Books: Jeanne Of The Marshes
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E. Phillips Oppenheim >> Jeanne Of The Marshes
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"We might go and see what he says," he faltered. "I haven't been
there since the morning, have you?"
"No!" Forrest answered. "Solitude is good for him. Let us go now,
together."
Without another word they rose from the table. Cecil led the way
into the library, where he rang for a servant.
"Set out the card-table here," he ordered, "and bring in the whisky
and soda. After that we do not wish to be disturbed. You
understand?"
"Certainly, sir," the man answered.
They waited until the things were brought. Afterwards they locked
the door. Cecil went to a drawer and took out a couple of electric
torches, one of which he handed to Forrest. Then he went to the
wall, and after a few minutes' groping, found the spring. The door
swung open, and a rush of unwholesome air streamed into the room.
They made their way silently along the passage until at last they
reached the sunken chamber. Cecil took a key from his pocket and
opened the door.
* * *
Engleton was in evil straits, but there was no sign of yielding in
his face as he looked up. He was seated before a small table upon
which a common lamp was burning. His clothes hung about him loosely.
His face was haggard. A short, unbecoming beard disfigured his face.
He wore no collar or necktie, and his general appearance was
altogether dishevelled. Forrest looked at him critically.
"My dear Engleton!" he began.
"What the devil do you want with me at this time of night?" Engleton
interrupted. "Have you come down to see how I amuse myself during
the long evenings? Perhaps you would like to come and play cut-
throat. I'll play you for what stakes you like, and thank you for
coming, if you'll leave the door open and let me breathe a little
better air."
"It is your own fault that you are here," Cecil de la Borne
declared. "It is all your cursed obstinacy. Listen! I tell you once
more that what you saw, or fancied you saw, was a mistake. Forget
it. Give your word of honour to forget it, never to allude to it at
any time in your life, and you can walk out of here a free man."
Engleton nodded.
"I have no doubt of it," he answered. "The worst of it is that
nothing in the world would induce me to forego the pleasure I
promise myself, before very long, too, of giving to the whole world
the story of your infamy. I am not tractable to-night. You had
better go away, both of you. I am more likely to fight."
Forrest sat down on the edge of a chest.
"Engleton," he said, "don't be a fool. It can do you no particular
good to ruin Cecil here and myself, just because you happen to be
suspicious. Let that drop. Tell us that you have decided to let it
drop, and the world can take you into its arms again."
"I refuse," Engleton answered. "I refuse once and for always. I tell
you that I have made up my mind to see you punished for this. How I
get out I don't care, but I shall get out, and when I do, you two
will be laid by the heels."
"We came here to-night," Forrest said slowly, "prepared to
compromise with you."
"There is no compromise," Engleton answered fiercely. "There is
nothing which you could offer which could repay me for the horror of
the nights you have left me to shiver here in this d--d vault. Don't
flatter yourself that I shall ever forget it. I stay on because I
cannot escape, but I would sooner stay here for ever than beg for
mercy from either of you."
"Upon my word," Forrest declared, "our friend is quite a hero."
"I am hero enough, at any rate," Engleton answered, "to refuse to
bargain with you. Get out, both of you, before I lose my temper."
Forrest came a little further into the room. The thunder of the sea
seemed almost above their heads. The little lamp on the table by
Engleton's side gave little more than a weird, unnatural light
around the circle in which he sat.
"That isn't quite all that we came to say," Forrest remarked coldly.
"To tell you the truth we have had enough of playing jailer."
"I can assure you," Engleton answered, "that I have had equally
enough of being your prisoner."
"We are agreed, then," Forrest continued smoothly. "You will
probably be relieved when I tell you that we have decided to end
it."
Engleton rose to his feet.
"So much the better," he said. "You might keep me here till
doomsday, and the end would be the same."
"We do not propose," Forrest continued, "to keep you here till
doomsday, or anything like it. What we have come to say to you is
this--that if you still refuse to give your promise--I need not say
more than that--we are going to set you free."
