Marmaduke

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

But the beauties of Varna got the better of his reflections and he drew a picture of it that filled Marrion with doubts and delight. "It is as beautiful as Scotland--the lakes stretching away into the scarped woody hills, the sea--so calm that the clouds reflected seem to sail on it--almost motionless on the shore. The green sward down to the very edge of the lakes, carpeted with flowers, especially with irises. They call it the flower of death in India, and I noticed an evening mist, thick enough almost to be called a fog, rising at sunset from the low levels and enveloping the town. It did not augur well for health. As for the town itself, words fail. It is Gallipoli over again with fewer drains and more filth. Yet to look at it in the clear sunlight, it is the new Jerusalem. And there are angels in it, Marmie; the sort of angels you love. I really think these little Turks and Turkesses are the prettiest children I ever saw. Their little yellow faces and big brown eyes make one think of Rubens' cherubs seen through smoked glasses like an eclipse! And an eclipse of most things it is often for the poor little beggars. At Kustendji, the other day, Hyde Parker found a couple of pure babies on the battlefield where the Russians had been bombarding. They're the pets of his frigate now; but there are dozens of them who have no such luck, and dozens more, I expect, who die of sheer hunger because we locusts of war eat up everything. There will be ninety thousand of us here before long, and for how long? God knows! Five months and nothing done! I wonder how you would stand it? But it wouldn't happen if you were at the head of affairs. You'd manage somehow. I feel it in my bones. And, joking apart, women would be very useful out here. We are going to have a lot of sick to begin with, and then the misery of the poor folk in town and village is appalling. However, I suppose England must have time to turn round and yawn before she wakes up to anything."

Marrion Paul got that letter early one June morning. She laid it down among the muslins and laces and went to the window. The street was empty, but she saw, as clearly as if he had really been there, Marmaduke Muir's buoyant figure going forth to war, full of hope and confidence.

She never took long making up her mind; and, absolutely without ties as she was, there were few factors to be considered. Her business was such a personal one that she had only herself to consult. She had money and to spare in the bank. Finally, within her heart was the same spirit of adventure, the same disregard of conventionalities which had always attracted her in Marmaduke.

Last of all his stockings were not adequately mended.

She laughed aloud at the whimsical thought, for she had no intention of thrusting herself upon him. But she could be near at hand, and she, at any rate, need not turn round and yawn before she realised that women could help.

So quietly, methodically, she set matters in train to get all the work she had in hand speedily finished. She wrote declining a few orders that had come in, and then set off with one of her daintiest little creations to see the wife of the Turkish ambassador, who happened to be one of her customers.

But, indeed, as Mrs. Marsden, of the "Layettes," she could command plenty of backstairs influence.

The result being that in less than a week she was stepping into the Dover boat on her way to Marseilles, that being the quickest route to Constantinople. She carried with her credentials from the ambassador's family, which she meant to use, if necessary, though she hoped to be able to do without them, as anything in the nature of publicity might prevent her carrying out her plan of reaching Varna without Marmaduke being aware of the fact. As a precaution she wrote to him the day she left, telling him not to expect further news from her for a few weeks as she had decided on attempting a cure for her lameness, which a clever young hospital doctor had advised, but which involved a long rest.

She had engaged her passage to Constantinople by a small Turkish mailboat which sailed between Marseilles and the Black Sea. She did this partly from desire to avoid her fellow-countrymen and the possibility of recognition or notice, but more because the voyage would give her an opportunity of learning a few words of Turkish and of becoming acquainted at least with the husk of Turkish ways. She had brought a grammar with her, and was laboriously learning perfectly useless phrases, when something occurred which sent books to the right-about and plunged her at once into the work she had hoped almost beyond hope to be able to reach. Cholera, at that time sweeping erratically through Europe, broke out among the steerage passengers. A mother died, leaving her month-old baby to be cared for as best it could. Marrion claimed it, thus became acquainted with the ship's surgeon and was his right hand in the sharp, decisive epidemic that followed. It was one of those shipboard epidemics when every hour brings a new case, until suddenly, with some change of wind or course, the sickness ceases as it came, mysteriously. They were off the coast of Candia when the little Turk doctor, who had passed at a French medical school, made an elaborate bow, laid his hand on his heart, and said, "Madame, je suis votre serviteur." The few convalescents lying about in the scuppers murmured the same thing in Turkish, making Marrion realise that what she had set herself to do was possible, if only she could get footing amongst the people. She decided finally on consulting her new friend, the little surgeon.

"Varna!" he echoed. "So madame desires Varna! That is strange, since, being in quarantine, we shall not be allowed to stop at Constantinople. We must go on straight to Varna, where the disease already is."