Marmaduke Part 29

"Verra ill indeed, m'm. It's the co-lira, and they're sayin' he's like to dee--G.o.d forbid it!"

"Like to die!"

Well, it was best to know the truth. She put on her European dress and started, remembering as she rode through the flower-set meadows how they had planned this visit to his hut. How she should spend the day there and be introduced to his friends. For though they never spoke of the future or the past, living only in the present heaven, Marmaduke had evidently never considered the possibility of separation and she had been content to let such possibilities slide.

And now? She bit her lip to keep it from quivering as Andrew met her.

"He's lying in the arbour, m'm. And he's no worse, anyway."

Yes, there he was, lying--such a long length--on his camp-bed covered with his plaid. Lying under the arbour of Jonah's gourd, about which he had chattered so gaily as being a laughing-stock to the other officers, though they dearly loved to sit in its shade. The ripe fruit hung scarlet amid the yellowing leaves. It seemed to throw the blue pallor of his face into louder warning that Death was in grips with Life.

She knelt beside the bed and took his hand without one word. She had seen too many cholera cases to hope for speech, but the eyelids quivered and the fingers closed on hers.

"How long?" she asked.

"Since yesterday morning. He would not give in--we were to move to-night, ye see----"

"Why didn't you----?" Words failed her for reproach.

"He wouldna let me send. I'm thinking he was afraid for ye."

There was a long pause. Her heart was full of regret, of bitterness.

Afraid for her--oh, Duke, Duke!

"And he has everything?"

"Aye, everything! The doctor will be here again the now."

He came and found his patient better. He opened his eyes and smiled.

Collapse had gone, the following fever had laid hold on him. Would his heart stand it? All that day he lay in something like sleep--quiet, so long as his hand could find that other hand. Once or twice she caught a whispered word of command and once, urgent, came a call for reinforcements. His mind was at battle--far, far from her. About an hour before sunset he turned his head and looked at her.

"I've done it," he said faintly; "I've done it!"

The doctor came in many a time and oft. The orderlies were always doing something; but her part was to hold his hand until the last. She saw it coming clearly; she knew that it must be so.

Someone in the arbour suggested a clergyman, and they sent to fetch one.

"He will be too late," half-whispered a voice.

Was it hers? Too late! As if it mattered? As if He who made----

Hark! A bird singing. It had come in after the fruit--perhaps he had fed it, for he loved G.o.d's creatures--and now not five yards from where he lay it was giving its heart out in full-throated song.

Hus.h.!.+ Listen! Listen!--it seemed to say.

The still figure was growing more still.

The slow breathing grew slower.

The touch of these cold fingers on hers grew colder.

Then their feeble clasp had gone, but the bird sang on.

She rose unsteadily, drew the plaid over his face, and left the tent.

She did not seem to realise the presence of others.

Andrew ran after her.

"Marrion, Marrion, whaur are ye gaun? Ye poor, poor thing!" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely in the extremity of his bewildered grief. "Bide a wee, and I'll see ye haim."

"I am going to walk home," she said dully. "It will do me good. I must--I must do something--and I must be alone."

So she walked over the meadows, crus.h.i.+ng the drifts of purple colchic.u.m under her feet. What had he called the flower of death? Ah, the iris! That would come in the spring. It would flower on his grave perhaps. And all the time she felt his cold hand on hers, she heard the bird's full song. How he would have loved to hear it! Perhaps he had.

It was dark ere she reached the vine pergola where they had been so happy, and she started when a tall officer in Highland costume came towards her. Was it all a bad dream? Was she waking to find him still her own? But he was only the bearer of a kindly message from the regiment to say that the colonel was to be buried at dawn, and that if Mrs. Marsden----

"Who told you I was Mrs. Marsden?" she asked sharply. "Andrew Fraser?"

The officer bowed and went on.

"As one of the colonel's oldest friends, would care----"

She shook her head. She was grateful. It was a kind thought. But Colonel Muir was Colonel Muir and everybody loved him--he would have enough friends.

"Madam," said the young officer, with a break in his voice, "when we lower him into his solitary grave--he is to be buried on the hill above his tent where he sat so often--we shall all know that the finest fellow in the regiment, nay, in the whole army, has gone from us."

She lay that night, her face crushed into the pillow without a sob.

Only once or twice she whispered to herself.

"Ah, Duke, Duke, I'm glad I made you happy--so glad--so glad!"

She was up betimes to take her stand on a neighbouring hill, where, un.o.bserved, she could watch him laid to his rest. Not a tent was to be seen; the battalion had s.h.i.+fted quarters during the night; the forward march to which he had looked with such longing had begun, and he----

Close by the belt of forest trees she could see his dismantled hut; a heap of packed baggage piled close by with a sentry on guard beside it. But the arbour hid what it held. So, as the sun rose, the leaden beat of the Dead March rose, as the regiment, followed by detachments from all and every regiment in Varna, drew up in a lane to let the artillery with a gun-carriage draped with the colours pa.s.s up.

Just his coat, his plaid, his sword, his bonnet, that was all. And after him his grey Arab--the one she had ridden--fully dressed. That was Andrew on the one side, and the other three? Generals, she supposed, by their uniforms.

What a crowd of officers! And the men, marching so slowly to the m.u.f.fled beat! Would they never reach the grave?

At last. Now there were some words of command--heard vaguely as inarticulate cries--the long procession formed up, ma.s.sed itself into a hollow square.

They must be reading the service now.

"Being dead yet liveth--yet liveth--yet liveth----"

She held fast to that, as her eyes travelled where his had so often rested in content--thank G.o.d for that--in sheer content.

So, as she looked at the wide expanse of hill and valley, lake and sea, those half-heard words of his came back to memory--"I've done it--I have done it!"