Marmaduke Part 36

CHAPTER XI

When Marrion arrived in England just before Christmas she found a white world of snow. But it seemed to her not so white, so pure, so chill as that soft pall which had lain on Marmaduke Muir's grave on the Balkan heights, when, stopping at Varna on her way home on purpose to visit it, she had found it unrecognisable under the heavy snow. For the winter of '54-'55 was the severest on record, even in those southern mountains.

There had seemed no room there for her tears, her remorse, her pitiful plaint to be forgiven for trying to play Providence. So she had come away more stunned than ever.

After all her long years of self-sacrifice to find that every step she had taken was a mistake was bitter indeed; but to realise that if the child lived--and this time she meant to ensure that there should be no ransom of her life--she would have deprived Marmaduke's child of its birthright was agony.

Yet there was no escape. Even if Andrew Fraser had been forthcoming--and no news of him had come since Alma's heights were won--she still would not have made a claim. That was over and done with. She had promised the old man none should be made, she had persuaded Duke to do the same, and they must stand by their word.

She brooded and brooded over this until once more self-sacrifice became an obsession with her. Not even for the sake of his child should Duke's honour be smirched. Besides it might be a girl, and then it would not matter so much. Besides, and this clinched the question, even with Andrew it would be hard to prove a marriage; for during those few short years she had not troubled to act as a wife. The knowledge that she was married had been enough for both her and Duke; she had always been known as Mrs. Marsden. A lawsuit would be dreadful--was unthinkable.

No, she could do nothing to rectify her past mistakes. She must dree her weird--she could not get away from her past. In that, as in all things else, the doctor had been right. When the time came nearer she would follow his advice and go to Edinburgh to the man who had invented chloroform. Doctor Forsyth had said he was kind. She would tell him her story and beg him to let her die and save the child.

Meanwhile, there was the gold snuff-box, and it meant more to her now than when it was given. It meant that there would be someone kin to the child--someone who, perhaps, if her life was taken as toll, would look after it. She must try while there was yet time; that was her first charge.

She set to work at once, therefore, to arrange for a visit to Poland.

The extraordinary likeness to her father of which he himself had spoken, which Doctor Forsyth had noticed, and which she also had seen, was too valuable an a.s.set to be wasted. Yes, she would go over to the ancestral house, give the gold snuff-box into safe keeping, and ask, even beg, for recognition. Even if her father had been a widower, one of the sons might be married, there might be a woman with a pitiful heart to listen and sympathise. But ere she went she must write to Peter Muir. To begin with, she could a.s.sure him that his brother had been well looked after. And then she had nothing, positively nothing, of Marmaduke's; and Peter, knowing the care she had lavished on him all those years, might give her something. The ring he had always worn was what she craved most. In those long ago days, though there was not so very much difference in their heights, what he wore on his little finger had fitted her second. It had been too large for her third when he had wanted her to wear it in place of a plain gold band; so she had bidden him wear it instead--little tender memory which seemed so precious now.

So she wrote in the fine slanting caligraphy of the day a somewhat stilted little letter asking for what she wanted as a favour, not a demand, since "though I have a claim, I have no right."

In reply she received a friendly note.

"DEAR MARRION,

"If you will come and see me I will give you the ring, _and something else_."

She had sent her letter to Peter's club, but this was dated from a house in Palace Yard. So she went there. It was a fine old house. A footman opened the door, a butler advanced to meet her, a majordomo out of livery stood half-way up the stairs. Very different this from the old days when the two brothers had been more or less out at elbows all the time; but now, of course, Peter was heir to the estates.

She found him, looking wretchedly ill, in a most luxurious study, and his weak face lit up at the sight of her in the friendliest of fashions.

"Sit down in a comfortable chair," he said, and there was a querulous note in his voice. "Really, in times like these, when, as the paraphrase runs, 'days are dark and friends are few,' and 'gathering clouds' are the normal outlook, it is a duty to be comfortable and bring up the average. When Marmaduke was--was here--he was for ever at me for extravagance. Hated the Jews and used to borrow from old Jack Jardine instead. Paid off something, but not all, I'm afraid; and Pitt, the virtuous Pitt--he owed him thousands. However, as I was saying, it's a duty nowadays to be comfortable, so I've any amount of _post-obits_ out--to say nothing of kites. They're always coming back wanting a longer string or a new tail. But I don't care. The old man may outlast me, and anyhow I can't live long; so it's a short life and a merry one."

Looking at his hectic flush and with a damp cold of his hands fresh on the touch of hers Marrion did not feel inclined to combat his easy philosophy.

"And your father?" she asked.

Peter shrugged his shoulders.

"As usual, only more so." He paused and spoke more seriously. "Of course Marmaduke's death cut him to the quick. But I won't speak of that--I can't. He was the only one--and I believe it was the same with the Baron. He showed it in anger. Won't see or hear of me, yet I'd do my best for him. 'Pon my soul, that old man has been the curse of all our lives."

