The Wicked Marquis

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  CHAPTER XXXV

  Richard Vont was buried in the little churchyard behind Mandeleys, thechurchyard in which was the family vault and which was consecratedentirely to tenants and dependents of the estate. The littlecongregation of soberly-clad villagers received more than one surpriseduring the course of the short and simple service. The Marquishimself, clad in sombre and unfamiliar garments, stood in his pew andfollowed the little procession to the graveside. The new tenant ofBroomleys was there, and Marcia, deeply veiled but easily recognisableby that brief moment of emotion which followed the final ceremony. Atits conclusion, the steward, following an immemorial custom, invitedthe little crowd to accompany him to Mandeleys, where refreshments wereprovided in the back hall. The Marquis had stepped back into thechurch. David and Marcia were alone. He came round to her side.

  "You don't remember me?" he asked.

  "Remember you?" she repeated. "Aren't you Mr. David Thain?"

  "Yes," he admitted, "but many years ago I was called Richard DavidVont--when I lived down there with you, Marcia."

  Emotion had become so dulled that even her wonder found scantyexpression.

  "I remember your eyes," she said. "They puzzled me more than once.Did he know?"

  "Of course," David answered. "We lived together in America for manyyears, and we came home together. Directly we arrived, however, heinsisted on our separating. You know the madness of his life, Marcia."

  "I know," she answered bitterly. "Was I not the cause of it?"

  "It was part of his scheme that I should help towards his revenge," heexplained. "I did his bidding, and the end was disaster andhumiliation."

  They stood under the little wooden porch which led out into the park.

  "You will come up to Broomleys?" he invited.

  She shook her head.

  "Just now I would rather go back to the cottage," she said. "We shallmeet again."

  "I shall be in England only for a few more days," he told her gloomily."I am returning to America."

  She looked at him in some surprise.

  "I thought you had settled down here?"

  "Only to carry out my share in that infernal bargain. I have done it,I kept my word, I am miserably ashamed of myself, and I have but onefeeling now--to get as far away as I can."

  "But tell me, David," she asked, "what was this scheme? What have youdone to hurt him--the Marquis?"

  "I have done my best to ruin him," David replied, "and through someaccursed scheme in which I bore an evil and humiliating part, I havebrought some shadow of a scandal upon--"

  He broke off. Marcia waited for him to continue, but he shook his head.

  "The whole thing is too insignificant and yet too damnable," he said."Some day, Marcia, I will tell you of it. If you won't come with me,forgive me if I hurry away."

  He was gone before she could remonstrate. She looked around and sawthe reason. The Marquis was coming down the gravel path from thechurch in which he had taken refuge from the crowd. She felt a suddenshaking of the knees, a momentary return of that old ascendency whichhe had always held over her. Then she turned and waited for him. Hesmiled very gravely as he held her hand for a moment.

  "You are going back to the cottage?" he asked. "I will walk with you,if I may."

  They had a stretch of park before them, a wonderful, rolling stretch ofancient turf. Here and there were little clusters of cowslips, goldenas the sunshine which was making quaint patterns of shadow beneath theoaks and drawing the perfume from the hawthorn trees, drooping beneaththeir weight of blossom. Marcia tried twice to speak, but her voicebroke. There was the one look in his face which she dreaded.

  "I shall not say any conventional things to you," he began gently."Your father's life for many years must have been most unhappy. In away, I suppose you and I are the people who are responsible for it.And yet, behind it all--I say it in justice to ourselves, and not withdisrespect to the dead--it was his primeval and colossal ignorance, theheritage of that stubborn race of yeomen, which was responsible for hissorrow."

  "He never understood," she murmured. "No one in this world could makehim understand."

  "You know that our new neighbour up there," he continued, moving hishead towards Broomleys, "was his nephew--a sharer, however unwilling,in his folly?"

  "He has just told me," she admitted.

  "I was the first to find your father dead," he went on. "When Ireceived your letter, Marcia, I took it to him. I went to offer himthe sacrifice of my desolation. That, I thought, would end his enmity.And I read your letter to dead ears. He was seated there, believingthat all the evil he wished me had come. I suppose the belief broughthim peace. He was a stubborn old man."

  Marcia would have spoken, but there was a lump in her throat. Sheopened her lips only to close them again.

  "I wished to see you, Marcia," he continued, "because I wanted you tounderstand that I have only one feeling in my heart towards you, andthat is a feeling of wonderful gratitude. For many years you have beenthe most sympathetic companion a somewhat dull person could have had.The memory of these years is imperishable. And I want to tell yousomething else. In my heart I approve of what you have done."