"Do you mean that literally?" Engleton asked.
"Perhaps not altogether as you would wish to understand it," Forrest
admitted. "We shall give you a chance at high tide to swim for your
life."
Engleton shrunk a little back. After all, his nerves were a little
shattered.
"Out there?" he asked, pointing to the seaward end of the passage.
Forrest nodded.
"It will be a chance for you," he said.
Engleton looked at them for a moment, dumbfounded.
"It will be murder," he said slowly.
Forrest shrugged his shoulders.
"You may call it so if you like," he answered. "Personally, I should
not be inclined to agree with you. You will be alive when you go
into the sea. If you cannot swim, the fault is not ours."
"And when, may I ask," Engleton continued, "do you propose to put
into operation your amiable plan?"
"Just whensoever we please, you d--d obstinate young puppy!" Forrest
cried, suddenly losing his nerve. "Curse your silent tongue and your
venomous face! You think you can get the better of us, do you? Well,
you are mistaken. You'll tell no stories from amongst the seaweed."
Engleton nodded.
"I shall take particular good care," he said, "to avoid the
seaweed."
"Enough," Forrest declared. "Listen! Here is the issue. We are tired
of negative things. To-night you sign the paper and give us your
word of honour to keep silent, or before morning, when the tide is
full, you go into the sea!"
"I warn you," Engleton said, "that I can swim."
"I will guarantee," Forrest answered suavely, "that by the time you
reach the water you will have forgotten how."
CHAPTER XII
The days that followed were strange ones for Jeanne. Every morning
at sunrise, or before, she would steal out of the little cottage
where she was staying, and make her way along the top of one of the
high dyke banks to the sea. Often she saw the sun rise from some
lonely spot amongst the sandbanks or the marshes, heard the
awakening of the birds, and saw the first glimpses of morning life
steal into evidence upon the grey chill wilderness. At such times
she saw few people. The house where she was staying was apart from
the village, and near the head of one of the creeks, and there were
times when she would leave it and return without having seen a
single human being. She knew, from cautious inquiries made from her
landlady's daughter, that Cecil and Major Forrest were still at the
Red Hall, and for that reason during the daytime she seldom left the
cottage, sitting out in the old-fashioned garden, or walking a
little way in the fields at the back. For the future she made no
plans. She was quite content to feel that for the present she had
escaped from an intolerable situation.
The woman from whom Jeanne had taken the rooms, a Mrs. Caynsard, she
had seen only once or twice. She was waited upon most of the time by
an exceedingly diminutive maid servant, very shy at first, but very
talkative afterwards, in broad Norfolk dialect, when she had grown a
little accustomed to this very unusual lodger. Now and then Kate
Caynsard, the only daughter of the house, appeared, but for the most
time she was away, sailing a fishing boat or looking after the
little farm. To Jeanne she represented a type wholly strange, but
altogether interesting. She was little over twenty years of age, but
she was strong and finely built. She had the black hair and dark
brown eyes, which here and there amongst the villagers of the east
coast remind one of the immigration of worsted spinners and silk
weavers from Flanders and the North of France, many centuries ago.
She was very handsome but exceedingly shy. When Jeanne, as she had
done more than once, tried to talk to her, her abrupt replies gave
little opening for conversation. One morning, however, when Jeanne,
having returned from a long tramp across the sand dunes, was sitting
in the little orchard at the back of the house, she saw her
landlady's daughter come slowly out to her from the house. Jeanne
put down her book.
"Good morning, Miss Caynsard!" she said.
"Good morning, miss!" the girl answered awkwardly. "You have had a
long walk!"
Jeanne nodded.
"I went so far," she said, "that I had to race the tide home, or I
should have had to wade through the home creek."
Kate nodded.
"The tide do come sometimes," she said, "at a most awful pace. I
have been out after whelks myself, and had to walk home with the sea
all round me, and nothing but a ribbon of dry land. One needs to
know the ways about on this wilderness."
