Marmaduke Part 21

The old man fixed them with a stony stare.

"I was just about to ask you to do so, my dear," he said, with suave politeness. "Penelope, open the door for your mistress."

Marrion, as mechanically she stepped aside towards the window to let them pa.s.s out, felt that nothing was altered. The spider was master of his web still, every stick and stone of the old place existed by this old man's wicked will. And it was this heritage she had set herself to gain for the man she loved! A spasm of repugnance shot through her.

Yet surely the place itself was glorious. Her glance speeding northwards took in the same old familiar view that had been visible from her window in the keep-house; the grey northern sea trending away, round promontory and point, the cliffs looking so strangely red compared with the white hills, the white moors--for snow lay thick everywhere. In those long years of London life she seemed to have forgotten that snow could be so white. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." The words recurred to her irrelevantly.

The old man's voice roused her.

"You are not so good-looking as you were; and you limp. How's that?"

"I had an accident," she replied briefly.

"And why do you call yourself Mrs. Marsden?"

"Because it is the name I have gone by for some years."

"Ever since I last saw you--eh?"

"Ever since you last saw me--nearly," she corrected. Then there was silence.

"Well," he said at length, "what is it all about? You have come for money, I suppose--women always do. Tell the truth solidly please, I've no time to waste."

The sneer in his words was intolerable.

"Yes, I have come for money," she replied, "because your son, Major Marmaduke Muir, married me six years ago. I've brought proofs with me."

If he wanted the truth he had got it. Bitter as she was, however, the sudden whiteness of the old man's face made her sorry for him. There was something more than anger here. That turned him purple; yet his words were resentful, nothing more.

"Then he is a d.a.m.ned fool!"

"You didn't write so to him seven years ago, Lord Drummuir," she began.

"H'm, so he showed you the letter, did he? No, you behaved well then--and, by G.o.d, I made them dance!" The recollection seemed to please; then a sudden thought evidently struck him. "Any children?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"One--a boy--died. Major Muir had an accident in the tilbury. The child," she paused, her eyes on the far stretches of dazzling white snow, "it--it ransomed my life. I shall never have another." Then with a rush all she had come to say sprang to mind and lips, she held out her hands appealingly. "Lord Drummuir, I wish you would let me tell my story!"

"Eh, what?" he replied peevishly. "Well, curse it all, I've been plagued by the gout and those two virtuous frumps for seven months, for Jack Jardine has the jaundice, and you were deuced amusing last time. But, don't stop over there--makes me cold to think of you. Sit there, by the fire, and take off your bonnet; you look better without it. Women with good hair shouldn't wear bonnets."

She sat down as he bade her, feeling inclined to cry, he reminded her so much of Marmaduke.

He would not spare her any details; it seemed an amus.e.m.e.nt to him to hear of her doubts, her scruples, and he laughed aloud when she told him how two years ago she had dismissed her lover.

"Why?" he sneered. "Come, out with it!"

His hard clear eyes peered into hers.

"Because I didn't want to injure him, and I don't want to injure him now," she replied. "I haven't come to claim my rights as his wife."

"Then what the devil do you want, my lady?"

"I want you to do as you did before and give him the money to buy his colonelcy. If you will do this I will never claim to be his wife. He shall be as free, as far as I am concerned, to marry whom you choose."

Lord Drummuir sat looking at her with hard clear eyes.

"And if I don't," he said at last, "are you going to threaten me with this bogus marriage, for it may be bogus for all I know--eh, what?"

Marrion felt that the supreme moment had come; she must stake her all.

"No," she answered quietly. "To show you I threaten nothing, there are my marriage lines. Burn them if you will!"

She sat quite still while the old man, with fingers that trembled visibly, unfolded the paper she gave him. There was no mistaking its worth. In Marmaduke's bold black writing were the words--

"I, Marmaduke Muir, second son of Baron Drummuir, of Drummuir Castle, hereby acknowledge Marrion Paul as my lawful wife." Underneath in her finer writing was her own acknowledgment of her tie to Marmaduke.

The old man, for all he had had no hopes of escape, was wary.

"You give this up because you know he, my fool of a son, has a counterpart, eh? That's about it, I expect?"

Marrion flushed to the very roots of her hair, but she spoke calmly.

"Yes, your son has the counterpart----" she began.

The old man burst into one of his sudden rude guffaws.

"Ha, ha, ha! And you thought you'd take in the old fox, my fine madam!" he said, then paused before the pa.s.sion of her face.

"If you will listen you will believe me. I could claim to be his wife now if I chose. I do not choose. I prefer that he should lead the life he loved, that he should marry and bring you the heir for which--for which you would sell your soul, you poor old man! But Marmaduke is a soldier born; if he misses this chance he will be a disappointed man.

As like as not he will never marry, even though he knows I've set him free. But send him this money, and I swear to you the counterpart shall be destroyed. What shall I swear by? I swear by the poor dead baby!" She paused. "Marmaduke said he was so like you. I never saw him. I was too near death."

Her voice trailed away to monotony. The old man sat staring at her, an odd tremor in his face.

"I swear it shall be destroyed," she continued. "I--I have very great influence over your son; he--he will do what I ask."

"Then why the devil are you giving him up, and your prospects here?

They're not to be sneezed at by a woman like you!"

The phrase nettled her. She rose and stood beside him strong and steady.

"Lord Drummuir," she said sarcastically, "I know you to be clever and I thought, being a gentleman, that you might have seen the truth and spared me the pain of that question. I will answer it, however. It is cause your son never loved me. He is very, very fond of me. He has been so ever since we were boy and girl together. And I have been of great use to him. But I could not bring love into his life, and I could not bring him a child. So it did not seem worth while; I could only stand aside."

There was a pause. The old man's face had grown sharp and paler; there was uncertainty even in the cruel lines about the mouth.

"You're rather an extraordinary young woman," he remarked coolly; "might have made your fortune on the stage. Wish I'd met you there!"

He grinned. "But now to business. You have the whip hand, of course--I admit that. Now, if I give you--or that fool, my son, it's the same thing--the money for this paper, you promise to make him destroy his counterpart."