Flora Annie Webster Steel

“ A great tongue of flame shot out at her, but at the instant she raised her joined hands above her head and dived--a flash of white lit up by the red flare--into deep water.
"By heaven, what pluck!" muttered Marmaduke as, without a second's delay, he plunged from the wharf and swam, with quick overhand strokes, to where the woman had disappeared. He was just preparing to dive after her when she came up close beside him.
One look was sufficient.
"Marmie!" he cried. "God in heaven, am I dreaming? Marmie!" ”

“ And I have wept--dear heart! how I have wept to think that never again would a real son of the real race rule over the barren acres; for, see you, there are no near collaterals. The Pauloffski men die young, fighting, as my sons and grandsons died. But now"--she clasped her hands ecstatically--"now there will be an heir."
"Supposing it is a girl," suggested Marrion, half laughing, half crying.
The old woman swept her hands out in an indignant unconcern.
"What matters it? A child is ever a child! Ever a chip of the old block, ever a fresh root of an old race. ”

“ The front door of the unpretentious tower, with a building like a barn built on to it, that stood magnificently on a little plateau overlooking the valley with a faint glimpse of plain beyond, was wide open, and at it, standing against, but not leaning upon the pilaster, was the most striking figure of a woman Marrion thought she had ever seen. Extreme old age had set its mark on the lined face, with thin white hair drawn under a lace lappet ”

“ Days are long to a man and a woman when one of them passionately desires the other, for every instant counts, every moment spells success or failure. And Fantine Le Grand, with her almost lifelong experience of intrigue, was not one to let the grass grow under her feet. So when, two days later, Marmaduke ran over the quadrangle to beg a favour of Marrion Paul, most of his scruples had disappeared, and, for the time, at any rate, he was an admiring lover, eager to do anything and everything for the woman of the moment. ”

“ Forsaking the seacoast the whole force plunged boldly into the mountains, marching by compass, without road, without guides. Much of the way lay through dense forest--there was no water; but, heartened up by a small brush with a wandering division of the enemy, the men struggled on cheerful as ever, up hill, down dale, during a long and toilsome march from dawn till after nightfall on the 25th. But then came solace. On the sea-coast below them--secure, unprepared--lay the town and harbour of Balaklava, seven miles to the east of Sebastopol. ”

“ The fire, after a brief recrudescence, died down, leaving the slums of the city in ruins, but purified. So cholera, most mysterious of diseases, abated, disappeared from the town; and even in the camps, exposed to the miasma of the Lake of Death, was shorn of half its terrors. And there was a stir as of coming life in the military backwaters. Marmaduke, his face alight, would say that the one thing needful to perfect happiness must be close at hand; for that was the curious thing about finding yourself in love--you wanted to be up and doing all the time. ”

“ As the sunlight faded from the room the old man's breathing became slower and ceased.
Marrion stood looking down on him for a moment before she called for aid. All the time she had been watching she had been thinking, thinking; but she had arrived at nothing. Only deep down in her was a glad feeling of inheritance--a consciousness that the dead man had given her something, something that she held in trust.
Was it only the gold snuff-box, she wondered vaguely, as, back in her own tent, she touched the spring.
"The bearer of this, Prince Paul Pauloffski----" She sat staring at the words. ”

“ In an instant all the old charm, all the old camaraderie came to his voice--
"I knew you would, Marmie. I told her so. You're a real friend, you do such a lot of things for me." Then he in his turn hesitated, looked confused, and finally spoke: "I had such odd dreams that night--the night we danced, you know. I dreamt that you helped me up the stairs and--and put me to bed like a baby." He paused. "Did you, really, Marmie?"
The colour rushed to her face.
"Aye, Captain Duke, I did. Andrew was ill and you were drunk." ”

“ It was the figure of a tall woman in white and the flare of the flames showed that she carried a baby in her arms.
"My God!" he muttered under his breath, for there seemed no possibility of escape.
"Maryam Effendi! Maryam Effendi!" wailed the crowd, adding in mixed French and Turkish--"She has the child! Ah, the brave woman! She has the child!"
Aye, she had it, and she meant to hold it, too! A brave woman indeed! Pausing for a second in her perilous effort to pass from one roof to the other, she pulled off her veil, wrapped it round the child, and knotted it high above her shoulders. ”

“ Far away to the right the horizon of open sea showed a massing of grey hulks and twinkling lights. That was the Fleet ready to aid as it could. Further afield, beyond the debouching of the cliffs, seven thousand Turkish troops prevented a flank attack. Then came the French twenty thousand face to face with the most formidable part of the cliff nearest the sea. After that the British. Marrion, through her spy-glass, could see the Highlanders standing, their faces set and determined. This was to be their first brush with the enemy, and many of them had waited for it so long. ”

