Books: Jeanne Of The Marshes
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E. Phillips Oppenheim >> Jeanne Of The Marshes
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Then there was Lord Ronald Engleton, an orphan brought up in Paris,
a would-be decadent, a dabbler in all modern iniquities, redeemed
from folly only by a certain not altogether wholesome cleverness,
yet with a disposition which sometimes gained for him friends in
most unlikely quarters. He had excellent qualities, which he did his
best to conceal; impulses which he was continually stifling.
By his side sat Forrest, the Sphynx, more than middle-aged, a man
who had wandered all over the world, who had tried many things
without ever achieving prosperity, and who was searching always,
with tired eyes, for some new method of clothing and feeding himself
upon an income of less than nothing a year. He had met the Princess
at Marienbad years ago, and silently took his place in her suite.
Why, no one seemed to know, not even at first the Princess herself,
who thought him chic, and adored what she could not understand.
Curious flotsam and jetsam, these four, of society which had
something of a Continental flavour; personages, every one of them,
with claim to recognition, but without any noticeable hall-mark....
There remained the girl, Jeanne herself, half behind the curtain
now, her head thrust forward, her beautiful eyes contracted with the
effort to penetrate that veil of darkness. One gift at least she
seemed to have borrowed from the woman who gambled with life as
easily and readily as with the cards which fell from her jewelled
fingers. In her face, although it was still the face of a child,
there was the same inscrutable expression, the same calm languor of
one who takes and receives what life offers with the indifference of
the cynic, or the imperturbability of the philosopher. There was
little of the joy or the anticipation of youth there, and yet,
behind the eyes, as they looked out into the darkness, there was
something--some such effort, perhaps, as one seeking to penetrate
the darkness of life must needs show. And as she looked, the white,
living breakers gradually resolved them-selves out of the dark, thin
filmy phosphorescence, and the roar of the lashed sea broke like
thunder upon the pebbled beach. She leaned a little more forward,
carried away with her fancy--that the shrill grinding of the pebbles
was indeed the scream of human voices in pain!
CHAPTER VI
With the coming of dawn the storm passed away northwards, across a
sea snow-flecked and still panting with its fury, and leaving behind
many traces of its violence, even upon these waste and empty places.
A lurid sunrise gave little promise of better weather, but by six
o'clock the wind had fallen, and the full tide was swelling the
creeks. On a sand-bank, far down amongst the marshes, Jeanne stood
hatless, with her hair streaming in the breeze, her face turned
seaward, her eyes full of an unexpected joy. Everywhere she saw
traces of the havoc wrought in the night. The tall rushes lay broken
and prostrate upon the ground; the beach was strewn with timber from
the breaking up of an ancient wreck. Eyes more accustomed than hers
to the outline of the country could have seen inland dismantled
cottages and unroofed sheds, groups of still frightened and restive
cattle, a snapped flagstaff, a fallen tree. But Jeanne knew none of
these things. Her face was turned towards the ocean and the rising
sun. She felt the sting of the sea wind upon her cheeks, all the
nameless exhilaration of the early morning sweetness. Far out
seaward the long breakers, snow-flecked and white crested, came
rolling in with a long, monotonous murmur toward the land. Above,
the grey sky was changing into blue. Almost directly over her head,
rising higher and higher in little circles, a lark was singing.
Jeanne half closed her eyes and stood still, engrossed by the
unexpected beauty of her surroundings. Then suddenly a voice came
travelling to her from across the marshes.
She turned round unwillingly, and with a vague feeling of irritation
against this interruption, which seemed to her so inopportune, and
in turning round she realized at once that her period of absorption
must have lasted a good deal longer than she had had any idea of.
She had walked straight across the marshes towards the little
hillock on which she stood, but the way by which she had come was no
longer visible. The swelling tide had circled round through some
unseen channel, and was creeping now into the land by many creeks
and narrow ways. She herself was upon an island, cut off from the
dry land by a smoothly flowing tidal way more than twenty yards
across. Along it a man in a flat-bottomed boat was punting his way
towards her. She stood and waited for him, admiring his height, and
the long powerful strokes with which he propelled his clumsy craft.
He was very tall, and against the flat background his height seemed
almost abnormal. As soon as he had attracted her attention he ceased
to shout, and devoted all his attention to reaching her quickly.
