Marrion Paul sat in the semi-darkness of the summer night waiting for her grandfather to return from his duties at the Castle. She did not generally do so, for he was apt to be late; but on this, the first day of Captain Duke's return, sleep would have been out of the question until she heard something of the evening. For she did not mince matters with herself; those six years of independent life in Edinburgh had opened her eyes to the world, and the first sight of Marmaduke Muir had told her that the long ten years had not changed her at all; that he was as much the sun in her heaven as he had been in the old childish days. The sun in her heaven, and something more superadded to those olden times.
Then the day had been disturbing. Everyone had come to her praising the Captain's looks and ways and general charm; to all of which she had replied coolly, feeling the while in a perfect quiver of gladness. Miss Margaret had been the hardest to damp when she had appeared in the afternoon with the sporting dogs and a stout crop in her hand on her way to take them a scramble over the rocks and round by the lower bay.
"Oh, Marrion!" she cried enthusiastically. "Saw you ever the like? Elizabeth says he's like the Apollo Belvidere!"
"I am not knowing the gentleman," protested Marrion distantly. "But Captain Duke has grown to a fine figure. But has Miss Muir seen Andrew Fraser? He's twice the man he was when he went away."
It was a false move on Marrion's part, for it brought on her instantly the hearty reply--
"I'm glad to hear it, Marmie; so I suppose we will be having you cried in the kirk before long. Duke says he has been most faithful."
Whereupon the speaker called to her dogs in a stentorian voice worthy her father's, cracked her whip scientifically, and strode away for an hour or two's freedom. For the atmosphere of the dower house was stifling, and there was always a chance of meeting the Rev. Patrick Bryce on the sands below the rocks, where he went always to compose his sermons, with which the reverend gentleman had no little difficulty. Not because he was stupid, but because he found it laborious to reconcile his own views with those of his flock; they, however, being inclined to be lenient with one who had earned for himself the nickname of "the bonny parson," and who was known to be the best shot and fisherman in the district. For this reason he would have been welcome at the Castle, but for his unswerving outspoken protest against its general behaviour.
Marrion, meanwhile, finding more peace as the day died down, took to wandering at the far side of the quadrangle listening to the distant sounds of revelry; her hands, as she walked, busy with her knitting-pins--after the fashion of Scotchwomen in those days--going faster and faster as her thoughts grew hotter over what she knew was happening at the other side of the blank wall. Guzzling and boozing! First the masters, then the men-servants, while away in the back premises the scullerymaids and kitchenmaids were working hard. It was a shame, a burning shame; but if ever she had a son she would see to it that he was different.
But she never would have a son; anyhow, not Andrew Fraser's, be he ever so sober, so upright. That was the worst of it. With an impatient sigh she hurried outside the keep door to stand and watch the last faintly flushed clouds of sunset in the nor'-west fade over the darkling stretches of moorland.
It must be nigh twelve of the clock, for eastwards, over the darkling stretches of the sea, a faint lightening of the horizon, which held such a hint of restlessness even in its shadow, told where the sun would soon rise again. For in those high northern latitudes there is a bare two hours' darkness in a summer night.
Twelve o' the clock, and after that would be their birthday. Well, good luck to him wherever he went! Some day he must be the laird--Baron Drummuir. Nothing to hinder that must come into his life--nothing!
The faithfulness of inherited service was in her blood. She recognised this and sometimes wondered if her own devotion to the honour and welfare of the House of Drummuir was not stronger even than her grandfather's; possibly because her father, by all repute, had been a faithful servant, too; such things are not to be escaped.
She was aroused from her thoughts by a wavering step in the quadrangle, and returned to meet her grandfather in the expansive stage of intoxication.
"Aye, my lass," he went on, when he had wept a few easy tears over her goodness in sitting up for him, "it was just a gran' nicht. The pipes seemed fey and I blawed at them till we was baith like to burst. An' my lord, he was for havin' oot the biggest bottle o' pickled foxes' tongues, an' he devilled them himsel' in a chaffin' dish afore them all, an' they a' drunk wi' mirth an' guid claret. Jock, the butler, was tellin' me--there was twal o' them--that they were drinkin' thirty bottles o' the best, forbye sixteen tum'lers of hot whisky-toddy, the Sheriff and the Lord Provost had, honest gentlemen, to their lane--an' there wud be no 'hoot-toots' where the Shirra was concerned! Then the laird o' Balbuggo--he has a weak head, yon man, was for ridin' hame and was no to be hindered frae it; sae Captain Duke an' anither young spark jest perched his saddle to the loupin'-on-stane and pit the guid man to it. An' there he sat tittuping away his lane for an hour or sae quite blythe, till they tell't him he was at Balbuggo, and he just aff an' awa tae his bed like a lammie."
"And Captain Duke?" asked the girl, with scorn in her voice, pity in her heart, despite the irrepressible smile in her eyes. "Was he drunk, too?"
Old Davie winked solemnly.
"Aye, that was he--he was fair fou--but," he added carefully; "he took his cups real well! Not like Mr. Peter, that syne gets tae sickness and----"
"Gran'father," cried the girl passionately, interrupting him, "it's gettin' late! You must away to your bed, or you'll no be up the morn to pipe 'Hey! Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?' I'll see to the doors."
