THE FINAL WARNING
But little recollection of the drive remained afterwards in Olwen's
memory. She could recall only the moment when Ninian pulled back the
folds of the enveloping plaid, lifted her and bore her into the Pele.
The strait dimensions of the newel stair compelled him to carry her
upright, and the pain of her head, thus unsupported, was severe.
There followed only a confused impression of Sunia's sympathetic hands,
of being undressed, tended and laid in bed. After this nothing definite
for several days.
The reaction, which Dr. Balmayne had anticipated, supervened. That
night her temperature rose, and for some days she alternated between
delirium and weakness. Her youthful strength, however, very soon
triumphed. There was no symptom of pneumonia or any other bad result
from her exposure. Her wound healed cleanly and rapidly, and on the
morning of the fourth day after the accident she awoke to a normal state
of things.
The room was warm with fire and gay with sunshine. Her head no longer
ached, and her mind worked clearly. Sunia, as usual, squatted upon the
hearth.
"Oh, Sunia," she said suddenly, "what trouble I have given!"
The Hindu rose and came to the bedside with a pleased face. "Come!
Missee get back herself," said she cooingly. "All right, so long as she
get well quick."
"I am well. I shall ask the doctor to let me get up to-day."
The ayah's face darkened a little at mention of the doctor. "Humph!
First ting you speak of doctor sahib," said she. "He not care how long
Missee stay in bed, he allowed come up and see her. English way--bad
English way. My country, no let pretty doctor see mem-sahibs."
Olwen smiled at the old woman's talk. "There is so much news I want to
hear," she said. "You must tell me all about everything. First, was
Madam very vexed with us? Was she very anxious when we did not come
home that night?"
The ayah glanced at her sidelong. "Um--yes. She wonder if you safe and
warm. She think you stop in the farm all a night."
"We hoped she would think that. Now about Mr. Guyse. I hope he was not
ill afterwards?" She spoke as unconcernedly as she could, turning away
her head.
"He get shocking bad cold. Been two days in his bed. Better now," said
Sunia, watching as keenly as a bird the colour that would flicker over
the averted cheek at the mention of Ninian's name.
"I am sorry. He was very good to me all that night. I should have
frozen to death if he had not kept me warm."
"With a clothes off his back," replied the ayah.
"Yes. Now about my own people. Did Madam write to my home, do you
know, Sunia?"
"No, Madam not write. She not know what best to say. Think Missee
better write her own self, Doctor say, don't frighten 'em, Missee all
better in a little few days."
Olwen felt grateful. Now that memory was coming back she felt a keen
desire that the whole of her adventure should not be known in Bramforth.
The intensity of this desire lit up the episode in an ugly light. She
knew full well that she ought not to have set forth upon a day's lonely
expedition with Ninian, completely unchaperoned. She recalled the
things she had written concerning him to Gracie. Yet she had accepted
him as sole escort during the whole of a day, a favour she would never
have dreamed of according to Ben, who was a dozen times more reliable.
She was greatly to blame, and had a lively consciousness that this was
so. The resulting disaster had been an accident; but such an accident
ought not to have been possible had she been as circumspect as her
grandfather and aunts would expect of her.
And now, what came next?
Her mind held two distinct ideas, and they fronted her like
danger-boards. She heard Ninian's voice, saying, far more earnestly
than she had ever heard him speak, "I wish to God I had never seen you."
... And she saw Balmayne's grave, kind face, his anxious expression, as
he said, "I wish it had not happened--not with that man!" ... and woven
into both these thoughts was a wild thrill, a stir of the heart, a
nameless sweetness which she could not banish.
She was hovering once more in the tangle of doubt and fear in which
Sunia's attempt to administer the love potion had cast her. She felt
afraid to face Madam or Ninian. Madam had not been to see her at all,
and she could not help knowing that most people in Madam's place would
feel considerable annoyance at such an escapade on the part of a girl in
her position.
With renewed force the conviction that the Pele was no place for her
asserted itself. But now she fought against the conviction. She did
not want to go--did not want to leave ... what or whom?
