ONE TWIN RETURNS
For a moment Olwen's very heart flagged in its beat. She was so taken by
surprise that until she had had a moment in which to recover, she could
not look up. It had, then, been premonitory--the fashion in which her
thoughts had persistently strayed in the direction of Guysedyke during
the preceding twenty-four hours.
_Colonel Guyse_! Promotion had, of course, been rapid during the war;
but that he should have risen to the command of a battalion!
She kept her head turned away as long as she dared, pretending to be
occupied in giving greeting to an elderly club man, Mr. Berkeley, who
had been very good to her hospital in the way of presents of game, fish
and poultry from his country estate. Then, with a feeling as though she
stood, her back against the wall, facing the rifles of a firing party,
she turned slowly round....
... And found herself looking into the deep blue eyes of Wolf. He was
older, more bronzed, but his appearance was, if anything, more
attractive than ever. The whimsical smile which he shared with his twin
was curving the mouth under his golden moustache.
... But, of course! She had foreseen this. She had known that it must
be so. Wolf would be a colonel and Ninian would be--dead.
"Well, Miss Innes, this is pleasant," said Wolf genially. "I wonder if
you remember as vividly as I do the circumstances under which we
parted--on the Raefell Road, in the early morning?"
"Why, Olwen, I had no idea you were acquainted with my cousin," said
Lady Cumberdale pleasantly, "my maternal great-grandfather married a
Guyse."
"I'm afraid I didn't know it," smiled Olwen, as she shook hands with
Wolf, "but you ought to be aware by this time that Debrett had little or
no share in my education, dear lady."
"It is the greatest relief to me to see Miss Innes safe and well," went
on Wolf, addressing her ladyship. "She came to stay with us at the Pele
the winter before the war, and poor old Nin took her out skating and
allowed her to fall and cut her head open. The blow made her delirious,
and in the absence of her attendant she got out of the Pele at night and
went wandering over the country. We had to race after her with a motor,
and found her, wet and half starved, by the roadside."
Olwen listened to this account of her proceedings with interest. So
this was how things appeared to Wilfrid! Well, it was natural enough!
She laughed a little, but did not reply.
"My dear!" said Lady Cumberdale, in much surprise, "what an adventure!
Did it not make you very ill!"
"Of course it did," Wolf answered for her. "I knew she ought to be
bundled back and popped between the blankets in double quick time. But
poor old Nin thought she ought to be humoured, and it was her humour to
travel back to Yorkshire, so he let her do so, in her wet things. She
had a bad time afterwards, so I heard; and it did not surprise me."
"Yes, I had a bad time," replied the girl with lowered eyes. "I lost my
father just then, and it was a shock. However, I recovered completely."
"Greatly to the advantage of the nation," said Wolf courteously, "if
what I hear be true--you have been turning your house into a hospital,
have you not?"
"I have. But I am glad to see that you, apparently, have been in no
need of hospital treatment," said she brightly. "You look very well."
"Yes, the army has got me for keeps, as they say. I used to be a
Territorial captain before the war, you know, so I was not quite as new
to my job as most of our poor chaps were. But won't you let me take you
to have something to eat, or at least a cup of tea?"
She went with him out of the room and down the stairs to the tea buffet.
A particularly interesting item on the programme was just about to
begin, so this room was comparatively empty. They found chairs, and sat
down together.
"Well," he said, after a prolonged scrutiny from beneath his thick
lashes. "So the country mouse has become a town mouse."
"But remains a mouse, as you see. Mice can't turn into--well, into
gazelles, for example, or swans, or birds of paradise."
"Now what, I wonder, is the exact significance of that remark?" pondered
Wolf aloud. She smiled.
"Oh, there was a time when the mouse longed exceedingly to turn into
something more striking," she answered lightly, "but that was long ago.
Now tell me some news, please. How is your mother?"
"I'm sorry to say that she is anything but well," replied Wolf, his face
clouding. "In fact, I'm afraid she is very ill. Of course, the loss of
poor old Nin was a great blow to her."
Olwen felt the blood drain from her cheeks, and saw that Wolf was noting
her ghastly whiteness. "Indeed," she managed to falter, "I--I had not
heard. I am so sorry." ... The lifeless words fell from her mouth,
while her heart seethed within her. "I wish I had said I would marry
him," she was fiercely thinking, "I wish I had let him kiss me, as he
would have done, that last evening. It would be something to look back
upon--something snatched out of the dreary wreck of everything." Aloud
she went on, "Poor Madam must be very lonely."
"She is. You know she never liked the Pele."
"Is Sunia still with her?"
"Yes, oh, yes, Sunia is there."
She longed to ask for details--to inquire when, how and where, but found
to her vexation that she could not do so with a steady voice.
While she was struggling for composure, Wolf began to speak. He told
her how deeply disappointing it had been to him to be unable to continue
the acquaintance begun at the Pele before the war. What he said was
quite light and not too pointed, but he managed to convey the idea that
he had been interested in her from the first, and had wished to see more
of her.
