Books: Jeanne Of The Marshes

E >> E. Phillips Oppenheim >> Jeanne Of The Marshes

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The Count was gazing at her as one might gaze upon a tragedy.

"It is not a fortune!" he exclaimed. "It is not even a dot! It is
nothing at all, a year's income, a trifle."

"Nevertheless," Jeanne said calmly, "it is all that I possess. You
see," she continued, "I have come back to my stepmother to tell her
that if I am bound by law to do as she wishes until I am of age, I
will be dutiful and marry the man whom she chooses for me, but I
wish to tell you two things quite frankly. The first you have just
heard. The second is that I do not care for you in the least, that
in fact I rather dislike you."

The Princess buried her head in her hands. She was not anxious to
look at any one just then, or to be looked at. The Count rose to his
feet. There were drops of perspiration upon his forehead. He was
distracted.

"Is this true, madam?" he asked of the Princess.

"It is true," she admitted.

He leaned towards her.

"What about my three thousand pounds?" he whispered. "Who will pay
me back that? It is cheating. That money has been gained by what you
call false pretences. There is punishment for that, eh?"

The Princess dabbed at her eyes with a little morsel of lace
handkerchief.

"One must live," she murmured. "It was not I who talked about
Jeanne's fortune. It was all the world who said how rich she was.
Why should I contradict them? I wanted a place once more in the only
Society in Europe which counts, English society. There was only one
way and I took it. So long as people believed Jeanne to be the
heiress of a great fortune, I was made welcome wherever I chose to
go. That is the truth, my dear Count."

"It is all very well," the Count answered, "but the money I have
advanced you?"

"You took your own risk," the Princess answered, coldly. "I was not
to know that you were expecting to repay yourself out of Jeanne's
fortune. It is not too late. You are not married to her."

"No," the Count said slowly, "I am not married to her."

The Princess watched him from the corners of her eyes. He was
evidently very much distracted. He walked up and down the room.
Every now and then he glanced at Jeanne. Jeanne was very pale, but
she wore a hat with a small green quill which he had once admired.
Certainly she had an air, she was distinguished. There was something
vaguely provocative about her, a charm which he could not help but
feel. He stopped short in the middle of his perambulations. It was
the moment of his life. He felt himself a hero.

"Madam," he said, addressing the Princess, "I have been badly
treated. There is no one who would not admit that. I have been
deceived--a man less kind than I might say robbed. No matter. I
forget it all. I forget my disappointment, I forget that this young
lady whom you offer me for a wife has a dot so pitifully small that
it counts for nothing. I take her. I accept her. Jeanne," he added,
moving towards her, "you hear? It is because I love you so very,
very much."

Jeanne shrank back in her chair.

"You mean," she cried, "that you are willing to take me now that you
know everything, now that you know I have so little money? You mean
that you want to marry me still?"

The Count assented graciously. Never in the course of his whole
life, had he admired himself so much.

"I forget everything," he declared, with a little wave of the hand,
"except that I love you, and that you are the one woman in the world
whom I wish to make the Comtesse de Brensault. Mademoiselle permits
me?"

He stooped and raised her cold hand to his lips. Jeanne looked at
him with the fascinated despair of some stricken animal. The
Princess rose to her feet. It was wonderful, this--a triumph beyond
all thought.

"Jeanne, my child," she said, "you are the most fortunate girl I
know, to have inspired a devotion so great. Count," she added, "you
are wonderful. You deserve all the happiness which I am sure will
come to you."

The Count looked as though he were perfectly convinced of it. All
the same he whispered in her ear a moment later--

"You must pay me back that three thousand pounds!"

CHAPTER XIX

For the Princess it was a day full of excitements. The Count had
only just reluctantly withdrawn, and Jeanne had gone to her room
under the plea of fatigue, when Forrest was shown in. She started at
the look in his drawn face.

"Nigel," she exclaimed hastily, "is everything all right?"

He threw himself into a chair.

"Everything," he answered, "is all wrong. Everything is over."

The Princess saw then that he had aged during the last few days,
that this man whose care of himself had kept him comparatively
youthful looking, notwithstanding the daily routine of an
unwholesome life, was showing signs at last of breaking down. There
were lines about his eyes, little baggy places underneath. He
dragged his feet across the carpet as though he were tired. The
Princess pushed up an easy-chair and went herself to the sideboard.

"Give me a little brandy," he said, "or rather a good deal of
brandy. I need it."

The Princess felt her own hand shake. She brought him a tumbler and
sat down by his side.

