Leonie of the Jungle

by Joan Conquest

  CHAPTER XV

  "To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose."--_Shakespeare_.

  "Now I want you to listen to me, Leonie!"

  "I am, Auntie!"

  "I mean _seriously_! I want to talk about myself for one thing, andour very straitened means, which do not permit us to go on living evenlike this; and oh! lots of other things."

  "Right, darling!" said her niece, moving across the room to sit on abroad stool at her relation's feet, but twisting her head to one sidewith a quick movement when her aunt laid her hand dramatically upon thetawny hair.

  "Please, Auntie, don't! I can't bear to have my head touched!"

  "Just what I want to talk about!" vaguely said Susan Hetth as she triedto disentangle an old-fashioned ring which had unfortunately caught afew shining hairs in its loose setting.

  "Please don't touch my _head_, Auntie!" repeated Leonie as she satback. "Let my hair _go_, please!"

  "I'm not touching your hair, child," impatiently replied the elderwoman. "It's got caught in one of my rings!"

  Leonie's eyes were almost closed in a strange kind of psychologicalagony; then just as though she acted unconsciously she seized heraunt's hands and pulled them quickly from her head, tearing out thehair entangled in the ring by the roots.

  "I can't stand it, Auntie. I have never been able to bear anyonetouching my head," she said very quietly.

  "I think you're insane at times, Leonie, _really_ I do!"

  The terrible words were out, and for one long moment the two womenstared into each other's eyes.

  "You think I am insane at times," whispered Leonie. "_You_--Auntie,_you_ think I am _insane_!"

  And the elder woman, floundering in dismay at the awful effect of herunconsidered words, sank to her neck in a bog of explanation.

  "No! Leonie--no, of course not--I wasn't thinking--of _course_ you'renot mad--insane I mean. What an idea! only I am worried about you, youknow that, don't you, dear! _Do_ be sensible, dear. Of course yourbrain is not _quite_ normal. It can't be with all that sleep-walking,can it, and all your abnormally brilliant exams!"

  Susan Hetth's disjointed remarks sounded like the clatter of a pair ofrunaway mules, while Leonie clasped her hands tight as she sat crouchedon her stool.

  "Of course people _will_ talk, you know, dear! They did when you werequite a baby and began walking in your sleep. And they did, you know,at school after that unfortunate child nearly got strangled by hersheets--I always do think that school fare is _most_ indigestible--and_so_ likely to cause blemishes on the skin!"

  Leonie bowed her head.

  "Most unfortunate that you should have snubbed youngMr--what's-his-name--so severely--and that his sister should have beenat school with you. Out of revenge _she_ has been talking about youand your sleep-walking. People are most unkind and _most_ unjust--andyou are _far_ too pretty to receive any consideration from your _own_sex, how_ever_ much attention you may receive from the opposition--Imean sex--opposite sex, I mean----"

  Leonie sat absolutely still.

  "Anyway, my child, we need not worry--there is a way out of our littledifficulties."

  Sensing that something was coming Leonie sat back with the light of theoil lamp full on her face as she stared at the clutter on themantelpiece.

  "I _do_ so want you to do something for me, darling."

  The tone of Susan Hetth's voice and the touch of her hand on the girl'sarm were as wheedling as if she were about to ask her to tramp intoIlfracombe on some trifling midnight errand.

  Leonie answered quite mechanically.

  "What is it, dear!" she said. "Say the word and I'll do it!"

  "Is that a promise?"

  "Ra-ther! Anything to please you, Auntiekins!"

  Susan Hetth took her fence in a rush!

  "I want you to get married," she said abruptly out of pure fright, andwrenched at her bead chain when Leonie leapt to her feet.

  The girl stood quite still, outlined in her simple low-cut,short-sleeved dress by the wall, her hands pressed back against it.

  There was no sound except the soft gurgle and murmur of the water untilshe spoke, quietly, but with a world of horror in her low-pitched voice.

  "You want me to marry--_you_--when a moment ago you said that youthought I was mad--you want me to marry some honest, unsuspecting man,and bear him children!"

  Susan Hetth, shocked to the limit of her Pecksniffian soul, made anerveless fluttering gesture of protest with her hands.

  "Don't speak," said Leonie quickly, "please don't speak until I havedone. Marriage! I will tell you what I have thought about it while Ihave been waiting for my mate."