Nevertheless, the salt water was within a few feet of her when he
drove his pole into the bottom, and brought the punt to a momentary
standstill. She looked down at him, smiling.
"Shall I get in?" she asked.
"Unless you are thinking of swimming back," he answered drily, "it
would be as well."
She lifted her skirts a little, and laughed at the inappropriateness
of her thin shoes and open-work stockings. Andrew de la Borne held
out his strong hand, and she sprang lightly on to the broad seat.
"It is very nice of you," she said, with her slight foreign accent,
"to come and fetch me. Should I have been drowned?"
"No!" he answered. "As a matter of fact, the spot where you were
standing is not often altogether submerged. You might have been a
prisoner for a few hours. Perhaps as the tide is going to be high,
your feet would have been wet. But there was no danger."
She settled down as comfortably as possible in the awkward seat.
"After all, then," she said, "this is not a real adventure. Where
are you going to take me to?"
"I can only take you," he answered, "to the village. I suppose you
came from the Hall?"
"Yes!" she answered. "I walked straight across from the gate. I
never thought about the tide coming up here."
"You will have to walk back by the road," he answered. "It is a good
deal further round, but there is no other way."
She hung her hand over the side, rejoicing in the touch of the cool
soft water.
"That," she answered, "does not matter at all. It is very early
still, and I do not fancy that any one will be up yet for several
hours."
He made no further attempt at conversation, devoting himself
entirely to the task of steering and propelling his clumsy craft
along the narrow way. She found herself watching him with some
curiosity. It had never occurred to her to doubt at first but that
he was some fisherman from the village, for he wore a rough jersey
and a pair of trousers tucked into sea-boots. His face was bronzed,
and his hands were large and brown. Nevertheless she saw that his
features were good, and his voice, though he spoke the dialect of
the country, had about it some quality which she was not slow to
recognize.
"Who are you?" she asked, a little curiously. "Do you live in the
village?"
He looked down at her with a faint smile.
"I live in the village," he answered, "and my name is Andrew."
"Are you a fisherman?" she asked.
"Certainly," he answered gravely. "We are all fishermen here."
She was not altogether satisfied. He spoke to her easily, and
without any sort of embarrassment. His words were civil enough, and
yet he had more the air of one addressing an equal than a villager
who is able to be of service to some one in an altogether different
social sphere.
"It was very fortunate for me," she said, "that you saw me. Are you
up at this hour every morning?"
"Generally," he answered. "I was thinking of fishing, higher up in
the reaches there."
"I am sorry," she said, "that I spoiled your sport."
He did not answer at once. He, in his turn, was looking at her. In
her tailor-made gown, short and fashionably cut, her silk stockings
and high-heeled shoes, she certainly seemed far indeed removed from
any of the women of those parts. Her dark hair was arranged after a
fashion that was strange to him. Her delicately pale skin, her deep
grey eyes, and unusually scarlet lips were all indications of her
foreign extraction. He looked at her long and searchingly. This was
the girl, then, whom his brother was hoping to marry.
"You are not English," he remarked, a little abruptly.
She shook her head.
"My father was a Portuguese," she said, "and my mother French. I was
born in England, though. You, I suppose, have lived here all your
life?"
"All my life," he repeated. "We villagers, you see, have not much
opportunity for travel."
"But I am not sure," she said, looking at him a little doubtfully,
"that you are a villager."
"I can assure you," he answered, "that there is no doubt whatever
about it. Can you see out yonder a little house on the island
there?"
She followed his outstretched finger.
"Of course I can," she answered. "Is that your home?"
He nodded.
"I am there most of my time," he answered.
"It looks charming," she said, a little doubtfully, "but isn't it
lonely?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Perhaps," he answered. "I am only ten minutes' sail from the
mainland, though."
She looked again at the house, long and low, with its plaster walls
bare of any creeping thing.
"It must be rather fascinating," she admitted, "to live upon an
island. Are you married?"
"No!" he answered.
"Do you mean that you live quite alone?" she asked.
He smiled down upon her as one might smile at an inquisitive child.
"I have a ser--some one to look after me," he said. "Except for that
I am quite alone. I am going to set you ashore here. You see those
telegraph posts? That is the road which leads direct to the Hall."
She was still looking at the island, watching the waves break
against a little stretch of pebbly beach.
"I should like very much," she said, "to see that house. Can you not
take me out there?"
He shook his head.
"We could not get so far in this punt," he said, "and my sailing
boat is up at the village quay, more than a mile away."