“ There were no shambles, and Marrion had time to pick up many wrinkles of nursing from her patron; he taught her how to bring sleep for one thing, the first duty of those who tend the sick. She had time also for regret. Nothing had been heard of Andrew Fraser, though Captain Grant's body had been duly found. It seemed to her as if the last link with the old life had gone, and one day in sudden confidence she said as much to the doctor. Again he shook his head.
"My dear good woman," he remarked, "no one ever gets away from their past. ”

“ The tears sprang to Marrion's eyes.
"Dear lady," she said, taking the outstretched hands and holding their chilliness of age in her warm clasp, "I am not Sacha. I am Paul's daughter!"
Princess Pauloffski drew back and passed her hand over her eyes.
"Excuse me. I forget. I live so much alone and my dead come to see me so often when there is snow. But if you are not Sacha----" She took a step forward and scanned her visitor narrowly. "You say you are Paul's daughter--an English daughter--did he then marry over there? For it is true you are his daughter--even his twin was not more like. ”

“ And from the Carpathian pine woods the little lad travelled more than once to a solitary cairn on the Balkan hills by the side of which Andrew Fraser--who never ceased rejoicing that his plain speaking had shown Marrion the wickedness of stealing the bairn's name--would tell him marvellous tales of the dead colonel, his father, and of his prowess in every way.
The honest fellow had but one care. The double title was the fly in the honey-pot, and when the old Princess would ask, "Where is Prince Pauloffski?" Andrew would invariably reply: "Lord Drummuir is waiting on his mother." ”

“ Then came a faint grating, a shock as the boat, heeled round by his strong arm, struck broadside on on the sand and pitched them forward nearer the land into the breakers. There was a terrific back draw, and Marrion felt as if her arms would be torn out of the sockets; but Marmaduke's grip upon her was as iron; then he was on his feet, then, with a cry--
"Run--run for all you're worth!" He half-dragged her beyond the whole awful onslaught of the sea. Another wild struggle, another forward run, and they were safe on the sandy shore, with low moorland around them. ”

“ As long as Princess Pauloffski ruled over the pine woods, the quaint homely farmhouses, and the devoted peasants, little Marmaduke would have more than welcome; for every week brought ecstatic letters from that entrancing personality which had already made such a mark on Marrion's character. In a way she felt that she had never understood her own womanhood until she had met with the all-embracing femininity of the brave, wise, old mind which seemed to hold a grip of the whole world in its very isolation and solitude. ”

“ Here it was pitiful; the dead lay in clusters, their faces as a rule upturned to the stars. The stretcher-bearers had come and gone, leaving behind those to whom they were useless--as yet. She knelt beside one dead man and wiped away a blood stain from his forehead. He had been orderly once to Duke. Poor soul! Some woman would doubtless wish she had been in her, Marrion's, place. And now the whole hillside was lit up by wandering lights, the lights of men searching for their bosom friends, for their officers. ”

“ Marmie, I've made up my mind; I am going to marry you. I've thought over everything from start to finish, and I'm certain it is the best thing for both of us. Now, my dear girl, let me have my say for once; you shall have yours by-and-by. I'm not going to talk of what you did for me with my father. I'm not sure yet, you see, whether I am vexed or grateful. A man doesn't like to be exactly--well--herded; but you did it; and that intolerable vixen Penelope--but I won't talk about her either. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Five minutes later Fantine Le Grand, in pink wrapper, was watching in the glass Marrion's fingers curling and twisting and combing and puffing. And Marrion was watching the glass also, a half inherited, half acquired perception of what was beautiful and becoming aiding her lack of practice.
"My dear girl," said Fantine delighted, when Marrion stepped back, her task completed, "you're an artist! It makes me look ten years younger. You must come with me." She paused and gave a little conscious laugh. "Anyhow, you are much better than Josephine, and so I shall tell Captain Muir." ”

“ He bent those blue eyes of his suddenly on her. "And so you want me to give Duke the two thousand pounds myself, do you? Of course you do! Trust a woman who is in love asking for the moon." He paused a moment and gave a little laugh. "Heaps of women have asked me to be a saint, my dear, but I never could compass virtue. However, you've given me as good a morning's entertainment as ever I had in my life; and what's more you've given me an opportunity of as fine an afternoon's amusement." Here he chuckled wickedly, then added, "Shall I give you the cheque or send it direct?" ”