"You had to kill him?" she asked, in a whisper. "Is it that?"

Forrest set down his glass--empty.

"No!" he answered. "We were going to, when a mad woman who lives
there got into the place and found us out. We had them safe, the two
of them, when the worst thing happened which could have befallen us.
Andrew de la Borne broke in upon us."

The Princess listened with set face.

"Go on," she said. "What happened?"

"The game was up so far as we were concerned," he answered. "Cecil
crumpled up before his brother, and gave the whole show away. There
was nothing left for me to do but to wait and hear what they had to
say, before I decided whether or no to make my graceful exit from
the stage."

"Go on," she commanded. "What happened exactly?"

"We were kept there," he continued, "until this morning, waiting
until Engleton was well enough to make up his mind what to do. The
end is simple enough. Considering that but for that girl's
intervention Engleton would have been in the sea by now, and he
knows it, I suppose it might have been worse. I have signed a paper
undertaking to leave England within forty-eight hours, and never to
show myself in this country again. Further, I am not to play cards
at any time with any Englishman."

"Is that all?" the Princess asked.

"Yes!" Forrest answered. "I suppose you would say that they have let
me off lightly. I wish I could feel so. If ever a man was sick of
those dirty disreputable foreign places, where one holds on to life
and respectability only with the tips of one's fingernails, I am. I
think I shall chuck it, Ena. I am tired of those foreign crowds,
suspicious, semi-disreputable. There's something wrong with every
one of them. Even the few decent ones you know very well speak to
you because you are in a foreign country, and would cut you in Pall
Mall."

"It isn't so bad as that," the Princess said calmly. "There are some
of the places worth living in. You must live a quieter life, spend
less, and find distractions. You used to be so fond of shooting and
golf."

He laughed hardly.

"How am I to live," he demanded, "away from the card-tables? What do
you suppose my income is? A blank! It is worse than a blank, for I
owe bills which I shall never pay. How am I going to live from day
to day unless I go on the same infernal treadmill. I am an
adventurer, I know," he went on, "but what is one to do who has the
tastes and education of a gentleman, and not even money enough to
buy a farm and work with one's hands for a living?"

The Princess moved to the window and back again.

"I, too, Nigel," she said, "have had shocks. Jeanne has come back.
She has been at Salthouse all the time."

"It was probably she, then, who sent for De la Borne," Forrest said
wearily.

"Perhaps so," the Princess assented, "but listen to this. It will
surprise you. She came back and she told De Brensault in this room
only a short while ago that her supposed fortune was a myth. De
Brensault took it like a lamb. He wants to marry her still."

Forrest looked up in amazement.

"And will he?" he asked.

"Oh, I do not know!" the Princess answered. "Nigel, I am sick of
life myself. There are times when everything you have been trying
for seems not worth while, when even one's fundamental ideas come
tottering down. Just now I feel as though every stone in the
foundation of what has seemed to me to mean life, is rotten and
insecure. I am tired of it. Shall I tell you what I feel like
doing?"

"Yes!" he answered.

"I have a little house in Silesia, where I am still a great lady,
half-a-dozen servants, perhaps, farms which bring in a trifle of
money. I think I will go and live there. I think I will get up in
the mornings as Jeanne does, and try to love my mountains, and go
about amongst my people, and try to spell life with different
letters. Come with me, Nigel. There is shooting and fishing there,
and horses wild enough for even you to find pleasure in riding. We
have tried many things in life. Let us make one last throw, and try
the land of Arcady."

He looked at her, at first in amazement. Afterwards some change
seemed to come into his face, called there, perhaps, by what he saw
in hers.

"Ena," he said, "you mean it?"

"Absolutely," she answered. "Fortunately we are both free, and we
can set our peasants an absolutely respectable example. You shall be
farmer and I will be housewife. Nigel, it is an inspiration."

He bent over her fingers.

"I wonder," he murmured, "if there is good enough left in me to make
it worth your while."

Late that afternoon another caller thundered at the door of the
house in Berkeley Square. The Duke of Westerham desired to see Miss
Le Mesurier. The butler was respectful but doubtful. Miss Le
Mesurier had just arrived from a journey and was lying down. The
Duke, however, was insistent. He waited twenty minutes in a small
back morning-room and presently Jeanne came in to him.

He held out his hands.

"Little girl," he said, "you know what you promised. I am afraid
that you have forgotten."

She smiled pitifully.

"No," she said, "I have not forgotten. I went away alone because I
had to go, because I wanted to be quite alone and quite quiet. Now I
have come home, and there is no one who can help me at all."

