CHAPTER XXXIV

At a few minutes after nine, the following morning, the Marquis entered the room where breakfast was usually served. The Duchess, in travelling clothes and a hat, was lifting the covers from the silver dishes upon the sideboard, with a fork in her hand. She welcomed him a little shortly.

"Good morning, Reginald!"

"Good morning, Caroline," he replied. "Are you the only representative of the household?"

She snorted.

"Charlie Grantham went off in his little two-seater at eight o'clock this morning," she announced. "He is motoring up to town. Left apologies with Gossett, I believe—telegram or something in the night. All fiddlesticks, of course!"

"Naturally," the Marquis assented, helping himself from one of the dishes and drawing his chair up to his sister's side. "So exit Charles Grantham, eh?"

"And me," the Duchess declared, returning to her place and pouring out the coffee. "I suppose you can send me to Fakenham for the ten o'clock train?"

The Marquis considered for a moment.

"I am not sure, Caroline," he said, "that your departure is entirely kind."

"Well, I'm jolly certain I don't mean it to be," she answered bitterly. "I ask no questions, and I hate scenes. A week ago I should have scoffed at the idea of David Thain as a prospective suitor for Letitia. Now, my advice to you is, the sooner you can get them married, the better."

"Really!" he murmured. "You've given up the idea, then, of taking the young man to Scotland?"

"Entirely," the Duchess assured him emphatically. "I was an idiot to ever consider it. When people of his class find their way amongst us, disaster nearly always follows. You see, they don't know the rules of the game, as we play it. Whilst we are on this subject, Reginald, what are you going to do about it?"

The Marquis unlocked his letter case and shook out the contents.

"You mean about last night?" he asked. "Well, as I don't want to be the laughing-stock of the county, I shall keep as quiet as I can. I knew that something ridiculous would happen, with that poor lunatic sitting in the garden, poring over the Bible all day long."

The Duchess looked distinctly malicious.

"I am not at all as sure as I should like to be," she said, "that the old man is to blame for everything."

The Marquis looked at his sister intently. She bent over the milk jug.

"You leave me in some doubt, Caroline," he observed coldly, "as to what frame of mind you are in, when you make such utterly incomprehensible remarks and curtail your visit to us so suddenly. At the same time, I hope that whatever your private feelings may be, you will not forget certain—shall I call them obligations?"

"Oh, don't be afraid!" she rejoined. "I am not likely to advertise my folly, especially at Letitia's expense. I don't care a jot whether the young man came through a hole in the wall or dropped down from the clouds. I only know that his presence in Letitia's bedchamber—"

"We will drop the discussion, if you please," the Marquis interrupted.

There was just the one note in his tone, an inheritance, perhaps, from those more virile ancestors, which reduced even his sister to silence. The Marquis adjusted his eyeglass and commenced a leisurely inspection of his letters. He did so without any anxiety, without the slightest premonition of evil. Even when he recognised her handwriting, he did so with a little thrill of pleasurable anticipation. He drew the letter closer to him and with a word of excuse turned away towards the window. Perhaps she was wanting him. After all, it would be quite easy to run up to London for a day—and wonderfully pleasant. He drew the single sheet from its envelope. The letters seemed magnified. The whole significance of those cruel words seemed to reach him with a single mental effort.

Reginald, I was married to James Borden this morning. I suppose it is the uncivilised part of me which has been pulling at my heartstrings, day by day, week by week, the savage in me clamouring for its right before it is too late.

So we change positions, only whereas you have atoned and justified every one of your actions towards me since our eyes first met, I am left without any means of atonement.

Will you forgive?

Your very humble and penitent     MARCIA.

The Marquis replaced the letter in the envelope. For several moments he stood looking across the park, beyond, to the well-cultivated farms rolling away to the distant line of hills. His brain was numbed. Marcia had gone!—There was a mist somewhere. He rubbed the windowpane, in vain. Then he set his teeth, and his long, nervous fingers gripped at his throat for a moment.

"Your coffee is getting cold," his sister reminded him.

He came back to his place. She watched him a little curiously.

"Any message from our pseudo-Lothario?" she asked.

The Marquis gathered up his other letters.

