The Wicked Marquis

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Marcia, who had dreamed all night of blue skies flecked with littlefragments of white cloud, a soft west wind and sun-bathed meadows,descended the creaking stairs of the Inn at Fakenham, paused upon thebroad landing to admire the great oak chests and the cupboards full ofchina, and then made her way to the coffee room. She found Bordenstanding at the window, looking down into the country street andtalking with a stranger, whom he left, however, at her entrance. Theytook their places at the breakfast table to which a waiter ushered them.

  "Still lucky," her companion remarked, as he watched Marcia pour outthe coffee. "It's going to be another delightful day."

  She glanced out into the sunlit street. Just opposite was a housealmost hidden in clematis, and in the background was a tall row of elmtrees amongst the branches of which the rooks were cawing.

  "I feel like Rip van Winkle," she whispered. "Do you know thattwenty-five years ago I came to what is called a Farmers' Ordinary inthis very room? Tell me," she went on, "who was the man with whom youwere talking? His face is quite familiar to me."

  He glanced around. Thain had taken his place at the further end of theroom.

  "The man of whom we were speaking the other day," he said,--"DavidThain. I think that you have met him, haven't you?"

  She nodded.

  "Why, of course! I didn't recognise him in tweeds. Whatever is hedoing down here? But I know before you can tell me," she continuedquickly. "He has taken Broomleys, hasn't he?"

  "He told me that he had taken a house in the neighbourhood," Bordenreplied. "He is going over there this morning to meet the presentoccupiers."

  "It is a very small world," Marcia observed. "I wonder whether herecognised me."

  "Without undue flattery, I think I might say that I should think itprobable."

  "And of course he is imagining all sorts of improper things,--chucklingabout them, I dare say, in the way men do. He is being what I supposehe thinks tactful. He never glances in this direction at all. I'llgive him a surprise in a minute or two!"

  They finished their breakfast, and Marcia crossed towards David'stable. As soon as he was conscious of her approach, he rose. Hewelcomed her, however, without a smile.

  "From Trewly's at dinner to the Mandeleys Arms for breakfast," sheremarked, smiling. "I feel quite flattered that you remembered me, Mr.Thain."

  "Did I show any signs of remembering you?" he asked a little grimly.

  "Of course you didn't," she acknowledged. "You ignored even mysweetest bow. That is why I felt sure that you recognised meperfectly."

  David remained silent, standing still with an air of complete butrespectful patience.

  "You have taken a house down here, the Marquis tells me," she continued.

  "I have taken Broomleys."

  "I hope that you will like the neighbourhood," she said. "I used tolive here once myself."

  "So I understood."

  She was for a moment taken aback, conscious now of a certain definitelyinimical attitude in the man who stood looking coldly into her eyes.

  "You know all about me, then? That is the worst of getting into 'Who'sWho.'"

  "I know more about you than I do about your companion, certainly," headmitted.

  She laughed mockingly. To a downright declaration of war she had noobjection whatever.

  "That is Mr. Borden, who publishes my stories," she told him. "I don'tsuppose you read them, do you?"

  "I am not sure," he replied. "I read very little modern fiction, and Inever look at the names of the authors."

  "Then we must take it for granted," she sighed, "that my fame isunknown to you. If you should see the Marquis before I do, please tellhim that he was entirely wrong about the best route here. His advicehas cost us nearly thirty miles and a punctured tire. You won'tforget?"

  "Certainly not," he promised.

  She turned away with a little nod of farewell, to which David'sresponse was still entirely formal. Left alone in the room he resumedhis breakfast, finished it with diminished appetite, and within a fewminutes was speeding through the country lanes in his great Rolls-Roycecar. The chauffeur sat a little uneasily in his place. It was veryseldom that his master showed such signs of haste. In a quarter of anhour they were in the avenue of Mandeleys. Instead of turning to theright, however, to Broomleys, he took the turning to the Abbey andpulled up short when within a hundred yards of the house.

  "Wait here for me," he directed. "If you see another car coming up,blow your horn."

  He walked across the smooth, ancient turf, stepped over the wire fenceand raised the latch of Richard Vont's cottage gate. His uncle, alittle disturbed, came hastily down the garden path. His clothes werestained with clay, and the perspiration was on his forehead. Davidlooked at him in surprise.

