The Wicked Marquis Part 39

"Is this the way," she asked, "that Americans woo? Do they imprison the lady of their choice in some retired spot and make a cash offer for their affections? You are at least original, Mr. Thain!"

"If I can't bring myself to ask you in plain words what I am craving for," he answered hoa.r.s.ely, "you can guess why. I know very well that there is only one thing about me that counts in your eyes. I know that I should be only an appendage to the money that would make your father happy and Mandeleys free. And yet I don't care. I want you--you first, and then yourself."

"You have some faith, then, in your eligibility--and your methods of persuasion?" she observed.

"Haven't I reason?" he retorted. "You people here are all filled up with rotten, time-exploded notions, bound with silken bonds, wors.h.i.+ppers of false G.o.ds. You don't see the truth--you don't know it.

I am not sure that I blame you, for it's a beautiful slavery, and but for the ugly realities of life you'd prosper in it and have children just as wonderful and just as ignorant. But, you see, the times are changing. I am one of the signs of them."

"If this were an impersonal discussion," Let.i.tia began, struggling to compose her voice--

"But it isn't," he broke in. "I am speaking of you and of me, and no one else. I'm fool enough to love you, to be mad about you! Fool enough to make you an offer of which any man with a grain of self-respect should be ashamed."

"I quite agree with you," she said smoothly. "Perhaps it will end this very interesting little episode if I tell you that I am engaged to marry Lord Charles Grantham, and that he is coming down to-morrow."

He released her hands--flung them from him almost.

"Is this the truth?" he demanded.

She laughed lightly.

"Why on earth," she asked, "should I take the trouble to tell you anything else?"

He pointed to the path.

"Get on," he ordered.

She found herself obeying him--without resentment, even. When they reached the gate that led into the park, he held it open and remained.

She hesitated for a moment.

"You are going to leave me to brave the perils of the rest of the journey alone?" she asked.

He made no answer. She lifted her skirts a little, for the dew was becoming heavier, and made her graceful way down the slope and across the bridge to the postern gate. Arrived there, she looked round.

David Thain had vanished back into the grove.

Let.i.tia made her way into her own room and closed the door. She lit both of the candles upon her dressing table, pulled back the lace of her sleeves and looked at her wrists. There were two red marks there, red marks which, as she stared at them, seemed suddenly again to feel the iron pressure. She stared at them, half in surprise, without anger and yet with a curious emotion. Suddenly she found that she was trembling, obsessed with a strange yet irresistible impulse. She bent down and lightly kissed the flaming marks. Then she blew out the candles, threw herself into the easy-chair which, earlier in the day, she had drawn up to the window, and looked steadily back into the park now fast becoming a phantasy of shadowland.

CHAPTER XXVII

The Marquis, with several account books and Mr. Merridrew, who had ridden over from his office on a motor-bicycle, had settled down to a laborious evening. The former, for no particular reason, was enjoying a slight relapse into his customary optimism.

"I am not without expectation," the Marquis commenced by explaining to his agent, "that at the end of the next two months I may find myself in possession of a large sum of money. Under those circ.u.mstances, it will not be a purposeless proceeding to work out what is really required in the way of repairs on the various farms. It will be a great pleasure for me to meet my tenants in any way possible. On the whole, I consider that they have been very reasonable and loyal."

Mr. Merridrew agreed with his lords.h.i.+p, agreed with him fervently.

"Some of them," he confessed, "have been very troublesome. A few of them have been driven to make some slight repairs themselves, but on the whole, your lords.h.i.+p, it would be a great relief if one were able to a.s.sist them so far as regards positive dilapidations."

The Marquis dipped his pen in the ink and settled down to his task. At that moment, however, Gossett knocked at the door, opened it and advanced towards his master with a card upon a salver.

"The gentleman is staying at Fakenham, I believe, sir, and has motored over."

The Marquis lifted the card. "Mr. James Borden" at first conveyed nothing to him. Then he felt a sudden stab of memory.

"The gentleman wishes to see me?" he enquired.