She listened, and replied as in a dream. All the time she was wondering
how much Wolf knew. That he had been in the plot to secure her fortune
was certain, from what Ninian had told her grandfather. But did he
know--had he ever known--that Ninian had confessed?
From his tranquil self-assurance she felt almost sure that, although he
must know that his brother travelled to Bramforth that day, he yet had
no idea of his having given away the secret cause of her invitation to
the Pele.
As she thought it over, she felt it most likely that Ninian had said
nothing about it at home. Wolf probably thought his twin's intention
had been merely to see that she reached home safely and to give the
cable to her grandfather.
So often and so closely had she pondered over the whole question as to
render it remarkable that at this precise moment a certain thought
dawned on her mind for the first time.
She perceived clearly that Ninian's confession had been quite
gratuitous--that, if it had never been made, nobody would ever have
known of the discreditable little plot.
Had Madoc Innes still been living, the damaging fact of Wolf's
acquaintance with him and knowledge of his affairs must have come out.
But Madoc Innes was dead; and _at the time of making his confession
Ninian Guyse, leaving read the cable, knew that he was dead_.
Thus the secret was safe; yet he had chosen to make a clean breast--why?
She could see no answer except that he was a man whose integrity
demanded such a course, whose conscience would not be satisfied without
it.
Examined in the light thrown by this thought, his conduct showed up
gallantly. Ah, suppose she had all along been wrong--suppose that he
had loved her, after all, and that he had felt unable to take his
happiness without first frankly admitting the sorry part he had set out
to play?
That longing for his physical presence which had beset her when she was
at the Pele, which had tortured her many times since, now surged over
her until she could have wept with the pain of it.
She no longer judged him, she just wanted him, with a craving now to be
for ever unsatisfied.
The presence of Wolf was half agony, half joy. He spoke in a voice
which recalled another. The expression of his face, the very turn of
his head, was so like that of his twin that she could not achieve any
sort of composure. The news she had just heard, the sound and sight of a
Guyse, agitated her so deeply that she hardly knew what she did or said.
She only knew that they talked for more than an hour, and that when she
left Chester Square he had promised to dine with her at Orchard Row the
following day.
Going home in the car, she had to brace her shaken nerves to the
knowledge that Ben Holroyd had arrived, and would be awaiting them. The
minutes between Belgravia and Chelsea had never seemed so few. She was
on the rack.
Nin--who had seemed the incarnation of health and nerve and sinew--whose
indomitable soul had resisted the depressing influence of poverty, of
his sick mother, of his joyless existence at the Pele--Nin's life-blood
was among that poured out that England might live. At the moment, she
felt that his twin brother was the only man in the world whose society
she could endure.
By to-morrow she would have recaptured her serenity, and be able to ask
the questions that trembled on her tongue, but which her voice refused
to carry. She would learn when, where, how, that buoyant spirit had
been resigned, those muscles of tempered steel had became dust.
They arrived at Orchard Bow to find that the guest was in his room,
changing for dinner. Olwen was able to go to hers, where her maid
awaited her, a clever but unresponsive person, who was not likely to
notice signs of mental perturbation. As she skilfully but coldly
performed her duties, the heiress thought, as almost every day, morning
and night she thought, of Sunia's soft hands and cooing voice.
Oh, for the days beyond recall! Oh, for the sound of a teasing laugh,
the provocative gleam of dancing eyes, the challenge of Nin's utterly
masculine personality!
She had had it all and lost it.
Had she yielded, had she loved him, he would have gone to the war and
laid down his life just the same. Yes, but he would have been
hers--hers, as in spite of reason, in spite of scruples and fears, she
had known him to be, ever since the night when he had kept life in her,
out upon the wild snowy fells.
She wanted to be alone, to cast herself down upon the floor and give
herself up to her desolation. Nothing of the kind was, however,
possible. She went downstairs at last, and entering the drawing-room,
found Ben in awed contemplation of the last note in modern interiors.
He was very pale as he advanced to meet his hostess. She thought he had
improved, as almost everybody was improved--since the war. She knew he
had made a considerable sum of money, and that the Holroyd Mills would
be henceforth quite on a par with those of her uncle, Mr. Whitefield,
whose particular branch of industry had not been much in requisition
during the struggle. Ben, like Gracie, had fined down; yet he struck a
discordant note when set in the midst of the subtly restrained, costly
elements which composed the general effect of the room.
"Oh, Ben," said Miss Innes sweetly, "I am glad to see you. But I have
grown so old--so very old! Should you have recognised me?"
He laughed uncomfortably. "You're not speaking seriously, Miss Innes,"
he replied, rather ceremoniously. "I would recognise you anywhere--and
however changed. But you are not changed, except for the better."
She turned to Aunt Maud and Gracie. "Isn't that beautiful?" she asked.