  "Working so early?"

  Vont nodded.

  "You forget," he said, "that this is not early for me. All my life Ihave risen with the sun and gone to bed with it. Come inside, David.I'll get this muck off my hands. You spoke of the afternoon."

  "I came direct from the village," David replied, as he followed hisuncle into the house. "I came because I thought you would like to knowthat there is another visitor on the way to see you."

  Richard Vont looked round and faced his nephew. His shirt was open atthe throat, his trousers were tied up with little pieces of string. Inwhatever labour he had been engaged, it had obviously been of astrenuous character. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

  "What's that, David?" he demanded. "A visitor?"

  "Marcia is at the Mandeleys Arms," David told him. "I am taking it forgranted that she is on her way to see you."

  Vont turned deliberately away, and David heard his heavy feet ascendingthe staircase. In a few moments he called downstairs. His voice wasas usual.

  "Step round this afternoon, lad, if you think it's well."

  David passed out of the little garden, crossed the strip of park, and,taking the wheel, drove slowly round by the longer route to Broomleys.He passed before the front of the Abbey--a mansion of the dead, withrow after row of closed blinds, masses of smokeless chimneys, andpatches of weeds growing thick in the great sweep before the house.Even with its air of pitiless desertion, its severe,semi-ecclesiastical outline, its ruined cloisters empty to the sky onone wing, its unbroken and gloomy silence, the place had itsatmosphere. David slackened the speed of his car, paused for a momentand looked back at the little creeper-covered cottage on the other sideof the moat. So those two had faced one another through the years--theAbbey, silent, magnificent, historical, with all the placid majesty ofits countless rows of windows; its chapel, where Mandeleys forgenerations had been christened and buried,--at its gates the littlecottage, whose garden was filled with spring flowers, and from whosesingle stack of chimneys the smoke curled upwards. Even while hewatched, Richard Vont stood there upon the threshold with a great bookunder his arm.

  David shivered a little as he threw in the clutch, passed on round theback of the building and through the iron gates of the ancient dowerhouse. He felt a little sigh of relief as he pulled up in front of thelong, grey house, in front of which Sylvia Laycey was waiting toreceive him. She waved her hand gaily and looked with admiration atthe car.

  "They are all here, Mr. Thain," she exclaimed,--"Mr. Merridrew andfather and your own builder. Come along and quarrel about thefixtures. I thought I had better stay with you because dad loses histemper so."

  David descended almost blithely from his car. He was back again in ahuman atmosphere, and the pressure of the girl's fingers was an instantrelief to him.

  "I am not going to quarrel with any one," he declared. "I shall doexactly what Mr. Muddicombe tells me--and you."

  She was a very pleasant type of young Englishwoman--distinctly pretty,fair-skinned, healthy and good-humoured. Notwithstanding the fact thattheir acquaintance was of the briefest, David was already conscious ofher charm.

  "You'll fin
d me, in particular, very grasping," she declared, as theyentered the long, low hall. "I want to make everything I can out ofyou, so that daddy and I can have a real good two months in London. Idon't believe you know the value of things a bit, do you--except ofrailways and those colossal things? Cupboards, for instance? Do youknow anything about cupboards? And are you going to allow us anythingfor the extra bathroom we put in?"

  "Well, I am rather partial to bathrooms," he confessed, "and I shouldhate you to take it away with you."

  She drew a sigh of relief.

  "So long as you look upon the bathroom matter reasonably, I am quitesure we shan't quarrel. Tell me about Lady Letitia, please? Is shequite well--and the Marquis and all of them? And when are they comingdown?"

  "They are quite well," he told her, "and Lady Letitia sent you herlove. They talk of coming down almost at once."

  "I do hope they will," she replied, "because when we leave here dad andI are going to stay for a week or so with some friends quite near.There! Did you hear that noise? That's daddy stamping because he isgetting impatient."

  "Then perhaps--" David suggested.

  "I suppose we'd better," she interrupted. "Be lenient about thebathroom, please. And if you could manage not to notice that thedining room wants papering, you'd be an angel. This way."