CHAPTER I

AN INVASION

HE sat back in his easy chair, pipe in mouth, and newspaper on his knee. The lashing wind and rain outside added to his sense of comfort. He was unassailable, he knew, from all unpleasant elements. A bright wood fire burned on the open hearth. His room was lined with books, for he was a book lover. Everything around him was for use and not for ornament. Some oil portraits hung on the walls, members of the Holt family; but there was no china, no flowers, and no signs of a woman's hand and taste in his room.

Thorold Holt was now nearer forty than thirty. He had a lean, sinewy frame, his close-cropped dark head was already streaked with grey, and at times there was a weary look about his grey eyes which belied his habitual cheeriness. People who knew him best said that his sense of humour was natural, but his cheeriness a manufactured article. He had had a hard life, and found it difficult to believe that at last his hard times were over.

An interruption came now to his solitude.

The door opened, and his one manservant appeared.

"Two ladies to see you, sir. I have shown them into the drawing-room."

"Oh these females!" muttered Thorold with real annoyance. "Even rain doesn't keep them indoors. A begging appeal, I suppose."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and rose discontentedly from his seat. He went out into a square hall, tiled in black and white stone underfoot, and crossed it, entering into a very stiff and stately-looking drawing-room, with early Victorian relics, besides some really good bits of antique furniture. Two women sat awaiting him. One he recognized as his rector's wife. He wondered she had not given her name, but he had only met her once before. She addressed him promptly.

"I must apologize for troubling you, but I think you will have to see this good woman, Miss Ward by name. She arrived yesterday evening from London, and as she came to the Rectory for advice, we gave her a bed, and after hearing her story and sifting it well, my husband and I think it only right to bring her straight to you."

Thorold stared at the two women in complete bewilderment.

"But who in the world is it?" he asked. "It isn't a long lost wife, for I have never married, and I am morally certain that I have never set eyes on Miss Ward before!"

"Miss Ward was not aware of your late cousin's death, or that you were in possession of his property," said Mrs. Gould, the rector's wife.

"Oh, then her business was with him?" queried Thorold.

Miss Ward for the first time looked up and spoke. She was a plain-featured woman dressed in black, and spoke with a slight American accent.

"The death of Mr. Charles Holt has floored me," she said; "I was counting on his help. God knows, it's badly needed."

"Well, if it is his private affair, I would rather discuss it with you privately. Come this way. Thank you, Mrs. Gould, for bringing her up. We will not keep you."

He knew he was treating his rector's wife badly; but he had already suffered from her insatiable thirst for managing every person she came across. And he did not intend that she should point out to him now wherein his duty lay.

Mrs. Gould rose from her seat with great annoyance.

"I shall be glad to know in good time if you are going to put her up here to-night; and perhaps you will be able to send down to the Rectory for her luggage. We only took her in out of kindness last night. The village inn is not a desirable place for a single woman."

"It is all such a mystery to me that I can make no promises or plans at present," said Thorold.

And then he marched the stranger into his comfortable smoking-room, and drew up a chair to the fire for her.

"Now," he said, "tell me in as few words as you can, who you are, and what your business is."

"I was a maid of Mrs. Brendon's about eleven years ago, and then I became her companion and nursed her when she died, and I loved her. She was my best friend on earth, and I promised her to stick to her child, and so I have, but all along since I came across the letter, Mr. Charles Holt has been my goal and mainstay. And it has fairly knocked me over to know he is dead and buried!"

"Will you tell me, please, who Mrs. Brendon was and what connection she was of my cousin?"

"I reckon she was a cousin like yourself; and a little more too, judging from this letter, which I'd best show you."

She produced a letter from her pocket which she handed to Thorold, and he stood leaning his back against the mantelpiece, whilst he read it.

"MY DEAR LENA,—

"I have heard that you and your little one have made your home in Capri. Well, I am glad to think of you in that sweet setting and perhaps after the stormy turbulence of your young life, you may find your widowhood a period of peace and rest. I should not think you were troubled with superfluous cash, so will you let me defray the cost of my god-daughter's education? I should like to see her one day. I am a lonely man with few kith or kin, as you know, and I want to make her acquaintance. Send her over to me if you ever want to get rid of her. If she is anything like the wild slip of girl her mother was, she will enliven my solitude, and at my death she will benefit.

