Marmaduke Part 17

Marrion looked at him startled.

"Oh, yes," he continued, "I know! That's how I found you. When the man brought in that pile of hair to show those young cubs--faugh! it makes me sick to think of them fingering it--I knew it must be yours; no one else has hair like it. Marmie! Marmie! why did you let him do it--the grovelling, money-grubbing beast!"

Once again his anger appeased her, and she replied: "I wanted the money."

He groaned.

"And you got me the two thousand pounds! Oh! yes, the old man--curse him!--told me all about it, and how that harridan Penelope---- But never mind that now, though, you see, we have plenty to talk about.

When----"

She had removed her bonnet and now stood a trifle defiant.

"It will grow again!"

But he had pa.s.sed from his vexation.

"Why, Marmie, surely you've been ill? You are so thin, so pale, child--what has been the matter?" he exclaimed, all his innate kindness coming uppermost. "Here, sit down; you look as if you were going to faint"--he rang the bell violently. "I don't believe you've had anything to eat! Here! Tell the housekeeper to send up a cup of soup--beef-tea, if she has got it--at once, and--and some toast," he called out loudly, after the retreating waiter. Then he came to stand by Marrion and say in an almost tragic voice, "I owe you a lot, Marrion Paul, and I'm going to pay it back, by gad! I am!"

She tried to laugh and failed, feeling she would cry if she spoke. So she took her soup when it came and afterwards, as he eat his lunch, they talked and argued.

"Now look here, my dear," he said at last in his old, rather flamboyant, most masterful manner, "you tell me you don't want to stop in Edinburgh, and you tell me you have plenty of money in your purse.

But one thing you haven't got at present--strength to work. I can see you haven't, and you have done an immense amount for me, and--well, I'm dashed if I am going to leave you as you are to face things alone.

So that settles it. I must get back to Glasgow now. You come with me so far. I promise you, Marmie, I will not--well, annoy you in any way. See a doctor, and--and do as you like. Only I swear to you, my dear, if you won't be reasonable I'll break my leave and stop here, and--and----"

His boyish face broke into mischief; he came towards her with hands outstretched, frank, absolutely devoid of all save pure affection.

In a way, it cut her to the heart as she acquiesced.

The ride to Glasgow, first-cla.s.s, with all the alacrity of guards and porters consequent on Marmaduke's lordly ways and tips, was rather an agreeable novelty; so also was the obsequiousness of the hotel where he left her, saying he would be round to see her ere he started for Ayr next morning.

Before he came, however, a rather well-known doctor arrived somewhat to her annoyance, the more so because his verdict was startling. A sharp attack of pneumonia, which mercifully had not killed her, had left both lungs enfeebled. At least six weeks' complete rest, care, and good food, and, if possible, sea air would be necessary to make them normal; but given these desiderata perfect recovery was a.s.sured.

Six weeks! Marrion, despite her full purse, was aghast, and Marmaduke, coming in with his usual breezy vitality, found her depressed. He was in uniform, and it was the first time she had seen him so, with all the accessories, as it were, of his young manhood about him, from the glitter of his plaid brooch to the pipe-clay on his white gaiters, for Andrew Fraser would have scorned to have aught astray in his master's kit.

"I have had rather bad news," she began dolefully; but he checked her with a comprehending smile.

"I know," he replied, "I was waiting for the pill-doc's verdict downstairs. But it's perfectly easy, my dear. The sea is simply splendid at Ayr. I'm off there in quarter of an hour; but I'm going to leave Andrew Fraser here to bring you down later on. If I can't find you a suitable lodging before you come you can get one for yourself next day. And if you do run short of money, you can always come to me, can't you?"

She shook her head, but the tears were in her eyes.

CHAPTER XIII

Andrew Fraser stood at attention watching a couple of figures, a man and a woman, who for the last hour had been dredging a sea-pool with a landing net as if they were boy and girl. He had watched them at it often in the last six weeks, and, honest, straight-forward fellow as he was, had wondered how they managed to treat each other with such perfect unconsciousness that they were man and woman. So far as his master was concerned, that might be, for Andrew was shrewd enough to see the difference between friendship and pa.s.sion; but, if anyone was ever heart-wholly in love, Marrion Paul was that person. You could see it in her face; yet it never seemed to influence her actions. The perception of this made Andrew vaguely afraid of her; it put a sort of damper on his own pa.s.sion for her, since such self-control was not natural; it was barely human.