"Could it have been better said! Well, and so here we are at last, and
the black barrier which was stretched over the whole future of the world
is broken and gone. We are free once more to think and talk of
ourselves a little."
It was on her tongue to tell him that she had met Wilfrid Guyse only
that afternoon; but when she approached the subject such a lump swelled
in her throat that she could not proceed. To speak of any of the family
naturally was beyond her strength; and she was sure that, should anybody
bring in the name of Ninian, she must break down obviously. Therefore
she said no word, though she knew that Wolf was coming to dinner the
following night, and that she must collect her forces by that time; must
even be prepared to hear his brother's death discussed as if it were
just the death of an ordinary person.
The preoccupation caused by these considerations was so great that she
forgot to be awkward or tongue-tied before Ben, with whom she had
exchanged but a very few words since the occasion when she refused his
offer of marriage. The evening passed off quite agreeably in an attempt
on the part of the three ladies to teach their visitor auction bridge.
Aunt Maud, through constant playing with convalescent officers, had
become a really good player; and Ben's intelligence was of the calibre
which quickly seizes the drift of anything which can be accomplished by
the aid of common sense. At the end of it all, Olwen felt that things
had gone better than she had anticipated. She had got through without
self-betrayal, and found herself at last alone, in a world which no
longer contained Ninian; and then her misery rolled over her head
indeed.
Morning found her sleepless, red-eyed, wretched. Gracie exclaimed when
she appeared, asking hurriedly if she were ill. Ben, whose own sleep
had been of a very broken and scanty description, wondered if he dared
to hope that the bad night to which she was fain to confess had been in
any way connected with the thought of himself.
The day was filled in with lunch at one of the big restaurants, a
matinee, and tea at a fashionable lounge. This programme inevitably
recalled to her mind, as well as to Ben's, the occasion of the
expedition to Leeds. Little had he then thought to see the girl typist
seated in her fine car, entertaining him with a careless generosity that
had no need to count cost. His love had, indeed, been disinterested.
As Miss Innes dressed for dinner that night, even the detached Parkinson
remarked that she looked very white.
A few friends had been invited to dine at Orchard Row. She had achieved
with creditable composure the imparting to Aunt Maud of the news that
Colonel Guyse was to be one of the number. Aunt Maud, who had always
had her suspicions, was very careful not to betray them.
As for poor Ben, when the magnificent Colonel walked in, he felt that
his own chances were gone for ever. Nobody had made any explanation, he
concluded that this was the Guyse in whose society Olwen had spent those
weeks at the Pele. That these two would marry seemed the predestined
end.
Wolf's manners were really extremely nice. He devoted himself to
handsome Aunt Maud with a deference and desire to please which most
triumphantly accomplished their object. At dinner he sat upon Olwen's
right hand, Ben being upon her left. She explained to both gentlemen
her own pleasure in the fact that, as she and Aunt Maud were of the same
sex, and each took one end of the table, the difficulty which exists in
houses where this is not so, when the number dining is eight or twelve,
did not exist.
After dinner there was music, and one of the guests sang charmingly.
There was no chance at all for Wolf to have any private talk with his
hostess.
The following day the Holroyds departed, and Olwen reaped one benefit
from the meeting between Wolf and Ben, namely, that Ben went away
without attempting to resume a more intimate footing, without the plea
which she had more than half expected, and for which she was not yet
ready.
The dread of her life was lest she should marry a fortune-hunter, and
Ben was the only man in the world of whom such a thing could never be
said. Now that Ninian was no longer in question, she dimly thought that
it might--some day--be Ben.
A day or two after his departure she was at home, by herself, listless
and dissatisfied. Aunt Maud had thrown herself heart and soul into the
question of training partially disabled soldiers for various trades. In
this question a certain General Grey was much interested, and Olwen
thought that the half of his interest not monopolised by the soldiers
was most evidently given to Aunt Maud. At the dinner aforesaid, he had
sat next to Miss Wilson, his absorption having suggested to her niece
that before long she would be left without a chaperon. She was, above
all things, desirous to see her aunt happy--to feel that life might at
last offer her something in return for those long years of rigid
self-sacrifice at the vicarage.
It began to seem that Olwen's only happiness in the future would be
gained in this way--by playing providence to those she loved.
She was ready to feel her wealth as dust and ashes, to wish that it were
gone, and she under the necessity of earning her bread once more. Night
and day she thought of Ninian, until the craving to find out what his
exact fate had been became so strong that she hesitated between the
desire to question his brother and the determination to apply to the War
Office or some official place where complete lists had been compiled.
Her inward suffering was so intense that it seemed to her that she could
hardly look anybody in the face without discovery--that her despair must
be written so plainly that none who saw it could fail to say, "she has
lost her lover!"
She had had tea, and was sitting in a corner of the Chesterfield, doing
absolutely nothing, her capable hands listless before her, her eyes
fixed on vacancy, her thoughts gnawing incessantly at the one subject
which occupied them--when Colonel Guyse was announced.