Marmaduke Part 10

"Hang it all," he said, almost boisterously, "I forgot you were a servant here! Do you ever forget your p's and q's, I wonder? I wish you would sometimes. Anyhow, you have made her look quite divine, and she says she means to ask you to take the place permanently."

"It is very kind of _her_," replied Marrion, accenting the p.r.o.noun; but Marmaduke was too absorbed to notice it. Only that afternoon he had had his final attack on his father's purse-strings, and had come down to the library where Jack Jardine and Peter were smoking, white with rage.

"It's all up!" he said. "The old man--I'll never call him father again--insulted me beyond bearing."

"I warned you, Duke," began Peter; "he isn't half recovered yet."

"And do you think I've got time to waste until my precious parent takes enough colchic.u.m and nitre to kill a horse, all because he guzzles and swills? No. As I told him, Pringle won't wait over the week, so--so I'm making other arrangements. I shall have to ask you, Jack, to raise two hundred pounds to clinch the bargain when I meet Pringle. I don't know how the devil you do it, but you always do."

"Yes, I always do," a.s.sented Jardine a trifle wearily; "but you know, Duke, it would be wiser to raise the two thousand pounds at once and have done with it. If Pitt and Peter here were to join in a _post obit_, and I were to back it----"

"Thanks!" said Marmaduke curtly. "I only asked for two hundred pounds, and you can put that in the bill, can't you?"

"Yes," a.s.sented Jardine again wearily, "I can put it in the bill"

When Marmaduke had gone out of the room Peter crossed over to the fire and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"I wonder what he has got in his head," he remarked thoughtfully.

"It's something to do with Fantine, _alias_ f.a.n.n.y Biggs, I'm sure."

"Fantine?" echoed Jack Jardine. "Why, of course, anyone can see that Marmaduke has been trying to get to the right side of her. I advised him to do so. And she, of course--by that scoundrel Compton's advice, I expect--has been trying to make the peer jealous in order to get rid of Marmaduke!"

Peter burst out laughing.

"Look here, Jack, you're excellent as a man of business, but you're a mole with women, you old bachelor! I could tell you a thing or two, but I won't--it's too amusing." And he strolled out of the room chuckling to himself.

Over in the keep-house, Marrion Paul felt that she, also, could tell a thing or two, even after the brief experience of being maid to Fantine Le Grand; but she did not find it amusing. On the contrary, it sent her about her new work with a frown in her eyes that were keen for every sign.

The day had been a troublous one. The old peer, up for the first time, had been so irritable that the whole household was upset. Fantine Le Grand, indeed, coming up for her usual late afternoon rest, had professed herself so outwearied by a protracted penance in milord's private room that she bade Marrion give her a double dose of her sleeping draught and tell the butler she was not coming down to dinner. She would have a dainty little supper in her boudoir at ten o'clock, and till then did not wish to be disturbed. Being thus set free, Marrion was going home when, as she pa.s.sed the stairway leading to the room which Marmaduke had occupied and where Andrew Fraser still kept some of his master's spare things, she heard a noise as of someone s.h.i.+fting boxes. Running up to see what it was, she found Andrew busy packing up.

"Aye, we're awa' the morn's morn," he replied cheerfully to her query, "and blythe am I that the finest gentleman in the Queen's army will run no more danger o' bein' ruined by a wh.o.r.e-woman and an auld, auld man, as s'ould be thinkin' o' his grave an' the Last Day."

Despite a sudden catch at her heart, his hearer acquiesced calmly.

"Aye, it's well he's goin! But where is it to?"

"To Edinbro'. He's an appointment tae meet Major Pringle the morrow's morn aboot the exchange."

"An' when he's comin' back?" asked Marrion sharply.

"I heard no tell o' returnin', and I'm thinkin' not. Ye see the exchange he tell't me was settled into the auld regiment."

"Then his father----" she interrupted.

Andrew shook his head.

"It's no the auld lord. They had just a fearfu' stramash aboot it. It will be Jack Jardine again, puir fallow! He always manages it somehow.