"One learns them by watching," Jeanne remarked. "I suppose you have
lived here all your life."
"All my life," the girl answered, "and my father and grandfather
before me. 'Tis a queer country, but them as is born and bred here
seldom leaves it. Sometimes they try. They go to the next village
inland, or to some town, or to foreign parts, but sooner or later if
they live they come back."
Jeanne nodded sympathetically.
"It is a wonderful country," she said. "When I saw it first it
seemed to me that it was depressing. Now I love it!"
"And I," the girl remarked, with a sudden passion in her tone, "I
hate it!"
Jeanne looked at her, surprised.
"It sounds so strange to hear you say that," she remarked. "I should
have thought that any one who had lived here always would have loved
it. Every day I am here I seem to discover new beauties, a new
effect of colouring, a new undertone of the sea, or to hear the cry
of some new bird."
"It is beautiful sometimes," the girl answered. "I love it when the
creeks are full, and the April sun is shining, and the spring seems
to draw all manner of living things and colours from the marsh and
the pasturage lands. I love it when the sea changes its colour as
the clouds pass over the sun, and the wind blows from the west. The
place is well enough then. But there are times when it is nothing
but a great wilderness of mud, and the grey mists come blowing in,
and one is cold here, 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 had expected, but they didn't, and my father died suddenly, so
I came home to take care of the farm."
Jeanne nodded sympathetically. She was beginning to wonder why this
girl had come out from the house with the obvious intention of
speaking to her. She stood by her side, not exactly awkward, but
still not wholly at her ease, her hands clasped behind her straight
back, her black eyebrows drawn together in a little uneasy frown.
Her coarse brown skirt was not long enough to conceal her
wonderfully shaped ankles. Sun and wind had done little more than
slightly tan her clear complexion. She had somehow the appearance of
a girl of some other nation. There was something stronger, more
forceful, more brilliant about her, than her position seemed to
warrant.
"There is a question, miss," she said at last, abruptly, "I should
like to ask you. I should have asked you when you first came, if I
had been in 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 few
weeks ago?"
Jeanne nodded.
"Yes," she said, "I was staying there. It was because I liked the
place so much, and because I was so much happier here than in
London, that I came back."
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 assure 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 township."
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 grass-
grown dyke 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.
"It's one of those new-fangled things for making light in the
darkness," she remarked. "It's no use to me, for if I could not see
I could feel. For us who live here, 'tis but an instinct to find our
way, in darkness or in light, across the land where we were born.
But if you are nervous, press the knob and you will see."
Jeanne took the torch with a little sigh of relief.
"Go on," she said. "I don't mind so much now I have this."
Nevertheless, as they moved along she found it sufficiently
alarming. The top of the bank was but a few feet wide. The west
wind, which came roaring down across the great open spaces, with
nothing to check or divide its strength, was sometimes strong enough
to blow them off their balance. On either side of the dyke was the
water, black and silent. Here and there the torch light showed them
a fishing-smack or a catboat, high and dry a few hours ago, now
floating on the bosom of the full tide. They came to a stile, and
Jeanne's courage once more failed her.
"I cannot climb over this," she said. "I shall fall directly I lift
up my feet."
Kate turned round with a little laugh of contempt. Jeanne felt
herself suddenly lifted in a pair of strong arms. Before she knew
where she was she was on the other side. Breathless she followed her
guide, who came to a full stop a few yards farther on.
"Turn on your light," Kate ordered. "Look down on the left. There
should be a punt there."
Jeanne turned on the torch. A great flat-bottomed boat, shapeless
and unwieldy, was just below. Kate stepped lightly down the steep
bank, and with one foot on the side of the punt, held out her hand
to Jeanne.
"Come," she said. "Step carefully."
"But what are we going to do?" Jeanne asked. "You are not going in
that?"
"Why not?" Kate laughed. "It is a few strokes only. We are going to
cross to the ridges."
