THE LONELY STRONGHOLD

BY MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS

AUTHOR OF "A CASTLE TO LET," ETC.

NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1918 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS

A CASTLE TO LET THE DAUGHTER PAYS THE COST OF A PROMISE A DOUBTFUL CHARACTER A MAKE-SHIFT MARRIAGE OUT OF THE NIGHT GIRL FROM NOWHERE THE NOTORIOUS MISS LISLE

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY NEW YORK

CONTENTS

I The Palatine Bank II Olwen At Home III "What is a Pele Exactly?" IV Her First Offer V Traveller's Joy VI Commencing Acquaintance VII The Dark Tower VIII The First Day IX Indian Magic X A Queer Household XI Miss Lily Martin XII A Confidence: and Some Spying XIII Ninian's Defence XIV A Fresh Start XV A Cold Walk XVI A Little Friction XVII Balmayne's Warning XVIII Visitors XIX A Discovery XX The Philtre XXI By the Loughside XXII The Mile-Castle XXIII What the Dawn Brought XXIV The Final Warning

THE LONELY STRONGHOLD

CHAPTER I

THE PALATINE BANK

The sleet drove spitefully against the dirty windows of the stuffy room behind the Palatine Bank in the High Street of Bramforth.

The air was close, without being warm; a smell of tea and toasted bread lingered upon it. The clock struck, and the girls who sat upon their high stools, cramped over columns of figures, straightened their backs with long sighs of relief.

"Snakes! What weather!" muttered Miss Hand as she pushed back her stool until it almost overbalanced in her efforts to gaze at the December night without.

"With my usual luck, came without a gamp this morning," grumbled Miss Turner, collecting loose sheets with a dexterity born of long practice.

"And you've got a mile to walk when you get off the tram," exclaimed Miss Donkin sympathetically.

Mrs. Barnes, who presided, seated not at a desk but at a central table, wiped her pen, looking across the zoom with knitted brows.

"It has struck, Miss Innes," said she.

The click of the typewriter went on nevertheless, and the operator replied without desisting from her work. "Let me get to the foot of this page, please."

There began the rustle and murmur of the girls leaving their places, in what was described by the bank managers as "The ladies' room." Mabel Hirst, a pretty girl with dark eyes, ran to the fire and held her chilblained hands to its warmth. "Oh, my goody," said she, "when will old Storky start in on that 'chauffage centrale' which he is always gassing about?"

"At the coming of the coquecigrues, I should think," said the voice of Miss Innes, who now ceased her clicking, rose from her chair, and raised her arms above her head, breathing a long "A-ah!" of relief.

"Not that I think it would be much improvement," she went on. "It probably wouldn't work. Nothing does work in this old town; and as long as we have the fire there is at least one place where you can go and thaw now and then."

An electric bell rang twice.

"Hallo, Barney, old Storky wants you," said Mabel Hirst. "Beg him to accept my compliments, and ask if he ever gives compensation for chilblains."

"Tell him it's my birthday to-morrow!"

"Say you think my work during this past quarter merits a rise!"

"Suggest he gives us a Christmas treat—stalls for the panto!"

The chorus was practically simultaneous, and Mrs. Barnes put her hands over her ears. "I'm far more likely to ask permission to increase the fines for talking," was her parting shaft, as she vanished in obedience to the summons.

"You look a bit fagged, Innes," remarked Mabel Hirst, as the typist approached the fire, and knelt down so that the flames shone upon her small, intense face.

"Oh, it's not fag so much as disgust," she replied, in a voice of individual quality. "I don't think I can stick this any longer. I didn't take a secretarial training in order to type out rows of figures all day long. I am bored, dears—bored stiff! All my powers are wasting their sweetness on the desert air—or rather the town lack of air! The desert would be all right. I shouldn't a scrap mind blushing unseen if I had plenty of space to blush in! Ouf! I feel as if I should choke!"

She stared at the fire with firmly folded lips, every line of her slender person seeming to breathe the resentment she felt.

"It's pretty bad," agreed Miss Turner, who was lacing up her hoots. "Suppose nobody's got a raincloak they'll be saint enough to lend?"

"Yes," replied Miss Innes, "you shall have mine. I brought a gamp, and I haven't far to walk. But look here—mind you bring it back."

"Course I will. To-morrow without fail, moddum. Oh, this sleet! It really is something chronic."

