VINDICATED
In the gay morning air the car rushed over the high plain, carrying two
lovers to the grim Pele.
Olwen had informed Parkinson that she was going to stay a few days with
Mrs. Guyse, but that she must leave her behind, as she was not sure of
there being the necessary accommodation. She therefore wished her to
remain at the Seven Spears until further orders. As a fact, she felt
most uncertain of the treatment her maid would be likely to receive at
the hands of the ayah.
Parkinson listened grimly, with an offended air that made Miss Innes
feel that a month's notice must be impending. She hoped it was, for she
knew that this woman could never be an inmate of her future home.
Early that morning Ezra had ridden into Caryngston upon one of the farm
horses. He came to bring news of the sudden grave increase of Madam's
illness, and to fetch Dr. Balmayne.
Olwen's experience of sickness, gained so recently, caused her to be
very prompt in action. She telegraphed to Newcastle for a nurse, begged
Dr. Balmayne to send his car to Picton Bars to bring her up when she
arrived, and offered to take him now to the Pele in her own fast car,
and to send him back by the same means.
She also insisted that Ninian should telegraph to Wolf the news of his
mother's condition before leaving the town.
There was embarrassment on both sides at the first meeting between Miss
Innes and the doctor, especially when Ninian, at her special request,
announced to him the fact of their engagement.
He warmly congratulated the bridegroom elect, but was unable to feel
that the lady was to be congratulated. However, he concealed his opinion
as best he could. Having regard as much to his feeling as to their own,
Olwen placed him beside Goddard on the journey, so that Nin and she
might sit together. The night seemed to have worked a miracle in her
lover. The light had come back to his eye, the glow to his cheek; he
looked ten years younger already, as she assured him when she came down
to breakfast and found him hungrily in wait for her. He commenced the
day's amenities by the remark that he hardly knew which he wanted most,
his girl or his breakfast.
"I object to being lifted up like a baby," said she reprovingly, as she
smoothed her rumpled hair after his fervent greeting.
"I always did think what fun it would be to carry you about," was the
unabashed reply. "I very nearly tried, that last evening at the Pele,
when you declared you had a great mind to say 'Yes.'"
"If you had, Nin, I should never have run away," she whispered. "You
could have held me with one hand, with a word, a look. You knew that,
didn't you?"
"No, I didn't. I only knew that I couldn't, somehow. I had to let you
go. But in my heart I thought--if you did care--and Sunia kept on
telling me you did--that you would forgive me. Oh, my aunt, if you knew
how I hoped and craved and expected day after day. It never dawned on
me that you would drop me utterly. I don't know what I expected, but
not that!"
"If you had known beforehand that I should drop you utterly, would you
still have told Grandpapa?"
"Oh, I had to tell him in any case," he answered simply.
She then described how her grandfather had received from him the
impression that he felt no attachment to her, but had been tempted only
by her fortune. She made him understand something of her own agony of
humiliation, and of what she had gone through before her impulsive
flight.
He had no idea that Madam had told her of her own loveless marriage--of
how another Ninian Guyse had wedded her for her fortune. "It was always
running in my head," the girl confessed, "I could never forget the exact
words she used--'_He was as deep in debt as I in love._' You can
understand how exactly it seemed to apply."
"The thing I thought you would find it hardest to forgive," said he, "if
you ever found it out, was our tampering with your correspondence. I
loathed the necessity, but having once started on the beastly plot, it
had to be done thoroughly, for we knew we had very little time--you must
hear before long that you were an heiress, which would shut my
mouth--and, after all our care, the one letter which gave the show away
came straight to your hands through Dr. Balmayne! I think the knowledge
of that was what made me throw up the dirty game. I said, Providence is
taking care of this little girl. Am I such a hound as to interfere?"
"It was too late then," was her low reply. "You had done the mischief."
"I somehow felt that it was so, wild as it sounded. It seemed
impossible to believe that you were not feeling something of the storm
that was shaking me. I thought if I could take you and hold you tight,
I might make you believe in me, even when I had told you the truth. But
you were too wise----"
"Too cowardly!"
"Too well protected by guardian angels!"
So they talked; and by the time they reached the tower they had talked
out all remnants of misunderstanding.
Mrs. Baxter had been on the watch for the doctor's car, and came out
into the courtyard. Her face, as she saw who sat with the master, was a
curious study.
"Why, if it isn't oor yoong leddy!" said she, staring.
Olwen, lifted out like a doll by Ninian, and set down upon the stones,
ran to the good woman and gave her gay greeting.
"Oh, I am glad to see you! How's poor Madam?"