She frowned a little. She was not used to having any request of hers
disregarded.
"Could we not go to the village," she asked, "and change into your
boat?"
He shook his head.
"I am going fishing," he said, "in a different direction. Allow me."
He stepped on to land and lifted her out. She hesitated for a moment
and felt for her purse.
"You must let me recompense you," she said coldly, "for the time you
have lost in coming to my assistance."
He looked down at her, and again she had an uncomfortable sense that
notwithstanding his rude clothes and country dialect, this man was
no ordinary villager. He said nothing, however, until she produced
her purse, and held out a little tentatively two half-crowns.
"You are very kind," he said. "I will take one if you will allow me.
That is quite sufficient. You see the Hall behind the trees there.
You cannot miss your way, I think, and if you will take my advice
you will not wander about in the marshes here except at high tide.
The sea comes in to the most unexpected places, and very quickly,
too, sometimes. Good morning!"
"Good morning, and thank you very much," she answered, turning away
toward the road.
* * *
Cecil de la Borne was standing at the end of the drive when she
appeared, a telescope in his hand. He came hastily down the road to
meet her, a very slim and elegant figure in his well-cut flannel
clothes, smoothly brushed hair, and irreproachable tie.
"My dear Miss Jeanne," he exclaimed, "I have only just heard that
you were out. Do you generally get up in the middle of the night?"
She smiled a little half-heartedly. It was curious that she found
herself contrasting for a moment this very elegant young man with
her roughly dressed companion of a few minutes ago.
"To meet with an adventure such as I have had," she answered, "I
would never go to bed at all. I have been nearly drowned, and
rescued by a most marvellous person. He brought me back to safety in
a flat-bottomed punt, and I am quite sure from the way he stared at
them that he had never seen open-work stockings before."
"Are you in earnest?" Cecil asked doubtfully.
"Absolutely," she answered. "I was walking there among the marshes,
and I suddenly found myself surrounded by the sea. The tide had come
up behind me without my noticing. A most mysterious person came to
my rescue. He wore the clothes of a fisherman, and he accepted half
a crown, but I have my doubts about him even now. He said that his
name was Mr. Andrew."
Cecil opened the gate and they walked up towards the house. A slight
frown had appeared upon his forehead.
"Do you know him?" she asked.
"I know who he is," he answered. "He is a queer sort of fellow,
lives all alone, and is a bit cranky, they say. Come in and have
some breakfast. I don't suppose that any one else will be down for
ages."
She shook her head.
"I will send my woman down for some coffee," she answered. "I am
going upstairs to change. I am just a little wet, and I must try and
find some thicker shoes."
Cecil sighed.
"One sees so little of you," he murmured, "and I was looking forward
to a tete-a-tete breakfast."
She shook her head as she left him in the hall.
"I couldn't think of it," she declared. "I'll appear with the others
later on. Please find out all you can about Mr. Andrew and tell me."
Cecil turned away, and his face grew darker as he crossed the hall.
"If Andrew interferes this time," he muttered, "there will be
trouble!"
CHAPTER VII
The Princess appeared for luncheon and declared herself to be in a
remarkably good humour.
"My dear Cecil," she said, helping herself to an ortolan in aspic,
"I like your climate and I like your chef. I had my window open for
at least ten minutes, and the sea air has given me quite an
appetite. I have serious thoughts of embracing the simple life."
"You could scarcely," Cecil de la Borne answered, "come to a better
place for your first essay. I will guarantee that life is
sufficiently simple here for any one. I have no neighbours, no
society to offer you, no distractions of any sort. Still, I warned
you before you came."
"Don't be absurd," the Princess declared. "You have the sea almost
at your front door, and I adore the sea. If you have a nice large
boat I should like to go for a sail."
Cecil looked at her with upraised eyebrows.
"If you are serious," he said, "no doubt we can find the boat."
"I am absolutely serious," the Princess declared. "I feel that this
is exactly what my system required. I should like to sit in a
comfortable cushioned seat and sail somewhere. If possible, I should
like you men to catch things from the side of the boat."
"You will get sunburnt," Lord Ronald remarked drily; "perhaps even
freckled."
