Marmaduke Part 23

"I am glad to hear it, my dear, but I knew you had a good heart, or I wouldn't have risked speaking to you. I wouldn't do as much for one in a thousand. Now, my dear, I am nearly eighty years old, and I understand things as perhaps few women do understand them. I don't expect many men have lived to be your age without forming ties of some kind, especially if they live in Scotland, Marmaduke"--the thrust went home again, she thought--"but money does a lot, especially when there are no children. A good round annuity means much when a man is not well off, as you are, and has probably to wait for many years ere he falls into money--as you have, for Pitt is the heir, of course. But your father would find the cash----"

"If he would find the money to pay for my colonelcy," burst in Marmaduke, "it would be better than setting people to find out mare's nests! I don't mean to be rude, Lady Broadway; you are very kind, but I really can't discuss----"

"I think you can," interrupted Louisa Broadway in her turn, "especially if it is not a question of mere money, and money is, I believe, a very small matter to some people--to you, for instance, Marmaduke! You never think of it, do you, so long as you've got it?--ha, ha! But there are other considerations. To begin with, I believe that when there are no children a marriage should automatically become null and void. And apart from that I don't believe that any woman who really loves a man would ever stand in his light or prevent him from doing his duty. I am sure if I had had no children, and Broadway----" The ill.u.s.tration, however, was beyond even her powers of fiction, and the opening of the door brought relief.

"Oh, here is the young lady! Amabel, let me introduce Major Marmaduke Muir. Major Muir, Lady Amabel Sibthorpe. I expect you are kindred spirits, as you are both such outdoor people."

The girl, who had rushed in somewhat unceremoniously, looked up frankly into Marmaduke's blue eyes. There was undisguised admiration in her glance.

"Oh, yes," she said, "I've always wanted to know Major Muir since I saw him punish a horrid little boy in the park for bullying his dog!"

Marmaduke, as he made his bow, felt that the clever old lady with the painted face was very clever indeed. She had gauged her man completely. Most people on the task would have supplied him with a befrilled fas.h.i.+onable beauty; the sort of woman with whom he flirted, who amused him, attracted him, tempted him. But this joyous, buoyant girl, with good-breeding in every line and feature----

No, Louisa Lady Broadway had made a mistake; she had reminded him of Marrion Paul.

So, after the shortest interval compatible with his role of charming young man, he took his leave and went fuming back to his lodgings in Duke Street, which he kept as a _pied-a-terre_ for himself and Peter.

The latter was out, so Marmaduke went straight up to his bedroom to change his London things for his uniform, since he had to report himself on arrival at Aldershot. There was plenty of time, but he meant to go round by Marrion's first. He had not seen her for over ten days, and----

Despite an anger at interference which had grown instead of diminis.h.i.+ng, old Lady Broadway's words, "a woman who loves a man will never stand in his light or prevent him from doing his duty," would keep recurring to his mind. It was exactly what Marrion had said to him scores and scores of times. Curious, two such different women having precisely the same views. Not that they mattered. He had his own. Still, half-mechanically when he was dressed he took out of his despatch-box a small packet of papers, and, opening one of the envelopes, began to read the contents. One sheet was the excerpt from the visitors' book at the Cross-keys Inn where he had written "Captain the Honourable Marmaduke and Mrs. Muir." He smiled at it bitterly, wondering whether, if he had relied on that, as Marrion had begged him, he should have felt as bound as he did now. With a shrug of his shoulders he folded it again and thrust it back into the envelope. The other sheet was a counterpart of the paper which Marrion Paul had, unknown to him, given to his father. He sat staring at it almost stupidly until a knock came to the door, when he hastily replaced it and put the bundle in his breast-pocket. The new-comer was Andrew Fraser, and he carried a letter.

"I was roond tae the club, sir," he said, with a salute, "as I thocht it might be o' importance seein' it was frae the castle; but you was awa."

The man's face was as ever, full of devotion and duty. The past seven years had brought him many an anxiety, many an agony, but he had stuck by the two beings he loved best on earth with a steadfastness beyond all praise.

"All right, Andrew," replied his master cheerily, "pack up, will you, and take the things to the station. I'm going round by Mrs.

Marsden's."

