Now she had perforce to share her brother-in-law’s
poverty. At any rate he provided a roof over
her head. On the advent of Lady Sue Aldmarshe
into his bachelor establishment he called on his sister-in-law
for the part of duenna.
At one time the fair Editha had exercised her undoubted
charms over Marmaduke’s violent nature, but
latterly she had become a mere butt for his outbursts
of rage. But now to her astonishment, and in response
to her petulant reproach, his fury seemed to fall
away from him. He threw his head back and broke
out into uncontrolled, half-sarcastic, almost defiant
laughter.
“How blind you are, my dear Editha,” he
said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “Nay!
an I mistake not, in that case there will be some
strange surprises for you within the next three months.
I pray you try and curb your impatience until then,
and to bear with the insolence of a serving wench,
’Twill serve you well, mine oath on that!”
he added significantly.
Then without vouchsafing further explanations of his
enigmatic utterances, he turned on his heel—still
laughing apparently at some pleasing thought—and
walked upstairs, leaving her to meditate.
THE LEGAL ASPECT
Mistress de Chavasse sat musing, in that high-backed
chair, for some considerable time. Anon Sir Marmaduke
once more traversed the hall, taking no heed of her
as he went out into the garden. She watched his
broad figure moving along the path and then crossing
the rustic bridge until it disappeared among the trees
of the park.
There was something about his attitude of awhile ago
which puzzled her. And with puzzlement came an
inexplicable fear: she had known Marmaduke in
all his moods, but never in such an one as he had displayed
before her just now. There had been a note almost
of triumph in the laughter with which he had greeted
her last reproach. The cry of the sparrowhawk
when it seizes its prey.
Triumph in Sir Marmaduke filled her with dread.
No one knew better than she did the hopeless condition
of his financial status. Debt—prison
perhaps—was waiting for him at every turn.
Yet he seemed triumphant! She knew him to have
reached those confines of irritability and rebellion
against poverty which would cause him to shrink from
nothing for the sake of gaining money. Yet he
seemed triumphant!
Instinctively she shuddered as she thought of Sue.
She had no cause to like the girl, yet would she not
wish to see her come to harm.
She did not dare avow even to herself the conviction
which she had, that if Sir Marmaduke could gain anything
by the young girl’s death, he would not hesitate
to ... Nay! she would not even frame that thought.
Marmaduke had been kind to her; she could but hope
that temptation such as that, would never come his
way.
Hymn-of-Praise Busy broke in on her meditations.
His nasal tones—which had a singular knack
of irritating her as a rule—struck quite
pleasingly on her ear, as a welcome interruption to
the conflict of her thoughts.