"Adorable!" the Princess declared. "A touch of sunburn would be
quite becoming. It is such an excellent foundation to build a
complexion upon. Jeanne is quite enchanted with the place. She's had
adventures already, and been rescued from drowning by a marvellous
person, who wore his trousers tucked into his boots and found fault
with her shoes and stockings. She has promised to show me the place
after luncheon, and I am going to stand there myself and see if
anything happens."
"You will get your feet very wet," Cecil declared.
"And sand inside your shoes," Forrest remarked.
"These," the Princess declared, "are trifles compared with the
delightful sensation of experiencing a real adventure. In any case
we must sail one afternoon, Cecil. I insist upon it. We will not
play bridge until after dinner. My luck last night was abominable.
Oh, you needn't look at me like that," she added to Cecil. "I know I
won, but that was an accident. I had bad cards all the time, and I
only won because you others had worse. Please ring the bell, Mr.
Host, and see about the boat."
"Really," Cecil remarked, as he called the butler and gave him some
instructions, "I had no idea that I was going to entertain such
enterprising guests."
"Oh, there are lots of things I mean to do!" the Princess declared.
"I am seriously thinking of going shrimping. I suppose there are
shrimps here, and I should love to tuck up my skirts and carry a big
net, like somebody's picture."
"Perhaps," Cecil suggested, "you would like to try the golf links. I
believe there are some quite decent ones not far away."
The Princess shook her head.
"No!" she answered. "Golf is too civilized a game. We will go out in
a fishing boat with plenty of cushions, and we will try to catch
fish. I know that Jeanne will love it, and that you others will hate
it. Between the two of you it should be amusing."
"Very well," Cecil declared, with an air of resignation, "whatever
happens will be upon your own shoulders. There is a boat in the
village which we can have. I will have it brought up to our own quay
in an hour's time. If the worst comes to the worst, and we are bored
to death, we can play bridge on the way."
"There will be no cards upon the boat," the Princess declared
decidedly. "I forbid them. We are going to lounge and look at the
sea and get sunburnt. Jeanne can wear a veil if she likes. I shall
not."
Cecil shrugged his shoulders.
"Very well," he said. "Whatever happens, don't blame me."
* * *
The Princess had her way and behaved like a schoolgirl. She sat in
the most comfortable place, surrounded with a multitude of cushions,
with her tiny Japanese spaniel in her arms, and a box of French
bonbons by her side. Jeanne stood in the bows, bareheaded and happy.
Lord Ronald, who was feeling a little sea-sick, sat at her feet.
"I had no idea," he remarked plaintively, "that your mother was
capable of such crudities. If I had known, I certainly would not
have trusted myself to such a party. This sea air is hateful. It has
tarnished my cigarette-case already, and one's nails will not be fit
to be seen. To be out of doors like this is worse than drinking
unfiltered water."
Jeanne smiled down at him a little contemptuously.
"You are a child of the cities, Lord Ronald," she remarked. "Next
year I am going to buy a yacht myself, but I shall not ask you to
come with us."
Lord Ronald groaned.
"That is the worst of all heiresses," he said. "You have such queer
tastes. I shall never summon up my courage to propose to you."
"There is always leap year," Jeanne reminded him.
"What a bewildering suggestion!" he murmured, looking uncomfortably
over the side of the boat. "I say, Forrest, what do you think of
this sort of thing?"
"Idyllic!" Forrest declared cynically. "To sit upon a hard plank and
to have one's digestion unmercifully interfered with like this is
unqualified rapture. If only there were cabins one might sleep."
"There will be cabins on my yacht," Jeanne declared laughing, "but I
shall not ask either of you. You are both of you knights of the
candle light. I shall get some great strong fisherman to be captain,
and I shall go round the world and forget the days and the months."
Forrest shivered slightly.
"The country," he remarked to the Princess, "is having a terrible
effect upon your stepdaughter."
The Princess nodded and thrust a bonbon into the languid jaws of the
dog she was holding.
"It is my fault," she declared. "It is I who have set this fashion.
It was a whim, and I am tired of it. Tell our host that we will go
back."
They tacked a few minutes later, and swept shoreward. Jeanne, still
standing in the bows, was gazing steadfastly upon the little island
at the entrance of the estuary.
"I should like," she declared, pointing it out to Cecil, "to land
there and have some tea."
Cecil looked at her doubtfully.
"We shall be home in a little more than an hour," he said, "and I
don't suppose we could get any tea there, even if we were able to
land."
