He stood staring at her. It was no news to him, of course, even though mails had been infrequent during those ten years, that there was an open breach between his father and the heir, nor was he unaware of his father's savage temper; that, and the impossibility of getting a decent allowance to enable him to live in England being responsible for those same ten years of foreign service. But distance softens shadows; besides, the very idea that a man could go and cut down historical trees just to spite another man was foreign to Marmaduke's nature.
"Oh, curse the whole lot!" he broke out at last. "Upon my soul I'll go back to the East--it isn't half a bad place--or wouldn't be if one only had a little tin--besides, I must get the money for my majority."
His words, following his impulsive thoughts, made Marrion smile indulgently.
"I wouldn't if I was you, Mr.--I mean Captain Duke," she remarked, with a twinkle in her eye. "Mayhap, my lord will bury the hatchet now you're home, if ye don't anger him." She looked pretty with that half-mischievous smile, and the sight cheered Marmaduke instantly.
"What a wise lassie you always were, Marmie," he said, with wilful charm, "and what a lot of scrapes you've gotten me out of, and what a lot you'd get me out of, if you were only bound up with me like the Shorter Catechism was by mistake with Tristram Shandy--d'you remember? Good lord, I've forgotten my duty to my neighbour! However, here goes, and I'll do my best not to anger the baron! You see, I must get the money for my majority," he added, half to himself, as he spun round on his heel rather dramatically.
In fact, there was no denying it, the Honourable Marmaduke Muir was a trifle flamboyant as he swaggered across the courtyard which led from the old keep of Drummuir Castle to the southern and modern portion of the building. Marrion Paul watched the figure with a certain distaste. Perhaps, she thought, it was only the ultrafashionable dress, the all too palpable fit-out of a smart military tailor, eager for a bill, that clashed with the grim old walls. Inside he had seemed much the same as she remembered him. Kindly, affectionate, not over wise, but charming, absolutely charming. And, after all, who was she to judge a gentleman born? That question was a hard one to answer. Her mother had undoubtedly been Maggie Sim, old Sim's daughter, who had been maid to the first Lady Drummuir. But her father had been Paul, the foreign valet, whom Lord Drummuir's younger brother had brought over with him when he was invalided from the diplomatic service. A very decent, respectable sort of chap, as old Sim admitted even while he objected strongly to his daughter's marriage. Not without reason it turned out, since Paul, after tending his sick master with unremitting care and resource until his death, disappeared the day of the funeral, leaving his young wife expecting her first child. And he had never been heard of since. That Mrs. Paul should pine away and die early was, the folk about said, only to be expected, for Paul, despite his foreign birth, had been a man to be regretted--a man who had a way with him which his daughter had inherited. She, however, would never hear a word in his favour, and nothing made her more angry than to find in herself little traits of character unaccountable to her sturdy Scots upbringing.
So she told herself that she was no judge of what a gentleman's dress or deportment should be, and turned at the sound of a footstep coming through the archway of the keep behind her to greet the newcomer with a more effusive welcome than she would otherwise have given the young man who came towards her carrying a valise on his shoulder. He set down his burden and grasped her outstretched hand in a sort of transport.
"Ah, Marrion--Marrion, my lass!" he cried. "God, but it's gude to see you once mair!"
The words summed him up from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. You might have spent long hours in analysing Andrew Fraser's mind and body at that particular moment, and you would have got no nearer the mark, since for the time being existence was sheer gladness because of the sight of a woman.
"And I've brocht him safe home as ye bade me when I joined. Ye'll have seen him yerself. He's fine, isn't he?"