not gone and got engaged so precipitately to James Heslop, I would have introduced you to the Captain; he isn't half bad."

"The Honourable Miss Penrith took my fancy very much. We had a long talk. She was doing V.A.D. work, too."

"She did it very well. But we leave out the Honourable, you know, my dear, except upon envelopes."

"Do you? Is she just plain Miss Penrith?"

"Only that. Did you suppose she wore her Honourable like a coronet?" teased Olwen. She talked at random, for she was tired, and her thoughts had been switched completely away from her house-warming by the unaccountable rush of memory which was assailing her.

Aunt Maud came in smiling. "Well, I do think it went nicely," said she. "Of course it ought, because everything came from the best places, and our staff is efficient. But this new idea of simplicity in entertaining, and not having any programme, made me afraid it might be dull. However, it wasn't!"

"Before the war, I should have paid a hundred guineas to a few second-rate singers to perform good music to an audience that couldn't understand it, and only longed to talk," said the mistress of the house. "By the way, Lady Cumberdale said, quite apologetically, that she is having a programme to-morrow afternoon, as she wants people to hear some very fine singing from some poor girl whose career was interrupted by the war."

"I'm glad," said Gracie, with true Yorkshire fervour for music. "I can never hear too much."

Aunt Maud launched into the usual kind of talk for such an occasion--a repetition of what people had said, and how they had looked; much comment having passed with reference to the different appearance of the house since it ceased to be a hospital.

Both girls were yawning before she had half done, and she broke off, with a laugh, to order them both to bed.

Miss Maud Wilson looked ten years younger than she had done in her niece's earliest memory. She had regained much of the fair beauty which had been hers in girlhood; and Olwen privately confided to Gracie that night, during hair-brushing, that it was Aunt Maud really, and not she herself, who required a chaperon!

Next day, Orchard Row had recovered its normal appearance; and the two girls, having breakfasted in bed, just by way of contrast to the strenuous fashion of the past few years, passed a lazy morning, lunched in luxury, and then dressed and started for Lady Cumberdale's afternoon party. They looked in at another house en route, but at about five the car set them down in Chester Square, and they heard, as they mounted the stairs, the strains of the singing of the proteges, as Olwen called them.

They entered as softly as they could, and greeted their hostess silently. The men who were on the watch to see Miss Innes could not approach until the song was done. There were some minutes during which Olwen stood still, near the door, glancing round for friendly faces.

Someone who had been standing in talk with a girl moved, so that the face of the girl over whom he had been bending was suddenly visible to Olwen. It was a face which oddly succeeded in being pretty, in spite of a somewhat hatchet-like outline and green eyes. Those eyes were subtly expressive, the curve of the lip showed a row of good teeth, slightly pointed. The whole face reminded her of Ninian, and her heart gave a great throb.

"Lilla," whispered she to Miss Penrith, who was beside her, as soon as the music ceased, "who is the girl with the white plume in her hat, there, against the curtain?"

"That? Oh, that's Elma Guyse, Lord Caryngston's daughter, you know. Her only brother was killed at Neuve Chapelle."

"Her brother? What, the one who married----"

"Who was to have married Wash-white Slick-Soap? Yes, but it didn't quite come off. He went to the Front, and never came back. Shall I introduce Elma to you?"

"Oh, presently--when you get a suitable chance."

No more was possible, for others were pressing forward to greet Miss Innes, and she had to talk about things of no interest, while all her thoughts were centred upon Elma Guyse. She began, half unconsciously, to move nearer by degrees to where the girl stood, and was absurdly disappointed to see her leave the room with a man in search of ices.

"Miss Innes," said a voice at her elbow, "here is someone who wants to be presented. He says he has a slight acquaintance with you--Colonel Guyse."