"No be up?" contended the old man. "I tell ye if the arkaungel Gabbriel was tae soun' his trump any day at half-after seven, he'd find Davie Sims--aye, and his forbears an' descendants--skirling awa' at that same tune up an' dune a' the passages in Drummuir Castle tae wake the gentlefolk! Aye, that wad he"--here he began stumbling up the stair with his candle held at an angle of forty-five--"though it's hard on a body that's had tae pipe to the deil ower nicht to think o' his duty tae the sluggard."
Here his maunderings became unintelligible, and the girl he left turned to the closing of the house, her heart hot as fire with indignation, chill as ice with scorn.
What else was there to expect? Like father, like son! When she had drawn the bolts she went up to her own room and flung its little window wide. The full moon shone round like a shield, and by its light she could see the whole wild coast stretching northwards from Drumkirk Point to Rattray Head. And after that? The North Pole, of course! Dear inaccessible region to all but the strong, the single of heart, the men who could command others--and themselves.
She scarcely knew what it was that she raged against as slowly, methodically, she began to undress. The little brilliant or paste brooch, she knew not which, formed of two crossed p's which was the only relic she possessed of her dead father, arrested her for a second. What sort of a man had he been really, she wondered, and what sort of a son would hers be when she had one?
She flung the tiny bauble from her impatiently, so stood for a second drawn up to her full height, her bare arms crossed, her shapely hands clasping their smooth roundness; then, with a sudden sob, she realised what had come to her, and, throwing herself face downwards on her bed, lay for a minute or two still as the dead. Then as suddenly she sat up again with a world of puzzled wonder in her strained eyes.
"I canna think," she murmured, "what gars' me love him so, but I do, and there's an end o' it."
Possibly; but such knowledge as that which had just burst over her like a storm does not make for quiet sleep. She told herself a thousand and one wise things, but the hours slipped by, bringing at last a conviction of hopelessness. She would be better up than pretending to rest, so she went to stand at the window once more.
The flush of coming day was clear now in the northeast, the flood-tide of the full moon lay mysterious in the embrace of the rocks. Ere long the rising sun would send battalions on battalions of shining golden ripples to storm the estuary and climb the shadowy cliff on which the castle stood--where he lay drunk!
Ah, well! That would not spoil the beauty of it all, which she had so often seen, and the nip of the salt North Sea might check her silly desire for him. The room felt stifling; she would be better outside.
So, slipping on her swimming-dress of coarse white flannel blanketing (for ever since those childish days when she and Duke had done everything in common she had been an expert swimmer), she threw a plaid round her, and made her way through the keep gateway to the rocks below. There was no breeze, the tide must be at its height almost, and there was the spent moon, pale with its long night-watch, hanging on the grey sky of dawn. Ah, these were the things worth having--the others could be set aside with joy!
Ere five minutes were over, breathless from her fierce driving strokes through the water, she had turned over on her back, and, face to the skies, was trying to imagine she was floating thitherwards. The gulls, wakened by the coming light, skimmed over her in their quest for food. The little pointed wavelets that rose and fell, marking the course of the river stream, made a fine, sobbing, tinkling noise in her ears.
Full flood-tide!
She laughed aloud in the joy of it; then, rolling over again, struck out for the opposite shore. Higher up the estuary there was a little sheltered bay whence she could watch the panorama of dawn. When she drew herself out of the water on to a convenient rock the air struck warm, and the stone beneath her had scarce lost yester-sun's heat. It would be a perfect day--if anything over hot, for a faint opalescence already lay on sea and sky.
As she sat waiting for the first rays of the sun to "skim the sea with flying feet of gold," she unplaited her russet hair, which had become loosened, and, combing out its long length with her fingers, prepared to plait it up again.
Suddenly a voice startled her.
"A beauteous mermaid, by Jove! Fair lady----"
The theatrical intonation did not deceive her. She slipped like any seal into the water, and so protected looked back to see Marmaduke Muir. He was still in his over-night's dress-clothes, but their utter disarray made them more consonant with his occupation, for he held a salmon-rod in his hand, a creel had unfastened his ruffled shirt at the neck, and he had evidently torn off his stiff stock for more ease, and kicked away his pumps for firmer foothold on the rocks. His face showed no sign of last night's carouse, and Marrion, looking at it, could not but confess that some sins leave no mark on a man. Ere she could utter a word, his surprise found speech.
"Why, Marmie!" Then in a half-awed tone he added: "What beautiful hair you've got, my dear!"
"Aye," she replied imperturbably, feigning perfect calm, "it's fine! Folk is aye tellin' me o' 't. The hairdresser in Edinbro' was offering me a lot for it."
He sat down on the rocks above where she lay swaying with the long roll of the distant waves outside the bar, her hands holding to the seaweed.
"Goth and Vandal! But you didn't let him have it. Wise Marmie, but then you always were wisdom itself! I remember----"
He was becoming vaguely sentimental, so she brought him back to earth with a round turn.
"You'll no have been gettin' any fish the morn?" she queried.
"No fish!" he echoed loftily. "What do you call that?"
He pulled out of his creel a seven-inch burnie and laid it with pomp on the rocks. Then their young laughter echoed out into the dawn.
