The Lonely Stronghold

by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE INCREDIBLE TRUTH

  It did not take long for Olwen to reach the study. Her whole self wasnothing but one huge mark of interrogation as she went into hergrandfather's presence. Her eagerness was even enhanced by herdesperate dread. She felt that she might be going to receive thewigging of her life. What tales had Ninian told of her or himself?

  The old man was not seated, but pacing his room in evidently greatperturbation. As he turned to face her, she saw that his usuallyparchment-coloured face was quite red. He eyed her with a peculiarstare which struck terror to her heart.

  "But he can't do anything to me," she said to herself. "I have gotfather now--somebody to stand up for me!"

  "My dear, how are you?" was the vicar's pacific opening. "I was sorry tobe out when you arrived yesterday, but, when I came in, your aunt saidshe thought you had better not be disturbed."

  "I don't feel very well yet, thank you, Grandfather, but I am wellenough to hear what you have to say."

  He eyed her apprehensively. "I--I wonder," said he, shuffling acrossthe room once more. Then, turning, he sat down at his desk as thoughresolved upon controlling his nerves. He cleared his throat. "Beseated, my dear," he said quite solicitously. His faded eyes dwelt uponher as she obeyed his behest. "I have--er--just had a visitor."

  "Yes. Mr. Guyse. I saw him come," she replied as naturally as shecould.

  "Yes. H'm! You and he have seen a good deal of each other?"

  "We have. It was winter, and the Pele is not at all a large house."

  "How did he strike you, I wonder? But perhaps such a question is merelyfutile. We must come to the main point--the surprising, I may say theextraordinary information which this young man has just given me. Mydear, you must prepare yourself for--for something in the nature of ashock."

  "Oh, Grandfather, please, please tell me! Is it abou--about Mr. Guyse?"

  "Well, in part--in part it is. Very painful, very distressing, ofcourse ... but in the main it concerns you, my dear, you and yourfather, my poor son-in-law, Madoc Innes."

  She sat like a stone. "My father!" she whispered. "He--he is worse.Ah, don't say he is--dead?"

  The vicar bowed his head. His hands were playing with a cablegram whichlay upon the table before him.

  "He is dead," he said. "This message arrived for you after you had leftthe Pele yesterday morning. Mr. Guyse brought it to me, because hefeared, in the state of your health, he ought not to give it to youunder the circumstances. He thought you should be safe at home when thenews was broken. Er--your aunt forwarded you a letter from New York,which she thought was from your father, some days ago?"

  She found her voice with a sob. "Yes! He said he was coming--sailingin the _Stupendous_. I was to go to Liverpool to meet him. That waspartly why I hurried home. Oh, don't say he is dead; don't say I shallnever see him!"

  "My dear, you must calm yourself sufficiently to allow me to proceed.The most surprising part of the story is still to be told. I haveseldom been so completely taken aback as by the news Mr. Guyse has justgiven me."

  "Mr. Guyse! What does he know about father?"

  "Ah, my dear, that is the point. That--is--the point. He did not knowpoor Madoc himself, but it seems that his twin brother knew him verywell indeed."

  "Wolf!" cried the girl bewildered. "Wolf knew my father!"

  "Intimately. They were in Alaska together. They went to Klondyketogether. Your father had the most astonishing good fortune. He struckan oil well when he was looking for gold. It was in the very placewhere it was most wanted. He managed to keep it quiet until he hadbought up all the land he required, and then turned it into a company.He died--your father died--a millionaire, my dear."

  He handed over the cablegram, and she took it in her hands.

  "Regret Madoc Innes died yesterday. Wire at once permanent address toWare and Shuckton, solicitors, 536 West Forty-ninth Street, New YorkCity."

  Olwen faced the old man with a blank stare. She had thus far drawn noinference at all.

  "The--er--the Guyse family is, I gather, greatly impoverished?" went onthe vicar presently. She assented, still bewildered.

