Marmaduke Part 37

The front door of the unpretentious tower, with a building like a barn built on to it, that stood magnificently on a little plateau overlooking the valley with a faint glimpse of plain beyond, was wide open, and at it, standing against, but not leaning upon the pilaster, was the most striking figure of a woman Marrion thought she had ever seen. Extreme old age had set its mark on the lined face, with thin white hair drawn under a lace lappet; but the figure was that of a girl of twenty. Extraordinarily tall, ma.s.sive in proportion, but upright as a dart and with activity in every curve and line.

The lady gave a dignified bow as Marrion, still closely veiled as protection from the bitter cold, came up the steps.

"Princess Pauloffski?" she asked tentatively in French, for it was impossible to think the figure that of a servant.

"I am Princess Pauloffski," was the dignified reply in slightly guttural French.

"Might I speak with you for a few minutes?" continued Marrion nervously.

The Princess smiled.

"Ah, you are English! My son Paul was a long time in England or Scotland," she replied in better English than her French. "You must be cold; come in and take off your wraps."

A few rapid words in the country dialect sent driver and sledge round to the stables while Marrion, with an unforeseen thrill of pleasure, recognised that this beautiful old princess must be her grandmother.

"I was looking for my sons and daughters who are dead," said her hostess quietly as she led the way into the house. "The dead always come back with the snow--and I have so many."

Despite the warmth of the wide pa.s.sage heated by a huge stove Marrion felt a slight shiver run through her. How had her grandmother learnt to speak of the dead as if they were alive?

As she pa.s.sed on to a sitting-room where a great fire of pine logs was burning on an open hearth Marrion removed her veil and threw off her heavy fur cloak.

So, as she came out of the dark pa.s.sage into the sunlight that streamed through the sitting-room windows, she stood revealed. The effect was not nearly as startling as she had antic.i.p.ated, but it was far more overwhelming.

The old face lit up with sudden pleasure, the thin old hands were stretched out--

"Sacha!" she said. "Darling, after all these years! And you never came before. Paul did--and he was your twin--though he has only just gone, Sacha! I have wanted you so often."

The tears sprang to Marrion's eyes.

"Dear lady," she said, taking the outstretched hands and holding their chilliness of age in her warm clasp, "I am not Sacha. I am Paul's daughter!"

Princess Pauloffski drew back and pa.s.sed her hand over her eyes.

"Excuse me. I forget. I live so much alone and my dead come to see me so often when there is snow. But if you are not Sacha----" She took a step forward and scanned her visitor narrowly. "You say you are Paul's daughter--an English daughter--did he then marry over there? For it is true you are his daughter--even his twin was not more like. Come, sit down, child, and tell me how you come by Paul Pauloffski's face?"

It was almost incredible! Marrion as she obeyed her grandmother's gesture felt inexpressible relief. Here there was no haggling, no questioning. She was taken literally on her face value. It was a haven of rest.

Together they sat on the quaint old settle as if they had known each other for years, while Marrion told her tale. She produced the golden snuff-box, with its glittering monogram, and laid it in the old Princess's lap; but she merely glanced at it. Her chilly old hands were busy detaining the hand that had laid it there--the hand that was still alive.

"Yes, Paul is dead," she murmured, half to herself. "Sacha died first when she was so beautiful, like you. And Paul's wife died, and now his two sons are gone; there is none left but me, and I am very old. And now you come--tell me more, child!"

And Marrion went on with the story. It was like a dream to be sitting there in the streaming sunlight heart to heart as it were with someone of whose very existence she had been unaware but one short half-hour before.

"Was he a commoner or n.o.ble?" asked the old princess quickly, when Marrion mentioned her marriage.

"He had no t.i.tle then," began the latter.

The old fingers tightened their curiously protecting clasp.

"Then you are still Princess Pauloffski! I am glad," was interrupted with satisfaction. "We of this house do not change our names when we marry beneath us, as I did; for, my dear, this, the soil"--she waved her other hand in an all-embracing gesture--"was my father's, and my father's father's. My husband was a good kind man. I loved him--but---- Go on, child."

And Marrion went on.

"Now, G.o.d be praised!--G.o.d in His High Heaven be praised!" cried the old Princess exultantly. "And you here--braving the cold, spending your life!" She seized a little brazen bell that lay on the table beside her and rang it violently. A very old maid-servant appeared, and was addressed volubly in patois. But that many orders were given Marrion judged by the frequent bob curtsey of the domestic who finally trotted out in great haste.

"Not one word more, darling!" cried the old woman, forgetful of everything save abounding sympathy. "Quick, to the fire! Toast your feet--so! Lean back on the cushions! Make yourself quite comfortable.

Remember you have to think of someone besides yourself." She dragged an armchair closer to the hearth with all the strength of youth. She bustled the cushions to shape; she removed Marrion's hat and finally kissed her softly on the forehead with a murmured, "G.o.d bless you both!"

It was too much. Marrion dissolved into slow quiet tears. For the first time since Doctor Forsyth had told her why she must go home she felt really that she was blessed amongst women--yea, amongst women like this one!

"But you don't know!" she half sobbed. "You haven't looked to see. I may be an impostor."