Well, he'll hae his reward at the Judgment, though I'm thinkin' he'll hae to wait till then for a reckoning."

"Maist o' us have to do that, Andry," said Marrion grimly, and then her face, looking into the hard, honest, homely face before her, softened; "an' you, abune all, abune all, my lad," she added, as she went on her way.

Andrew Fraser hesitated for a second, then followed fast.

"Thank ye for that, my dear," he said hoa.r.s.ely at the foot of the stairway, "it makes it easier. An' I'll wait--aye, I'll wait till then, never fear, Marrion!"

His outstretched hand was in hers as they stood gazing into each other's eyes, his very love forgot in the flood of friends.h.i.+p which surged through their hearts and brains, when Miss Margaret Muir, fresh from an afternoon among the rocks with her gallant little parson, came whistling and calling to her dogs through the keep-gate. She had spent so many long years of her life without one touch of glamour and romance that, now it had come to her at last, the whole world seemed transfigured into a place full to the brim of lovers and their la.s.ses.

So in an instant the sight of those two set her becking and smiling.

"Good luck to you both!" she called. "Good luck, good luck! After all, Marrion, you see you will be asking Mr. Bryce to get you cried."

Andrew, shamefaced and confused, escaped up the stairs, but Marrion stood her ground boldly.

"There'll be scant time, Miss Marg'ret," she said, not without some scorn, "for Andrew is away with his master the morn, and Captain Duke says he will not be coming back."

Her hearer turned visibly pale. Ever since the rencontre on the rocks Margaret had been haunted by a fear lest Marmaduke should break the half-formulated compact of mutual silence. And now this news of his unexpected departure sent a thousand wild conjectures to her mind.

Had he quarrelled with his father over the woman? Had he in revenge told----

"Going away!" she gasped. "I didn't know. Surely it's very sudden!

Why? Can my father have found out about Mdlle. Le Grand----" Then realising her slip, she went on hurriedly, "But it is all nonsense about Duke's saying he will not come back. The boys always say that when there is a quarrel; but father forgets, and so do they, as you know quite well, Marrion. And it's only right that it should be so, for after all he is their father, isn't he?"

"Aye, Miss Marg'ret," replied Marrion gravely, "my Lord Drummuir is the present holder o' the barony, an' Captain Marmaduke is the heir to it if the Master has no son; so that settles it outright."

Margaret Muir looked at her with a sort of wistful surprise.

"You put things very plain, Marrion," she said, "but you always were a sensible girl; and, being what you are, your grandfather's granddaughter--you--you belong to Drummuir, as it were."

When she had pa.s.sed on whistling and calling to her dogs, Marrion Paul stood echoing those last words in her heart. Yes, she belonged to Drummuir; but over and above that inherited loyalty there was a pa.s.sion of protection for Duke himself. He must not be harmed in any way.

Was there indeed anything between him and the painted woman she was serving?

Before she wakened her for the dainty supper at ten o'clock that evening Marrion stood looking at the sleeping face, all its charm of _espieglerie_ gone, the mouth cruel, the lines about the eyes hard and set.

No, whatever came, that woman should not have the spoiling of Duke's life! Not that there could be much fear since he was leaving the next day.

CHAPTER IX

No danger!

The thought--such an ill-considered thought, it seemed--recurred to Marrion Paul as she held a slip of crumpled paper in her hand and read its slight contents over and over again.

She had found it on the floor of the room where Andrew Fraser had packed up his master's spare things. There had been heaps of other papers on the floor, when, during the time that Fantine Le Grand was on duty with the old lord, Marrion, more to still thought than from necessity, had set herself the task of clearing up and making tidy; but this one showed her Duke's handwriting, and, half mechanically, she had reached down to pick it up. And then? Women, as a rule, have not nearly so hard and fast a rule of conventional honour as men on such points, so she had smoothed it out and read--

Evidently a memorandum made to help out a memory excellent in its way, but random, careless.