Jeanne of the Marshes Part 44

There was a moment's silence. Jeanne looked up and found Kate's magnificent eyes fixed steadfastly upon her face.

"Is it for no other reason, miss," she asked, "that you have come back?"

"For none other in the world," Jeanne answered. "I was unhappy in London, and I wanted to get somewhere where I should be quite unknown.

That is why I came here."

"You didn't come back," Kate asked, "to see more of Mr. De la Borne, then?"

The simple directness of the question seemed to rob it of its impertinence. Jeanne laughed goodhumouredly.

"I can a.s.sure you that I did not," she answered. "To tell you the truth, and I hope that you will be kind and remember that I do not wish any one to know this, the reason why I only go out so early in the morning or late at night is because I do not wish to see any one from the Red Hall. I do not wish them to know that I am here."

"They do gossip in a small place like this most amazing," the girl said slowly. "When you and the other lady came down from London to stay up yonder, they did say that you were a great heiress, and that Mr. De la Borne was counting on marrying you, and buying back all the lands that have slipped away from the De la Bornes back to Burnham Market and Wells towns.h.i.+p."

Jeanne shrugged her shoulders.

"I cannot help," she said, "what people say. Every one has spoken of me always as being very rich, and a good many men have wanted to marry me to spend my money. That is why I came down here, if you want to know, Miss Caynsard. I came to escape from a man whom my stepmother was determined that I should marry, and whom I hated."

The girl looked at her wonderingly.

"It is a strange manner of living," she said, "when a girl is not to choose her own man."

"In any case," Jeanne said smiling, "if I had but one or two to choose from in the world, I should never choose Mr. De la Borne."

The girl was gloomily silent. She was looking up towards the Red Hall, her lips a little parted, her face dark, her brows lowering.

"'Tis a family," she said slowly, "that have come down well-nigh to their last acre. They hold on to the Hall, but little else. Folk say that for four hundred years or more the De la Bornes have heard the sea thunder from within them walls. 'Tis, perhaps, as some writer has said in a book I've found lately, that the old families of the country, when once their menkind cease to be soldiers or fighters in the world, do decay and become rotten. It is so with the De la Bornes, or rather with one of them."

"Mr. Andrew," Jeanne remarked timidly.

"Mr. Andrew," the girl interrupted, "is a great gentleman, but he is never one of those who would stop the rot in a decaying race. He is a great strong man is Mr. Andrew, and deceit and littleness are things he knows nothing of. I wish he were here to-day."

The girl's face wore a troubled expression. Jeanne began to suspect that she had not as yet come to the real object of this interview.

"Why do you wish that Mr. Andrew were here?" Jeanne asked. "What could he do for you that Mr. Cecil could not?"

A strange look filled the girl's eyes.

"I think," she said, "that I would not go to Mr. Cecil whatever might betide, but there is a matter--"

She hesitated again. Jeanne looked at her thoughtfully.

"You have something on your mind, I think, Miss Caynsard," she said.

"Can I help you? Do you wish to tell me about it?"

The girl seemed to have made up her mind. She was standing quite close to Jeanne now, and she spoke without hesitation.

"You remember the young lord," she said, "of whom there has been so much in the papers lately? He was staying at the Red Hall when you were, and is supposed to have left for London early one morning and disappeared."

"Lord Ronald Engleton," Jeanne said. "Yes, I know all about that, of course."

"Sometimes," Kate said slowly, "I have had strange thoughts about him.

Mr. Cecil and the other man, Major Forrest they call him, are still at the Hall, and the servants say that they do little but drink and swear at one another. I wonder sometimes why they are there, and why Mr.

Andrew stays away."

Jeanne leaned a little forward in her chair. Something in the other's words had interested her.

"There is something," she said, "behind in your thoughts. What is it?"

The girl was silent for a moment.

"To-night," she said, "if you have the courage to come with me, I will show you what I mean."

CHAPTER XIII

"I am afraid," Jeanne declared, "that I cannot go on. I have not the eyes of a cat. I cannot see one step before me."

Her companion laughed softly as she turned round.

"I forgot," she said. "You are town bred. To us the darkness is nothing. Do not be afraid. I know the way, every inch of it. Give me your hand."

"But I cannot see at all," Jeanne declared. "How far is this place?"

"Less than a mile," Kate answered. "Trust to me. I will see that nothing happens to you. Hold my hand tightly, like that. Now come."

Jeanne reluctantly trusted herself to her companion's guidance. They made their way down the rough road which led from the home of the Caynsards, half cottage, half farmhouse, to the lane at the bottom.

There was no moon, and though the wind was blowing hard, the sky seemed everywhere covered with black clouds. When Kate opened the wooden gate which led on to the marshes, Jeanne stopped short.

"I am not going any farther," she declared. "Even you, I am sure, could not find your way on the marshes to-night. Didn't you hear what the fisherman said, too, that it was a flood tide? Many of the paths are under water. I will not go any farther, Kate. If there is anything you have to tell me, say it now."

She felt a hand suddenly tighten upon her arm, a hand which was like a vice.

"You must come with me," Kate said. "As to the other things, do not be foolish. On these marshes I am like a cat in a dark room. I could feel my way across every inch of them on the blackest night that ever was. I know how high the tide is. I measured it but half an hour since by Treadwell's pole. You come with me, miss. You'll not miss your way by a foot. I promise you that."

Even then Jeanne was reluctant. They were on the top of the gra.s.s-grown d.y.k.e now, and below she could dimly see the dark, swelling water lapping against the gravel bottom.

"But you do not understand," she declared. "I do not even know where to put my feet. I can see nothing, and the wind is enough to blow us over the sides. Listen! Listen how it comes booming across the sand dunes.

It is not safe here. I tell you that I must go back."

Her companion only laughed a little wildly.

"There will be no going back to-night," she said. "You must come with me. Set your feet down boldly. If you are afraid, take this."

She handed her a small electric torch.