Jeanne followed her. Somehow or other she found it hard to disobey
her guide. None the less she was afraid. She stepped tremblingly
down into the punt, and sat upon the broad wet seat. Kate, without a
moment's hesitation, took up the great pole and began pushing her
way across the creek. The tide was almost at its height, but even
then the current was so strong that they went across almost
sideways, and Jeanne heard her companion's breath grow shorter and
shorter, as with powerful strokes she did her best to guide and
propel the clumsy craft.
"We are going out toward the sea," Jeanne faltered. "It is getting
wider and wider."
She flashed her torch across the dark waters. They could not see the
bank which they had left or the ridges to which they were making.
"Don't be afraid," Kate answered. "After all, you know, we can only
die once, and life isn't worth making such a tremendous fuss over."
"I do not want to die," Jeanne objected, "and I do not like this at
all."
Kate laughed contemptuously.
"Sit still," she said, "and you are as safe as though you were in
your own armchair. No current that ever ran could upset this clumsy
raft. The only reason I am working so hard is that I do not want to
be carried down past the ridges. If we get too low down we shall
have to walk across the black mud."
Jeanne kept silence, listening only to the swirl of the water struck
by the pole, and to the quick breathing of her companion. Once she
asked whether she could not help.
"There is no need," Kate answered. "Shine your torch on the left. We
are nearly across."
Almost as she spoke they struck the sandy bottom. Jeanne fell into
the bottom of the boat. Kate, with a little laugh, sprang ashore and
held out her hand.
"Come," she said, "we have crossed the worst part now."
"Where are we going?" Jeanne asked, a little relieved as she felt
her feet land on the sodden turf.
"Towards the Hall," Kate answered. "Give me your hand, if you like,
or use your torch. The way is simple enough, but we must twist and
turn to-night. It has been a flood tide, and there are great pools
left here and there, pools that you have never seen before."
"But how do you know?" Jeanne asked, in amazement. "I can see
nothing."
Her guide laughed contemptuously.
"I can see and I can feel," she said. "It is an instinct with me to
walk dry-footed here. To the right now--so."
"Stand still for a moment," Jeanne pleaded. "The wind takes my
breath."
"You have too many clothes on," Kate said contemptuously. "One
should not wear skirts and petticoats and laces here."
"If you would leave my clothes alone and tell me where you are
going," Jeanne declared, a little tartly, "it would be more
reasonable."
The girl laughed. She thrust her arm through her companion's and
drew her on.
"Don't be angry," she said. "It is quite easy now to find our way.
There is room for us to walk like this. Can you hear what I say to
you?"
"I can hear," Jeanne answered, raising her voice, "but it is getting
more difficult all the time. Is that the sea?"
"Yes!" Kate answered. "Can't you feel the spray on your cheeks? The
wind is blowing it high up above the beach. Let me go first again.
There is an inlet here. Be careful."
They came to a full stop before a dark arm of salt water. They
skirted the side and crossed round to the other side.
"Be careful, now," Kate said. "This way."
They turned inland. In a few minutes her guide stopped short.
"Turn on your torch," she said. "There ought to be a wall close
here."
Jeanne did as she was bid, and gave a little stifled cry.
"Why, we are close to the Red Hall!" she said. Kate nodded.
"A little way farther up there is a gate," she said. "We are going
in there."
"You are not going to the house?" Jeanne asked, in terror.
"No," Kate answered, "I am not going there! Follow me, and don't
talk more than you can help. The wind is going down."
"But it is the middle of the night," Jeanne said. "No one will be
astir."
"One cannot tell," Kate answered slowly. "It is in my mind that
there have been strange doings here, and I know well that there is a
man who watches this place by day and by night. He has discovered
nothing, but it is because he has not known where to look."
"What do you mean?" Jeanne asked hoarsely.
"Wait!" her companion said.
They passed through the wooden gate. They were now in a little weedy
plantation of undersized trees. The ground was full of rabbit holes,
and Jeanne stumbled more than once.
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