CHAPTER XX
"So this," the Duke said, "is your wonderful land."
"Is there anything like it in the world?" Jeanne asked as she stoodbareheaded on the grass-banked dyke with her face turned seaward.
Above their heads the larks were singing. To their right stretched themarshes and pasture land, as yet untouched by the sea, glorious withstreaks of colour, fragrant with the perfume of wild lavender andmosses. To their left, through the opening in the sandbanks, camestreaming the full tide, rushing up into the land, making silverwater-ways of muddy places, bringing with it all the salt and freshnessand joy of the sea. Over their heads the seagulls cried. Far away aheron lifted its head from a tuft of weeds, and sent his strange calltravelling across the level distance.
"Oh, it is beautiful to be here again!" Jeanne said. "Even though ithurts," she added, in a lower tone, "it is beautiful."
A little boat came darting down the shallows. Kate Caynsard stood upand waved her hand. Jeanne waved back. A sudden flush of colour stainedher cheeks. Her first impulse seemed to be to turn away. She conqueredit, however, and beckoned to the girl, who ran her boat close to them.
"My last sail," the girl cried, as she stepped to land. "I am sayinggood-bye to all these wonderful places, Miss Le Mesurier," she added."To-morrow we are going to sail for Canada."
Jeanne looked at her in amazement.
"You are going to Canada?" she asked.
The girl, too, was surprised.
"Have you not heard?" she said. "I thought, perhaps, that Mr. Andrewmight have told you. Cecil and I are sailing to-morrow, directly afterwe are married. He has bought a farm out there."
Jeanne felt for a moment that the beautiful world was spinning roundher. She clutched at the Duke's arm.
"You are going to Canada with Cecil?" she exclaimed.
"Of course," Kate answered, a little shyly. "I thought, in fact I knowthat I told you about him. Won't you wish me joy?" she added, holdingout her hand a little timidly.
Jeanne grasped it. To the girl's surprise Jeanne's eyes were full oftears.
"Oh, I am so foolish!" she declared. "I have been so mad. I thought--You said Mr. De la Borne."
"Hang it all!" the Duke exclaimed. "I believe you thought that shemeant our friend Andrew. Don't you know that all the world here halfthe time calls Cecil, Mr. De la Borne, and Andrew, Mr. Andrew?"
Kate looked behind her, and touched the Duke on the sleeve.
"Wouldn't you like, sir," she asked, a little timidly, "to come for asail with me?"
The Duke saw what she saw, and notwithstanding his years and hisweight, he clambered into the little boat. Jeanne turned round andwalked slowly towards the man who came so swiftly along the dyke. Itwas a dream! She felt that it must be a dream!
Andrew, with his gun over his shoulder, his rough tweed clothessplashed with black mud, gazed at her as though she were an apparition.Then he saw something in her face which told him so much that he forgotthe little catboat, barely out of sight, he forgot the littlered-roofed village barely a mile away, he forgot the lone figures ofthe shrimpers, standing like sentinels far away in the salt pools. Hetook Jeanne into his arms, and he felt her lips melt upon his.
"The Duke was right, then," he murmured a moment later, as he stoodback for a moment, his face transformed with the new thing that hadcome into his life.
"Dear man!" Jeanne murmured.
They watched the boat gliding away in the distance.
"I believe," he declared, "that they went away on purpose."
She laughed as they scrambled down on to the marsh, and turned towardthe place where he had first met her.
"I believe they did," she answered.
Jeanne of the Marshes Page 41