Jeanne of the Marshes
Page 4
CHAPTER IV
About half-way through dinner that night, Cecil de la Borne drew a longsigh of relief. At last his misgivings were set at rest. His party wasgoing to be, was already, in fact, pronounced, a success. A glance athis fair neighbour, however, who was lighting her third or fourthRussian cigarette since the caviare, sent a shiver of thankfulnessthrough his whole being. What a sensible fellow Andrew had been toclear out. This sort of thing would not have appealed to him at all.
"My dear Cecil," the Princess declared, "I call this perfectlydelightful. Jeanne and I have wanted so much to see you in your ownhome. Jeanne, isn't this nicer, ever so much nicer, than anything youhad imagined?"
Jeanne, who was sitting opposite, lifted her remarkable eyes andglanced around with interest.
"Yes," she admitted, "I think that it is! But then, any place thatlooks in the least like a home is a delightful change after all thatrushing about in London."
"I agree with you entirely," Major Forrest declared. "If our friend hasdisappointed us at all, it is in the absence of that primitivenesswhich he led us to expect. One perceives that one is drinking VeuveClicquot of a vintage year, and one suspects the nationality of ourhost's cook."
"You can have all the primitivism you want if you look out of thewindows," Cecil remarked drily. "You will see nothing but a line ofstunted trees, and behind, miles of marshes and the greyest sea whichever played upon the land. Listen! You don't hear a sound like that inthe cities."
Even as he spoke they heard the dull roar of the north wind boomingacross the wild empty places which lay between the Red Hall and thesea. A storm of raindrops was flung against the window. The Princessshivered.
"It is an idyll, the last word in the refining of sensations," MajorForrest declared. "You give us sybaritic luxury, and in order that weshall realize it, you provide the background of savagery. In theCarlton one might dine like this and accept it as a matter of course.Appreciation is forced upon us by these suggestions of the wildernesswithout."
"Not all without, either," Cecil de la Borne remarked, raising hiseyeglass and pointing to the walls. "See where my ancestors frown downupon us--you can only just distinguish their bare shapes. No De laBorne has had money enough to have them renovated or even preserved.They have eaten their way into the canvases, and the canvases into thevery walls. You see the empty spaces, too. A Reynolds and a Gainsboro'have been cut out from there and sold. I can show you long emptygalleries, pictureless, and without a scrap of furniture. We haveghosts like rats, rooms where the curtains and tapestries are fallingto pieces from sheer decay. Oh! I can assure you that our primitivismis not wholly external."
He turned from the Princess, who was not greatly interested, to findthat for once he had succeeded in riveting the attention of the girl,whose general attitude towards him and the whole world seemed to be oneof barely tolerant indifference.
"I should like to see over your house, Mr. De la Borne," she said. "Itall sounds very interesting."
"I am afraid," he answered, "that your interest would not survive verylong. We have no treasures left, nor anything worth looking at. Forgenerations the De la Bornes have stripped their house and sold theirlands to hold their own in the world. I am the last of my race, andthere is nothing left for me to sell," he declared, with a momentarybitterness.
"Hadn't you--a half brother?" the Princess asked.
Cecil hesitated for a moment. He had drifted so easily into theposition of head of the house. It was so natural. He felt that hefilled the place so perfectly.
"I have," he admitted, "but he counts, I am sorry to say, for verylittle. You are never likely to come across him--nor any othercivilized person."
There was a subtle indication in his tone of a desire not to pursue thesubject. His guests naturally respected it. There was a moment'ssilence. Then Cecil once more leaned forward. He hesitated for amoment, even after his lips had parted, as though for some reason hewere inclined, after all, to remain silent, but the consciousness thatevery one was looking at him and expecting him to speak induced him tocontinue with what, after all, he had suddenly, and for no explicitreason, hesitated to say.
"You spoke, Miss Le Mesurier," he began, "of looking over the house,and, as I told you, there is very little in it worth seeing. And yet Ican show you something, not in the house itself, but connected with it,which you might find interesting."
The Princess leaned forward in her chair.