"He begs to be allowed a short interview with your lords.h.i.+p," Gossett replied.

"You can show him into the library," was the brief direction. "Mr.

Merridrew," he added, turning to the agent, "you can proceed with the abstract without me. I shall return in time to go through the totals and learn the family records of the various tenants--I refer, of course, to those with which I am not acquainted."

Mr. Merridrew was quite sure that he could manage alone and settled down to his task. The Marquis presently left him and crossed the great hall, one of the wonders of Mandeleys, the walls of which were still hung with faded reproductions, in ornate tapestry, of mediaeval incidents. From somewhere amongst the shadows came Gossett, who gravely took up his stand outside the library. As though with some curious prescience of the fact that this was an unwelcome visitor, his bow, as he threw open the door, was lower even than usual.

"Shall I light the lamp, your lords.h.i.+p?" he asked.

The Marquis glanced towards the oriel windows, through which the light came scantily, and at the figure of James Borden, advancing now from somewhere in the dim recesses of the room--an apartment which remained marvellously little altered since the days when it had contained the laboriously collected books of a Franciscan order of Monks.

"Perhaps it would be as well, Gossett," his master a.s.sented. "You wish to see me?" he added, turning towards his visitor.

James Borden had come posthaste from London, acting upon an impulse which had swept him off his feet. All the way down he had been the prey to turbulent thoughts. A hundred different ways of conducting this interview had presented themselves before him with such facility that he had come to look upon it as one of the easiest things on earth.

Yet now the moment had arrived he was conscious of an unexpected embarra.s.sment. The strange tranquillity of the house and this stately apartment, the personality of the Marquis himself--serene, slightly curious, yet with that indefinable air of good-breeding which magnifies the obligations of a host--had a paralysing effect upon him. He was tongue-tied, uncertain of himself. All the many openings which had come to him so readily faded away.

"My name is Borden," he announced. "I have come here, hoping for a short conversation with you."

The Marquis made no immediate reply. He watched the lighting of a huge lamp which Gossett silently placed in the middle of an ebony black writing table, to the side of which he had already drawn up two high-backed chairs.

"Is there anything else your lords.h.i.+p desires?" the man asked.

"Not at present, Gossett. I will ring."

The Marquis pointed towards one of the chairs, and seated himself in the other.

"I shall be very glad to hear of your business with me, Mr. Borden," he said courteously.

His visitor had lost none of his embarra.s.sment. The Marquis, in his old-fas.h.i.+oned dinner clothes, his black stock, the fob which hung from his waistcoat, his finely chiselled features, and that mysterious air of being entirely in touch with his surroundings, had him at a disadvantage from the first. Borden was wearing the somewhat shabby blue serge suit in which he had travelled all day, and which he had neglected to brush. He had been too much in earnest about his mission to do more than make the most hasty toilet at the hotel. The high-backed chair, which suited the Marquis so well, was an unfamiliar article of furniture to him, and he sat upon it stiffly and without ease. Nevertheless, he reminded himself that he was there--he must say what he had come to say.

"I am venturing to address you, Lord Mandeleys," he began, "upon a personal subject."

The Marquis raised his eyebrows gently. It was perhaps a suggestion of surprise that a personal subject should exist, lending itself to discussion between him and this visitor.

"And before I go any further," the latter continued, "I want to make it clear that I am here at my own initiative only--that the other person interested is entirely ignorant of my visit."

Mr. Borden paused, and the Marquis made no sign whatever. He was sitting quite upright in his chair, the fingers of his right hand toying lazily with an ancient paper knife, fas.h.i.+oned of yellow ivory.

"Nevertheless," the speaker went on, "I wish to tell you that my visit is a sequel to a conversation which I had last night with Miss Marcia Hannaway, a conversation during which I asked her, not for the first time, to be my wife."

The Marquis's fingers ceased to trifle with the paper knife.

Otherwise, not a muscle of his body or a single twitch of the features betrayed any emotion. Nevertheless, his visitor realised for the first time that all his life he had had a wrong conception of this man. He knew quite well that he had altogether underrated the difficulties of his task.