CHAPTER XII
The days that followed were strange ones for Jeanne. Every morning atsunrise, or before, she would steal out of the little cottage where shewas staying, and make her way along the top of one of the high dykebanks to the sea. Often she saw the sun rise from some lonely spotamongst the sandbanks or the marshes, heard the awakening of the birds,and saw the first glimpses of morning life steal into evidence upon thegrey chill wilderness. At such times she saw few people. The housewhere she was staying was apart from the village, and near the head ofone of the creeks, and there were times when she would leave it andreturn without having seen a single human being. She knew, fromcautious inquiries made from her landlady's daughter, that Cecil andMajor Forrest were still at the Red Hall, and for that reason duringthe daytime she seldom left the cottage, sitting out in theold-fashioned garden, or walking a little way in the fields at theback. For the future she made no plans. She was quite content to feelthat for the present she had escaped from an intolerable situation.
The woman from whom Jeanne had taken the rooms, a Mrs. Caynsard, shehad seen only once or twice. She was waited upon most of the time by anexceedingly diminutive maid servant, very shy at first, but verytalkative afterwards, in broad Norfolk dialect, when she had grown alittle accustomed to this very unusual lodger. Now and then KateCaynsard, the only daughter of the house, appeared, but for the mosttime she was away, sailing a fishing boat or looking after the littlefarm. To Jeanne she represented a type wholly strange, but altogetherinteresting. She was little over twenty years of age, but she wasstrong and finely built. She had the black hair and dark brown eyes,which here and there amongst the villagers of the east coast remind oneof the immigration of worsted spinners and silk weavers from Flandersand the North of France, many centuries ago. She was very handsome butexceedingly shy. When Jeanne, as she had done more than once, tried totalk to her, her abrupt replies gave little opening for conversation.One morning, however, when Jeanne, having returned from a long trampacross the sand dunes, was sitting in the little orchard at the back ofthe house, she saw her landlady's daughter come slowly out to her fromthe house. Jeanne put down her book.
"Good morning, Miss Caynsard!" she said.
"Good morning, miss!" the girl answered awkwardly. "You have had a longwalk!"
Jeanne nodded.
"I went so far," she said, "that I had to race the tide home, or Ishould have had to wade through the home creek."
Kate nodded.
"The tide do come sometimes," she said, "at a most awful pace. I havebeen out after whelks myself, and had to walk home with the sea allround me, and nothing but a ribbon of dry land. One needs to know theways about on this wilderness."
"One learns them by watching," Jeanne remarked. "I suppose you havelived here all your life."
"All my life," the girl answered, "and my father and grandfather beforeme. 'Tis a queer country, but them as is born and bred here seldomleaves it. Sometimes they try. They go to the next village inland, orto some town, or to foreign parts, but sooner or later if they livethey come back."
Jeanne nodded sympathetically.
"It is a wonderful country," she said. "When I saw it first it seemedto me that it was depressing. Now I love it!"
"And I," the girl remarked, with a sudden passion in her tone, "I hateit!"
Jeanne looked at her, surprised.
"It sounds so strange to hear you say that," she remarked. "I shouldhave thought that any one who had lived here always would have lovedit. Every day I am here I seem to discover new beauties, a new effectof colouring, a new undertone of the sea, or to hear the cry of somenew bird."
"It is beautiful sometimes," the girl answered. "I love it when thecreeks are full, and the April sun is shining, and the spring seems todraw all manner of living things and colours from the marsh and thepasturage lands. I love it when the sea changes its colour as theclouds pass over the sun, and the wind blows from the west. The placeis well enough then. But there are times when it is nothing but a greatwilderness of mud, and the grey mists come blowing in, and one is coldhere, cold to the bone. Then I hate the place worse than ever."
"Have you ever tried to go away for a time?" Jeanne asked.
"I went once to London," the girl said, turning her head a little away."I should have stayed there, I think, if things had turned out as I hadexpected, but they didn't, and my father died suddenly, so I came hometo take care of the farm."
Jeanne nodded sympathetically. She was beginning to wonder why thisgirl had come out from the house with the obvious intention of speakingto her. She stood by her side, not exactly awkward, but still notwholly at her ease, her hands clasped behind her straight back, herblack eyebrows drawn together in a little uneasy frown. Her coarsebrown skirt was not long enough to conceal her wonderfully shapedankles. Sun and wind had done little more than slightly tan her clearcomplexion. She had somehow the appearance of a girl of some othernation. There was something stronger, more forceful, more brilliantabout her, than her position seemed to warrant.
"There is a question, miss," she said at last, abruptly, "I should liketo ask you. I should have asked you when you first came, if I had beenin when you came to look at the rooms."
"What is it?" Jeanne asked quietly.
"I've a good eye for faces," Kate said, "and I seldom forget one.Weren't you the young lady who was staying up at the Red Hall a fewweeks ago?"
Jeanne nodded.
"Yes," she said, "I was staying there. It was because I liked the placeso much, and because I was so much happier here than in London, that Icame back."
There was a moment's silence. Jeanne looked up and found Kate'smagnificent 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 inLondon, 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 itsimpertinence. Jeanne laughed goodhumouredly.
"I can assure you that I did not," she answered. "To tell you thetruth, and I hope that you will be kind and remember that I do not wishany one to know this, the reason why I only go out so early in themorning or late at night is because I do not wish to see any one fromthe 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 saidslowly. "When you and the other lady came down from London to stay upyonder, they did say that you were a great heiress, and that Mr. De laBorne was counting on marrying you, and buying back all the lands thathave slipped away from the De la Bornes back to Burnham Market andWells township."
Jeanne shrugged her shoulders.
"I cannot help," she said, "what people say. Every one has spoken of mealways as being very rich, and a good many men have wanted to marry meto 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 wasdetermined 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 tochoose her own man."
"In any case," Jeanne said smiling, "if I had but one or two to choosefrom 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 totheir last acre. They hold on to the Hall, but little else. Folk saythat for four hundred years or more the De la Bornes have heard the seathunder from within them walls. 'Tis, perhaps, as some writer has saidin a book I've found lately, that the old families of the country, whenonce their menkind cease to be soldiers or fighters in the world, dodecay and become rotten. It is so with the De la Bornes, or rather withone of t
hem."
"Mr. Andrew," Jeanne remarked timidly.
"Mr. Andrew," the girl interrupted, "is a great gentleman, but he isnever one of those who would stop the rot in a decaying race. He is agreat strong man is Mr. Andrew, and deceit and littleness are things heknows nothing of. I wish he were here to-day."
The girl's face wore a troubled expression. Jeanne began to suspectthat 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 couldhe 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 mightbetide, 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 closeto Jeanne now, and she spoke without hesitation.
"You remember the young lord," she said, "of whom there has been somuch in the papers lately? He was staying at the Red Hall when youwere, and is supposed to have left for London early one morning anddisappeared."
"Lord Ronald Engleton," Jeanne said. "Yes, I know all about that, ofcourse."
"Sometimes," Kate said slowly, "I have had strange thoughts about him.Mr. Cecil and the other man, Major Forrest they call him, are still atthe Hall, and the servants say that they do little but drink and swearat 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'swords 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 willshow you what I mean."
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