"This sounds so interesting," she murmured. "What is it, Cecil? Ahaunted chamber?"
Their host shook his head.
"Something far more tangible," he answered, "although in its way quiteas remarkable. Hundreds of years ago, smuggling on this coast was notonly a means of livelihood for the poor, but the diversion of the rich.I had an ancestor who became very notorious. His name seems to havebeen a by-word, although he was never caught, or if he was caught,never punished. He built a subterranean way underneath the grounds,leading from the house right to the mouth of one of the creeks. Thepassage still exists, with great cellars for storing smuggled goods,and a room where the smugglers used to meet."
Jeanne looked at him with parted lips.
"You can show me this?" she asked, "the passage and the cellars?"
Cecil nodded.
"I can," he answered. "Quite a weird place it is, too. The walls aredamp, and the cellars themselves are like the vaults of a cathedral.All the time at high tide you can hear the sea thundering over yourhead. To-morrow, if you like, we will get torches and explore them."
"I should love to," Jeanne declared. "Can you get out now at the otherend?"
Cecil nodded.
"The passage," he said, "starts from a room which was once the library,and ends half-way up the only little piece of cliff there is. It isabout thirty feet from the ground, but they had a sort of apparatus forpulling up the barrels, and a rope ladder for the men. The preventiveofficers would see the boat come up the creek, and would march downfrom the village, only to find it empty. Of course, they suspected allthe time where the things went, but they could not prove it, and as myancestor was a magistrate and an important man they did not dare tosearch the house."
The Princess sighed gently.
"Those were the days," she murmured, "in which it must have been worthwhile to live. Things happened then. To-day your ancestor would simplyhave been called a thief."
"As a matter of fact," Cecil remarked, "I do not think that he himselfbenefited a penny by any of his exploits. It was simply the love ofadventure which led him into it."
"Even if he did," Major Forrest remarked, "that same predatory instinctis alive to-day in another guise. The whole world is preying upon oneanother. We are thieves, all of us, to the tips of our finger-nails,only our roguery is conducted with due regard to the law."
The Princess smiled faintly as she glanced across the table at thespeaker.
"I am afraid," she said, with a little sigh, "that you are right. I donot think that we have really improved with the centuries. My ownancestors sacked towns and held the inhabitants to ransom. To-day I sitdown to bridge opposite a man with a well-filled purse, and my one ideais to lighten it. Nothing, I am convinced, but the fear of being foundout, keeps us reasonably moral."
"If we go on talking like this," Lord Ronald remarked, "we shall makeMiss Le Mesurier nervous. She will feel that we, and the whole of therest of the world, have our eyes upon her moneybags."
"I am absolutely safe," Jeanne answered smiling. "I do not play bridge,and even my signature would be of no use to any one yet."
"But you might imagine us," Lord Ronald continued, "waiting aroundbreathlessly until the happy time arrived when you were of age, and wecould pursue our diabolical schemes."
Jeanne shook her head.
"You cannot frighten me, Lord Ronald," she said. "I feel safe fromevery one. I am only longing for to-morrow, for a chance to explorethis wonderful subterranean passage."
"I am afraid," their host remarked, "that you will be disappointed.W
ith the passing of smuggling, the romance of the thing seems to havedied. There is nothing now to look at but mouldy walls, a bare room,and any amount of the most hideous fungi. I can promise you that whenyou have been there for a few minutes your only desire will be toescape."
"I am not so sure," the girl answered. "I think that associationsalways have an effect on me. I can imagine how one might wait there,near the entrance, hear the soft swish of the oars, look down and seethe smugglers, hear perhaps the muffled tramp of men marching from thevillage. Fancy how breathless it must have been, the excitement, thefear of being caught."
Cecil curled his slight moustache dubiously.
"If you can feel all that in my little bit of underground world," hesaid, "I shall think that you are even a more wonderful person--"
He dropped his voice and leaned toward her, but Jeanne laughed in hisface and interrupted him.
"People who own things," she remarked, "never look upon them withproper reverence. Don't you see that my mother is dying for somebridge?"