The dressing-room opened out of the office, but in the absence of Barney the connecting door stood wide, against all rules, and the girls went in and out, warming their boots before putting them on, commenting on the frozen water-pipes and kindred grievances, after the manned of their kind all the world over.

In the midst of it, the superintendent returned.

"Hallo! What did the old bird want? Give you the sack, or tell you to bestow it on any of us?"

"I'm sure it was about a Christmas tree for the young ladies, in recognition of the fine work they have put in——"

"Nat quite that, but the next best thing," replied Barney, in a cheerful tone. "In view of the coming heavy work in the New Year, you and I are to have an extra day for Christmas—the 24th to the 28th! What d'you think of that?"

There was a whoop of joy, and the babel of voices broke out anew.

"If only he would give us the day before instead of after," sighed one malcontent "If we had Christmas Eve now——"

"My dear, you know that's impossible at a bank. Take your extra day and give thanks for it. It's more than the men are getting," was the rejoinder of Mrs. Barnes.

"Three whole days!" echoed Blanche Turner. "I shall have forgotten you all by the time we reassemble. Think of that! Shan't know you by sight!"

"I can easily believe that! Having spent your holiday entirely at the 'movies,' your sight will have given out," jeered Miss Donkin. "Then you'll lose your job, my girl."

"I shall go to Leeds, to my aunt!"

"And I to Driffield."

"And I home."

The chatter waxed louder and louder, as gradually girl after girl got ready. Then they began to depart, drifting out by twos and threes through a side door into an alley giving upon the High Street.

Miss Innes was last. She stood alone before the little looking-glass fitting her hat dexterously upon her gleaming hair, her eyes mechanically assisting at the process, but really far away with her busy thoughts. She had not anticipated such a violent downpour as greeted her when she emerged into the street; and as she crossed, to await a tram, she half regretted her loan of her cloak to Miss Turner. She was lucky enough to get a place in the first car that passed. Ten minutes' journey brought her to the residential suburb of the ugly town, and as she descended into the road the rain poured down upon her with such vehemence that she took shelter under a tree for a minute, in order to get her breath and decide what to do.

Struck by a happy idea, she turned into a road close by, and made her way to a detached house, standing inside a wall with two carriage gates. In the comparative shelter of the porch she halted and rang the bell.

The middle-aged servant who admitted her said with a smile that Mrs. Holroyd and Miss Gracie were in the dining-room.

Miss Innes wiped the rain from her face, placed her dripping umbrella in the stand, and opened the door of a hot, over-furnished, but comfortable room, in which a stout, rather shapeless lady and a good-humoured girl who would be a duplicate of her mother in twenty years' time, sat at a huge dining-table strewn with paper, string and parcels.

"Olwen!" cried Gracie, jumping up with a pleased cry of greeting.

"Why, how do you do? We're downright pleased to see you. I was saying to Gracie, it was only yesterday, that Ollie never takes advantage of our invitation to drop in upon us any night on her way back from the bank. So here we are as usual! Busy with the Christmas packing! But it's almost done now, and as I say to Gracie, when it's done, it's done for a year, that's one good thing."

Olwen kissed the jolly lady. "I feel a regular beggar," said she. "I have come in now for the sordid reason that I want to borrow something. And you pay the penalty for being the kindest people I know."

"My dear! Anything we can lend you!—"

Olwen explained that her raincoat had been borrowed, and that the storm was so severe that she feared to reach the Vicarage wet through without one. "If Gracie will lend me hers I can leave it as I go down to-morrow morning," said she.

"Well, of course! But now you're here, won't you stay the evening? Pa'll be in, and Ben, for supper before so very long, and we'll clear up this mess in no time. Now do, child! Think how pleased Ben'll be to find you here!"

"You are always so kind, but I can't, really. To begin with, I always feel so soiled in my office frock. Gracie will know what I mean! And, to go on with, this evening is my only time for any little Christmas work that I have in hand. To-morrow night we shall almost certainly be working overtime, as they are giving us girls an extra day off, and so you see I simply must get back."

"An extra day's holiday! Well, that is a bit of luck, any way. Now sit down while Gracie gets you a bit of cake and a glass of port, for you look perished. And tell me how the dear vicar is."

"Thanks. Grandfather is wonderfully well."

"That's right, that's right! I daresay he finds Mr. Witherly a great help in the parish—so active and energetic! Dear, dear, what a good thing he bore up so well at the time of your dear grandmother's death. I said to Gracie, I remember, 'My dear, this will mean the break-up of our vicar.' But, after all, it was not. He bore it nobly, like the Christian he is."

