The Wicked Marquis

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  CHAPTER VIII

  It was obvious that the Marquis was pleased with himself when he wasshown into Marcia's little sitting room later on that same afternoon.He was wearing a grey tweed check suit, a grey bowler hat, and a bunchof hothouse violets in his buttonhole. His demeanour, as he drew offhis white chamois leather gloves and handed them, with his coat andcane, to the little parlourmaid, was urbane, almost benevolent.

  "You look like the springtime," Marcia declared, rising to her feet,"and here have I been cowering over the fire!"

  "The wind is cold," her visitor admitted, "but I had a brisk walk alongthe Embankment."

  "Along the Embankment?"

  "I have been to one of those wonderful, cosmopolitan hotels," he toldher, as he bent down and kissed her, "where they have hundreds ofbedrooms and every guest is a potential millionaire."

  "Business?"

  "Business," he assented. "My lawyers--I am very displeased, by-the-by,with Mr. Wadham--having been unable for many years to assist me indisposing of the mortgages upon Mandeleys, I am making efforts myselfin that direction, efforts which, as I believe I told you, show muchpromise of success."

  "I am delighted to hear it," she replied. "From every point of view,it would be so satisfactory for you to have the estates freed oncemore. You would be able to entertain properly, wouldn't you, and takeup your rightful position in the county?"

  The Marquis seated himself in his favourite easy-chair.

  "It is quite true," he confessed, "that I have been unable, for thelast ten years, to exercise that position in the county to which I amentitled. I must confess, moreover, that the small economies whichhave formed a necessary and galling part of my daily life have becomealmost unendurable. You received my cheque, I hope?"

  She nodded and laid it upon the table.

  "It was dear of you, Reginald," she said, "but do you know it'sastonishing how well I seemed to be able to get on without those lastthree payments. I am earning quite a great deal of money of my own,you know, and I do wish you would let me try and be independent."

  His grey eyes were fixed almost coldly upon her.

  "Independent? Why?"

  "Oh, don't be foolish about it, please," she begged. "For nineteenyears, I think it is now, you have allowed me six hundred a year. Doyou realise what a great deal of money that is? Now that I ambeginning to earn so much for myself, it is absurd for me to go ontaking it."

  "Do I understand it to be your desire, then, Marcia," he asked, "toeffect any change in our relations?"

  She came over and sat on the arm of his chair.

  "Not unless you wish it, dear," she replied, "only the money--well, ina sense I've got used to having it all these years, because it wasnecessary, but now that it isn't necessary, I can't help feeling that Ishould like to do without it. I earned nearly six hundred pounds, youknow, last year, by my stories."

  The Marquis had half closed his eyes. He had become momentarilyinattentive. Somehow or other, Marcia realised that her words hadbrought him acute suffering. There were tears in her eyes as she tookhis hand.

  "Don't be silly about this, Reginald dear," she pleaded. "If it meansso much to you to feel--I mean, if you look upon this money as really atie between us--give me a little less, then--say three hundred a year,instead of six."

  Her visitor was recovering his momentarily disturbed composure.

  "You are still nothing but a child in money matters, dear," he said."We will speak of this again before the end of the year, but in themeantime, if you have anything to spare, invest it. It is always wellfor a woman to have something to fall back upon."

  Tea was brought in, and their conversation for a time became lighter intone. Presently, however, Marcia became once more a little thoughtful.

  "I have made up my mind," she declared abruptly, "to go down toMandeleys to see my father."

  The Marquis was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

  "Well, why not, if you really feel it to be your duty," he conceded."Personally, I think you will find that Vont is unchanged. You willfind him just as hard and narrow as when he disowned you."

  "In that case," Marcia acknowledged, "I shall not trouble him verymuch, but when I think of all these years abroad--it was through me heleft England, you know, Reginald--I feel that I ought to do my best, atany rate, to make him see things differently--to beg his forgivenesswith my lips, even if I feel no remorse in my heart. I have a mostuncomfortable conviction," she went on reflectively, "that I have growncompletely out of his world, but, of course, in all this time he, too,may have changed. I wonder what has become of my little cousin."

  "Vont came back alone, I believe," her visitor told her, "and he cameback second class, too. I heard of him, curiously enough, from anAmerican gentleman who crossed on the same steamer, and who happened tobe a guest at my house the other night."

  Marcia nodded.

  "The boy left England too young," she remarked, "to miss his country.I suppose he has settled down in America for ever."

  "I must say that I wish Vont had stayed with him," the Marquisdeclared. "Yes, go down and see him, by all means, Marcia. I shouldrather like to hear from you what his state of mind is. I gather thathe is obdurate, as he resisted all my efforts to repossess myself ofhis cottage, but it would be interesting to hear."

  "Should you mind," she asked, "if I motored down there with mypublisher--Mr. James Borden? You have heard me speak of him."