"But I got a hold on another," he went on, keen as a boy. "A real good one--as big as any I ever got in the castle pool--perhaps bigger. You see they were talking of the fishing yesterday and they all said it was no good. Not enough water. So I didn't intend to try; but--well, you see, my dear, I got drunk last night--I did--and I woke up about half an hour ago with a beastly headache. So then I thought I'd go out and see if the fish weren't moving, and as they'd put me to bed in my clothes--I must have been horrid drunk, and Andrew, you see, was away with his people--I just took one of Peter's rods and ferried myself over in the boat. It's up yonder. I'll take you back in it, if you like."
The idea was preposterous. Marrion imagined herself arriving at the castle, where the servants were ever early astir, in her bathing dress with the Captain! So she hastily drew a red herring across the trail.
"And was the fish real big, Captain Duke?" she asked.
"Big! I tell you it was the biggest I, or, for the matter of that, anyone else ever caught in the castle pool."
"Fish are aye big when they are in the water, I'm thinking," she cast back at him, as, loosing her seaweed hold, she struck out.
He sprang up.
"You're not going to try and cross now!" he cried, pointing to where in mid-stream a wide oily streak told that tide and river were flowing out fast. "The ebb is at its strongest. Marmie, don't be a fool!"
She gave a quick glance forward, then looked back to smile farewell.
"Aye, it's strong, but I've done it before now. There's no fear for me, Captain Duke."
So saying she turned her head upstream, seeing indeed that she would have to be careful not to be swept past her bearings when she got to mid-channel; so she did not see Marmaduke tear off his creel, his coat, and waistcoat, and, in thin ruffled shirt and kersey breeches, launch himself into the water. But his tremendous underwater strokes soon brought him up almost beside her to shake his curly head like a retriever. She looked at him startled and quickened her strokes, whereupon he changed to overhand and ranged up beside her without effort.
"Where did you learn yon?" she asked, more for something to break a silence which made her heart beat than from curiosity. "You usen't to swim that way."
"In the Indies," he replied, laughing. "I must teach it to you; but it isn't much good in currents. By Jove, how jolly this is. Why the deuce did I take the boat? I say--look out! I feel the trend of the stream."
Small doubt of that. They were through the backwater and in another minute would be in the full of outgoing river and outgoing tide. The opposite bank seemed slipping past them rapidly. Duke changed his stroke instantly and ranged up beside Marrion.
"It will be easier together," he said, passing his hand over her shoulder, and obediently she passed hers over his.
"Now then, together!" he cried. "And if you tire you know what to do; and keep time, there's a good girl."
So they struck off, the forward lunge of his long legs aiding hers, that were so far behind in strength. Thus they battled the stream shoulder to shoulder, almost cheek to cheek, her long loose hair sweeping across him, until the worst of it was over and the girl would fain have loosed her grip and turned shorewards definitely.
"Not yet!" he laughed. "Let's swim out to sea a bit! Look--isn't it worth it?"
Aye, worth everything else in the world. Far out in the east over that restless horizon the first ray of the sun had tipped, sending a widening, radiant path of pure gold to meet them. It shone on her red-brown hair, turning it to bronze; it shone in their blue eyes, turning them to sapphires; and it shone on their wholesome, happy faces, transfiguring them out of all semblance to beings of dingy earth and purifying them from all mortal taint. They were freed souls swimming in the vasty ether, all around them the dawn of a new day.
So they went on and on, till suddenly Duke veered their course shorewards with one guiding stroke.
"I shall tire you out," he said softly, and his freed hand, as he disentangled her hair from his neck, lifted the shiny strands to his lips for a second. "You have got such jolly hair, Marmie! I wonder you don't wear it down your back. None of the fellows could resist you then."
Their faces were away from the dawn now and hers already had a cloud on it.
"I'm going to the big rock. I left my shawl there," she said, directing her course towards it.
Duke followed suit in silence. Suddenly he said--
"I can't think how I was such a fool as to get drunk last night. It shan't occur again; but, you know, I shouldn't have had this perfectly stunning time if I hadn't, should I? We must repeat it every morning, Marmie, mustn't we?"
"Weather permitting," she replied, almost bitterly. "But it's no often sae comfortable to be in the water as it is this morning, Mr. Duke."
"Ah, you should have been with me in the Indies! You could stop in all day. You're not feeling cold, I hope?"
Cold! With every pulse in her body clamouring for sheer joy in his presence.
"I'll no be cold when I get my shawl," she said calmly; then, seeing him turn, called quickly--
"You're no going across again, Mr. Duke, it isn't safe!"
"Didn't I tell you so from the beginning, eh? No; of course I'm not. I'm going to swim up the side to the steps and send the ghillie for the boat."
She watched the rhythmic spluttering of his overhand stroke past the point. He would be home before her, she thought, as somewhat wearily she climbed the rocks to the keep. It had been a real joy. In all her life, long or short, she would never forget it.
That was the pity of it, for the memory might become a pain.
Marmaduke Muir's repentances, like many of his virtues and vices, were apt to be evanescent. So the next week, it is to be feared, saw many a lapse from his intention that drunkenness should not occur again. In truth it needed a strong will to be sober in Drummuir Castle. The old lord himself had a head which nothing could upset, and though he went to his bed groaning with gout, no one could have said his wits were in the least astray. Now Marmaduke had to a certain extent inherited this toleration of alcohol, a fact which at once gratified his father and set the old sinner to the graceless task of inciting his son to more and more glasses of good claret, champagne, and port in order to see how far the inheritance went. And Marmaduke, partly because he was anxious to ingratiate himself with his irascible parent and partly from sheerjoie de vivre, fell in with the old man's whim. In reality it meant much to him that he should get to the right side of his father. He had a chance of his majority if only fifteen hundred pounds odd could be found over and above the regulation purchase money. It was a big price; but the vacancy was in a crack Highland regiment and the majority would give him almost the certainty of commanding in the future.
