The Wicked Marquis Part 28

"But isn't it all absolutely preordained?" she insisted, "in fact, it's almost depressingly obvious. Here are the Mandeleys estates, the finest in Norfolk, mortgaged up to the hilt, the Abbey shut up, the Marquis and all of them living on credit, the family fortunes at their lowest ebb. And here come you, an interesting American stranger, with more millions than the world has ever heard of before. Of course you marry Lady Let.i.tia and release the estates!"

"Do I!" he murmured. "Well, it seems plausible."

"It has to be done," she decided, with a sigh. "It's a pity."

"Why?"

She shook her head.

"We mustn't flirt. We should be interfering with the decrees of Providence.--What an interesting-looking woman! You know her, too."

They pa.s.sed Marcia and her companion, about half-way to Fakenham.

Marcia bowed cheerfully and looked with interest at Sylvia.

"I know her very slightly," David admitted.

"She doesn't belong to these parts," Sylvia said. "We've lived here for nearly seven years, you know, and I know every one for miles round, by sight."

"She came originally from somewhere in the neighbourhood, I believe,"

David observed.

"Tell me everything about her, please?" his companion demanded. "I am a born gossip."

"You finish with the romance of Mandeleys first," he suggested evasively.

"Well, we've finished that, so far as you are concerned," she said, "but as soon as you have rescued the family and the wedding bells have ceased ringing, you'll find yourself faced with another problem. Did you notice a queer little cottage, right opposite the Abbey?"

"Of course I did."

"Well, there's an old man sits in the garden there," she went on, "reading the Bible and cursing the Marquis, most of the day. He used to do it years ago, and then he went to America. Now he's come back, and he's started it again."

"And what does the Marquis do about it?" David enquired.

"He can't do anything. The late Marquis made the old man a present of the cottage for saving his life, and they can't take it away from him now. I suppose he must have been really wicked when he was young--I mean the Marquis," she went on, "because, you see, he ran away with that old man's daughter. It's the sort of thing," she went on, "that Marquises are supposed to do in stories, but it doesn't make them popular in a small neighbourhood. Now tell me about the good-looking woman who bowed to you, please?"

"She is the daughter of the man of whom you have been speaking," David told her. "She is the lady with whom the wicked Marquis eloped nearly twenty years ago."

Sylvia's interest was almost breathless.

"You mean to say that you knew the story--you--an American?"

"Absolutely," he replied. "I came into touch with it in a queer way.

The old man Vont came back from America on the same steamer that I did.

I'll tell you another thing. The wicked Marquis, as you call him, and that lady whom we have just pa.s.sed, dine together now at least one night a week, and the woman has become quite a famous auth.o.r.ess. She writes under the name, I believe, of Marcia Hannaway."

Sylvia threw herself back in her seat.

"Why, it's amazing!" she declared. "It turns a sordid little village tragedy into a piece of wonderful romance. Perhaps, after all, that is what makes the Marquis seem like a piece of wood to every other woman."

"I have heard it said," David continued, "that he has been entirely faithful to her all his life. Where do I stop, please?"

"Here," she replied, "at this shop. Please come in and choose your own meat. I feel in much too romantic a frame of mind to even know beef from mutton."

David followed her a little doubtfully into the shop.

"Perhaps," he ventured to suggest, "as the nucleus of your meal has already been decided upon--"

"Of course," she interrupted; "cutlets. We want more cutlets. You needn't bother. I'll see about it."

David slipped into the next shop and reappeared with a huge box of chocolates, which he handed over apologetically.

"I am not sure whether you'll find these up to much."

"For the first time," she exclaimed, as she accepted them, "I realise what it must be to be a millionaire! I have never seen such a box of chocolates in my life. Do you mind going over to the grocer's and letting him see me with you?" she went on. "It will be so good for our credit, and his is just one of the accounts we have to leave for a little time. Were you ever poor, Mr. Thain?"

"Poor, but not, alas! romantically so," he confessed. "To be the real thing, I ought to have earned my first few pounds, oughtn't I? You see, I didn't. I was educated by relatives, and when a great chance came my way I was able to take advantage of it. An uncle advanced me a thousand pounds, upon one condition."

"Had you to make him a partner?" she asked, in the intervals of giving a small order at the grocer's.

He shook his head.

"No," he answered gravely, "it wasn't a financial condition. In a way it was something more difficult."

She looked at him curiously.

"Whatever it was," she said, "if you promised, I am quite sure that you would keep your word."

They motored homewards and David was for a few minutes unexpectedly thoughtful. He deliberately approached Broomleys from the back, but even then it was impossible to avoid a distant view of the cottage. He looked towards it grimly.

"Conditions are stern things," he sighed.

"Haven't you kept that one yet?" she asked.

"The time is only just coming," he told her.

She looked up at him pleadingly.

"Don't bother about it now, please," she begged. "This is such a delightful day. And whatever you do, you mustn't let it interfere with your eating three cutlets."

CHAPTER XX

Borden's car came to a standstill in the avenue, and Marcia looked across the strip of green turf towards the cottage with a queer little thrill of remembrance.

"You are sure you won't mind waiting?" she asked, as she sprang down.

"If there is any fatted calf about, I'll call you in."