  "Not in the least," was the ready reply. "Has your friend connectionsin the locality?"

  "None," Marcia admitted. "He would come simply for the sake of a dayor two's holiday, and to take me."

  "He is one of your admirers, perhaps?"

  "He has always been very kind to me."

  The Marquis was momentarily pensive.

  "You are a better judge than I, Marcia," he observed, "but is such anexpedition as you suggest--usual? I know that things have changed verymuch since the days when I myself found adventures possible andinteresting, but have they really progressed so far as this?"

  Marcia considered the matter carefully.

  "On the whole," she decided, "I should say that our proposed expeditionwas unusual. On the other hand, Mr. Borden has no near relatives, andI myself enjoy a certain amount of liberty."

  The Marquis smiled at her.

  "As much liberty as you choose. If I hesitated then for a moment, itwas for your own sake. I do not think that I have ever sought tocurtail your pleasures, or to interfere in your mode of living."

  "You have been wonderful," she admitted gratefully. "Perhaps for thatvery reason, because my fetters have been of silk, I have neverrealised but always considered them. Do you know that you are the onlyman who has ever sat down in this flat as my guest, during the wholesixteen years I have lived here?"

  "I should never have asked you," he said, "but I am not in the leastsurprised to hear it. Sometimes," he went on, drawing her towards himin a slight but affectionate embrace, "you have perhaps thought me alittle cold, a little staid and distant from you, even in our happiestmoments. I was brought up, you must remember, in the school whichconsiders any exhibition of feeling as a deplorable lapse. The thinggrows on one. Yet, Marcia," he added, drawing her still closer andclasping her hand, "you have been my refuge in all these years. It ishere with you that I have spent my happiest hours. You have been myconsolation in many weary disappointments. I often wish that I couldgive you a different position than the one which you occupy."

  "I should never be so contented in any other," she assured him, pattinghis hand. "In all these years I have felt my mind grow. I haveread--heavens, how I have read! I have felt so many of the old thingsfall away, felt my feet growing stronger. You have given me just whatI wanted, Reginald. To quote one of your own maxims, we have only onelife, but it is for us to subdivide. We take up a handful ofcircumstances, an emotion, perhaps a passion, and we live them out, andwhen the flame is burnt we are restless for a little ti
me, and then webegin it all over again. That is how we learn, learn to be wise bysuffering and change."

  "I am afraid," the Marquis sighed, "that I do not live up to my ownprinciples. All my life I have detested change. There could be noother home for me but Mandeleys, no other clubs save those where Ispend my spare time, no other pursuits save those which I havecultivated from my youth, no other dear friend, Marcia, to whom one mayturn in one's more human moments, than you."

  Marcia shrugged her shoulders.

  "It is queer," she admitted, "to hear such professions of fidelity fromyou."

  "Had I a different reputation?" he asked. "Well, you see how I haveoutlived it."

  Marcia's silence, natural enough at the time, puzzled him a littleafterwards, puzzled him as he leaned back in his car, on his wayhomewards, puzzled him through the evening in the few minutes ofreflection which he was able to spare from a large dinner party.

  "Borden!" he muttered to himself. "I wonder what sort of a man he is."

  In his library, where he lingered for a few moments before retiring tobed, he took down a volume of "Who's Who." Borden's name, rather tohis surprise, was there. The man, it seemed, was of decent family, haddone well at Oxford, both in scholarship and athletics. He wasborn--the Marquis counted his years. He was forty-one yearsold--nineteen years younger! He closed the book and sat down in hischair, forgetting for once to mix for himself the whiskey and sodawhich lay ready to his hand. It seemed to him that there was a tragedyin that nineteen years. Borden was of the age now that he himself hadbeen when Marcia had first listened to his very courtly and yetuncommonly definite love-making. He rose almost like a thief, crossedthe hall, and, opening softly the door of the drawing-room, turned upthe two lights before a great gilt mirror. He stood and regardedhimself thoughtfully, appraisingly, critically. He was tall and verylittle bowed. His figure was still the figure of a young man, and thecourt clothes which he was wearing became him. That he was handsome sofar as regards his finely chiselled features, his high forehead and hissoft grey hair, he granted himself. The world had given him fewchances of forgetting it. But there was a little whiteness about hischeeks, a slight dropping of the flesh under his eyes, just somethingof that tired look which creeps along with the years, a silent,persistent ghost. The Marquis switched off the lights and turnedtowards the door. He tiptoed his way across the hall and threw himselfonce more into his easy-chair. His eyes were fixed upon the oppositewall. He still saw that presentment of himself. And there was Marcia,barely in the prime of her life, the figure of her girlhood developed,yet not, even now, matronly; her bright complexion, her broad,intellectual forehead with its masses of brown hair, her humorousmouth, her dark, undimmed eyes, still hungry for what life might haveto give. Those nineteen years remained a tragedy.