"The peer has never done anything for me in his life," he said angrily to Jack Jardine. "I've gone into a West India regiment. I've lived on my pay--and your allowance, old chap. By the way, I do wish you'd make up accounts between us. We three brothers must owe you a lot already, and though we've all given ourpost obitson the property when the old man dies, I myself don't like it. Worries me when I have a headache, you know!"
Jack Jardine smiled. The proposition for a clear account had been made many times in the past ten years, sometimes by one brother, sometimes by another--but generally by Marmaduke--without in any way altering the relative positions of creditor and debtor. So he set the point aside.
"Why should you have a headache, Duke?" he began as a prelude to a sermon on sobriety he had been meditating for some days; but Marmaduke's candour took the words out of his mouth.
"Not the least reason in life, Jack, except that I want and will have my majority, and Imustkeep straight with the peer till I get the money. Look here, I'll tackle the old man to-morrow, and if I succeed I'll cut and run. I don't drink anywhere else, Jack, I don't indeed--not, I mean to say,drink."
Looking at the speaker's clear, almost boyish, face his hearer could well believe it.
"Your father is suffering a lot from the gout just now," he said, dubiously.
"And he'll go on suffering as long as I'm here, and he wants to make me drunk," retorted Marmaduke, whose perceptions were by no means dense, "so the sooner it's over the better for both of us!"
Accordingly the very next day when, in accordance with his usual custom, he wheeled his parent to the paternal visit to the dower house, Marmaduke broached the subject of finance on the way back. It was not a very auspicious moment, for the old gentleman had been made at once irritable and pious by an unwary allusion on the part of his youngest daughter, Margaret, to the new minister of the parish, the Reverend Patrick Bryce. Now the reverend gentleman in question was at the time Lord Drummuir'sbête noire. To begin with, he had been presented to the living by the Crown, and the Barons of Drummuir had for generations claimed the right themselves. Evil thinking people, indeed, said that it was this fact which made the old man so wholehearted an advocate of that disruption in the Church of Scotland which was then rending the country in twain. People talked of little else, except railways, and on that point Lord Drummuir held the most conservative of views. They would, he said, not without truth, play the devil with country society and make it impossible for a nobleman to travel in comfort. But no one who knew his lordship ever asked for consistency in his opinions. He simply held them with a tenacity that was perfectly appalling. So the mere mention of the Reverend Patrick Bryce's name, with the addition of a fine blush on his daughter's face when she discovered her slip of the tongue, had put him into a white heat of politeness and piety.
"I am surprised at you, Margaret," he said. "I should prefer your having nothing to do even with the school feasts of a man who, denying the headship of the church to the Almighty, continues to batten on the loaves and fishes of--of--and has the cursed impudence to find fault with other people's meat and drink, too," he added, fiercely.
Despite this, Marmaduke, who had inherited no little of his father's obstinacy, took the opportunity of the bath-chair reaching the finest point of the view to say with a great show of courage--
"By the way, sir, don't you think it's about time to send that money for my majority? Pringle is rather in a hurry to retire, and the price may run up if we don't act soon."
His lordship rather admired this home thrust without warning, but he was on his guard at once and cleared his throat for a speech.
"It's a positive disgrace to our army, and so I told poor Brougham the last time I saw him, that promotion should not only go by purchase but that private individuals should have power to fill their pockets with the proceeds of further extortion. It is a kind of simony; it is the sale of valour, of one's country's good!"
Lord Drummuir was a noted orator when he chose, even in those days when everyone could string words together into high-sounding phrases, and when Edmund Burke's foaming fulminations were held up to the young as models of eloquence; but Marmaduke was obdurate.
"Possibly, sir," he interrupted, "but I want to do it. You see, sir," he warmed with his subject, "I'll be dashed if I've troubled you much in the last ten years--now have I? You've made me an allowance on which I couldn't live in a gentlemanly way at home. So I've exchanged again and again for foreign service, going down and down till I've landed in the West Indies. And now I have this chance of getting back to my old regiment, to a soldier's life that is worth having----"
"No soldier's life is worth having. If you will be kind enough to remember, I objected from the first to the army," interrupted the old man, with icy politeness.
Marmaduke groaned aloud.
"Oh, don't let us go back so far as that, sir. The thing's done, and practically you have to decide now whether you're going to wreck my fortune or make it."
Lord Drummuir took out his pocket-handkerchief solemnly.
"And this is what I am asked to do, when my physicians insist on absolute rest of body and mind. I am asked to consider, to take all the responsibility. No, Marmaduke, you are old enough to decide for yourself!"
"Then you wish me to go back to that miserable hole?" began the young man vehemently.
"I am informed on the best authority that the climate of the West Indies has sensibly improved of late years," remarked his lordship, imperturbably. "The discovery of the cinchona plant----"
"Damn the cinchona plant!" burst out Marmaduke. But at that instant a silvery artificial little laugh rose behind them and Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand appeared tripping over the grass with the daintiest of sandalled feet.
