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!"