The Lonely Stronghold

  CHAPTER IV

  HER FIRST OFFER

  Ben was badly shaken.

  So long as Olwen was in Bramforth and he knew where she went and thepeople who were her friends, there did not seem to be so much need ofhaste. If she were going away, however, he had no intention of allowingher to vanish from his sight without arriving at an understanding. Hewas not a quick-witted man. Often as his beloved had sheered off,leading him away from the point, he yet was not certain that this wasintentional. Girls very often, or so he was told, did not know theirown minds until a man had actually spoken the fatal words.

  He meant that Miss Innes should hear them, and he carried out hispurpose with a ruthlessness which left no room for evasion.

  The day at the theatre closed, as, according to Mrs. Holroyd'sprogramme, with a supper at their house. It was a merry, noisy party,and after the meal, Gracie took Hugh and Marjorie to the morning room tohear the new gramophone. Olwen and Ben remained in the drawing-room,and after a while, Mrs. Holroyd, having been warned by her son, meltedaway, leaving the two _tete-a-tete_. The gramophone was playing "Talesfrom Hoffmann," and Olwen, feeling a little tired and dreamy, leanedback in a big chair, looking very young and small. Ben, standing beforethe mantelpiece, asked her gravely whether she was thinking of leavingthe "Baank."

  "You would approve of such a course, would you not?" she askedmischievously.

  "I've never thought it suitable. But what have you in mind instead?"

  "I have been there three years, and I want a change," said Olwen.

  "Yes, I daresay. You are young. I suppose you don't feel in any hurryto settle down once for all?"

  "Settle down once for all? Oh, I could never do that!"

  "Never?" echoed Ben, in a voice faint from astonishment.

  "I'm not domestic! I've told you so before. I want to go all over theworld and try everything. If I thought I had to spend my life inBramforth, I should go crazy, I believe."

  He was silent, turning over this speech, so subversive of all moralorder, in his keen, though narrow intelligence.

  "Bramforth's not much of a place," he remarked, "I'm not set on itmyself. But a man--or a woman, if you come to that--must stay in oneplace if they have their living to earn."

  "Oh, no, not at all. I might be a newspaper correspondent, and travelfrom place to place. Splendid fun to write one's experiences!"

  Ben shook his head. "All that's beyond me. When I've been all day atthe Mills I like to come back to my own fireside, and I should like thesame woman always there. If she was there I shouldn't mind where thehouse stood."

  "Quite wonderful, isn't it, how different people's ideals are," said sheconversationally.

  "Are ours different? Perhaps not so much as you think." He turned soas to face her. "Miss Innes, you can't have been unconscious of thefact that I love you and want you for my wife."

  There was a simple directness in this which Olwen liked better than shehad ever liked anything in Ben before. It reminded her of his mother.She grew crimson, and gave a little gasp, for she had not expected quitesuch an onslaught.

  "Oh!" her voice was horribly wobbly, "I--I have wondered if--it hasseemed so--but I thought it must be my fancy. You see, it was sounlikely, we are not suited to each other in the least."

  "Likely or unlikely, it's true, and it has been true for years. I knowyou pretty well, and I don't agree that we aren't suited. Anyway, Ihave told you at last. What are you going to say?"

  She gave a sound like a sob. Ben was leaning nearer. Before she couldspeak again he was on his knees, his arms folded on the arm of herchair. "What are you going to say, darling?" he muttered, huskily.

  She saw that she must be swift and definite. "I must say 'No,'" sheuttered, fear of some untimely demonstration on his part rushing in tobanish her nervousness. "I hate to seem so blunt, but it is No, andwhen you have time to think it over you will see that I am right. Youwant a good, affectionate girl, who would love to sweep up the hearthand bring your slippers and sit at home and do the mending. And I--Icouldn't be happy--like that! No, I couldn't! Ben, it is no use,indeed, indeed! You know I am sincere. If I thought it possible that Icould ever settle down to--to that, I would tell you in a minute. But Ican't! I am Madoc Innes's daughter, one of the wild ones. I'm not afireside woman. I'm not the woman for you."