"Very well, sir," replied the servant quietly.

He had been discretion itself all these years, ever since Marrion had come to him one day and told him the truth, that she was married. If she had not so told him, what would he have done? His simple soul could never answer the question.

Meanwhile, Marmaduke in a cab was reading his father's epistle, which ran thus--

"MY DEAR MARMADUKE,--I believe you are my son, so I expect you to give this letter your earnest consideration. As you are aware there is no heir to the t.i.tle or estate. I had the misfortune to beget a creature who calls himself the Master of Drummuir and is not the master of anything. Then there is Peter, a promising boy whom you have ruined by providing him with an attaches.h.i.+p at Vienna, a place which did for his uncle whom he greatly resembles. The accounts of the physician concerning his health are simply disastrous. He has narrowly escaped an asylum for life. This being so, it is imperative that you shall marry and produce an heir for the estate. I see by various letters of yours (unanswered) that you are again in want of money to purchase your promotion to colonel. It is a nefarious, a reprehensible swindle which should be abolished, and to which I should never yield were it not that I wish to strike a bargain with you--namely, I will purchase your colonelcy, if you will consent at once to seek out a suitable wife and marry her within the year. If you accede to this most reasonable request I will send a cheque to your bankers and I shall expect to see you--and Peter also if he is really sane--here for Christmas.

"Yours truly,

"DRUMMUIR.

"P.S.--Let me tell you, sir, that it is deuced dull here with those two virtuous frumps, my Lady and Penelope. They were more amusing when they were young. But if you come--and why shouldn't you?--we'll have a regular rouser."

Marmaduke read this letter over twice. It was the kindest, most reasonable one he had ever had from his father. And the postscript touched him. Its very frankness made him realise what life must now be to one who in his youth had been "quite as good-looking as you are."

Old Lady Broadway's words recurred to him as he stood at the little door with its bra.s.s name-plate waiting for admission. And if he got his colonelcy and the command of the regiment? If there was going to be war?

But was there going to be war? He felt a little as if he had to face an enemy as he ran upstairs two steps at a time.

CHAPTER IV

But upstairs all was peace, and Marrion, the light of the lamp on her bronze hair, beautiful as ever, looked up from her work, her face bright with pleasure.

"Ah, there you are! I was expecting you, for Andrew was round this afternoon and told me you were in town."

He did not go up to her or greet her; only smiled content and sank into the easy-chair placed between where she sat and the fire. The big table wheeled cosily into the corner was littered with lace and muslin. He took up a small pinafore and looked at it distastefully.

"I wish you wouldn't work so hard," he said suddenly, "and I hate to see you busy over those things; it reminds me----" he broke off.

She laid down the little frock she was embroidering on the instant, and went to kneel beside him; for her insight into this man's moods was complete, and she felt what was coming.

"And it reminds me too, Duke. That is why I love it. I have told you so often it was n.o.body's fault; if anybody's, mine."

He shook his head.

"You can't make me believe that."

"But it is true. See here, Duke, I ought never to have allowed you to bind yourself. It put me in a false position. I was too anxious to please, too anxious to pay you back the gift, as it were, so I did what I ought not to have done. I thought of you, not of the child. But what is the use of going over it all again? It is past and done with."

He sat with his hands between his knees for a minute, looking at the fire.

"Well, I am sorry the poor little chap died."

It gave her the opening she needed.

"That is what your father said when I told him," she said quietly.

He stared at her.

"My father!"

"Yes, Duke, I have been to see him again. He was quite kind. Sit still and I will tell you everything."

And she told him though she saw his face grow stern and angry.

"You had no business to do it," he said, when she finished. "Can't you even leave me to manage my own affairs? I didn't interfere with yours when you broke away and set up on your own, did I?"

"You have been very good to me, Marmaduke," she replied, with a catch in her voice, "and I've tried to be as good to you."

The memory of many a helping hand, of long years in which this woman's companions.h.i.+p had been an anchor to him, came to appease his easy nature.

"Well, it is no use being angry," he said at last; "the thing's done.

And you really destroyed your lines?"

"Your father tore them up. He quite agreed with me that as I had no children, and there was no chance of one--at any rate, of a living one--that I was bound to release you. And I am bound. I refuse to be your wife."