  "Oh!" exploded Susan Hetth vehemently. "_My dear_! Surely you havenot been corresponding with anyone!"

  Leonie hesitated.

  How was she to make her aunt, this shallow, unbalanced being,understand the joyous expectancy with which she had awaited the momentwhen she should meet the man born for her?

  How was she to take the exquisite longings, the veiled desires, thebeautiful virgin thoughts, from her heart and lay them before thiswoman who had taught her nothing but the twenty-third Psalm without itsreal interpretation, plus the correct Sunday collect and daily prayers.

  How explain that to her the little golden ring would not represent akey opening the door to the so-called freedom from which fifty per centof women descend, via the shallow flight of steps marked a good time,to the plain of discontent; or that to her the word love wassufficient, in that for her it included those of honour and obey,without any separate declaration in public.

  When she spoke she spoke hurriedly, flushing from chin to brow.

  "Auntie--I correspond with no man--but my--my mate is waiting for mesomewhere--calling me all the time ever since--oh! ever since I canremember--and--and I should have married him when I had met himif--if----"

  In anger at this fresh complication, piled upon her appalling want oftact of a few moments ago, Susan Hetth struck her hands on the arms ofher chair.

  "I think you absolutely _indecent_, Leonie, to go on like this aboutsomeone you have never even seen. Now listen to me, and don't be sotheatrical. I have had an offer of marriage for you by someone whoknows all about you, and who, after my assurance that there is nothinghereditary in your family on either side to account for the strangenessof your actions at times, is perfectly willing, even anxious, to marryyou."

  "To take the risk, you mean," broke in Leonie. "Oh!--well, go on."

  Aunt Susan, somewhat out of breath from the rapidity and unaccustomedlucidity of her words, inhaled deeply and continued.

  "He will make you an astounding marriage settlement, give youeverything you want, and swears to make you per-fect-ly happy!"

  "And his name?"

  "Oh! don't be stupid, Leonie, of course you know whom I mean!"

  Leonie leant forward, stretching out her hands, her face dead white inthe light of the lamp.

  "Tell me _his name_ and don't drive me beyond breaking point, AuntSusan!"

  "Tosh!" contemptuously remarked her aunt. "Don't be so childish--Imean Sir Walter Hickle, of course!"

  Expecting some violent words of protest the elder woman half rose fromher chair, but appalled by the deathly silence and the look on thegirl's face, sank back, cowering in her seat, and stared in thedirection her niece's hand was pointing.

  "Look, Auntie, look!"

  Leonie stood with one hand pointing at the mantelpiece and the otherpressed against her throat as she tried to speak coherently.

  The pupils of her eyes were pin-points as she gazed at a wooden framewhich, adorned with edelweiss and the Lucerne Lion, held the snapshotof a complaisant individual leaning over the harbour wall, attired in awell-fitting but ill-placed yachting suit.

  "Old Pickled Walnuts! You want me to marry him--when--when--oh! when Ithought _he_ wanted to marry _you_!"

  She laughed, a laugh which sounded like the jangling of broken glass,and died almost before it was born; an
d her aunt, terrified at thesound and the expression on the girl's face, seized the outstretchedarm and shook it violently.

  "What _are_ you talking about, Leonie!"

  Leonie freed her arm with a shudder.

  "Please don't touch me!" Then making a desperate effort she continuedquietly, so quietly indeed that Susan Hetth looked anxiously over hershoulder towards the door.

  "Don't you know that's his nickname? Oh! of _course_ you do! You_know_ he made his fortune by pickling walnuts too rotten to sell. SirWalter Hickle--twist the name a bit and it's all in a nutshell--a--apickled walnut shell"--the little unnatural laugh broke across thewords--"and you want _me_ to marry him--Auntie! Auntie! he's awfulenough, heaven knows, but not bad enough, nobody could be, to have a--amad wife foisted on him--no! never--I'll go out and work!"

  There was something very decisive in the last words, but Susan Hetth,like most weak people, found her strength suddenly in a mulishobstinacy, which is a quite good equivalent for, and often moreefficacious than mere strength of will.

  This obstinacy, backed by the knowledge that people were beginning togossip about the girl's aloofness and love of solitude; that thecashing of another cheque would see her overdrawn at the bank; and thatuntil the girl was settled and off her hands she would not be able tosolve her own matrimonial problem, drove her to a show of mental energyof which she would not have been capable in an everyday argument.