“ In the great crises of life one does not weigh pros and cons; decision comes from outside to those who recognise that there is something beyond one's own individual life. It is those who do not see, who fail to recognise the spiritual plane, who cannot distinguish good from evil, evil from good, who err past forgiveness. And from the moment Marrion Paul had heard of the condition on which old Lord Drummuir would buy the colonelcy she had known she must face him again. ”

“ A few rapid words in the country dialect sent driver and sledge round to the stables while Marrion, with an unforeseen thrill of pleasure, recognised that this beautiful old princess must be her grandmother.
"I was looking for my sons and daughters who are dead," said her hostess quietly as she led the way into the house. "The dead always come back with the snow--and I have so many."
Despite the warmth of the wide passage heated by a huge stove Marrion felt a slight shiver run through her. How had her grandmother learnt to speak of the dead as if they were alive? ”

“ Marmaduke, as he made his bow, felt that the clever old lady with the painted face was very clever indeed. She had gauged her man completely. Most people on the task would have supplied him with a befrilled fashionable beauty; the sort of woman with whom he flirted, who amused him, attracted him, tempted him. But this joyous, buoyant girl, with good-breeding in every line and feature----
No, Louisa Lady Broadway had made a mistake; she had reminded him of Marrion Paul. ”

“ Live here--promise me that--use the monies as your own. Keep the old place up for the child; but I will take him for myself. I will bring him up away from the evil traditions of this old house, and when he comes back to it, a man grown, he will be different--even from his father--even, I hope, from me!"
So she said then, but as the years passed little Lord Drummuir came more than once to visit his invalid uncle, for Peter, away from the excitements of town life, defied the doctors for a time. ”

“ By this time it was full seven o'clock, the shadows were lengthening and everyone at the castle would be busy with dinner. Now was her opportunity. Ten minutes afterwards in her bathing suit, but wrapped in her plaid, and with a lighted lantern at the bottom of the boat, for she remembered it would be dark on the return journey, she was pulling with long vigorous strokes to the little pier of seaweed-grown slippery rocks. ”

“ Ah, Marmie, Marmie, it's no use your trying to unbind Tristram Shandy and the Shorter Catechism! We were mixed up together right away in the beginning of things, and we shall be mixed up in the end, you'll see. Now I must be off. Good-bye!"
He held out his hand. She took it and gripped it fast, every fibre of her athrill with the dear touch. Her whole soul seemed for the second to crave for him, for his presence always. And he was going away, out of her life for ever. For she was wiser than he was. She knew that her talk of continued friendship was a sham ”

“ Safe to windward--aye, you bet, safe, jolly safe!--the knot of spectators gathered round a bath-chair. That held his father, of course. And the others? They would not be the old sycophants possibly, but they would be of the same kidney. A woman, too! Not his half-sisters--they, poor souls, would be weeping in the dower house over the injury to their brother the heir and to the heirloom beech! And it would not be Penelope--she had been handed over to Davie Sim. ”

“ Lord Drummuir, brought thereto by many days' indiscretions, Périgord pie at supper, and perchance his hot though transient anger at the finale to the fandango, fell a victim to the sharpest attack of gout he had had since Christmas and kept his side of the house awake with his curses on things in general, and his valet in particular.
And, on the other side of the south wing, Fantine Le Grand, alias Fanny Biggs, sat till dawn, staring at herself in the looking-glass and ciphering out the effect of something, new yet old, which had unexpectedly come into her life. ”

“ She was ill-bred, not over brave, and reverting to her early upbringing she burst into a torrent of abuse of the viper, the hussy who was no better than she should be, who, if Penelope at the keep-house was to be believed--and she had seen her but now--had----
So far Lord Drummuir had let her storm; now he stopped her impatiently.
"I know what Penelope says," he snarled, "and I shall be sorry for her when she hears what I have to say. And I know you, Fanny, down to the ground. You're not a bad sort, but you are getting old. Look in the glass, you foolish woman, and you'll see I'm right. ”

“ Marrion felt that the supreme moment had come; she must stake her all.
"No," she answered quietly. "To show you I threaten nothing, there are my marriage lines. Burn them if you will!"
She sat quite still while the old man, with fingers that trembled visibly, unfolded the paper she gave him. There was no mistaking its worth. In Marmaduke's bold black writing were the words--
"I, Marmaduke Muir, second son of Baron Drummuir, of Drummuir Castle, hereby acknowledge Marrion Paul as my lawful wife." Underneath in her finer writing was her own acknowledgment of her tie to Marmaduke. ”