She had again been watching father and son from her window, and after a week's hesitation she had suddenly decided that something must be done to stop what seemed to be growing confidence. She had hitherto played with the plan of arousing the old man's jealousy, confining herself to half-hearted flirtations with Marmaduke, who, also on the watch, had fallen in with the amusement quite pleasantly. But that morning Colonel Compton had spoken out his fears.
"You'll have to look to your p's and q's, Fan, or that youngster will be running away with some of the peer's loose cash. And as the estate is strictly entailed that won't suit us. I overheard that weasel, Jack Jardine, talking to the captain about the purchase of his majority, so you had better look sharp."
The words echoed in her brain as she had stood watching father and son in an apparently amicable conversation which clinched her decision. The result being her appearance before the two conspirators, provocative to the very tilt of her carefully held pink parasol.
"Oh, pardon," she began, in the stage French accent she affected in society, "but I mean not to disturb! Only the filial picture of milor and his too charming son was irresistible to poor me--sosans famille."
She did not look in the least forlorn, and Lord Drummuir's clear, wicked old eyes, that had seen to the bottom of so many evil things, took her in from head to foot, and his clear wicked old brain considered what she would be at. Then he chuckled softly, thinking he had found out.
"No apologies needed, dear little Fan," he said affectionately; "you are almost one of the family already, so we've no secrets. Marmaduke and I were just discussing the purchase of his majority. It will take more than two thousand five hundred pounds, I'm afraid, won't it, dear boy?--what with the regulation and non-regulation figures. A big sum, my dear, a big sum. It will make a hole in what's available for wedding presents, eh, little woman?"
He looked at her with amused malevolence, thinking he had settled her hash; for little Fan was not the woman to flirt with a man who was to do her out of a farthing. And Fantine's eyes were steel as she made a little curtsey.
"Who, my lord," she warbled tenderly, "could regret money spent in such a good cause? Pardon," she added, remembering her accent, "was that not right said? I mean that Marmaduke"--her voice cooed the name--"is welcome to all zat I could give to him."
The baron burst into a huge rough guffaw.
"Come, that is a real good 'un!" he cried, highly amused. "I declare you're as good as a play. But it's not settled yet." Here he glanced at his son, keen to tantalise him too, and with reckless devilry sowing the seeds of evil broadcast. "I shall have to choose between diamonds for my wife and promotion for my son. Meanwhile, my lady, don't get your pretty little feet damp on the grass. Remember you have to dance to us to-night. Ogilvie and all the good fellows for miles round are coming to see you, and you mustn't be a failure."
When the bath-chair and its wheezy occupant had been handed over to the valet, Fantine Le Grand and Marmaduke lingered on the steps together in silence.
"You have not yet seen me dance?" she said, suddenly. "Well, you shall see me this evening! I will dance for you alone, monsieur."
His eyes laughed into hers boldly.
"It is a bargain, mademoiselle; but I shall ask for more, I warn you."
"Dieu merci," she said, with a tiny shrug of her shoulders, "you must not ask too much!"
So with provocative laughter she fled up the steps with the prettiest of little glissades and disappeared, leaving Marmaduke gratified at the impression he had evidently made, and with a certain new admiration for the demure daintiness of Mademoiselle Fantine. His father, devil take him, hadn't a bad taste.
He said nothing of all this, however, to Jack Jardine when he raged for a full hour over his father's absolute lack of human sympathy.
"Why only yesterday," he stormed, "he signed a cheque for one thousand pounds because he wanted to pose as the patron of these dispossessed parsons. It isn't moral, it isn't Christian. He doesn't care if he ruins me body and soul. Anyhow, I've done with him for ever."
"Then you will leave at once?" suggested Jack Jardine.
In truth he was anxious to get the young man away from temptation as soon as possible, and he knew well that in the end he himself would have somehow or another to negotiate the money for the majority.
"No," replied Marmaduke. "I'm going to stop on for a bit."
And he set his nether lip hard. He was not going to give a cheek to the enemy. He meant to hit back if he could. If his father couldn't spare two thousand pounds because he wanted to spend it on a dancing woman, he might find himself in the position of not having the dancing woman on whom to spend it. He, Marmaduke, would have a try at it, anyhow. It was mean and horrible, of course, but so was the old man. He began it.
Peter Muir, coming in yawning, exclaimed at his brother's face.
"What's up, Duke?" he asked. "You look in the devil of a temper."
"So I am," retorted Duke. "And so would you be if you had the spunk to ask anything of the baron. But you haven't, you see."
"Phew!" said Peter. "So you've been attacking the money bags. I could have told you it was no go. That's why I learnt picquet of that Italian count the governor got hold of last year and sent about his business when he had rooked him of a thou! Now I can get a guinea or two off everybody who comes in to the house--except you, Jack. You never will play."
"I don't wish to add to your pocket-money, Peter; you've too much already," replied Jack Jardine sternly. "Ah, I've heard of your beguiling that wretched girl!"
"Not for the first time, old man," put in Peter. "You shouldn't talk about things you don't understand; and a fellow must have some amusement in this cursed hole, especially when the river is low. But for the life of me, Duke, I can't see why you shouldn't go on half pay and stop at home a bit. We should have some fine fun together, and I'd teach you picquet, if you like."
Marmaduke stood gazing at his young brother for a second or two angrily. Then his face softened, he went over to him and laid his hands on his shoulders, and so remained looking down on the weak effeminate face.