"Your never-forgetting cousin,

"CHARLES HOLT."

Thorold read this through more than once. Then he looked up.

"Did Mrs. Brendon answer this letter?"

"No, she told me she was not going to part with her child; and if she responded to Mr. Holt's advances, he would expect her to marry him, and that she could never do."

"Then, having made her choice, and keeping her child, why do you come to me and produce this letter? Mr. Holt left his money elsewhere. The child has lost her chance."

The woman looked at him miserably.

"What can I do?" she asked. "I haven't the money to keep her. She's too young to keep herself. She's just a child. And I came to see Mr. Charles Holt. I did not know he was dead."

"Surely Mrs. Brendon left some money?"

"She had a pension only, which stopped at her death. Colonel Brendon saved nothing. Mrs. Brendon and I used to help out with fine sewing. The nuns at the convent used to give us some to do."

Thorold shrugged his shoulders.

"I am not a rich man. I can't spare a separate income for this young girl. Why should I? She is no relation of mine."

"A cousin's cousin," the stranger murmured. "If she had come over in Mr. Holt's lifetime, she would have been his heiress."

"Where is she now?" asked Thorold abruptly.

"Goodness only knows," was the unexpected answer. "Most likely rowing down the Thames, or going over to Paris in an airship, or wandering round Stonehenge in the dark—anywhere but where I left her, and where she ought to be—in quiet lodgings in the Euston Road. She's out to see England, she says, and she means to do it, though she's penniless."

"Then the sooner you get back to her the better. Don't look so desperate. I'll think things over, and run up to town in a few days, and see you. Give me your address. If the girl is old enough to earn her own living, we may perhaps find a job for her. Girls find it easier to work now, than in the old days."

"Thank you. If you don't help us, I don't know who will. I think I'll be getting back to the Rectory, and leave by the first train in the morning."

He let her go, but his peace of mind was gone. He paced his room restlessly, and sleep forsook him that night. The next morning he rode over to a country house about ten miles away, and walked in unannounced.

But two ladies had seen his approach from a window, and discussed him pretty freely before he arrived.

"Who is this riding up the drive, Lallie?"

"I don't know. Yes I do! It is Thorold Holt. What on earth does he want so early in the morning! You remember the Holts? Charles died six months ago. We were boys and girls together. Thorold was a great chum of mine when I was small. He used to stay over at the Manor a good deal. His father was a judge and widower. He married again, and was killed with his second wife in a railway smash in Italy. She was an extravagant girl, and left three small boys. There were so many debts that the children were in a bad way.

"Thorold was a trump. He took charge of his small stepbrothers from the time he left school. Gave up the Army as a calling on which he had set his heart, and got a post in the city in some business firm where he toiled early and late to make money for the boys' schooling. They were young scamps, and the scrapes he pulled them out of, would make your hair stand on end! He put one in the Navy, the other in the Army, and the third went out to a tea plantation in India. He only got the last of them off his hands a year ago, and they cost him a pretty penny between them I can tell you! Couldn't marry because of them—so he always says, and now he's given up the idea. I believe he was smitten once by a girl who waited two years and then married some one else. Thorold has never had a life of his own. He was three years at the War and got badly wounded, but is nearly well now. He's a cheerful philosopher, and does me good when I'm in the blues. Don't go. I want you to know him."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe, the mistress of the house, a bright, smiling young woman, turned to greet Thorold as he entered the room.

"Vera, this is Mr. Thorold Holt. He's at the Manor now, over at Crowhurst. You haven't met Vera before, Thorold. She's an old school friend of mine, and is taking pity on my loneliness while Frank is away."

Thorold made his greetings, then took up his position on the hearthrug, and looked at Mrs. Wharnecliffe with a whimsical smile.