"A little easier-like this morning," was the answer. Nin went off at
once to take the doctor upstairs, after asking Mrs. Baxter to show
Goddard where to keep the car, and to provide for his sleeping
accommodation.
"Where's ayah?" asked Olwen eagerly.
"She was upstairs with Madam," said Mrs. Baxter. Olwen guessed that Nin
would send her down, but without telling her who was awaiting her. In
fact this was just what he did.
"You're wanted below, ayah," he said to her, when Balmayne had been
ushered into the sick room.
Olwen stood in the hall, talking softly to Mrs. Baxter, and noiselessly
the curtains parted and the little brown face, framed in its saree, made
its appearance.
The Hindu stopped short. For a moment the surprise was overwhelming.
She had wondered what had come to her sahib, dashing off on horseback
quite late in the evening, and not returning all night--a thing he had
not done since she could remember. Just now as he spoke to her
upstairs, the light in his eyes, the thrill in his voice had moved her
as she had not been moved since first he had come home from his German
prison, broken, changed, despairing.
Here stood the answer to the puzzle, and in a swift moment Sunia was on
her knees, holding Olwen's hands, kissing them repeatedly, murmuring
soft Hindustani words of caressing.
"Ah, Sunia, you have been at your wicked spells," laughed the girl, "all
the time I have been away! I have heard you calling, calling, never
ceasing. I have struggled hard, but I am here at last--and I am never,
never going away again!"
The woman threw up her hands with a wild gesture. "Oh, Missee, my
Missee, if only one little week--few days ago! You come too late! My
sahib lost his castle! He never be really happy now, even with you!"
"I'm so vain that I think he _would_ be really happy, even without the
castle, as long as he had me! But never mind, dear, it isn't too late!
He has got back his old tower all right! I _was_ in time, only just in
time!"
For the first time she saw Sunia overpowered. Sinking to the floor, the
woman wrapped herself in the folds of her saree and her thin form shook
with the intensity of her feeling.
"Sunia," softly said Olwen presently, "do you feel better? Can you
listen?"
The woman raised her face, all quivering. "And I ask my gods to curse
my Missee!" she cried in anguish.
"Well, but they knew I didn't deserve to be cursed, so they took no
notice," cried Olwen playfully. "Here I am, alive and well, and all the
rest of my life I am just going to try and make your sahib happy. Now
you must wipe your eyes and get up, because I have brought my luggage
with me, and I am going to stay here."
Sunia bounded to her feet. "Ayah dear," laughed the soft little voice,
"I am rich now, very rich, and I have a maid who waits on me. May I
send for her to come and be my maid here?"
Violent rage transformed Sunia's face. "She not come here," muttered
she; "I see to my Missee, I dress my Missee for her wedding."
"You shall, I promise you," replied the girl, fairly hugging the little
woman.
It was a busy day. They had the nurse installed by soon after midday,
and at about three Olwen was admitted to kiss and smile at her future
mother-in-law.
Mrs. Guyse was looking terribly ill and thin, but she was fully
conscious and evidently took great pleasure in the sight of the girl.
Olwen told her that she must make haste and get strong enough to be
moved, so that she could go away to the south of Europe and grow quite
well. Would she not like that? Wolf could take her, while Nin and she
went for their wedding journey.
Madam seemed quite pleased, and smiled; but there was a curious
expression in her eyes as she turned them on the girl. She pressed the
hand that held hers. "You are good and kind, my child. We treated you
very badly. You have returned good for evil, and I could not bear for
you to be--unhappy."
"Unhappy, dear? I hope there is little chance of that. Nobody in the
world was ever so happy as I."
"I have been very ill," said Madam faintly, "and that makes one think.
I have lain here and thought ... and there is something ... something
you ought to know. Will you send Nin to me, my dear?"
"Don't you think," urged Olwen, "that you should wait until you are
stronger? It is very likely that Nin will tell me the thing you have in
mind. We have had so little time as yet to talk things over. Try not
to worry."
Madam hesitated. "Well, perhaps. But I think he will not tell you. He
has never told me, often as I have begged him to. However, you can ask
him. Ask him--as a message from me--tell him that I adjure him, before
marrying you, to tell you the truth about--about Lily Martin."
Lily Martin! Her name had vanished from Olwen's very thoughts. That
story, which had so occupied her mind formerly as to blot out any other
idea, had now receded into the dim background. However, she hastened to
reassure Madam. "Dear, he told me all about that, long, long ago, while
I was here."
Madam smiled. "I think not."
