Marmaduke Part 2

"You dashed young scoundrel," he spluttered.

Marmaduke held his head very high.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, "if I've done wrong; but you said she--I beg pardon, Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand"--his eyes flashed into hers boldly and met a smile--"was to be my stepmamma, so I thought----"

"Oh, the devil take your thoughts," growled his father, but his lips twitched suspiciously. Then suddenly he burst out once again into one of his rude, rough guffaws. "Regular chip of the old block, hey, Jack? Well, Fan, I dare say you don't mind. Haven't too long, you know, of such gay young sparks, for as soon as I'm about again he shall dance at your wedding. Now, for heaven's sake, don't let's stop chattering here! I've got to see my daughters and I want to talk to my son. No, no, you jackanapes, keep away just now! My gout's cursed, the road is cursed, and my temper will be cursed too; so I should likely disinherit you before we got on to the lawn. Fan shall stop by me. I won't have you gallivanting with my son, d'ye hear? He's a good-looking chap, confound him, but you've got to pay for the t.i.tle, my lady! Have a care, blockhead! Didn't you see that stone?

Don't let it hurt your pretty little feet, Fan."

Marmaduke, dropping behind with Jack Jardine, gave a fierce sigh as he watched the little cavalcade move off amid this running fire of curses and kindliness.

"Is it all just as it used to be, Jack?" he asked helplessly.

The little man cleared his throat.

"A little worse perhaps. Your father is a very remarkable man, Marmaduke--a very remarkable man!"

CHAPTER III

Anyone who had seen Lord Drummuir ten minutes after Jack Jardine's remark must have echoed it, for a more complete _volte face_ of manner, speech, and apparently temperament than that which overtook the baron in the dower house could not be imagined. Still in his bath-chair, which Marmaduke had dutifully pushed in through the French windows on to the green-grounded, cabbage-rosed drawing-room carpet, he beamed round on his daughters and their chaperon with a paternal affection which was almost pathetic. The Honourable Miss Muirs were three in number and they had all greeted their younger half-brother with reserved kisses. But then everything they did was reserved. Miss Mary, the eldest, was reserved even about her tendency to grow stout, which, all things considered, was the strongest interest in her life.

Miss Elizabeth, the second, a very elegant looking woman, was equally reserved about her undoubted intellect, while Miss Margaret, a great tall, strapping figure with all her father's force of character and all his soundness of const.i.tution, held both in check, except when she managed a lonely walk with her dogs in the woods. Then her voice would ring out deep and true, and at the crack of her whip every puppy within miles would come in contentedly to heel.

Her father liked her the least, probably because of the contrast between her and his ricketty male heir, so in the shabby Victorian drawing-room she generally sat mumchance, showing up badly against her sisters' exquisite manners. For no one knew better than Lord Drummuir what a gentlewoman should be, and therefore he had been extremely particular about his daughters' education. To what end, heaven alone knew, since they lived on, year after year, in the dower house, occasionally visiting in stately fashion the late minister's wife (though this distraction was no longer theirs owing to the State appointment of a bachelor to the living), and, very occasionally, seeing some of their father's older and more respectable friends. In regard to this, however, and to kindred matters no grand Turk could have been more autocratic than was Lord Drummuir. So he sat and discoursed on Shakespeare and the musical gla.s.ses, on his delight at seeing his dearest boy again, leading the latter on to detail some of the more instructive portions of his foreign life, until the full half-hour which he daily bestowed on his daughters was up. Then with the utmost punctuality he took out his watch, said he feared he must be off, and congratulated himself and the three young ladies on a charming conversation.

"You are too good, papa," replied the young ladies, as they deposited a decorous kiss on his bald head. So they stood and watched the bath-chair roll along the lawn till it reached the turn by the rhododendrons which hid it from view, and then they waved their handkerchiefs. And the baron waved his in return, thereinafter using it to mop his forehead relievedly, while he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Thank G.o.d, that's over!"

Whereat Marmaduke smiling, the old man went on serenely.

"Never forget, my boy, how to treat women of good character. The other comes naturally, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I ever forgot my manners with a really good woman. And you will find it pays, Duke, it pays. So now have not you got some bit of spice, or an _on dit_ to amuse the old man with? Curse me, but I lead a miserable life here, tied down by this infernal complaint; but I am paying now for the follies and indiscretions of youth. Confound you, Marmaduke, you might think of your poor old father's joints and not rush your fences in that way!"

"I beg your pardon, sir," replied Marmaduke, meekly glad of the turn he had given the conversation by deploying the bath-chair into the gravel walk; for, in good truth, he had no great relish for spicy stories. Not that he was a prig, but that he had been born a sportsman, to whom indoor life was dull and irksome. So he welcomed another interruption in the shape of a young man who came hastily down the path to meet them.

"Why, I believe it's Peter!" he cried joyously, and the next minute was shaking hands with his young half-brother, the fruit of Lord Drummuir's third but not last marriage; for his wives never lived long, except the first, who had lingered for years, only giving him useless daughters. "Why, Peter, how you've grown!" remarked Marmaduke unnecessarily, seeing he had been away ten years.

"So've you--you're a giant beside the rest of us, except Meg! Pitt and I----" The lad pulled himself up sharp. "Well, I say, sir, we must have a rousin' night to celebrate Duke's return!"

Marmaduke, looking at the slender, fair-haired youth with a weak mouth and an excited manner, thought he had probably roused too much.

Instinctively, therefore, since he had often been drunk himself--it was the fashion of the time--he changed the subject again to one that had come uppermost in the old familiar surroundings.