"There is nothing here from him," he said, "but I must ask you to excuse me, Caroline. There is an urgent matter which needs my attention."

He crossed the room a little more slowly than usual, and his sister, who was still watching him critically, sighed. There was no doubt at all that his walk was becoming the walk of an old man. The stoop of the shoulders was also a new thing. She counted up his age on her fingers, and, rising from her place, looked at herself in the mirror opposite. Her face for a moment was hard and set, and her fingers clenched.

"Years!" she muttered to herself. "How I hate them!"

The Marquis selected a grey Homburg hat of considerable antiquity, and a thicker stick than usual, from the rack in the hall. The front doors stood wide open, and he walked out into the pleasant sunshine. It was a warm morning, but twice he shivered as he passed down the broad sweep of drive and, with a curious sensation of unfamiliarity, crossed the little bridge over the moat, the few yards of park, and finally approached the palings which bordered Richard Vont's domain. The mist still seemed to linger before his eyes, but through it he could see the familiar figure seated in his ancient chair, with the book upon his knee. The Marquis drew close to the side of the palings.

"Richard Vont," he began, "I have come down from Mandeleys to speak to you. Will you listen to what I have to say?"

There was no reply. The Marquis drew the letter from his pocket.

"You are a cruel and stubborn man, Vont," he continued. "You have gone far out of your way to bring injury and unhappiness upon me. All your efforts are as nothing. Will you hear from me what has happened?"

There was silence, still grim silence. The Marquis stretched out his hand and leaned a little upon the paling.

"I took your daughter, Richard Vont, not as a libertine but as a lover. It was perhaps the truest impulse my life has ever felt. If there was sin in it, listen. Hear how I am punished. Month followed month and year followed year, and Marcia was content with my love and I with hers, so that during all this time my lips have touched no other woman's, no other woman has for a moment engaged even my fancy. I have been as faithful to your daughter, Richard Vont, as you to your vindictive enmity. From a discontented and unhappy girl she has become a woman with a position in the world, a brilliant writer, filled with the desire and happiness of life to her finger tips. From me she received the education, the travel, the experience which have helped her to her place in the world, and with them I gave her my heart. And now—you are listening, Richard Vont? You will hear what has happened?"

Still that stony silence from the figure in the chair. Still that increasing mist before the eyes of the man who leaned towards him.

"Your daughter, Richard Vont," the Marquis concluded, "has taken your vengeance into her own hands. Your prayers have come true, though not from the quarter you had hoped. You saw only a little way. You tried to strike only a foolish blow. It has been given to your daughter to do more than this. She has broken my heart, Richard Vont. She grew to become the dearest thing in my life, and she has left me.—Yesterday she was married."

No exclamation, no movement. The Marquis wiped his eyes and saw with unexpected clearness. What had happened seemed so natural that for a moment he was not even surprised. He stepped over the palings, leaned for a single moment over the body of the man to whom he had been talking, and laid the palm of his hand over the lifeless eyes. Then he walked down the tiled path and called to the woman whose face he had seen through the latticed window.

"Mrs. Wells," he said, "something serious has happened to Vont."

"Your lordship!"

"He is dead," the Marquis told her. "You had better go down to the village and fetch the doctor. I will send a message to his nephew."

Back again across the park, very gorgeous now in the fuller sunshine, casting quaint shadows underneath the trees, glittering upon the streaks of yellow cowslips on the hillside. The birds were singing and the air was as soft as midsummer. He crossed the bridge, turned into the drive and stood for a moment in his own hall. A servant came hurrying towards him.

"Run across the park to Broomleys as fast as you can," his master directed. "Tell Mr. Thain to go at once to Vont's cottage. You had better let him know that Vont is dead."

The young man hastened off. Gossett appeared from somewhere in the background and opened the door of the study towards which the Marquis was slowly making his way.

"The shock has been too much for your lordship," the man murmured. "May I bring you some brandy?"

The Marquis shook his head.

"It is necessary, Gossett," he said, "that I should be absolutely undisturbed for an hour. Kindly see that no one even knocks at my door for that period of time."

Gossett held open the door and closed it softly. He was a very old servant, and in great measure he understood.