"You're talking what they call 'bosh' at school, Peter. You're not a bit content here. How could you be? Give it up and come along with me when I go. The old man doesn't deserve to have a son."
Peter wriggled himself away from his brother's hold.
"I don't really see why you should go."
"Don't you? Well, I'll tell you. Because I'm a soldier born and bred. I don't suppose I shall die on the field of glory, but I shall have a try at it. And I mean to have my majority in my old regiment if I have to forge the old man's name to get it."
With that he gloomed away and loafed about, irritated at all things and everything, even at the preparations that were being made for the festivities of the evening, for these necessitated his being turned out of his comfortable room in order to accommodate some of the guests.
"Where are they putting me?" he asked angrily of Andrew Fraser, whom he found, very long and lank in consequence of repeated attacks of malarial fever, busy packing up his dressing things.
"It will be tae whatten they used to ca' the 'Agäpemoan' in the old lord's young days, sir," replied Andrew. "Jest yon big room wi' the outside stair in the west wing close to the keep, sir. 'Tis a bonny eneuch room with a fire to it, an' Marrion Paul has ben reddin' it up a' day."
Marrion Paul! The name came as a relief and a regret, for he had not seen her--not anyhow for speech--since their dawn-tide swim together. Now the mere memory of it in its coolness and freshness and beauty calmed his irritation, and half aimlessly he strolled across the quadrangle to inspect his new quarters. She might be there still. Apparently she was, for a sound of determined sweeping came down the stairway.
"Hullo, Marmie, is that you?" he cried joyously, bounding up the steps two at a time.
"Aye, Mr. Duke, it's me," replied the figure with the broom laconically.
Certainly it was a nice comfortable room with the fire blazing and the casement window, still somewhat hung with cobwebs, set wide to the summer sunshine. Marmaduke passed to it and looked out. Beneath him, far down the slanting red cliffs dotted here and there with sombre pines, lay the castle pool, and over yonder to the right were the rocks on the other side where he had found Marmie combing her hair like any mermaid. It was hidden now under a most unbecoming dust kerchief; still the memory was pleasant.
"I say, Marmie," he remarked, "that swim of ours was stunning, wasn't it?"
"It's aye nice in the dawning," replied Marrion comfortably. "I've been out twice since then, and I'm no saying which I enjoyed the maist."
Marmaduke made a wry face.
"You look as if I were interrupting your work," he said tenderly.
"So you are, Captain Duke," she assented calmly. He clapped his hands to his ears in mock alarm, and with a laugh raced headlong downstairs, calling back half-way that 'Andry' would have his work cut out for him getting his master to bed if so be the latter had had a glass too much.
When he had gone Marrion ceased sweeping and rested her cheek on the broom handle for a bit.
He--there was but one he in her life and she faced the fact quietly--did not look so well as he did at first, but of that Andrew Fraser had warned her. He had, in fact, told her of many things which otherwise she would not have known, for she had seen much of him in the last week. The racket of the noisy servants' hall, the whole dissolute life of masters and men up at the castle had not been to his taste, and he had taken to going over to the keep-house for quiet, if not for peace. But even that was coming to him by degrees as he realised the utter hopelessness of his love for Marrion. But he realised also that if she was not for him neither was she for any other man--except one; and that was impossible. So, indeed, he had told her plainly but a day or two before, when half-dazed with fever and ague which had attacked him suddenly, in the keep-house.
She had insisted on his lying down in her grandfather's room, and when she went in to bring him a cup of hot tea he had slipped his feet to the ground apologetically, and sitting up, a lank figure among the blankets, his small pathetic eyes full of fever, had laid a hot hand on hers and said--
"I'll no be troubling you again, Marrion. I canna help loving you and you canna help loving him. It's no oorsels, ye see. It's just Providence; sae we must just both thole it."
She had stood silent, startled by the sudden attack for a second; then she had said gravely--
"Aye, Andry, we must just thole it."
Since then a strange confidence as to Marmaduke's sayings and doings had sprung up between the two, and even at dinner-time that very day he had told of his master's irritability.
"Things have gone ajee," he remarked, "an' I'm thinkin' it's the money for the majority. But what's filthy lucre to health?--and sure as death the captain is no what he was. Gin' it wad make him quit yon bad auld man an' the whore-woman he is takin' to wife, I'd be heart glad."
For Andrew Fraser, being acquainted with his Bible, did not mince words. Neither did Marrion; but having more wits than Andrew she appraised the evils more reasonably, yet with more prejudice. Lord Drummuir was Lord Drummuir, and therefore in a way must be accepted; but the woman was different.
Marrion Paul's eyebrows levelled themselves to a straight bar as she went on with her work.
The company had roared over a broad farce; for Lord Drummuir, when he entertained his neighbours, did so with a lavish hand, and thought nothing of importing a theatrical company from the nearest big town. A coach and four went for them and took them back, full up with supper and good wine. This particular one was not up to much, but they did well enough, as his lordship said, for the country bumpkins; and the real entertainment was yet to come.
It was a pretty little miniature, this theatre which Lord Drummuir had fitted up in the days of his youth, though Marmaduke, as he sat in the sham Royal box into which his father's armchair had been wheeled, thought it smelt a little musty and fusty.