"Whenever disaster comes my way I always say to myself, 'It is not good that man should be alone,' and haste away to you."

"What is it now? One of those boys again?"

Vera Harrington had discreetly slipped out of the room.

"A strange female was brought to me yesterday afternoon by Mrs. Gould. She's got a child—a girl who's a connection of Charles. You remember Lena Foster? a cousin on his mother's side whom he was wildly in love with all his life. It's her daughter. Lena is dead, and this good woman considers the girl should be enjoying the Manor, with its income, instead of me."

"How preposterous and absurd! Lena treated Charles shamefully. She spoilt his life. And I was glad when her husband treated her as she had treated others."

"Oh, how hard you women are!"

He proceeded to give her further details. Told her of the contents of the letter, and then with raised eyebrows, said:

"And now having fitted out three young men for life, am I to begin over again, and take in hand a young woman?"

"It's ridiculous! She has no possible claim upon you, of course."

"Not legally."

"But morally, I suppose you are going to say! Thorold, I should like to shake you. Your conscience is swelled out like a big balloon! It's too big for your body altogether. Why will you take such delight in sacrificing yourself! Wasn't it last week you were telling me you hardly know how to live at the Manor? You've put down half the staff and economized in every way. How can you afford to adopt a penniless girl? Besides it wouldn't be proper. What's her age?"

"Haven't an idea—something between fifteen and twenty, I suppose. She would have to go to school."

"Not if she's over twenty. What a Don Quixote you are! Hadn't her father any relations?"

"This female says she's penniless and friendless."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked at him perplexedly and he laughed.

"We are sent into the world to help each other, aren't we?" he said. "I'm going to inspect her to-morrow. Shall run up to town for a couple of days. But I'm scared of young women. Wouldn't you like to come with me?"

"Now, Thorold, what on earth can you do with her? You go straight home and smoke your pipe. I will go up, and inspect her and report to you."

He shook his head.

"Can't trust you. I assure you I won't fall in love with her, or marry her."

"But don't you see that you can't provide for her? That sort of thing isn't done. She's either a designing minx or an innocent babe. Either way, she's dangerous to a simple—"

"Fool," put in Thorold.

"Well, I think you are a bit of one sometimes."

"We'll go up together by the ten express," said Thorold firmly, "and if she's old enough and strong enough to earn her own living, we'll find something for her."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe laughed at him.

"You sound so wise; but it's not so easy, my dear Thorold, to find work for young women nowadays. Remember the thousands of unemployed men. And I hold with giving them the first chance."

"Will you meet me at the station to-morrow?"

"I suppose I shall. You mustn't go up to town alone."

And so it came to pass that the following day found them both in the Paddington express. They reached the dingy lodging-house in the Euston Road, and were told by a good-natured, stout landlady, that Miss Ward was out, and the young lady in.

They were shown upstairs into a shabby sitting-room with folding doors. Nobody was there, but upon the round table was an exquisite bunch of white narcissus and pink hyacinths, the fragrance of which scented the room. A moment later, and the folding doors opened.

A young girl stood gravely regarding them, one hand resting on the door handle, the other half extended to greet them. Mrs. Wharnecliffe caught her breath as she looked at her. She understood at once Miss Ward's anxiety concerning her. A slender slip of a girl she was, dressed in a rich blue woollen gown, which matched her eyes in intensity of colour. A string of turquoise beads hung round her neck nearly reaching her waist. She had a pale oval face with rather a pointed chin, and delicate features. Soft, reddish-brown hair fell softly over her broad low brow, and was gathered in a loose knot behind. Her blue eyes were fringed with very dark curling lashes, her mouth had sad curves at the corners. She was a picture of pathetic appealing youth, and Mrs. Wharnecliffe whispered under her breath:

"What a darling child!"

For an instant no one spoke, then the girl broke the silence.

"How kind of you to come. I guess you are relations of Mr. Holt's. Miss Ward has told me of her fruitless journey to his house. Please sit down."

