Marmaduke Part 34

She drew it out. A plain gold box with--her startled eyes caught the old face--

"Yes!" he said, and his voice had a jeer in it. "'P.P.,' as you see.

That is my name. So you are Marrion Sim's child--and I suppose mine.

Queer, isn't it, how these old stories crop up when one had almost forgotten them?" He scanned her face narrowly. "Now you are angry.

Why should you be? Your mother was my wife, I suppose. At least, I hadn't any other then. I have sons now"--his voice softened as he spoke--"yes, sons to come after me when I am gone, as I shall be soon, for that gay doctor of yours can't conquer Fate; and it is Fate that has brought me here!"

He lay looking at her with a certain kindly curiosity, while she, startled out of herself, tried to realise that this was her father--the father she had condemned and despised all her life.

It seemed almost as if he saw into her thoughts, for his next words touched them.

"Perhaps it was cruel to leave her as I did; but I had no choice. If you have anything belonging to us in you, you'll understand what the call of the master means. And young Muir was never my master. He befriended me, helped me to escape Siberia; but the other---- There's a perfect pa.s.sion of loyalty in our family which you may or may not understand." He paused and a shiver of a.s.sent ran through Marrion.

"I--I think I do understand," she said, in a low voice.

Yes, from the very beginning, as a small child, this pa.s.sion of protection, of loyalty, had been hers. Strange legacy from an unknown father! He smiled content.

"Glad to hear it. You're not a bit like your mother--you're like me, and your brothers--half-brothers, I mean. So I had to go. It was just after the break up of Europe and Napoleon, when half the political refugees came to their own again--and he did amongst others. So I had to go." Again he paused, and for the first time Marrion felt the touch of kinship between them. He had to go; that was just it! She had had to be loyal to Duke. "You are not in the least like your mother," he said again suddenly, "you are like us." Yet again he paused. "Have you anything you can give me to drink?" he asked. "I have something to say to you, and I feel--limp."

She gave him a restorative and he brisked up. Time was pa.s.sing, but she had learnt many things during the last month and knew that physical rest would be impossible until the mental rest was a.s.sured.

"Don't talk too much," she said. "I think I shall understand--what is it?"

"This box," he said. "It holds--my credentials. There is a false top--see, you press this spring--so."

As he spoke the lid appeared to part in two, disclosing a folded piece of paper.

"Don't read it now--but it will tell you everything. I was on secret service and it was of importance no one should know. It is of importance still. If I hadn't met you I should have said nothing. But now--you'll do me this good turn, I expect--for, after all, I am your father."

A cynical smile curved his lips, his blue eyes met hers in a challenge.

Almost staggered by the strangeness of what was happening, Marrion was yet aware of something deep down in her which gave instant response to this claim upon her.

"Yes," she said quietly, "I will do what you wish--father."

"I am obliged--daughter," he replied lightly. "Of course it is for your eye alone. And now for heaven's sake give me some more of that drink. I feel quite exhausted." He lay back smiling at her. "It is better here," he remarked, "than in the north of Scotland." Then after a pause, "I suppose I ought not to have married your mother; but she was charming and it was very dull." After that he closed his eyes and slept. The doctor, coming in after an hour, found him still sleeping, while Marrion sat beside the bed holding the gold snuffbox in her hand.

He bent over the slumbering face.

"I don't think there will be any operation," he said quietly. "The others were right. His mind has ceased to insist upon his body surviving and so there is rest. It is well."

Marrion looked up into his wise face.

"How did you guess?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"There was no guess," he replied; "you remember I had seen your father. Then your extraordinary likeness. When by chance I saw the famous snuff-box yesterday it became a certainty. For a day I decided to say nothing. Then I saw the old chap was fighting death--putting a strain on himself about something, and I thought you had better have your innings."

He did not ask any questions and she was grateful.

"Perhaps you would like to stay," he added gently. "I don't think he will wake again."

And he did not. As the sunlight faded from the room the old man's breathing became slower and ceased.

Marrion stood looking down on him for a moment before she called for aid. All the time she had been watching she had been thinking, thinking; but she had arrived at nothing. Only deep down in her was a glad feeling of inheritance--a consciousness that the dead man had given her something, something that she held in trust.

Was it only the gold snuff-box, she wondered vaguely, as, back in her own tent, she touched the spring.

"The bearer of this, Prince Paul Pauloffski----" She sat staring at the words.

Prince Paul Pauloffski was her father. Then she was gentle born. Then she need not--

With a rush all the things she need not have done crushed in on her.

She buried her face in the pillow as she sat on the edge of her bed and muttered--

"People who play Providence!"

Of a truth the wise man with the strange eyes was right. Your past was _karma_. You could not escape from it.

After a time she sat up and began to decipher the rest. It was in French, the _lingua franca_ of Eastern diplomacy. n.o.ble-born, poor, devoted, daring. That was the essence of the credentials. The other paper simply gave the address of the ancestral home and that of two sons in the army. A memorandum as to keys and papers filled up the back of the latter. She replaced them, shut down the spring again, then, remembering she could show no right to the snuff-box for which inquiry was sure to be made, took them out again. Nothing, somehow, seemed to matter now. She had made her mistake, she must suffer.

"You have all you want?" asked Doctor Forsyth, as she handed him the box, and she flushed scarlet. Sometimes he seemed to her too clever--he found out everything, everything!

"Thank you," she replied frigidly.

"Because--well, if you would like to possess it, I could buy it in for you at the auction. The poor old general is--is unidentified, remember."

"Yes, he is unidentified," she a.s.sented, remembering her father's wishes, "but I should like to have it all the same."

He brought it to her a day or two after. "That's your fee," he said lightly, "you've earned it well."

And he would take no refusal; so she replaced the papers in the secret compartment and put the box away in her satchel against--what? That future which was now always filling her mind. The present seemed hardly to touch her at all. The doctor looked at her critically more than once, but he said nothing.

Then came Inkerman. It was on the 5th of November--almost three months, Marrion told herself, since that wonderful day when Duke's love had come to her amid flame and fire.

It had been a disturbed night. A noise as of tumbrils had been heard about the city. Was it possible that the enemy was taking advantage of the dense night fog to run in commissariat or even ammunition? Nothing could be done, however, save wait. So as the laggard day broke, the advanced pickets looked keenly ahead. To no purpose. An impenetrable wall of grey mist shut out all beyond a yard or two. Their very comrades looked like shadows of men.

"London partickler," remarked one sentry, stamping his feet to keep out the chill, for it had been raining all night.

"Not yeller enough, save down Chelsea way. My Gawd! I wish I was ther," replied the next.

"I wish I wurr anywhere but eight thousand strong on the heights of Inkerman," put in an Irishman. "Begorra, I've bin dhrier in a bog!"

"An' I've been wetter in the watter after the trooties on Don side,"

evened an Aberdeenshire man st.u.r.dily. "Mush me, it's weary wark!"

"An' thim ringing joy-bells for to spite us!" joked the Irishman, as on the cold night air a carillon from every church in the city rang out, echoing amongst the little scrub and wood-set ravines that went to make up the valley of Inkerman. "Will it be a weddin', likely?

Begorra, I'd loose off me rifle as a salute if the powdther was dry!"