"Rubbish!" he answered. "There was never trouble in the world where
a friend couldn't help. What is it now?"

She shook her head.

"I cannot tell you," she said, "only I am going to marry the Count
de Brensault."

"I'm hanged if you are!" the Duke declared vigorously. "Look here,
Miss Jeanne. This is your stepmother's doing. I know all about it.
Don't you believe that in this country you are obliged to marry any
one whom you don't want to."

"But I do want to," Jeanne answered, "or rather I don't mind whom I
do marry, or whether I marry any one or no one."

The Duke was grave.

"I thought," he said, "that my friend Andrew had a chance."

Her face was suddenly burning.

"Mr. Andrew," she said, "does not want me; I mean that it is
impossible. Oh, if you please," she added, bursting into tears,
"won't you let me alone? I am going to marry the Count de Brensault.
I have quite made up my mind. Perhaps you have not heard that it is
all a mistake about my having a great fortune. The Count de
Brensault is very kind, and he is going to marry me although I have
no money."

The Duke stared at her for several moments. Then he rang the bell.

"Will you tell your mistress," he said to the servant, "that the
Duke of Westerham would be exceedingly obliged if she would spare
him five minutes here and now."

The man bowed and withdrew. The Princess came almost at once.

"Madam," the Duke said, "I trust that you will forgive my sending
for you, but I am very much interested in the happiness of our
little friend Miss Jeanne here. She tells me that she is going to
marry the Count de Brensault, that she has lost her fortune and she
is evidently very unhappy. Will you forgive me if I ask you whether
this marriage is being forced upon her?"

The Princess hesitated.

"No," she said, "it is not that. Jeanne told him of her loss of
fortune. She told him, too, without any prompting from me, that she
would marry him if he still wished it. That is all that I know."

The Duke bowed. He moved a few steps across towards the Princess.

"Princess," he said, "will you make a friend? Will you let me take
your little girl to my sister's for say one week? You shall have her
back then, and you shall do as you will with her."

"Willingly," the Princess answered. "I am only anxious that she
should be happy."

The Duke marvelled then at the sincerity in her tone. Nevertheless,
for fear she should change her mind, he hurried Jeanne out of the
house into his brougham.

CHAPTER XX

"So this," the Duke said, "is your wonderful land."

"Is there anything like it in the world?" Jeanne asked as she stood
bareheaded on the grass-banked dyke with her face turned seaward.

Above their heads the larks were singing. To their right stretched
the marshes and pasture land, as yet untouched by the sea, glorious
with streaks of colour, fragrant with the perfume of wild lavender
and mosses. To their left, through the opening in the sandbanks,
came streaming the full tide, rushing up into the land, making
silver water-ways of muddy places, bringing with it all the salt and
freshness and joy of the sea. Over their heads the seagulls cried.
Far away a heron lifted its head from a tuft of weeds, and sent his
strange call travelling across the level distance.

"Oh, it is beautiful to be here again!" Jeanne said. "Even though it
hurts," she added, in a lower tone, "it is beautiful."

A little boat came darting down the shallows. Kate Caynsard stood up
and waved her hand. Jeanne waved back. A sudden flush of colour
stained her cheeks. Her first impulse seemed to be to turn away. She
conquered it, 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 saying
good-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. Andrew
might have told you. Cecil and I are sailing to-morrow, directly
after we are married. He has bought a farm out there."

Jeanne felt for a moment that the beautiful world was spinning round
her. 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
know that I told you about him. Won't you wish me joy?" she added,
holding out her hand a little timidly.

Jeanne grasped it. To the girl's surprise Jeanne's eyes were full of
tears.

"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 she
meant our friend Andrew. Don't you know that all the world here half
the 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
a sail with me?"

The Duke saw what she saw, and notwithstanding his years and his
weight, he clambered into the little boat. Jeanne turned round and
walked slowly towards the man who came so swiftly along the dyke. It
was a dream! She felt that it must be a dream!

Andrew, with his gun over his shoulder, his rough tweed clothes
splashed 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 forgot the little catboat, barely out of sight, he forgot
the little red-roofed village barely a mile away, he forgot the lone
figures of the shrimpers, standing like sentinels far away in the
salt pools. He took Jeanne into his arms, and he felt her lips melt
upon his.

"The Duke was right, then," he murmured a moment later, as he stood
back for a moment, his face transformed with the new thing that had
come 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
toward the place where he had first met her.

"I believe they did," she answered.

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