  He was silent for a long moment, and his face changed sadly. "I had notreally very much hope," he said at last, "but one never knows. I wasdetermined that you should understand what I feel.... But I don't thinkyou quite realise that if you married me you would be far more your ownmistress than you are now. You needn't live in Bramforth if you don'tlike. You needn't sweep up your own hearth or do your own mending. Icould give you servants to do that. You could travel. It--it would bemy greatest happiness to let you do as you liked. If--if you could havebrought yourself.... You could make pretty well anything you chose outof me."

  He broke off. She had shaken her head, slowly and miserably. Themotion caused the ripples of her hair to shine like the tarnished goldof an old Florentine frame. It came to the man's mind that he had alwayswanted so desperately to see that hair once more free as he used to seeit in her girlhood; and that now he never would.

  "Dear good Ben," she was saying, "I like you too well to marry you andmake you unhappy ever after. I have a devil in me, I really have, andnothing would rouse it so completely as to find myself tied for life toa man I did not love. Oh, Ben, I hate, I _hate_ saying No to you!Please take it; please don't make me say it again!"

  He got to his feet, drew out a handkerchief, and passed it over hisagitated countenance. "I won't," he then said firmly. "That is, not atpresent. But I won't go so far as to say that I consider it quite allover. There's no other man so far!"

  "Oh, no, no!"

  "Then, as long as that is so, I take it that you might change yourmind."

  She tried earnestly to prevent his indulging any such false hopes. Butas the idea seemed to make it easier for him not to importune herfurther, she gave in after a while, only uttering a fervent wish that hemight find just the right girl before long.

  A pang shot through her as she went to find her kind hostess, andtimidly tell her that she thought they ought to be going. Mrs. Holroydlooked from the girl to her son. Her eyes filled, her sweet-temperedmouth quivered. Olwen's vivid fancy leapt up to picture what herreception would have been had she given Ben the right to place her inthose kind arms. How delighted they would all have been! Howcompletely a daughter of the house she would have become! With heruncanny intuition she knew that she could have made herself just such awoman as they all desired--had she loved Ben she would have become suchan one--have lived her monotonous life and died her peaceful death amongthe Holroyds and their kind, with only an occasional pang! ... But shewas not fool enough to give way now; though that picture also rosebefore her mind's eye. She could conjure up Ben's face should shesuddenly surrender; could fancy him embracing her publicly, before hisfamily, herself strained to his stout form, recipient of his kisses....

  Her involuntary shudder was the measure of her repugnance. With an airof shamefaced apology she took her leave, feeling, as she and hercousins walked home, that this had made it impossible for her to stay inBramforth--that the Border Pele and the cataloguing of the library mustbe her way out.

  Before she slept she wrote a letter to Mrs. Guyse, saying that the postwas not quite such as the advertiser had contemplated, but that she wasnot yet suited, and would like further details. She knew nothing ofnursing, and could not take a post where she would have the care of aninvalid.

  She decided to say nothing to her aunts until she received a reply tothis; and for two days she sat in the bank and worked her typewriter,feeling as if her life had suddenly become a dream. She made jokes, atesurreptitious sweets, cooked cocoa, and chattered as usual. Her wholemind was meanwhile fixed upon the breaking of the news at home an
d thehanding in of her notice at the Palatine.

  Mrs. Guyse's reply was that her health was not very strong, but that shedid not call herself an invalid, and that in any case she had an old andtrusted servant who waited upon her. She renewed her suggestion thatMiss Innes should come experimentally. She was directed to travel bytrain to Picton Bars, whence Mrs. Guyse would arrange that a fly shouldbring her on to Caryngston, at which place she would be met.

  The mere fact that the Pele was evidently difficult of access acted as alure to Olwen. She choked, she pined for adventure, for wild country,for something as unlike Bramforth as could be had. However elderly anddull this Mrs. Guyse, she came of good family, and must have somefriends, who would be of the right kind.

  That evening she took her courage in her hands and broke the matter toher aunts.

  "Am I a beast?" she asked piteously. "I feel like a deserter leavingyou two, who have made such sacrifices for me, and going off. But, oh,my dears, the world is so big and life is so short! I simply must trymy wings! I don't feel as if I could hold on here any longer."