Hour after hour, the simple soul would tell himself, those two would play themselves like a couple of weans. Three or four times a week the major would, after the morning parades were over, drive out in his tilbury--Andrew perched in the tiny back seat--and spend his afternoon at the little inn which was also the ferry-house over the Doon river where Marrion lodged. Sometimes the two would go out sailing together, but more often they amused themselves on the sh.o.r.e, as they were doing now, dredging for sea things or catching miller's thumbs. It was childish, but--Andrew's lean, anxious face puckered with confused thought as he turned to a sound which he knew would bring with it a more commonsensical outlook on the situation than he, with his pa.s.sionate love for the woman concerned, his pa.s.sionate affection for the man, could bring to bear on it. It was the click of busy knitting needles, and they belonged to the landlady of the "Plough." She was a thoroughly good, kindly, healthy woman, whose views were strictly conventional on all subjects appertaining to the relations between the s.e.xes; and as these in those days--and even now, for the most part--were that s.e.x was the only possible tie between two spirits if they happened to be living for the time being, one in a male body, the other in a female--they were not likely to approve of the dredgers of sea-treasures.

"When are yon two gaun to be marriet?" she asked firmly. She was a just woman, and having seen no signs of wrong-doing was willing to believe the best.

Andrew hesitated.

"I'm thinkin'," he replied slowly, "that they are no considering marriage."

"Then they aught tae think shame tae themsels," retorted the landlandy severely. "Her week's up the morrow's morn, an' I'll just tell her she canna stop in my house. It's just clean redeeklus."

Andrew flushed up.

"There's no need for you to say aught, ma'am," he protested eagerly.

"She's leavin', anyhow. Ye ken she only came for her health and that's re-established. It would only hurt the la.s.sie--and--and do harm, mayhap."

The landlady looked at him and sniffed.

"The la.s.sie, as you ca' her--will take no hairm from what I sall say to her, an' she'd be the better to give up moithering about wi'

majors, and tak' up wi' a gude, G.o.d-fearin' man like yersel'."

And with that she carried the click of her knitting-pins back into the inn, leaving Andrew Fraser battling with his own heart. Aye, surely, surely, it would be better, more seemly, more discreet.

But there they were coming up from the beach like happy children.

"Then I'll bring a boat along at one to-morrow," said the major, as he climbed into the tilbury. "I can't get away before, and we'll try and get to the Craig. It's eighteen miles south, so if this north-west wind holds good we shall have plenty of time, shan't we?"

"Plenty of time!" echoed Marrion happily.

But she had been happy every day of those six weeks, and even now, though the hair money was running short, and she knew she must be up and doing in a few days, she would not, could not, think of the future. Sufficient to the day was the evil and the good thereof.

Half an hour after Marmaduke's departure, however, she came out of the inn-parlour with a heightened colour. It had been no use attempting to explain the position to the landlady, it was foolish to mind what she had said; the more so as, automatically, that position must end in a day or two; still it was disturbing!

In this early September the twilights were long and the sky was still golden high up to the zenith. She threw a shawl over her head and, taking a boat, sculled herself across the ferry for a calming walk down the coast-line.

"The banks and braes of bonny Doon!"

The song kept echoing in her head. How pinchbeck it all was, that love of which men sung--

"But my false lover stole the rose, But, ah, he left the thorn wi' me!"

That was a man's view of it. He came, he saw, he conquered. Then he could ride away leaving a thorn behind him. But why? She laughed aloud as she thought of her own pa.s.sionate love for Duke, a love nothing could touch, a love that was unsoilable, una.s.sailable, untouchable!

It was dark ere she returned and then someone tall and soldierly rose out of the shadows of the little sitting-room of the inn which she used as her own. For an instant her heart leapt. Then she saw it was Andrew Fraser.

"There's nothing wrong, is there?" she asked hastily.

"I'm no that sure," he replied unsteadily, and then his outstretched hands found hers, warm almost compelling in their fierce yet tender clasp.