But even his laughter had been long and loud. And now there was a pause during which the noisy band of four--a cornet, a fiddle, a 'cello, and an oboe--hustled up their instruments and music and disappeared. Marmaduke, with the fine instincts for art he had inherited from his father, and which still made the latter a gourmet and not a gourmand of all good things, felt relieved. Then suddenly a thin thread of sound, vibrant, musical--just a whing like the whing of a mosquito on a hot Indian night--made itself more felt than heard. It seemed to thrill the air, to go further and thrill the heart-strings. Marmaduke leant forward expectantly as the curtains drew up slowly on a background of pale pink velvet hanging in loose folds to a pale pink velvet floor. And the musty fustiness had gone! That was attar of roses, pale pink roses like the pale pinkmise-en-scène. And hark, the thread of sound changed to two! It became rhythmic, louder! A guitar? No; it must be a Hungarian zither. Marmaduke, thoroughly roused, thrilled through to the marrow of his bones as he waited. Bent on conquest, he had dressed with the greatest care; from head to foot he was perfection. Expectant as he was, he was yet prepared to be critical; but one glance at the figure which, after peeping with roguish face between the velvet folds, stole out on tiptoe to the very footlights, then stood, finger on lip, as if imploring silence for an escapade, told him he was in the presence of a past mistress in her art, and he sat back prepared for enjoyment.
And La Fantine, as she had been called, had brought pleasure to many men. She was looking her best, dainty to a degree. The footlights, with the larger possibilities of powder and paint, had restored her youth, and her dress was entrancing. Short clouds of pale pink tulle scarcely veiled with gossamer black lace, all set and sparkling with dewdrops of paste diamonds. How they glittered and disappeared, twinkling one moment like stars amid the diaphanous black lace wings she wore on her head, then sinking to shadow again as she moved.
And heavens, how she moved! The zither thrilled louder and Marmaduke sat entranced, for their eyes had met and he realised that she was keeping her promise--she was dancing for him, for him alone. Like most young and vital creatures dancing was sheer delight to him, and the very precision of the black lace-shod, sandalled feet was pure joy to him. And now the rhythm grew faster and faster; she was like a mad butterfly drunk with honey from the waiting flowers.
The desire of the eyes does not take long to flame up and flare, and Marmaduke felt quite dizzy as he joined in the burst of applause when, with a final pirouette, thedanseusekissed her hand to the audience. Or was it to him?
"Never saw La Fantine dance better, Drum," remarked a thin old man, a relic of the past youth when he and the bridegroom expectant had roystered about together, "except, perhaps, that time, you remember, when she danced thefandangowith that South American fellow she----"
He paused, remembering that this incident in Mdlle. Le Grand's career had best not be mentioned under present circumstances.
"Thefandango?" put in Marmaduke, afire. "I should like to see her dance that. It's the finest dance in the world. I learnt it in Cuba."
"Hullo, Drum," said the old buck, "here's a chance! Your son says he can dance thefandango. Here's a chance. Let's have it. They'd make a handsome couple."
Marmaduke blushed up to the ears; why, he knew not. Then he said stiffly--
"I'd rather not, Sir John."
The refusal was opportune for thefandango; it roused the old man's arrogance.
"Why not, sir?" he asked angrily. "You'd never get a better partner. Here, Fantine, my dear," he added, raising his voice, "this oaf of a boy of mine says he can dance thefandango!Show him he can't, there's a good girl!"
"I will do my leetle best, milor," she replied, with a maliciously provocative smile that would have incited anyone of spirit to action.
"I am at mademoiselle's command for tuition," said Marmaduke, with a fine bow.
His head was ringing, his pulses bounding. He was divided between anger and delight, between a desire to teach the little devil and his father a lesson, and keen pleasure at the thought of the coming dance.
A minute after he stood making his bow beside La Fantine.
"Do you really know it?" she had whispered.
"Better than you do," he had whispered back brutally. "I've danced it in the pot-houses of Habana."
Then it would be a trial of skill between them! She nodded to the zither player to begin, striking the strings with loud full-blooded notes that vibrated and thrilled through the little theatre and came back to aid the growing clamour of the music. It was grace and grace, suppleness and suppleness at first; then by degrees something fiercely beautiful, profoundly, almost overwhelmingly, appealing to the senses. The audience sat spellbound, while to those two there grew an absorbing forgetfulness of all save that they two, man and woman, were playing each with the other. Suddenly, when that reckless forgetfulness seemed to have reached its climax, the woman faltered for a second, turned to her companion.
"Don't you know the rest?" he whispered softly. "Come on, I'll teach it you."
Half-hypnotised by his look, his manner, she followed his lead. The music, bewildered, ignorant, failed, came to a full stop. But it was not needed. Those two danced to the music of the spheres. The coarse sensuality of this earth had passed. This was the refined super-sensuality of a world of art, of sentiment. It was self-renunciation divorced from its real meaning, and when finally, with La Fantine's heart pressed to his, he laid his burning lips to hers, a great silence like a sigh came to the whole audience. It was broken by Lord Drummuir's stentorian voice--
"You--you d----d young scoundrel! This is too much----"
Marmaduke looked up jubilant.
"It's in the original dance, isn't it, Mademoiselle Le Grand?"
"I--I believe it is," she faltered uncertainly. She had met with her match, and that she knew.