She glanced at the ayah, knowing full well that those watchful eyes had
discovered her secret.
"Poor Missee," said Sunia pityingly. "Ole Ayah saw it all that
night--night before you go skating with the sahib--that you going to be
hurt, going to hurt a head. She not say, no good frighten Missee. But
ole Ayah never see wrong." She sighed deeply, lifting a little saucepan
from the fire, and bringing to the girl a cup of such soup as Mrs.
Baxter alone knew how to make.
Her gentleness, her sympathy, were so seductive that Olwen was almost
ready to fling her arms round her neck and whisper that she loved the
sahib--loved him and trusted him. Almost--not quite. The thought of
the philtre stuck in her throat. What would have become of her in her
extremity that night in the mile-castle had she swallowed the horrible
brew? She shuddered as she thought of it.
She knew that Ayah was waiting there, pleadingly, hopefully, for her to
speak again of the sahib--to give her some details of their adventure.
This she was determined not to do. In her mind was stirring an uneasy
wonder as to what she might have said when she was feverish. She knew
that she had talked, for there had been glimpses of sanity during which
she had heard her own tongue babbling, and wondered who that was who
would go on chattering so disturbingly.
She longed for somebody in whom she might confide. But there was nobody;
and she did not intend to write anything like the full story of her
accident home to Bramforth.
She asked, presently, for pencil and paper, and wrote a line to Aunt
Ada:
-
"I'm sorry it is so long since I wrote, but I have had a slight
accident. It happened when I was skating. I cut my head against a bit
of rock. As a result I have had to go to bed for a day or two, but am
now well on the mend. They are extremely kind, and I have a doctor in
attendance. Ayah waits on me hand and foot. I am much vexed at being
laid up, as you may imagine, and if I don't get well as fast as I hope
to do, I shall come home for a week or two. Can write more fully after
the doctor's next visit, but mind you don't worry. I am quite all
right."
-
When the doctor arrived that day she was, for the first time, eager to
talk.
He sat down at the bedside, and the ayah stood in the background with
the air of being blind, deaf and dumb, but, as Olwen knew, alive to
every word, every look, every smile that passed between them.
Balmayne was as conscious as she of this fact. He knew also that all
the Hindu's ideas of propriety would be outraged were he left alone with
his patient; but for all that he meant to have private speech with Miss
Innes.
"Sorry to trouble you, Ayah," he said, "but I must ask you to prepare
that hot lotion again for me."
The woman rose, looking malevolently at him, listened to his directions,
and slipped out through the arras to her own room, where she kept a
small cooking-stove.
He followed, and drew back the hangings, saying quietly, "Too much
draught through these curtains. I will close the door." He did so, in
spite of the gleam of hate in the old woman's eyes, returned to Olwen
with a smile, and began his unrolling of the bandages about her head.
"Well, Miss Innes," he said, purposely lowering his voice, "it is
strange how things settle themselves, as it were, accidentally. A while
ago I was wondering how it would be possible to get you away from this
place; and behold! You have decided to break your head and made
departure inevitable."
She turned quite pale, as he noted with vexation. "Departure
inevitable?" she repeated in a startled voice. "Why?"
"You won't be able to do any work for some time yet. I shall have to
order you home, but I thought there was no need to tell the Guyses as
much until we came within reasonable distance of the date at which I can
allow you to travel."
"And that--when will that be?" she asked faintly.
"Well, let me see. To-day is Saturday. I ought to have these stitches
out on Monday or Tuesday. You could travel the day after, or two days
after. Yes, you might leave next Wednesday or Thursday."
"But--but I shall be quite well by then," she stammered.
"No. You will have to go quietly for some weeks. No careering on skates
or in sleighs." He smiled. She returned no answer, she was most
evidently perturbed. "Fresh air," he went on, "is necessary, and the
Guyses keep no car. Now that the snow is gone, the only vehicle you
could use is that dog-cart, which is most unsuitable."
She laughed a little bitterly. "Do you think my grandfather keeps a
car? You don't seem to understand that I am out to earn my living."