  "Yes. The brother in London was in regular correspondence with yourfather, and knew he was desperately ill. In fact, he knew that he couldnot live long. While he was staying at the Pele for a few days'vacation at Christmas, they saw quite by chance your advertisement inthe daily paper. The name of Innes struck the young man, for he knewwell of your existence, having heard your father speak of you. He knewthat poor Madoc had not been in communication with you for years--thathe had willed all his fortune to you, that he meant to claim you when hereturned to England, but that his state of health made it unlikely thathe would ever reach this country. Your first letter, in which yousigned your name in full, made him certain that he was right. The nameof Olwen was so uncommon. He suggested to his brother that they shouldoffer you a post in the family, that the elder Mr. Guyseshould--er--secure your affections, and that you should become engagedunder the impression that nothing was known of your fortune."

  The girl to whom he spoke uttered a choked cry. She rose from her seat,made for the window as if to open it, stopped half-way, dropping on herknees before a big chair, on which her head fell, while she shook withhelpless sobbing.

  So this--_this_ was the truth, the incredible, undreamed-of truth!

  She had been picturing one kind of infamy for Ninian, when all the timeit was something different, but just as contemptible. He was nothingmore exalted than a fortune-hunter--a mean, hypocritical fortune-hunter.

  There had been a deliberate plot, to which, of course, both Madam andthe ayah had been parties. To get her there, to pet her and make muchof her, and later, when she proved harder to manage than they hadanticipated, and time was running short, to entrap her, to persuade herthat she had no choice but to make the marriage which had all along beenplanned....

  "Oh!" she thought, "I shall go mad! This is more than I can endure!"

  Her grandfather, in much distress, vainly begged her to be calm.

  "I must ring for one of your aunts," he said at last; and this threatenabled her to control herself.

  "No, no, don't do that," she gasped, swallowing her tears. "I am goingto be sensible, I will try and face it. You see, it is so dreadful, sowild, so mad--and it is all coming at once!"

  "It is most natural that you should feel emotion, dear child. I myselfhardly know what to say or to think," replied the old man, wiping away atear. "Such a change of fortune is enough to stagger the strongesthead."

  "Clever plan of theirs, wasn't it?" she muttered, with an irony whoseeffect was marred by tears. "Seems quite a pity they just did not bringit off." (Oh, Ninian, Ninian, why did you confess? Why must you rollyourself in the mire like this!)

  "It was, as you may imagine, with great difficulty that the young manbrought himself to speak to me on such a subject. He did so because hesaid you had refused to hear him, and he wished me to inform you of thefacts. He seems to have had scruples from the first. But there wereheavy pecuniary liabilities, concerning which he was not very explicit.However, I gather that as the days passed his natural good feeling beganto get the upper hand. You were so unsuspecting, you were being cajoledand hoodwinked.... In short, he came by degrees to feel that he couldnot bear it, and that the dishonourable plot ought to be made known toyou----"

  "It was probably more policy than honour that suggested that course,"she sneered. "If my father came over, he knew he would be found out."

  "Well, there is that view of the subject," said the vicar doubtfully."They did know, of course, that it must come out sooner or later. Hadyou been actually married, I suppose there would have been no help forit. I think," he added with hesitation, "yes, I do really think thatthe young man was heartily ashamed of himself."

  "I trust he was," said Olwen with trembling lips. "Think; Grandfathe
r,suppose he had succeeded! I am young and inexperienced. Suppose he hadmade me care desperately--what then?"

  He looked at her with solicitude.

  "That, of course, would have been most regrettable. However, all's wellthat ends well, and he will never trouble you again."

  Standing in the window, her face turned from him, she repeated the wordsblankly. "He will never trouble me again? ... I suppose not. Oh, how Iwish that he had been caught in his own net! If I had been a differentgirl, tall and beautiful and fascinating! If I could have made him wildfor me, and then--then found out this, so that I could punish him, makehim suffer, as I am suffering now!"

  This outburst was beyond the scope of the old cleric, who sat peeringwith weak eyes upon a passion that passed him by.

  "Is--is Mr. Guyse still in Bramforth?" she asked at length.

  "No. I understand that he made his visit to me so early because he hadto catch a train. He has gone back to Guysewyke."

  Over! It was indeed over. In all her thoughts of Ninian she had notsuspected him of playing the hypocrite with her. Now she saw it all, inthe fierce light of her grandfather's bald words. He had played a partwith her--pretended he liked her, pretended he was eager for hersociety.... As time went on, he must have seen that what was all jestto him was earnest to her. He had begun to feel some stirring ofremorse. "I wish to God I had never seen you! ... I'm damned if I marrythe child!"