Nothing could have exceeded the gravity of her manner. She seated herself lightly on the arm of an old horsehair couch opposite them, and slightly swung one slender foot to and fro. Mrs. Wharnecliffe began to feel less at ease than the girl herself.

"I have come up to talk things over with you," said Thorold, clearing his throat.

"What kind of things?" asked the girl softly.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe looked sharply across at her.

The grave intense blue eyes were now quivering with mirth. The woman of the world intervened quickly. She was not going to sit silent, and see her quixotic friend baited for a girl's amusement.

"Mr. Holt has very kindly come up to see if he can help you in any way to make plans for the future. We hear you are very badly off, and your friend was bitterly disappointed to find that the one she relied upon to help you is dead. Both Mr. Holt and I knew your mother long ago, and we want to befriend her daughter."

A faint rose colour came to the pale cheeks of the girl. She drew up her small head in a very haughty fashion, and all mirth died away.

"Miss Ward brought the disappointment upon herself alone. It was against my wish she went to beg. I am making my own plans for the future and require no help from strangers, however kind."

Thorold was about to speak, when Mrs. Wharnecliffe forestalled him.

"That is good from your point of view. I wonder what you intend to do?"

The girl did not appear to resent this question; she stopped swinging her foot, and clasping her hands lightly in front of her looked dreamily out of the window opposite her, across the chimney tops into the grey murky sky.

"It is a choice between two investments," she said in her still grave tone. "I should prefer to live my life above the world. But an aeroplane might not be so paying as a car. And I know less about it. I have driven a car in Italy. Yesterday I had a lesson in driving through the city, but my instructor practically told me that I had little to learn. You see, my nerves are strong and steady, and I have no fear in me. I never had. I should think a livelihood could be got easily in any big town by motoring passengers to and from stations, and taking them on any tour round. Miss Ward does not want me to sink all the capital I have in a venture. But I am perfectly certain in my own mind as to the success of it."

"It's a ridiculous, preposterous idea!" spluttered out Thorold impulsively. "No wonder Miss Ward does not approve of it."

The sparkle came back to the girl's eyes, and her lips smiled.

"I was told I would find English men and women working shoulder to shoulder and doing the same jobs everywhere. Is it not so? Are there still some of the old-fashioned sort left? Are you one of them? Why is it so preposterous and ridiculous?"

And then Thorold gave one of his hearty laughs, and for an instant the girl looked at him with quickened interest.

"Because you know nothing of life, my dear child, and very little of men and women, I should say. How old are you? You do not look more than sixteen."

"I am two-and-twenty, and Italy is not a cannibal island. I have met English people out there by scores, as well as Americans and every nationality under the sun. I left school nearly five years ago. In five years one grows fast and learns much."

"Have you any friends in England?" asked Mrs. Wharnecliffe.

"Ask Miss Ward. Here she is to speak for herself."

The door opened and Miss Ward appeared.

Thorold rose to his feet and introduced her to Mrs. Wharnecliffe, who said at once:

"We came up to town to see if we could befriend Miss Brendon; but she will have none of us!"

"Oh Gentian!"

"Oh Waddy!" mimicked the girl pulling down her lips, and bringing a piteous look into her blue eyes. "Now sit down and declare on whose side you are! Mine, or theirs."

Miss Ward seated herself irresolutely upon the edge of the old couch.

"I am afraid we have come on a fruitless errand," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "It seems that your young charge here has mapped out her future to her own satisfaction, and wants no interference."

"Her future!" exclaimed Miss Ward miserably. "It will be the workhouse."

"Oh no," retorted Gentian quickly; "there is unemployment pay, you know; but that will be unnecessary as long as my hands and feet and nerve are sound."

"Oh, I beseech you," said Miss Ward, turning suddenly to Thorold, who was sitting back looking on with amused eyes, "don't forsake us. If you will be a friend to us, I will be everlastingly grateful."

"Well, how can I serve you best?" he asked gravely and earnestly.

"By having a long talk with me," she said promptly.

And then Gentian rose to her feet, and put one slim hand on Mrs. Wharnecliffe's arm.

"Let us leave them," she said; "will you come this way?"