Marmaduke Part 24

"And if I claim you?" he said swiftly, resentment in his voice. She smiled.

"I shall still refuse you, then in three years we shall be automatically divorced."

"In Scotland only. You are very clever, my dear, but you forget some things."

His deft diversion, however, had done its work, the subject was no longer personal.

"It is impossible," he continued. "I can't leave you in the lurch."

"You don't. Look at it clearly, please. Since we agreed to separate----"

"I never agreed," he put in angrily. "I was quite ready to fulfil----"

"The bond," she interrupted a trifle bitterly, "and I wasn't or couldn't. But ever since then--and before then, too--before you came home, I kept myself. And I'm quite rich, Duke. I have money in the bank. There is no fear for me."

"Is it all money?" he said tragically, gloomily.

She laid her hand lightly on his knee; the touch thrilled her through and through, but he sat unmoved, looking at the fire.

"You can give me all you have ever given me still, dear," she said; "there is no reason why we should not continue to be friends."

There was a long pause. Then she began again--

"I promised your father you would destroy the counterpart. Duke, it is far better done. You will feel free, and you don't, somehow, now, though I hoped you would. And I shall be glad. A woman who loves a man cannot bear to stand in the way of his doing his duty--and this is your duty----"

He turned to her.

"Just what that old harridan said. Curious you two should agree--and you're so different!"

"What old harridan?"

"Lady Broadway. She has been at me, too. Why can't you women leave a man alone? She wants me to marry her niece, Lady Amabel."

Marrion felt a sudden spasm of elemental jealousy. Self-sacrifice was exhilarating in the abstract, in the concrete it was painful.

"Did--did you see her?" she asked.

"Yes--nice little girl. But--but if this is to be, how will you manage about Andrew? You had to tell him, if you remember."

She remembered right well; remembered how even the man's fidelity to his master, his devotion to her, would not stand the strain of what he thought wrong-doing. The difficulty had occurred to her before, but she set it aside now as of small importance in comparison with the destruction of the paper.

"Ill manage Andrew," she replied, "if you will only----"

He stood up tall and strong and curiously antagonistic.

"You are always managing, Marmie. Some day you'll find you've made a mistake. But if you will have it so, I happen to have the paper with me." He took out his pocket-book and handed her an envelope. "You can do as you like with it. Oh, it is the right one!" he added impatiently. "I was looking at it just now. I am not always a fool!"

She paused in a half-unconscious search induced by her knowledge of Marmaduke's careless habits. The contents of the envelope, half-pulled out, showed her the printed heading "Cross-keys Inn." She thrust them back hurriedly and dropped the whole into the fire. It flamed up showing his face full of irritation, hers of decision. They watched it flame, fade, sparkle out. Then he turned away.

"You've made me feel a scoundrel somehow," he said, "but I suppose I shall get over it in time."

"You've no right to say that," she flared out. "You've no right to put that thought into my life. We have done our duty."

"Well, don't let's part in anger, anyhow," he said kindly. "I shan't see you for some time. I'm on duty, and then I shall go north for Christmas, and then----"

"And you will get your colonelcy," she added.

He smiled.

"Yes, I shall get it, thanks to you again. Ah, Marmie, Marmie, it's no use your trying to unbind Tristram Shandy and the Shorter Catechism!

We were mixed up together right away in the beginning of things, and we shall be mixed up in the end, you'll see. Now I must be off.

Good-bye!"

He held out his hand. She took it and gripped it fast, every fibre of her athrill with the dear touch. Her whole soul seemed for the second to crave for him, for his presence always. And he was going away, out of her life for ever. For she was wiser than he was. She knew that her talk of continued friendship was a sham; one of the many baits she laid so often to get her own way. Ah, how weary she was of cutting and contriving Dame Nature's plain, honest web! Well, she would have to do it no longer; it would be another's task. But there was one thing he had said which was not to be endured, which could not be allowed to pa.s.s.

"Good-bye," she said, "and don't please feel like a scoundrel. You never did a better deed in your life. You have done your duty like an honest gentleman, and--and I'm proud of you!"

"That's something, anyhow," he said, and was gone.

She sat down and began st.i.tching away at a little gown she was making.

It had to be finished that night, for the christening of the infant for whom it had been bespoken was on the morrow. And the task soothed her. For the more ordinary parts she had apprentices during the day who worked downstairs, but all the distinctive features of the marvellously delicate little garments came from her own clever fingers. That evening, as she worked away at a tiny wreath of snowdrops for another woman's child, every atom of her went out in unavailing regret for the little life that had gone to save her own.

She was not worth it--nothing was worth it. Those men--father and son--might say "I am sorry the little chap died!" but did they, could they, would they, realise what it meant to a woman that something very precious, something which she was bound to protect, for which she ought to have given her heart's blood, had given her its own instead?

Well, she had paid for it since to the uttermost farthing. She had no illusions. Marmaduke had gone out of her life for ever.

Not entirely, however, for at Christmas time one of his long breezy letters came to her--for Marmaduke was a great letter-writer--telling her about all her old friends in the neighbourhood; a charming, cheerful epistle, full of awed wonder at the extreme stoutness and sanct.i.ty of "stepmamma" and the rigorous respectability of Penelope.

"For the first time in my life," he wrote, "I feel sorry for the old man, and I begin to think we did right, Marmie. In fact, I'm sure we did."

Her lip hardened as she read. Undoubtedly they had done right, but----

She sewed harder than ever, wishing that the whole thing was settled and done with. Then there would be no more letters to bring pain.

Fate, however, had other things in store for her, for just after the New Year Andrew Fraser appeared in her small drawing-room. He came in, tall, gaunt, hard-featured as ever, stood at the door and saluted, as he had done ever since Marrion in self-defence had told him that she and his master were fast married.

"Back so soon!" she cried. "I thought the major was to be longer at the castle."

"He is the colonel now," returned Andrew gloomily, "an' we are awa tae Portsmouth the day. But I cam', Marrion, tae tell ye that the domed fowk in the ha' at Drummuir were sayin' 'he was tae get marriet tae Lady Amabel.' An' that canna be.'

"Lady Amabel," echoed Marrion, glad in a way of a surprise which enabled her to make a diversion, at any rate, for a time. "He didn't say anything. I thought it was to be a bachelor party."

Andrew snorted a vexed denial.

"Sma' count o' that! The auld peer had gotten Lady Penrigg, the railway man's wife, tae gi' him countenance wi' the gentry, and there was the Marchioness o' Broadway and the young leddy--a nice, straight-speakin' girlie. An' it was a' decent and G.o.d-fearin' with curlin' and skatin' and sleighin' an' songs an' forfeits in the evenin'. Dewar, my lord's valet, tell't me he had never heard the Baron swear sae awfie as he did when he got tae his own room o'

nichts. It jest turned him cauld. But it was lying on the poor falla's stummick a' day. Hoo'ever I didna come for that."

"And the major--I mean the colonel," interrupted Marrion hastily, "did he enjoy himself?"