  How easy of interpretation now were those words which had been sopuzzling!

  How nearly she had fallen a prey!

  It seemed as if Providence had intervened to save her, as if some powergreater than herself had nerved her to that midnight flight, and sparedher the humiliation of hearing from the lips of the man she loved thecruel fact that he had meant to marry her for her money.

  He had gone back to Guysewyke.

  And Wilfrid, handsome, debonair Wilfrid, had been privy to all this.He, who knew her father well, had kept silence on that head. Togetherhe and Ninian had planned to net a fortune. How very nearly they hadsucceeded!

  She summoned up a picture of Wolf, standing in the damp, tree-shadedroad, coaxing her so gently back to the car, luring her so plausibly toreturn to her prison.

  He had not succeeded. Ah, God be praised for that! She was here, atBramforth, bruised, half killed, but safe! Oddly enough she had at themoment a glimpse into the soul of Madam--the other heiress who had beenlured into a loveless marriage by a former Ninian Guyse! She picturedherself, dull, faded, embittered, listless, while the man who did notlove her passed lightly on his way.

  From that she was saved--at least she was saved from that!

  "He was as deep in debt as I in love; he only wanted my fortune.... Hesaid I expected too much." ... She seemed to hear the very tones of thedry, lifeless voice.

  "I think," said the vicar's quavering voice, "that you should try toturn your thoughts a little from this young man to the startling news hebrought. It seems--though it is hard, indeed, to realise--that you arenot only wealthy, my child, but enormously wealthy. It"--he broke offwith a nervous little laugh. "Such a thing has not happened before inour family. I will confess that it has shaken me."

  Olwen came out from her own trouble and faced, as it were, suddenly herfortune from a new standpoint. She saw it no longer as the devilishthing which had tempted Nin to pretend that he loved her, but as aweapon of power, something that should enable her to repay to the familywho had mothered her for so long some part of their unselfishperformance of duty.

  "Oh, Grandfather!" she cried, springing to her feet. She ran to him,flung her arms about him, and broke down into laughing and tears. "Tobe able to make you comfortable, to give you all you want ... and theaunts! Those wonderful aunts! They shall come out into the sunshine;the people who have patronised them shall come begging favours! Oh,Grandfather, it is true, you are sure it is true? We are not making anyterrible mistake?"

  "I feel sure that it is true. Mr. Guyse brought me this paper to read."

  He laid before her an American newspaper, containing a long paragraphupon "The Glen Olwen Oil-King, Madoc Innes."

  "Madoc returns a millionaire to the old country. Left home without afiver. Left something that cost him more. His only daughter, Miss OlwenInnes. Romance of the gold-seeker. Miss Olwen knows nothing of thepile that awaits her."

  So it ran.

  "It appears that Mr. Guyse's brother wrote recently to your fathertelling him that you were staying with his mother at the Pele--speakingas though your coming there had been accidental. That accounts, so Mr.Guyse thinks, for the fact that the New York lawyers sent the cable tothe Pele direct."

  "Oh, they planned it well, didn't they? But somehow I escaped thesnare," said the girl a little wildly. She sprang to her feet, ran tothe door, opened it, and cried aloud for her aunts. They came in, theirfaces expressing consternation in every line.

  "Olwen, you ought to be in bed, you look half crazy, child; let me takeyour temperature!"

  The heiress flew upon undemonstrative Aunt Ada, locking her vigorousyoung arms about her. "Take anything you like!" she cried, "for I oweyou everything I have or am! Oh, Aunt Maud, Aunt Maud! Do you rememberhow we played at fancying we were rich, chose our house in GainsleyPark, furnished it with our favourite things out of the best shops,chose our Daimler or our Rolls-Royce, and went off together for a tourin Italy? Well, we'll do it! We'll do it all! We'll do more than everour poor little starved imaginations dared to think of! You shall dojust exactly as you like, my dears, from this moment for the rest ofyour lives!"

  "Is she crazy? In a high fever," cried Aunt Maud apprehensively,lifting the burnished locks to gaze anxiously upon the wound beneath.

  The vicar got to his feet. He trembled, as his gnarled hands restedupon the sheet of soiled blotting-paper on his desk.

  "It's true, my dears, she is not crazy. Madoc Innes is dead and hasleft her more money than she will know what to do with."