"Not with that face, dearie," beamed the old Princess. "Cry on! The tears will warm your heart. It has been cold, I expect, and little ones don't thrive when the heart above them is cold. Ah, here comes Magda with the posset!"

And Marrion drank something hot and spicy and delicious while the mistress discoursed to the old serving-maid and the old serving-maid finally fell at Marrion's feet and positively worshipped her.

It was all so bewildering, so unexpected, that Marrion just lay back and let the slow tears trickle down her cheeks in quiet orderly fashion. The puzzledom, the regrets of the last few months, seemed to vanish. For a while, in stress of these new emotions, she forgot even her grief for Duke.

But as the two women, the old and the young one, sat and talked after the sledge had been sent away, and Marrion had been simply commanded to remain for at least a week to rest, there was enough of grief and to spare in their conversation, besides Marmaduke's death--over which the Princess was vaguely sympathetic--since, though he had been a British soldier, he had, by the decree of Providence, not drawn his sword as an enemy. And Marrion had been as an angel of mercy healing Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics without distinction. Had she not closed the eyes of her own father?

"I knew that he was dead," said the firm old voice, "though he was only reported as missing; for he came back as the children of this old house always do come back to see it once more. Alexis and Danish both came also--they were fine young fellows, and I wept when the news came; but they died as Pauloffskis should die, fighting for the master. And I have wept--dear heart! how I have wept to think that never again would a real son of the real race rule over the barren acres; for, see you, there are no near collaterals. The Pauloffski men die young, fighting, as my sons and grandsons died. But now"--she clasped her hands ecstatically--"now there will be an heir."

"Supposing it is a girl," suggested Marrion, half laughing, half crying.

The old woman swept her hands out in an indignant unconcern.

"What matters it? A child is ever a child! Ever a chip of the old block, ever a fresh root of an old race. We have no Salic law here in Russia. A princess is as a prince; mayhap better for the old acres, as she does not spend so much money!"

Marrion, accustomed to the rigid rules made by men, listened amazed and interested; but indeed every word that fell from Princess Pauloffski's lips seemed to tighten the bond between them.

She had often wondered when she found herself--as she had done so often--at loggerheads with her _milieu_ whether she was like her father. Now she knew that she had inherited even her faults from this strange weird old woman who lived a lonely life amongst the pine forests, who saw dead people and yet ruled her domains with absolute despotism. Marrion had never had a really intimate woman friend before. She found one here, and, as if by magic, all her doubts and fears vanished. There was but one thing she kept to herself, and that was the possible difficulty which might arise in proving the future little Prince or Princess Pauloffski's t.i.tle, if legal proof of his or her parents' marriage was not forthcoming. But it was only a possible difficulty. For all she knew in this land where women seemed to stand equal with men, a right coming to a child through its mother might be inalienable. She did not know. She did not care to ask. For the time being, she was happy as never before in all her life she had been happy. The ten days' paradise with Duke had not been of this world.

But even so it had been restless. The happiness had been felt. Here one did not think, did not feel. One was content.

So she wandered with the old Princess, her grandmother--who, though she was past eighty, still walked like a girl--through the pine woods.

She visited the peasants' cottages where, after voluble discoursings, the women always fell at her feet and worshipped her. She came back to frugal meals and quiet evenings, when the Princess would discourse over every subject under the sun; for she was a great reader and brought a shrewd feminine wit to bear on most problems. And the most startling thing about it was that never for one instant did she admit the slightest inferiority due to her s.e.x.

"Men think so," she would say, "but they are wrong. By nature they are hunters and fighters and thinkers. It is the women who manage the affairs. It will be better for the world when this is recognised."

In those days this was rank heresy, and even Marrion hesitated to admit its truth. But the most remarkable thing about her grandmother was the stable youthfulness of her outlook. Nothing seemed to affect it. Death itself made way for her strong personality.

So the days pa.s.sed to weeks, the weeks to more than a month, and Marrion still lingered. A very different heritage this from the storm-set cliffs, the rich fields of Aberdeenshire. And a different ancestress this from the wild, wicked old man, spinning his spider's-web round his very children.

Should she, after all, go and ask him to let her break her promise for the sake of the heir? Would it not be better to let the heirship of evil slip, and choose the heirship of good?

The question was still undecided when, after many delays, she set foot on English ground again. And then the first thing to meet her eyes in the newspaper was the death of Marmaduke, sixteenth Baron Drummuir.

There was a whole column about his many virtues; a vague reference to "sprightly youth" summing up his vices. The article ended thus: "The t.i.tle descends to the late peer's third son Peter, who, we regret to learn, is in a very delicate state of health. None of the late lord's sons having any issue, the heir presumptive is a distant cousin, etc."

Marrion felt vaguely relieved. Unless Andrew Fraser turned up--and he, she knew, if he saw Marmaduke's child, would move heaven and earth to establish his claim to the t.i.tle--she was quit of Drummuir. But had she any right to be quit of it? The old arguments for and against came back; she began to worry over them once more, especially when the verdict of the Edinburgh specialist to whom she told her tale with pa.s.sionate a.s.surances that a child's life was always more valuable than a woman's, came succinctly and to the point.