Olwen's heart beat. To Madam in her weak state she dare not say
anything of what she knew. The patient lay still for a few minutes,
then in a weak voice, gave some directions. Olwen was to find a key,
unlock the bureau in Madam's sitting-room, take thence a dispatch-box,
open that, and bring the envelope it contained to her.
Carefully carrying out instructions, the girl easily found the required
paper, and brought it to the bedside.
"Open it--look," whispered Madam.
Olwen drew from the envelope another, which had been partially burned.
This was the remains of a letter which had been through the post. It
was thus addressed:
Mrs. Ninian Guyse,
3, Lockerbie Terra
Southamp
The remains of the address had been burned away. She looked at it in
some bewilderment.
"The day that Miss Martin tried to kill herself, she burnt a lot of old
letters in the billiard-room grate," whispered the sick woman. "I came
in and found this, which had fallen out of the fire. I picked it up,
thinking that some day--some day--I would have the truth from Ninian. I
hid it carefully, and was thankful it was I who found it. If there had
been an inquest, it would have been terribly strong evidence. As it
was, it all passed off. I suppose he has been keeping her ever since,
and that is how he gets rid of so much money; but I have never spoken to
him of it."
"Is it his writing?" asked the girl.
"Yes."
"I will talk to him about it," said Olwen quietly; "but I think you may
be certain that he is not to blame."
"If I could be! In other ways, he has been a good son, in spite of his
odd manner. You really love him, in spite of his manners, my dear?"
"Because of them, I believe," laughed the girl, bending to kiss her and
to hide the colour in her cheeks. "I wouldn't change him."
She said nothing to Ninian of what had passed until after tea that
evening. They had it in the dining-room, and grew very foolish over
their memories of the last time they had shared the function.
Afterwards, resisting the lure of his desire to play and be silly like
two children, she told him there was something she must speak about, of
a not particularly pleasant character; and that she demanded his full
attention.
"Madam surprised me to-day," she went on, "by speaking on a subject
which I would far rather were not mentioned between us; but what she
said makes it necessary that the whole matter should be cleared up. She
and you have never understood each other. You think she loves you less
than Wolf, because she has a feeling of resentment against you, for
making her live here, contrary to her inclination. But that's only
partly true. She has something else to charge you with; and she has told
me what it is."
He was evidently surprised, and asked for an explanation with all the
seriousness that she could desire.
"Before I say anything of what Madam showed me to-day," she continued,
"I want you to read a letter which reached me in London some days ago.
Its contents may not be news to you. I am inclined to suppose that they
are not. The affair had faded from my mind, for the thought of you
drives out everything else; but after what your mother said, I am sure
you ought to know the whole truth."
So saying, she put into his hands the letter she had received from the
_ci-devant_ Lily Martin.
She watched his face with acute curiosity as he read, and she could see
that he was unprepared for what he found.
"_Wolf's wife!_ ... That girl!" was all he said; but his voice expressed
extreme distaste.
Laying down the letter he propped his chin on his hands, and puckered
his mouth into a soundless whistle; then, flinging himself back in his
chair, "This is a facer for me," he muttered.
Leaning forward, she laid a hand caressingly on his forehead, stroking
back the hair. "Nin, did you know nothing of it?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Honestly, no, I didn't. I don't say that I
didn't know he was in some matrimonial scrape, for I did. If it hadn't
been that he was not free he wouldn't have allowed me to have the first
innings with you. He was awfully fed up about that. He has drained me
of every penny I could spare, and most of those I couldn't spare, in
order to continue her allowance. He always said she was consumptive,
and that it was only an affair of a few years. I never knew it was Lily
Martin. Why, she must have been married to him when she first came to
us! Help!"
There was consternation in his accents. Olwen looked into the depths of
his eyes, so limpid and boyish. How could she ever have thought this
man untrustworthy?
After a while she produced the burnt envelope, telling him where his
mother had found it.
To her relief, he seemed to attach small importance to it.
"If she is really Wolf's wife," he said absently, "that explains things.
She wrote Mrs. Ninian Guyse on the back of a photo which she must have
left by accident in the pages of a book. I thought when I found it that
it was just her confounded cheek; but she had right on her side. You
know that Ninian is the typical Guyse name in our senior branch of the
family. Thus my father named his twin sons Ninian Wilfrid and Wilfrid
Ninian respectively, so that if one of us got knocked out the survivor
might still be a Ninian Guyse. Wolf's wife might almost as well call
herself Mrs. Ninian Guyse as you might. As he wanted the thing kept
dark, he would be very likely to use his other name. It was an obvious
precaution. As to the writing, Wolf and I write so alike that our hands
are often mistaken for one another. There is, however, one letter that
we make quite differently, and that is our initial N. I always write it
plain like a printed N, and Wolf writes it as on this address. My
mother might not notice that, because I am always with her and she
doesn't often see my signature. But I think I could easily convince any
impartial person that I didn't write that address." He felt in his
pocket, brought out some letters from his brother addressed to himself,
and showed the initial N exactly as it appeared on the letter. Then he
went to the bureau and fetched out a letter which he had just written to
a local correspondent. The N at the foot, where his signature appeared,
was, as he had said, quite different. "Rather tiresome, isn't it, that
I can only clear myself in Madam's eyes by incriminating Wolf? She
thinks a hundred times more of him than she does of me. I can't tell
tales of him."