"Aunt Maud and Aunt Ada take care he shall feel it as little as possible," replied Olwen. "You see, grand-mamma had been ailing so long before her death."

"Yes, that's true enough," sighed Mrs. Holroyd. "It's a trial, Ollie, as you will find when you get into years, to be taken off your feet, so that you hinder the ones you have always been used to help. I must say I am thankful I can still get about."

"Get about indeed! Walk me off my legs!" put in Gracie dryly.

It was good to hear her mother's fat, contented laugh.

"Oh, well, it's your merry heart goes all the day," said she, "and look what a happy woman I've always been, with your father ready to cut off his head and serve it up in a dish if he'd 'a' thought I wanted it; and such good children as I've had; my girls so well married, my boys so well started, and now me left with Ben, my eldest, and Gracie, my youngest, and the grandchildren now and then! Now, it was different with your poor grandma! One trouble after another! Your poor dear mother's unlucky marriage and sad death! Your Uncle Charles's misfortune, your Uncle Horace's sad end! Oh, she had her troubles, poor, dear lady, and no doubt she was glad to be at rest at last!"

Olwen listened with an indulgent smile on her expressive face. Once long ago she had determined to count the "poors," the "dears" and "I-said-to-Gracies" in Mrs. Holroyd's talk; but had soon abandoned the enterprise as hopeless. "Did you know that Aunt Ethel and her whole family are coming for Christmas?" she asked.

"No, my dear, is that so? ... Well, of course, not but what there is plenty of room in that great Vicarage for all ... but let me see, how many children are there? Five, it must be!"

"Five and a nurse," said Olwen, smiling.

"Well, but dearie, that is a great expense for the vicar."

"It is Uncle George who bears it, not grandfather. They bring two of their own maids to help ours, and I think everybody enjoys it. Frank and Marjorie are getting quite grown up now."

"Well, I call that a very nice arrangement, a good old-fashioned way to keep Christmas. Most sensible! I daresay your Aunt Ethel knew the vicar would be feeling his loneliness this year, didn't she now?" Mrs. Holroyd expatiated for long on the subject. She was still talking when the front door was heard, and Gracie, with a sly glance at Olwen, said:

"There's Ben, I do believe."

Olwen had been so comfortable in the easy chair drawn up to the great fire that she had stayed longer than she intended. Ben Holroyd was the reason why she did not oftener avail herself of his mother's unaffected kindness. The Holroyds were not aristocratic. In fact, when Mrs. Holroyd said "packing up," her accent came perilously near to the "paacking oop" of the lower orders in Bramforth. They were genuine and hospitable, and the girl's life was starved; not so starved, however, that she was as yet ready to take Ben as a way out.

He now entered the room, a short, stocky man of five-and-thirty, even now redder in the face than was strictly becoming, and probably to grow more so as years went on. He had a ragged dark moustache and uneasy eyes, which seemed always apologising. The good-humoured simplicity which made one pardon his mother's lack of breeding was wholly absent in him. He had fixed his heart upon Olwen Innes, who was a very poor match from a pecuniary point of view, but whom he knew to be above him socially.

Gracie and Olwen had together received their education at the Bramforth High School for Girls, wherein Olwen had always been the show pupil and Gracie at the bottom of her class. Day by day the two had gone and returned together, with their satchels and lunch packets, and there subsisted between them a real friendship. Had it not been for poor Ben, the friendship would have been closer, as Gracie more than suspected.

His face, as he came in, showed his delight. He sat down by Olwen, and at his mother's instigation earnestly sought to make her reconsider her decision and stay the evening. She was resolute in her refusal, and Mrs. Holroyd, her heart sore for her boy's disappointment, bethought her of the bit of information incautiously let drop before he came in.

"Never mind, Bennie, we'll do better," said she cheerfully. "Ollie says the bank is giving her an extra day's holiday. Now, why can't you and she and Gracie find somebody to make a fourth, and take the train to Leeds day after Boxing Day? Lunch there, and go to a mattinnay, mother standing treat. Eh? How's that?"

Ben and Gracie thought this a brilliant suggestion. Olwen did not see how to decline it. A matinée at Leeds, where an excellent company was then performing, was a treat she seldom obtained. Mrs. Holroyd, proud of her success, ordered Ben to the telephone forthwith to engage seats. After a little more talk, Olwen took her departure, but, as she had foreboded, Ben thought it necessary to escort her home. She resisted as firmly as was possible without rudeness, but was obliged at last to give in.