  "Oh, but that is impossible!" she replied. "I cannot keep the bitterthoughts from my own heart. I am ashamed when I think of yourkindness, of your fidelity, of all that you have given and done for methroughout these years. And now I have the feeling that I am leavingyou when you need me most."

  He smiled at her.

  "Your knowledge of life," he said gently, "should teach you better.The years that lay between us when you first gave me all that there wasworth having of love in the world were nothing. To-day they are animpassable gulf. I have reached just those few years which become theaftermath of actual living, and you are young still, young in mind andbody. We part so naturally. There is something still alive in youwhich is dead in me."

  "But you are so lonely," she faltered.

  "I should be lonelier still," he answered, "or at least more unhappy,if I dragged you with me through the cheerless years. Life is a matterof cycles. You are commencing a new one, and so am I, only the thingsthat are necessary to you are not now necessary to me. So it isnatural and best that we should part."

  She pointed to the cottage, now only a few yards away. Its doors andwindows were wide open, there was smoke coming from the chimney, awealth of flowers in the garden.

  "The cottage is mine," she said. "Sometimes I believe that it was leftto me in the hope that I might come back with my heart, too, full ofbitterness, and that I might take his place. It is yours whenever youchoose to take it. I shall send the deeds to Mr. Merridrew."

  He looked at it thoughtfully. For a moment the shadow passed from hisface. He stood a little more upright, his eyes seemed to grow larger.Perhaps he thought of those days when he had stolen down from the housewith beating heart, drawn nearer and nearer to the cottage, felt allthe glow and fervour of his great love. There was a breath of perfumefrom the garden, full of torturing memories--a little wind in the trees.

  "One of the desires of my life gratified," he declared. "Mr. Merridrewshall draw up a deed of sale. Look," he added, pointing to the drive,"there is some one waiting for you in the car there. Isn't it yourhusband?"

  She glanced in the direction he indicated.

  "Yes," she murmured.

  "I will not stay and see him now," the Marquis continued. "You willforgive me, I know. Present to him, if you will," he went on, withsome faint touch of his old manner, "my heartiest good wishes. And toyou, Marcia," he added, raising the fingers of her ungloved hand to hislips, "well, may you find all that there is left in the world ofhappiness. And remember, too, that every drop of happiness that comesinto your life means greater peace for me.--We talk too seriously forsuch a brilliant morning," he concluded, his voice measured, thoughkindly, his attitude suddenly reminiscent of that long, pictured lineof gallant ancestors. "Take my advice and use some of this b
eautifulafternoon for your ride to London. There will be a moon to-night andyou may enter it as the heroine in your last story--a fairy city."

  He left her quite easily, but when she tried to start to meet herhusband, her knees gave way. She clung to the paling and watched himcross the bridge and stroll up the little strip of turf, still erect,contemplating the great pile in front of him with the beneficentsatisfaction of inherited proprietorship. She watched him pass throughthe front door and disappear. Then she turned around and drew herhusband into the cottage.

  "James," she cried, sobbing in his arms, "take me away--please take meaway!"

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  During those few hours of strenuous, almost fierce work into whichDavid threw himself after the funeral, he found in a collection ofbelated cablegrams which his secretary handed him an explanation ofLetitia's half apology, an explanation, he told himself bitterly, ofher altered demeanour towards him. The old proverb stood justified.Even this, the wildest of his speculations, had become miraculouslysuccessful. Pluto Oil shares, unsalable at a dollar a few weeks ago,now stood at eight. Oil had been discovered in extraordinary andunprecedented quantities. Oil was spurting another great fortune forhim out of the sandy earth. He paused to make a calculation. TheMarquis's forty thousand pounds' worth were worth, at a rough estimate,three hundred thousand.

  "Extraordinary news, this, Jackson," he remarked to the quiet,sad-faced young man, who had been his right hand since the time of hisfirst railway deal.

  "Most extraordinary," was the quiet reply. "I congratulate you, Mr.Thain. You do seem to have the knack of turning everything you touchinto gold."

  "Do I?" Thain murmured listlessly.

  "I took the liberty of investing in a small parcel of shares myself,just to lock away," the young man continued. "I gave seventy cents forthem."

  "Not enough to make you a millionaire, I hope?" Thain asked, with somebitterness.

  "Enough, with my savings, to give me a very comfortable feeling ofindependence, sir," Jackson replied. "I have never aspired any furtherthan that."

  Thain returned to his desk. He gave letter after letter, and more thanonce his secretary, who had received no previous intimation of hismaster's intended departure, glanced at him in mild surprise.

  "I presume, as you are returning to the States, sir," he suggested,"that we must try to cancel the contracts which we have alreadyconcluded for the restoration of this place?"

  Thain shook his head.