She contemplated his serious, absorbed face, and laughed out aloud in
the completeness of her relief. "Oh, Nin," said she, "you _are_ a
darling!"
His expression changed like lightning to its most wicked twinkle.
"Come," he said, "we're getting on. That's the very first pretty name
you ever called me--are you aware of that, my porcelain rogue?"
"I prefer being a school-marm and a white crane and a blue thing with a
red nose to any amount of darlings," was her contented reply.
Madam's condition changed for the better that evening. The following
afternoon, when the Colonel arrived, he found her much improved.
He had been a good deal mystified, upon his arrival at Picton Bars, to
find Miss Innes's Rolls-Royce and chauffeur awaiting him.
Goddard told him that the young lady was staying at the Pele, and thus
he was more or less prepared for the state of affairs which he found
upon arrival.
Ninian and Olwen were having tea in the banqueting-hall. They were
sitting in the oriel, and at the moment of his entry, Ninian was wholly
absorbed in demonstrating that he could fold his fiancee's hand within
his own, so that it was completely concealed, and could be withdrawn
without his unlocking a single finger.
Olwen received her future brother-in-law graciously enough, but with a
new reserve in her manner which he felt uncomfortably.
Ninian explained to him their plan, which was to be married at once
without any kind of pomp, so that he might take his bride to Italy or
the Pyrenees until his health was thoroughly re-established.
"I shall invite nobody but my grandfather and my two unmarried aunts,"
said Olwen; "but there is one person whose presence I particularly
desire, and that is your wife, Wilfrid."
"My wife!" he said, with first a flash of anger, and then a hesitation,
a dark look at his twin. There was a pause, which they left it to him
to break.
"I had no idea that my brother knew," he said at last, very coldly.
"He did not until I told him," replied Miss Innes. "Your wife wrote to
me. I feel sure that she wrote for my sake, not for her own. It
happened that I had been kind to some cousin of hers, and she thought
she ought to warn me that you were not free."
His eyes flashed. "If I had been free, what price Ninian's chance?" he
asked, with a sneer.
"No human creature has a chance as long as Nin is above ground," was her
tender reply. "I only liked talking to you because every now and then
you are so astonishingly like him--superficially."
"Well, Nin, I congratulate you, from the bottom of my heart," said Wolf,
in a softer tone.
"I feel as if, seeing that I am going to be one of the family, I ought
to scold you, Wolf," said Olwen. "But somehow I can't. I feel too
happy to scold. However, there is one thing I must do, and that is, to
set you a penance. I want you to go upstairs to Madam--she is much
better this evening--and tell her, quite quietly and simply, that Lily
is your wife. You owe this to Ninian, for she is quite sure that it is
he who has done what you have done. I must tell you frankly that, until
you do this, and acknowledge your wife, you and I won't be friends."
Ninian interposed, in a bashful, muttering fashion. "Don't ask him to
tell her! She loves him best, and it doesn't hurt her half as much to
think I have done a shabby thing as it would to think that he had."
Olwen lifted her gaze to the Colonel's moody, handsome face. Her eyes
were alight with joy and pride in her lover. "You hear that, Wolf?" she
asked a little chokily. "That's your brother--your twin; won't you show
yourself worthy of him? Must all the generosity be his to the very
end?"
His look dwelt upon her, half resentment, half admiration. "By jove,
Ninian, you and I are going to be shown our places now, aren't we?" he
sneered.
"Always told her she was a school-marm," replied Nin, his mouth curved
sideways into his most crooked grin.
Wolf turned away, with an envious look under his eyelashes. He walked
the length of the room, came slowly back half-way, wavered a minute,
then went out, closing the door behind him.
"It won't hurt her, Nin," said Olwen gently; "she likes Lily, and she
has brooded for so long over what she imagined to be your deceit. It is
best to tell her the truth, and then I can write to Lily to-night and
invite her to the wedding."
"Trust you to manage it all," remarked he, with a chuckle of intense
satisfaction.
THE END