Marrion sat silent. In a way it was true. The old spider had enticed more flies than he knew of into his net. But for her desire that Marmaduke should not fall foul of his father----

But that way lay madness. She was beginning to learn that she could scarcely trust her own judgment. The whole thing was so pitiful that reason seemed impossible.

"And may I have the ring?" she asked, in order to change the _venue_.

"You can have that, and a good deal more besides," replied Peter Muir, giving her a queer look as he rose to go to a despatch-box that lay on the table and which Marrion recognised as Marmaduke's.

"When this thing came home," he continued, searching in it. "Oh, here is the ring!" (He handed it to her, and she thrilled at the touch of it, as she would have thrilled to the touch of the man who had worn it.) "I did not look over the papers very carefully--I hadn't the heart; but when I was looking for that ring yesterday, I found--something--which interests you."

He held out an envelope and she took it indifferently; few things really interested her nowadays. It was addressed to Major Muir at his club, and a vague wonder as to what it could contain crossed her mind as she took out the paper it contained.

Then she sat silent staring at it helplessly, for it was Duke's counterpart of their marriage bond which she thought she had seen burnt to ashes on that night when Marmaduke had said, "You have made me feel like a scoundrel!"

How idle, how unreal this world was! Could one be sure of anything?

Could one be certain that everything was not a dream?

Peter's voice roused her.

"Of course it doesn't make much difference to us now. Marmaduke left a very few pounds, and your third as wife wouldn't amount to anything.

But there is his portion when the peer dies, and I can't see why my young oaf of a cousin who will come in eventually should have it; for even if I outlive my father I shall have enough for my time. And you were--well, you were a brick to Marmaduke--and to me, too. You always denied this marriage: but I had a notion it was only denial. There is no reason, therefore, why you shouldn't use this--it is proof positive of marriage, and if I were you I would. You are the only survivor and therefore have the action; besides, it would annoy the old man extremely, and, upon my soul, he deserves all he can get."

He had struck the wrong chord. To Marrion, absorbed in the one enthralling question as to whether Marmaduke had known of this survival or whether he had not, the suggestion that she was the sole arbiter came as a shock.

"We agreed," she said slowly, "to annul the marriage. He thought--I know he thought--this paper had been burnt; and it doesn't make any difference to our intention that it wasn't. And then we promised, we both promised your father no claim should ever be made. Because Duke is dead is that any reason----"

She rose suddenly, walked to the fireplace, and threw the envelope and its contents on the fire.

"That is what Duke meant," she muttered to herself helplessly.

Peter Muir watched her with a half-cynical, half-admiring smile.

"Well, you know best, my dear. And, of course, I personally would never let you come to want." The capable woman looked at him, the incapable man, with wondering tolerance. "Still, I must say I am disappointed. I should like to have seen the governor's face when you sprang it upon him. Remember he is the villain of the piece and, as I said, deserves everything he can get."

"That may be," replied Marrion, "but can't you see we were all at fault? And we have to pay for it. We must--you can't get rid of the past."

She said the words over and over to herself, and it was not till she reached her lodgings that she realised fully that the past had claimed the future. Yet what else could she have done? If she had only known what Duke would have said! Had he found out the paper, or had he not?

Was that the reason why in those short ten days of heaven he had never, never, never alluded to the past? And yet that heavenly present had become the past too, and had stretched out into the future. Had she been taken by surprise? Had she made another mistake?

She threw herself on her bed and cried quite foolishly, until perforce, being physically unable to cry any more, her mind rea.s.serted itself and thought came again.

One thing seemed clear. She could not possibly tell what Duke knew or did not know; she could not be sure what he would have thought; and she would have no more of trying to impose her views on him.

That being so, the only person who had any say in the matter was Lord Drummuir. For the sake of the heir he might absolve her of the promise. But the child might be a girl, it might not live. Finally she began to cry again softly, silently; the tears that count for utter soul-weariness. And in truth she was weary--the one thing that seemed clear being that she had failed; that she had mismanaged everything, that everything seemed in a hopeless tangle. She was, in sober truth, very near the limit of perfect sanity when, with a pa.s.sport secured through Peter Muir's Vienna influence, she started for Krakowitz, the village on the Russian side of the Carpathians, near which the Pauloffski estates lay. It was a difficult journey--one which she had judged rightly had better be undertaken at once; but the change did her good, and she was almost herself again before it came to a conclusion; yet as the sledge with its tinkling bells and four horses toiled up the last hill or two she felt depression come upon her again. The outlook, supremely beautiful, was still melancholy to a degree. Snow, snow everywhere. The towering peaks, the valleys, the pine forests all burdened with it, like Marmaduke's grave had been. A light burden, but so cold--so deathly cold!

As the sledge dashed up the steep narrow drive and the pine trees that swept their snow layered branches overhead some of their burden fell in soft ma.s.ses on Marrion's furs.

The driver turned round with a smile and said in Russian:

"That is absolution from sin, Excellency."

Curious answer to her thoughts, and with the answer came a remembrance, "Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."

And the remembrance brought confidence. Perhaps, after all, the tangle consequent on her playing Providence might be going to be straightened out.