"I have a conviction that we should," Jeanne declared. "Mother," she
added, turning round to the older woman, "there is an island just
ahead of us with a delightful looking cottage. I believe my
preserver of this morning lives there. Wouldn't it be lovely to go
and beg him to give us all tea?"
"Charming!" the Princess declared, sitting up amongst her cushions.
"I should love to see him, and tea is the one thing in the world I
want to make me happy."
Cecil de la Borne stood silent for a moment or two, looking
steadfastly at the whitewashed cottage upon the island. It seemed
impossible, after all, to escape from Andrew!
"The man lives there alone, I believe," he said. "I don't suppose
there is any one to get us tea. He would only be embarrassed by our
coming, and not know what to do."
Jeanne smiled reflectively.
"I do not think," she said, "that it would be easy to embarrass Mr.
Andrew. However, if you like we will put it off to another
afternoon, on one condition."
"Let me hear the condition at any rate," Cecil asked.
"That we go straight back, and that you show us that subterranean
passage," Jeanne declared.
"Agreed!" Cecil answered. "I warn you that you will find it only
damp and mouldy and depressing, but you shall certainly see it."
The girl moved toward the side of the boat, and stood leaning over,
with her eyes fixed upon the island. Standing on the small grass
plot in front of the cottage she could see the tall figure of a man
with his face turned toward them. A faint smile parted her lips as
she watched. She took out her handkerchief and waved it. The man for
a moment stood motionless, and then raising his cap, held it for a
moment above his head. The boat sped on, and very soon they were out
of sight. She stood there, however, watching, until they had rounded
the sandy spit and entered the creek which led into the harbour.
There was something unusually piquant to her in the thought of that
greeting with the man. whose response to it had been so unwilling,
almost ungracious.
CHAPTER VIII
"Not another step!" the Princess declared. "I am going back at
once."
"I too," Forrest declared. "Your smuggling ancestors, my dear De la
Borne, must indeed have loved adventure, if they spent much of their
time crawling about here like rats."
"As you will," Cecil answered. "The expedition is Miss Jeanne's, not
mine."
"And I am going on," Jeanne declared. "I want to see where we come
out on the beach."
"This way, then," Cecil said. "You need not be afraid to walk
upright. The roof is six feet high all the way. You must tread
carefully, though. There are plenty of holes and stones about."
The Princess and Forrest disappeared. Jeanne, with her skirts held
high in one hand, and an electric torch in the other, followed Cecil
slowly along the gloomy way. The walls were oozing with damp,
glistening patches, like illuminated salt stains, and queer fungi
started out from unexpected places. Sometimes their footsteps fell
on the rock, awaking strange echoes down the gallery. Sometimes they
sank deep into the sand. Cecil looked often behind, and once held
out his hand to help his companion over a difficult place. At last
he paused, and she heard him struggling to turn a key in a great
worm-eaten door on their right.
"This is the room," he explained, "where they held their meetings,
and where the stuff was hidden. It was used for more than twenty
years, and the Customs' people never seemed to have had even an
inkling of its existence."
He pushed the door open with difficulty. They found themselves in a
gloomy chamber, with vaulted roof and stone floor. A faint streak of
daylight from an opening somewhere in the roof, partially lit the
place. Here, too, the walls were damp and the odour appalling. There
were some fragments of broken barrels at one end, and an oak table
in the middle of the floor. Jeanne looked round and shivered.
"Let us go on to the end," she said.
Cecil nodded, and they made their way on down the passage.
"The roof is getting lower now," he said. "You had better stoop a
little."
She stopped short.
"What is that?" she asked fearfully.
A sound like rolling thunder, faint at first, but growing more
distinct at every step, broke the chill silence of the place.
"The sea," Cecil answered. "We are getting near to the beach."
Jeanne nodded and crept on. Louder and louder the sound seemed to
become, until at last she paused, half terrified.
"Where are we?" she gasped. "It sounds as though the sea were right
over our heads."
Cecil shook his head.
"It is an illusion," he said. "The sound comes from the air-hole
there. We are forty yards from the cliff still."
They crept on, until at last, after a turn in the gallery, they saw
a faint glimmering of light. A few more yards and they came to a
standstill.
"The entrance is boarded up, you see," Cecil said, "but you can see
through the chinks. There is the sea just below, and the rope ladder
used to hang from these staples."
She looked out. Sheer below was the sea, breaking upon the rocks and
sending a torrent of spray into the air with every wave.
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