“ For Davie Sims had been born hereditary servitor to the Drummuir family, and had every intention of dying in the same position.
"He married Penelope from the castle," came Marrion's voice relentlessly, "and his lordship gave her away."
"The devil he did," remarked the young man helplessly to both pieces of information, after a moment's pause due evidently to mingled outrage and amusement. "Well," he added, in male defiance of the woman's point of view, "I expect she makes him an excellent wife." ”

“ Marrion felt vaguely relieved. Unless Andrew Fraser turned up--and he, she knew, if he saw Marmaduke's child, would move heaven and earth to establish his claim to the title--she was quit of Drummuir. But had she any right to be quit of it? The old arguments for and against came back; she began to worry over them once more, especially when the verdict of the Edinburgh specialist to whom she told her tale with passionate assurances that a child's life was always more valuable than a woman's, came succinctly and to the point. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was more shafted sunlight in the distance surely? And that rasping sound in the air--what was it?
Surely a cross-cut saw at work! Then Marmie had as usual told the truth. His father must be cutting down one of the historic beech trees, and there was no need to ring and ask for Lord Drummuir--no need at all! He was to be found as usual ungovernable, insensate, intolerant. A whole youth of rebellion stormed through Marmaduke Muir's mind as, at quick march, he fumed down to where the shameful deed was being done. ”

“ The Honourable Captain Marmaduke Muir, second son of the sixteenth Baron Drummuir of Drummuir, home on leave after an absence of ten years on foreign service, looked at the grand-daughter of his father's head piper and general majordomo as if considering anger. He was too good looking to be accustomed to such rebuffs from pretty girls, especially when they were manifestly beneath him in station. Then suddenly he laughed. The years had fled, and he was a boy again in fast fellowship with a small hoyden of a girl; a girl four years his junior, but infinitely his superior in common sense ”

“ 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, after all, it was but a return to the old plans; so after a while she followed Lord Drummuir's advice and dried her eyes.
"You ought to think yourself deuced lucky," growled Colonel Compton, when he came in, after a time full of alarm and recriminations. "If anyone had told me the old man would take it so quietly I wouldn't have believed it. I expected he would have kicked us both out into the gutter, and then where should we be? And such a mad idea, too! The Honourable Marmaduke Muir as a public dancer--preposterous!" ”

“ He held out an envelope and she took it indifferently; few things really interested her nowadays. It was addressed to Major Muir at his club, and a vague wonder as to what it could contain crossed her mind as she took out the paper it contained.
Then she sat silent staring at it helplessly, for it was Duke's counterpart of their marriage bond which she thought she had seen burnt to ashes on that night when Marmaduke had said, "You have made me feel like a scoundrel!"
How idle, how unreal this world was! Could one be sure of anything? Could one be certain that everything was not a dream? ”

“ The fact is, Marmaduke, I have heard from your father----"
"It is good of you to read his letters; they are not----" began the son stiffly.
"Don't be silly, my dear lad," went on the old woman, "your father has his faults, but he was quite as good-looking as a young man as you are--at any rate, I thought so. Now, he wants you to marry, and he has every reason to wish it. It is the only chance of an heir to the title, for Peter's last escapade has about finished his hopes in that quarter." ”

“ Peter shrugged his shoulders.
"As usual, only more so." He paused and spoke more seriously. "Of course Marmaduke's death cut him to the quick. But I won't speak of that--I can't. He was the only one--and I believe it was the same with the Baron. He showed it in anger. Won't see or hear of me, yet I'd do my best for him. 'Pon my soul, that old man has been the curse of all our lives."
Marrion sat silent. In a way it was true. The old spider had enticed more flies than he knew of into his net. But for her desire that Marmaduke should not fall foul of his father----
But that way lay madness. ”

“ Now, my dear, I am nearly eighty years old, and I understand things as perhaps few women do understand them. I don't expect many men have lived to be your age without forming ties of some kind, especially if they live in Scotland, Marmaduke"--the thrust went home again, she thought--"but money does a lot, especially when there are no children. A good round annuity means much when a man is not well off, as you are, and has probably to wait for many years ere he falls into money--as you have, for Pitt is the heir, of course. ”

“ But Fantine Le Grand looked beyond the old man's life; she looked for comfortable widowhood. So she wandered again to the window and watched the family trio on the lawn. It was far too filial for her tastes. Tom Compton, so-called Colonel of Irregulars, one of her oldest friends, had been right. Jealousy would be a good card to play. And then she laughed suddenly at the recollection of Marmaduke's filial salute. ”