  "Let them go on," he said. "It makes very little difference. I have aseven years' lease. I may come back again. The letters which I gaveyou with a cross you had better take into your own study and type. Ishall be here to sign them when you have finished."

  The young man bowed and departed. David listened to the closing of thedoor and turned his head a little wearily towards the night. TheFrench windows stood open. Through the still fir trees, whose perfumereached him every now and then in little wafts, he could see one or twoof the earlier lights shining from the great house. Once more histhoughts travelled back to the ever-present subject. Could he havedone differently? Was there any way in which he could have sparedhimself the ignominy, the terrible humiliation of those few minutes?There was something wrong about it all, something almost suicidal--hisblind obedience to the old man's prejudiced hatred, his own frenziedtearing to pieces of what might at least have remained a wonderfuldream. One half of his efforts, too, had fallen pitifully flat. TheMarquis had only to keep the shares to which he was justly entitled, tofree for the first time for generations his far-spreading estates, totake his place once more as the greatest nobleman and landowner in thecounty. If only it had been the other scheme which had miscarried!

  His avenue of elms was sheltering now an orchestra of singing birds.With the slightly moving breeze which had sprung up since sunset, theperfume of his roses became alluringly manifest. Through the trees heheard the chiming of the great stable clock from Mandeleys, and thesound seemed somehow to torture him. His head drooped for a momentupon his arms.

  The room seemed suddenly to become darker. He raised his head andremained staring, like a man who looks upon some impossible vision.Lady Letitia, bare-headed, a little paler than usual, a little, itseemed to him, more human, was standing there, looking in upon him. Hemanaged to rise to his feet, but he had no words.

  "I am not a ghost," she said. "Please come out into the garden. Iwant to talk to you."

  He followed her without a word. It was significant that his firstimpulse had been to shrink away from her as one dreading to receive ahurt. She seemed to notice it and smiled.

  "Let us try and be reasonable for a short time," she continued. "Weseem to have been living in some perfectly absurd nightmare for thelast few hours. I have come to you to try and regain my poise. Yes,we will sit down--here, please."

  They sat in the same chairs which they had occupied on her previousvisit. David had been through many crises in his life, but this oneleft him with no command of coherent speech--left him curiously,idiotically tongue-tied.

  "I have thought over this ridiculous affair," she went on. "I musttalk about it to some one, and there is only you left."

  "Your guests," he faltered.

  "Gone!" she told him a little melodramatically. "Didn't you know thatwe had been alone ever since the morning afterwards? First of all, myalmost fiance, Charlie Grantham, drove off at dawn. He left behind hima little note. He had every confidence in me, but--he went. Then myaunt. She was the most peevish person I ever knew. She seemed toimagine that I had in some way interfered with her plans for yoursubjugation, and although she knew quite well that no woman of theMandeleys family could ever stoop to any unworthy or undignifiedaction, she decided to hurry her departure. She left at midday."

  "But Miss Sylvia?"

  "Sylvia was most ingenuous," Letitia continued, her voice regaining alittle of its natural quality. "Sylvia came to me quite timidly andasked me to walk with her in the garden. She wondered--was it reallysettled between me and Lord Charles? If it was, she was quite willingto go into a nunnery or something equivalent,--Chiswick, I believe itwas, with a maiden aunt. But if not, she believed--he had whispered afew things to her--he was hoping to see her that week in town. It wasmost extraordinary---she couldn't understand it--but it seemed thattheir old flirtations--you knew, of course, that they had met oftenbefore--had left a void in his heart which only she could fill. He haddiscovered his mistake in time. She threw herself upon my mercy. Sheleft by the three-thirty."

  "My God!" he groaned. "And this was all my doing!"

  "All your doing," she assented equably. "They were all of themperfectly content to accept your story. There is not one of them whodisputes it for a single moment. But you were there, with the secretdoor closed behind you, and, as my aunt said, there is really noaccounting for what people will do, nowadays. And now," she concluded,"I gather that you are leaving, too."

  "I am motoring up to town to-morrow morning," he said. "I haven'tventured to speak of atonement, but your coming here like this, LadyLetitia, is the kindest thing you have ever done--you could ever do. Ihave tried, in my way," he went on, after a moment's pause, "to livewhat I suppose one calls a self-respecting life. I have never beforebeen in a position when I have been ashamed of anything I have done.And now, since those few minutes, I have lived in a burning furnace ofit. I daren't let my mind dwell upon it. Those few minutes were themost horrible, psychological tragedy which any man could face. If yourcoming really means," he went on, and his voice shook, and his eyesglowed as he leaned towards her, "that I may carry away with me thefeeling that you have forgiven me, I can't tell you the difference itwill make."