"I say, how about the grouse? Is it to be a good year?"

His eyes as he spoke almost yearned over a swelling purpled horizon curve which told where the best moors in that part of Aberdeenshire were to be found.

Five minutes after the old lord, still in his bath-chair, was discoursing in the most animated and amiable fashion about sport past and present and to come, while his two sons, one of them sprawling on the lawn, joined in amicably.

So amicably that Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand, watching them from her boudoir windows, turned to a man who was lounging in a chair reading the papers, and said--

"This sort of thing won't do, Compton. That young man is too charming."

The man to whom she spoke did not look up. He went on reading, as he said--

"You don't often find them too charming, Fan!"

"Don't be a fool, Tom," she replied curtly, coming to sit beside him.

"You know quite well what I mean. Young men of that sort always are in debt; besides, I've heard the old man say something about money for a majority. Now the estate's entailed, so payments of that sort must come out of what I mean to be mine--and I won't have it!"

"Sound common sense, Fan," said her companion, yawning; "but you are always in such a hurry to begin. Wait a few days and see how the land lies first. You've always the best of weapons in your hand."

"What's that?"

"Jealousy. The old man is as jealous as old boots. Once make him fancy young Marmaduke is sweet on you, and he goes to the right-about."

Fantine sat back and laughed.

"You are always so comforting, Tom."

He rose and put down his paper.

"Always ready to help, my dear; but you remember our compact--half shares when the old man dies."

"He'll be good for another ten years if I marry him," she called after her late companion, as he strolled out of the room.

Then she sat down and faced facts. In truth she was getting tired of her _role_ of _premiere danseuse_ at a London theatre. Perhaps, she even admitted, she was a trifle too old for the agile cutting of capers. She felt vaguely that she would like to draw in her horns and let her waist out, and she was quite ready to take Lord Drummuir as a means of satisfying both ambitions. In her way she was neither bad nor unkind, simply egotistic to a degree. In this last episode of an eventful career which seldom outlasts the age of forty, she had deliberately played for semi-respectability, and had only come down to stay at Drummuir Castle under the wing of an impeccable _duenna_. Not that the fact had in the least imposed on the old lord. He was shrewd enough to know Miss f.a.n.n.y Biggs, or, as she chose to style herself, Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand, down to the ground. But it was something to have someone to dance for him (as she did to distraction), when he had a fit of the gout and look quite deucedly pretty at all times. So the bargain was made. A t.i.tle in exchange for amus.e.m.e.nts. But Fantine Le Grand looked beyond the old man's life; she looked for comfortable widowhood. So she wandered again to the window and watched the family trio on the lawn. It was far too filial for her tastes. Tom Compton, so-called Colonel of Irregulars, one of her oldest friends, had been right. Jealousy would be a good card to play. And then she laughed suddenly at the recollection of Marmaduke's filial salute. He was better-looking than his father must have been at his age, but, according to the latter, he was "a chip of the old block." So he would be easy prey.

Meanwhile, Colonel Compton having joined the group on the lawn, the conversation had drifted round to politics, and the old lord, being an ardent Whig, had waxed fast and furious on the enormities of the Tories. A perfectly innocent subject, but one which did not interest Marmaduke, who thereupon drifted away to find Jack Jardine, from whom he hoped to hear the truth as to his father's present relations with the heir, the Master, and also--though this interested him less, since it was to a certain degree patent--with Mdlle. Le Grand. So, as they sat smoking Fubaurg's tobacco out of long clay pipes after the fashion of the times, they discussed the situation.

"You ask how the breach has widened," said Jack Jardine. "Well, I don't think it has done so abnormally. It has been going on ever since poor Pitt turned out such a weakling. You know the family history.

After he married Lady Helen, whom he shouldn't have married because she too, poor soul, was, as it were, doomed to disease, though she was a duke's daughter and so, satisfied his lordship's pride--a miserable story, Duke, a miserable story. Well, there was one disappointment about an heir after another, as you know, Duke, and it hit home into the peer--for he is no fool. Put it briefly, though he is quite ready to tell you he is suffering from the indiscretions of youth while he is in torments with the gout, and at the same time supping every night on broiled foxes' tongues and mulled claret, he can't bear to see the results in Pitt. He hates him because he hasn't the physique to carry on the name. He is a very remarkable man, Duke, is your father."

"Very," a.s.sented the young man grimly. "I wish the devil he wasn't."

"That's why I, and all the rest of us who have Drummuir interests at heart, are so glad you've come home. You're presumptive heir now, and to all intents and purposes you're 'apparent.' And you're straight and strong, thanks to your poor mother. So we look to you to keep up the honour of the name. I believe if you play your cards well, you might easily oust Miss f.a.n.n.y Biggs, or Mdlle. Fantine----"

Marmaduke burst into a laugh.

"Thank you," he said; "that is most succinct! I needn't ask any more.

But does the old man really mean to marry her?"

Jack Jardine nodded.

"Would have done it three months ago but for the gout. And she isn't really so bad, but devilish sly; and that man Compton, whom the peer has taken up with over the railway business, is in with her." He gave a sigh and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I've my work cut out for me, Duke, I can tell you."

There was a slight pause, and then Marmaduke said curiously--

"I've often wondered, Jack, why you, who by your brains could have made your own way, have been contented to stick on in this cursed old place among us cursed people, letting us youngsters call you Jack and borrow money from you. By the way, I shouldn't have been able to come home if you hadn't sent me that last hundred pounds."