  "Work!" she cried, "work! What can you do? _Nothing_--except go outas a companion or nursery governess!--and who would take you without areference--and who would give _you_ one? Tell me!"

  Leonie remained silent--stunned.

  "As I have told you, we simply cannot afford to live even like _this_!I'm overdrawn as it is, and----"

  "But," broke in Leonie with a gleam of hope, "but I have father's moneycoming to me. I'm not quite sure how much it is, but you can haveit--_all_!"

  "It's two thousand pounds down for yourself, and two hundred and fiftya year in trust for your children--to be given you on your _wedding_day."

  "Oh!"

  It was just a little pitiful exclamation as the girl realised the netwhich was closing about her feet, but from the meshes of which she madea last desperate effort to extricate herself.

  "I think I--see--a way," she said slowly. "Yes--listen--this terriblemystery that surrounds me, this--this curse which seems to bringdisaster or pain to everyone I love, simply makes life not worthliving--so if--if I make a will in your favour, Auntie, dear, and gofor a swim at Morte Point where the cross currents are--it will----"

  But Susan Hetth interrupted violently, horror-stricken at thesuggestion made indifferently by the girl she loved as far as she wascapable of loving.

  "How is suicide going to help?" she demanded shrilly. "There would bean inquest, every bit of gossip, everything you had ever done would bebrought to light; the verdict would be insanity----"

  "Oh, _Auntie_!"

  Driven to desperation and without finesse Susan Hetth flung down hertrump card.

  "But--I--I haven't told you the--the _worst_," she stammered, dabbingher eyes with her handkerchief, and peering from behind it at Leoniewho, wearily pushing the hair off her forehead, stood apatheticallywaiting.

  "That--that man"--she jerked her head at the mantelpiece--"has--has ahold on me!"

  "What---do you mean Sir Walter--do you owe him _money_?" Leonie staredin amazement as she spoke.

  "Oh, no--it's worse!" came the reply, followed by a curtailed butsufficiently dramatic recital of the past indiscretion, to which Leonielistened spellbound.

  "And you _do_ believe that it was just a bit of bad luck, and thatthere was nothing _really_ wrong in it all, don't you, dear," insistedthe woman who, like ninety-nine per cent of humans, forgot the realtragedy of the moment in the recital of her own pettifogging escapade.

  "Absolutely," replied Leonie flatly.

  "And you _do_ see the necessity of giving in, now that he hasthreatened me with exposure if you refuse him when he proposes, _don't_you, dear?"

  "Absolutely," replied Leonie for the second time.

  There followed long minutes of silence which the swirl of the watersalone dared to break, and then the girl spoke.

  "My life," she said very softly to herself; "my lovely, beautiful freelife done. The wind, and the birds, and the sea--Auntie--oh,Auntie--_Auntie_!"

  And she turned and flung herself against the wall with her face crushedinto her upstretched arms. "Think of it," she whispered hoarsely,"think of it, my youth, my spirit, my body given into that old man'skeeping. I who have kept my thoughts, my lips, my eyes for my matethat was to be; I who have longed for his love, for the hours and thedays, and the months, and the years, even unto death, with him. Howcould----"

  There was a click of the gate, and she flung round from the wall,dry-eyed, dry-lipped, desperate, as her aunt hurriedly rose.

  "It's him--Sir Walter, Leonie--are you going to accept him?"

  "Of course," came the steady reply, and Leonie looked the elder womanstraight in the eyes, which darted this, that, and every way. "Willyou go upstairs, please."

  * * * * * * * *

  Just before dawn Leonie slid in through the window, and the water,trickling from the bathing dress which clung to the wonderful figure,formed little pools on the faded carpet.

  "Nothing will ever make me clean," she whispered,"nothing--nothing--nothing. There is no ocean big or wide or deepenough for that, oh! God--my God!"

  For five long minutes she stood absolutely still, looking straight andunseeingly at the mantelpiece.

  Then as a rooster somewhere shrilly heralded the coming day she awoketo her surroundings and moved.

  Like a beaten dog she crept to her bedroom, and stood staring at thereflection of her haggard face in the mirror. A bird suddenly burstinto a song of welcome to the dawn which was dyeing the sky rose pink,and she crossed to the window-seat, dropped to her knees, and buriedher lovely head in her outstretched arms, amid the ruins of herbeautiful Castle of Dreams.