  "But why go?" she asked him softly.

  His heart began to beat with sudden, feverish throbs. His eyessearched her face hungrily. She seemed in earnest. Her lips had losteven their usual, faintly contemptuous curl. If anything, she wassmiling at him.

  "Why go?" he re
peated. "Can't you understand that the one desire Ihave, the one burning desire, is to put myself as far away as possiblefrom the sight and memory of what happened that night? We have beentelephoning through to London. I have taken my passage for America onSaturday. I shall go straight out to the Rockies. I just want to getwhere I can forget your look and the words with which your fatherturned me out of his house. And worse than that," he added, with alittle shake in his tone, "their justice--their cruel, abominablejustice."

  Then what was surely a miracle happened. She leaned forward and tookhis hand. Her eyes were soft with sympathy.

  "You poor thing!" she exclaimed. "You couldn't do anything else. Ihave been thinking it over very seriously. It was a horrible positionfor you, but you really couldn't do anything else, that I can see. Youtold your story simply and like a man. But wait. There is one thing Ican't understand. Those shares--were they not to be part of that poorman's vengeance. You surely never intended that we should benefit bythem in this extraordinary way?"

  "I believed them," he told her firmly, "when I sold them to yourfather, to be, until long after he would have had to pay for them, atany rate, absolutely worthless. The wholly unexpected has happened, asit does often in oil. Your father's shares are worth a fortune. Hecan realise his idea of clearing Mandeleys. He can dispose of themto-day for three hundred thousand pounds. Lady Letitia, you have cometo me like an angel. This is the sweetest thing any woman ever did.Be still kinder. Please make your father keep the shares. They arehis. They were sold to ruin him. It is just the chance of somethingthat happened many thousand miles away, which has turned them in hisfavour. He accepts nothing from me. It is fate only which brings himthis windfall."

  "I promise," she said. "To tell you the truth, I think father is asmuch changed, during the last few days, as I am. When I saw him, aboutan hour ago, and told him that I was coming to see you, I was almostfrightened at first. He looks older, and I fancy that something whichhas happened lately--something quite outside--has been a great blow tohim."

  "Does he know, then, how kind you are being to me?" David asked.

  She nodded.

  "He rather hoped," she whispered, leaning a little closer still to himand smiling into his face, "that you would come back with me and dine."

  David suddenly clutched her hands. He was a man again. He threw awayhis doubts. He accepted Paradise.

  On their way across the park, a short time later, he suddenly pointeddown towards the little cottage.

  "You haven't forgotten, Letitia," he said, "that I lived there? Youhaven't forgotten that that old man was my uncle!--that his father andgrandfather were the servants of your family?"

  "My dear David," she replied, "I have forgotten nothing, only I thinkthat I have learned a little. I am still full of family tradition,proud of my share of it, if you will, but somehow or other I don'tthink that it is more than a part, and a very small part, of our dailylife. So let there be an end of that, please. You have done greatthings and I am proud of you, and I have done nothing except suffermyself to be born into a very ancient and occasionally disreputablefamily.... Oh, I must tell you!" she went on, with a little laugh."What do you think father was settling down to do when I came out?"

  David shook his head.

  "I have no idea."

  "I left him seated at his desk," she told him. "He is writing a lineto Mr. Wadham, Junior, asking him to-day's price of the Pluto Oilshares."

  THE END

  NOVELS by E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

  He is past master of the art of telling a story. He has humor, a keensense of the dramatic, and a knack of turning out a happy ending justwhen the complications of the plot threaten worse disasters.--_New YorkTimes_.

  Mr. Oppenheim has few equals among modern novelists. He is prolific,he is untiring in the invention of mysterious plots, he is a cleverweaver of the plausible with the sensational, and he has the necessarygift of facile narrative.--_Boston Transcript_.

  A Prince of Sinners Mysterious Mr. Sabin The Master Mummer A Maker of History The Malefactor A Millionaire of Yesterday The Man and His Kingdom The Betrayal The Yellow Crayon The Traitors Enoch Strone A Sleeping Memory A Lost Leader The Great Secret The Avenger The Long Arm of Mannister The Governors Jeanne of the Marshes The Illustrious Prince The Lost Ambassador The Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown A Daughter of the Marionis Berenice The Moving Finger Havoc The Lighted Way The Tempting of Tavernake The Mischief-Maker The World's Great Snare The Survivor Those Other Days A People's Man The Vanished Messenger Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo The Double Traitor The Way of These Women Mr. Marx's Secret An Amiable Charlatan The Kingdom of the Blind The Hillman The Cinema Murder Bernard The Pawns Count The Zeppelin's Passenger The Curious Quest The Wicked Marquis

  LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, BOSTON