  She spoke with her arms round Aunt Maud, who said nothing, but began tocry quietly. Aunt Ada made no pause in her endless knitting, but turnedthe heel of her sock before replying in a calm voice.

  "There's no need to apologise, Ollie. I approve of the idea, and hadthoughts of suggesting that you should give up your daily work and seeka resident post. This does not seem quite what one would have chosen,but if it is clear that you go to see how you like it, no great harm canbe done. If you catalogue the books ably, Mrs. Guyse can give you agood reference, which will be more valuable in seeking another post thanany reference from the Palatine."

  Olwen sat incredulous. "Aunt Ada! You really advise me to go?"

  "If you want to go, I agree with everything that Ada says," gulped AuntMaud; "but, oh, my darling, I do hope it isn't because you are noth-happy--because you want something you can't have--because you c-carefor----"

  "I want heaps of things I can't have," broke in her niece hastily. "Iwant to go round the world and see its wonders! I want to go and workin London at the heart of things. But most of all I think I want freshair. I almost forget what the far horizon looks like! Except for youtwo and Gracie Holroyd, there's not a creature in Bramforth that I shallregret leaving. I just want to be off!"

  "Then you will go quite soon?"

  "If I give in my notice tomorrow I could travel on the 8th or 9th. Ishan't want many grand clothes up there, I suppose. I wonder how onedoes one's shopping in a place like that?"

  "The present Aunt Ethel gave you will come in useful," said Aunt Maud,wiping her eyes, and beginning to feel interested.

  "Why, so it will! I never thought of that! I am always inclined toturn up my nose at Marjorie's cast-offs, but that motor-coat ought to bethe very thing for the Cheviots in January."

  "There's a difference," observed Aunt Ada, "between cast-offs andoutgrowns. It's lucky for you that Marjorie is such a giantess. Sheonly wore that coat about a dozen times, her mother told me."

  They entered into all the intricacies of the girl's wardrobe, makingvaluable suggestions as to various garments which could be "done up."They were as eager as though she were their own child. Aunt Maudproduced a bit of lace, Aunt Ada an amethyst pendant. The guiltyfeeling began to fade away.

  Sincerely as Olwen was attached to these two, her youth prevented herfrom appreciating their wonderful unselfishness. Impatience of theirlimitations had often vexed her. She had not insight to value theirrenunciations.

  When Faber wrote his lines on unselfishness:

  "_Oh, could I live my whole life through for others_ _With no ends of my own----_"

  he was probably unaware of the many educated women in England whosedaily life is a repetition of his formula. Ada and Maud Wilson had noends of their own. Their nearest relatives would have been astounded tolearn that they had any personal interests to turn them aside from theirquite obvious duty of running a household on insufficient means, doingtheir best to counteract the ill effects of an old man's parochialneglect, and showing hospitality to the various members of the familywho simply claimed it as a right. Their father's death would throw themon the world practically unprovided for. Nobody deplored this. Nobodytried to alter it. Nobody gave it a thought.

  When their best-loved niece had run off to rummage in her drawers, for acouple of frocks to be looked over, and have their claims to restorationconsidered, the two sisters fell silent.

  They did not look at one another, for they were not demonstrative women;but they understood each other.

  "There is nobody else in Bramforth," said Ada, as though in reply tosomething said by Maud. "If she stays here she will marry Ben Holroyd,simply because she will find that she has to.... I feel the child ismade for better things."

  Maud gave a long sigh, charged with the wasted regrets of her vanishedyouth. "Oh, Ada! Was not that perhaps the mistake we made? Wedemanded more than we could get. Are you so certain that she does notlike Ben? You don't think she is going off because he has not spoken?"

  "I think she is going because the indirect pressure of her friendshipwith his sister, and the fact that there is nobody else, is pushingher," replied Ada decisively.

  Maud said no more. Her own tragedy had been the long waiting for thebeloved to speak--the vain waiting, while other men came forward.

  She felt that, whether Ben had spoken, or whether he had not, it wasbest that Ollie should go away.