Warmly wrapped in Gracie's raincoat, she found herself out in the storm, her hand linked to Ben's sturdy arm, while he held one umbrella over the two of them.

"Mind the mud, Miss Olwen. The Council ought to have mended this road last summer, as I told my father."

"Yes, indeed, what is the use of a father in such an exalted position if he can't get the road mended outside is own house?" laughed Olwen, hoping to keep this prosaic subject. Inwardly her thoughts ran somewhat thus:

... Would it be possible? Would even this be better than her present life? ... Always had she been surrounded by the hosts of the Philistines, she who was born, she was very certain, upon the sea-coast of Bohemia! ... It was merely existence, not life, in the shabby Vicarage, with the two parochial aunts, the weary old grandfather and the periodical inrushes of the Whitefield clan! Her Aunt Ethel had married George Whitefield, a man of no more exalted origin than Ben Holroyd. A mill-owner, but a very wealthy one. The Holroyds were only comfortable——

Could it be that she was so utterly contemptible that she was loath to swallow poor Ben merely because the pill was insufficiently gilded? ... Well, it did make a difference. Aunt Ethel lived in a palace. She had hot-houses and motorcars, her boy had been to the University. Marriage with Ben would mean a semi-detached villa in a suburb of Bramforth. Dear Mrs. Holroyd would present, and consequently would expect to choose, the Brussels carpet and rep curtains, and to lay the best quality cork lino plentifully over halls and passage ways....

"You can't think how pleased I am that the bank has given you an extra day," Ben was saying when she began to listen. "It doesn't seem right to me for the likes of you to be working there. Why, Flora Donkin, the butcher's daughter, is in your room, isn't she?"

"Certainly she is, and a very good sort. So neat, I love copying out her figures."

"But it's not the place for you," repeated Ben more fervently. "You ought to have a home of your own, and someone to take care of you all the time."

The moment for the inevitable cold water had arrived, and she was forced to throw it. A declaration at this moment would be more than she could bear. "Dear me, how Early Victorian you are!" she laughed. "We girls of the twentieth century don't want people to look after us. We want to live our own lives, don't you know?"

He was silent, swallowing down mortification. He had got quite near that time! Then: "Gracie doesn't want to do that kind of thing," he muttered sulkily.

"Gracie's vocation is very plain. She has a mother who can't do without her. I have no home ties. I can go where I like and do what I like."

"And what you like is the baank?"

She laughed "Oh, the bank's all right!" she told him lightly. Not for worlds would she have divulged to him her deep dissatisfaction with things as they were. She could not tell him that she had secretly sent an advertisement to the papers only a day or two previously—an advertisement to which she was at the moment feverishly awaiting replies. Aloud, she went on: "Gracie and I are great friends, but we are not a bit alike, you know. She is the fine domestic type of woman, but that is just what I'm not. My father, as you know, was the reverse of domestic. I take after him."

Ben felt very uncomfortable. Madoc Innes, Olwen's father, was what Ben would have described as a "bad hat." He felt any allusion to this discreditable parent to be in the nature of an indelicacy. He knew that Olwen was capricious and perverse, but he held the steadfast belief of many a good man, that she would after marriage turn automatically into just the woman he would have her be.

Something in her made special appeal to him, and had always done so, even in the days when she wore short skirts and long black stockings, and her remarkable hair had streamed in the wind, all shaded from dun colour to old gold. The thought of her scapegrace father was the one point upon which he was uncertain. Olwen had accomplished her intention. They reached the Vicarage with no further attempt at love-making on his part.

CHAPTER II

OLWEN AT HOME

The large family of the Reverend James Wilson had been brought up on the fringes of Dartmoor. His income there was, however, of so inadequate a nature, in view of his domestic requirements, that when the question of education demanded heroic measures, he accepted the living of Gratfield, a very large town in the industrial Midlands—a post for which both his temperament and his habit of life hitherto made him singularly ill-fitted.

Of his seven children, four were girls. They were fine creatures, with white limbs, blonde hair, complexion of cream and roses. Their natures were placidly bovine, except during that brief period in which a girl's own sense of her own beauty and the power it bestows kindles in her a fictitious vivacity, and nature, for her own purposes, lends a charm which is incredibly fugitive.