"A most remarkable performance," said Sir John, with unction. "I'll tell you what it is, young man. You two would be the talk of London if you could persuade Mdlle. Fantine----" he paused again, coughed, and added precipitately, "Really, my dear Drum, you are to be congratulated on such a son, and such a future wife! Inimitable, quite inimitable! You'll never feel the least dull in the long winter evenings. Ah, Mdlle. Fantine,mes compliments!I have not seen you for years; not since----" here once more he pulled himself up short, and Lord Drummuir, beguiled from wrath by his ever-ready sense of humour, burst in a loud guffaw.
"Look here, Johnnie," he cried, "hold your tongue and don't splay that old foot of yours about any more. Winter evenings be dashed! Marmaduke is going back to his Cuban partners, and little Fanny here is going to make my gruel, aren't you, Fan? Meanwhile, let's come and have some supper."
So they supped outrageously, and the noise of their laughter echoed out over the quadrangle, where Marrion Paul sat at her door listening for Marmaduke's step. She had promised to call Andrew Fraser the moment she heard it; Andrew, who for two hours had been shivering and shaking with ague under the spare-room blankets, and had now apparently fallen asleep, secure in Marrion's promise to rouse him on his master's appearance.
She had been up twice to see that the captain's room was in order, and like any valet had laid out everything that would be required for the night. So, leaving the candles alight, she had come down to stand at the door of the keep-house again and watch the slow whirling stars almost stupidly, and wonder what had best be done at once to keep Duke friends with his father, and at the same time to get him away from the godless crew up at the castle.
A staggering step and Marmaduke's voice joyously thick saying--
"All right, James, you needn't come any further. I can find my way now. Good-night. Andrew--where the deuce are you, Andrew? Why weren't you waiting?" sent her in haste to fulfil her promise. But the hot fit had this time had a firmer grip on Andrew than either she or he had expected, and she found him lying with closed eyes half-unconscious. And though he roused at her touch it was only to mutter: "Let me be, mother! I'm no goin' to the schule the day. I wunna; let me be, I say!"
Marrion, seeing he was useless, laid a wet cloth on his head and returned to her station by the door. It was a dark night and she could see nothing. Neither could she hear anything.
What had happened? Had Marmaduke managed the stairs by himself? If so, well and good. He could be left to his own devices, and serve him very well right! The candles were in a safe place. But if he had fallen by the way, he would be out all night. Serve him right also! Her lips curled with scorn, and she was about to go in and close the door when she remembered that the kitchen girls shaking their mats in the quadrangle in the early morning would see him if he were lying there. If it were men it would not have mattered, but that girls should see and snigger was unbearable. She must go and make sure this would not happen. Taking the lantern--for it was pitch dark--she made her way to the foot of the stair. He was lying with his head on the lowest step, as he had fallen, sleeping peacefully. The cool night air had completed the work of wine, and so doubtless he would sleep for hours. But he must not; that disgrace must be avoided. Kneeling beside him she shook him violently by the shoulder; he roused a little, but not much, and as he sank back to renewed slumber she looked helpless for a moment, then angry. It was too bad! He must be roused somehow. She lifted her hand and gave him a good smart blow on the cheek.
The effect was magical.
"Marmie," he murmured dazedly, then sat up and said confusedly, "What is it, my dear?"
"You've got to get up and go to your bed, Mr. Duke," she replied. "Come, be quick about it."
He stumbled to his feet obediently.
"Certainly, certainly! No objection whatever," he said thickly; but when by the light of the lantern he saw the stairs he gave a silly laugh, and said amiably: "Quite impossible, I 'sure you. Where's Andrew?"
"Andrew is not here, Mr. Duke," she replied firmly. "I'll help you up. Hold on to the rail with your right hand; I'll see to you."
He delivered himself into her strong grip, body and soul, and so, with a few stumbles, they reached the top of the stairs. Here she hesitated a moment, then led him on.
"Sit you down on your bed, Duke. I'll help you off with your coat. Ye'll sleep better without it. An' now kick off yer pumps," she went on calmly, a sort of fierce motherhood possessing her, "an' I'd better loosen yer stock; 'tis tight enough to suffocate ye."
He acquiesced in all, sinking to sleep without a word almost before she had finished her ministrations. Then, taking a plaid that hung over a chair, she covered him over and prepared to go. But regret, anger, outraged affection were too strong for her. She flung herself on her knees beside the bed and buried her face on his unconscious breast.
"Ah, Duke, Duke," she moaned, "how can ye! Ah, Duke, Duke, you mustn't, you shall not spoil your life--you shall not, you shall not!"
After a time calm came to her, and, drawing a chair to the side of the bed, she sat down on it and, clasping her hands tight together, forced herself to think of the future. But again and again she caught herself comparing those two unconscious faces--Andrew's all flushed with fever, Duke's all flushed with wine. Yet comparisons were useless before Fate. She stood up at last, crossed the room, blew out the candles, shut the door, and went downstairs, certain but of one thing, that somehow she was bound by the very greatness of her love to stand between Duke and danger.
Her grandfather was home, and snoring. Andrew she found better and beginning to fret over his inability to serve his master.
"Dinna fash yersel," she said kindly. "I heard James bring him over a while back, and he'll have seen to him."
So, absolutely outwearied, she went to her bed, to sleep at once and dream that Duke had thanked her and gone away from the godless household never to return. But Duke, meanwhile, was dreaming about wonderful white arms that had left powder on his coat and wonderful red lips that he had kissed boldly, defying the world.