"I am speaking," he said, "in the purest altruism," and he smiled a
little ruefully. "Personally I shall be considerably the poorer when
you go. But--well, I have sisters of my own, and I know a girl of the
right kind when I see her. I tell you, I would not trust a sister of
mine in the house with Guyse for a week."
"Yet I have been safely in the house with him for six weeks," she
countered swiftly.
He glanced at the bandage on her hair, shrugged his shoulders, and said,
"Safely? Perhaps safety is a matter of opinion."
"No, it is a matter of fact," said Olwen, with a shaking voice. "As a
fact, I am convinced that Mr. Guyse would do nothing to harm me."
The doctor stood a moment silent, mechanically rolling a bandage between
his skilful fingers.
"Well," he said slowly, "I must ask you to pardon my interference. This
is the last time I shall speak to you on this subject. It is a very
disagreeable duty, and will probably be useless; but I must clear my
conscience. Were I in the place of your relatives, I should argue
somewhat thus: 'She was young and inexperienced, and as innocent as all
good girls. The only person who had a chance to warn her was the
doctor. It was up to him to use his medical authority and give her a
pretext to slip out of the net.'"
Olwen's colour was brilliant. "But," she expostulated, "if you
mean--what you seem to mean--that Mr. Guyse has--bad designs--surely he
knows that I am not without a family and friends----"
"He also knows that you are of age," put in the doctor quietly. "I
should guess you to be a little over twenty-one----"
"I am twenty-three."
"Just so. Then what remedy has your family? None whatever. Anything
they might do would merely make public what they would wish to hide.
Abduction is a punishable offence. But this is another matter."
She was outraged. "Oh, Dr. Balmayne, won't you give me credit for some
self-restraint, some modesty? Don't you realise that what you are
hinting could never be?"
It was his turn to colour, and he did so. "I am aware that I am risking
your friendship, even your toleration, by speaking," he replied
steadily. "I do know, of course, that this could never be, except in
the one case----"
"In the one case?"
"Of his having succeeded in making you care for him."
In the pulsating silence which followed this remark they heard the door
unlatch, and Sunia brought in the bowl of hot lotion.
The doctor took it calmly from her hands, completed his treatment, and
presently took his leave. As he wished Olwen good-bye, he added rapidly
in French: "_Soyez calme. Je ne vous redirai jamais les choses que j'ai
dit aujourd'hui_."
Nothing at all passed between her and the ayah after the doctor left.
All the rest of the day she was meditating upon what he had said. She
could not but see that he honestly thought her in danger; and as she
pictured to herself the next meeting between herself and the
incorrigible Nin, she felt herself falter.
She was no fool. She knew that a girl does not think of a man day and
night--even to be in a rage with him--unless he has made a deep
impression.
She wondered a good deal that he sent her no written message. Each day
Sunia brought an inquiry from Madam and the sahib as to the health and
progress of the invalid. This was answered verbally. No note came from
the young man. Was he her lover, or not? If he were not, she knew she
could not stay. If he were, the doctor thought she ought not to stay.
On the following day, which was Sunday, she sent down a written message
on an open morsel of paper: "Please send me up some light fiction."
Half a dozen books came up, but with no message. She would not ask Sunia
how Mr. Guyse was, or what he was doing; but as the woman moved about
the room, putting it to rights, she remarked: "First day my sahib gone
out. He gone spend a day with Kendall-folk. They pleased, I thinking."
"Would not you be pleased, too, to have your sahib married?" asked Olwen
boldly, hoping her colour did not change.
"I pray my gods all days for my sahib to marry," was the simple reply,
"and that I hold his son in my arms before I die."
Olwen rolled over and pretended to hunt for a handkerchief under her
pillow. "Well, I hope you will have your wish," said she tranquilly.
The Hindu woman paused a moment to contemplate the enigma of the
European woman's coldness. Olwen nearly laughed, the woman's thoughts
was so plainly written in her face. "You must be an inhuman
she-creature," was the unspoken word. "I gave you the most potent
philtre known to Hindu lore, and still you are unawakened. Still you can
talk of his marriage with another woman quietly. I have been mistaken
in you."