CHAPTER XV
Bareheaded, Jeanne walked upon the yellow sands close to the softlybreaking waves. Inland stretched the marshes, with their patches ofvivid green, their clouds of faintly blue wild lavender, their sinuouscreeks stealing into the bosom of the land. She climbed on to a grassyknoll, warm with the sun's heat, and threw herself down upon the turf.She turned her back upon the Hall and looked steadily seawards, acrossthe waste of sands and pasture-land to where sky and sea met. Here atleast was peace. She drew a long breath of relief, cast aside the bookwhich she had never dreamed of reading, and lay full length in thegrass, with her eyes upturned to where a lark was singing his way downfrom the blue sky.
Andrew came before long, speeding his way out of the village harbour inhis little catboat. She watched him cross the sandy bar of the inlet,and run his boat presently upon the beach below where she sat. Then sheshook out her skirts and made room for him by her side.
"Really, Mr. Andrew," she said, resting her chin upon her hands, andlooking up at him with her full dark eyes, "you are becoming almostgallant. Until now, when I have been weary, and have wished to talk toyou, I have had almost to come and fetch you. To-day it is you who cometo me. That is a good sign."
"It is true," he admitted. "I have kept my telescope fixed upon thesands here for more than an hour. I wanted to see you."
"You have something to tell me about last night?" she asked gravely.
"No!" he answered, "I did not come here to talk about that."
"Did you know," she asked, "who your lodger really was?"
"Yes," he said, "I guessed! I will be frank with you, Miss Jeanne, ifyou will allow me. I do not like your stepmother and I do not likeMajor Forrest, but I think that the Duke is going altogether too farwhen he suspects them of having anything to do with the disappearanceof his brother."
She drew a little sigh of relief.
"Oh! I am glad to hear you say that," she declared. "It is all sohorrible. I could not sleep last night for thinking about it."
"Lord Ronald will probably turn up in a day or two," Andrew saidgravely. "We will not talk any more about him."
She settled herself a little more comfortably, and smoothed out herskirts. Then she looked up at him with faintly parted lips.
"What shall we talk about, Mr. Andrew?" she said softly.
"About ourselves," he answered, "or rather about you. It seems to methat we both stand a little outside the game of life, as your friendsup there understand it."
He waved his large brown hand in the direction of the Hall.
"You are a child, fresh from boarding-school, too young to understand,too young to know where to look for your friends, or discriminateagainst your enemies. I am a rough sort of fellow, also, outside theirlives, from necessity, from every reason which the brain of man couldevolve. Sometimes we outsiders see more than is intended. Is thePrincess of Strurm really your stepmother?"
"Of course she is," Jeanne answered. "She was married to my father whenI was quite a little girl, and she has visited me at the convent whereI was at school, all my life, and when I left last year it was she whocame for me. Why do you ask so strange a question?"
"Because," he said, "I should consider her about the worst possibleguardian that a child like you could have. Tell me, what is it thatgoes on all day up at the Hall there--or rather what was it that did goon before Engleton went away?--eating and drinking, cards, and Godknows what sort of foolishness! Nothing else, nothing worth doing, nota thing said worth listening to! It's a rotten life for a child likeyou. They tell me you're an heiress. Are you?"
She smoothed her crumpled skirts, and looked steadily at the tip of herbrown shoe.
"One of the greatest in Europe," she answered. "No one knows how rich Iam. You see all the money was left to me when I was six years old, andit is so strictly tied up that no one has had power to touch a singlepenny until I am of age. That is why it has gone on increasing andincreasing."
"And when are you of age?" he asked.
"Next year," she answered.
"By that time, I imagine," Andrew continued, "your stepmother will havesold you to some broken-down hanger-on of hers. Haven't you any otherrelations, Miss Jeanne?"
She laughed softly.
"You are a ridiculous person," she said. "I am very fond of mystepmother. I think that she is a very clever woman."
"Bah!" he exclaimed in disgust. "A clever woman she may be, but a goodwoman, no! I am sure of that. You may judge a person by the companythey keep. Neither she or this man Forrest are fit associates for achild of your age."
She laughed softly.
"They don't do me any harm," she said. "Mr. De la Borne and Lord Ronaldhave asked me to marry them, of course, but then every young man doesthat when he knows who I am. My stepmother has promised me at leastthat I shall not be bothered by any of them just yet. I am going to bepresented next season, we are going to have a house in town, and I amgoing to choose a husband of my own."
It was Andrew now who looked long and steadily out seawards. Shewatched him covertly from under her heavily lidded eyes.
"Mr. Andrew," she said softly, "I wish very much--"
Then she stopped short, and he looked at her a little abruptly.
"What is it that you wish?" he asked.
"I wish that you did not wear such strange clothes and that you did nottalk the dialect of these fishermen, and that you had more money. Thenyou too might come and see me, might you not, when we have that housein London?"
He laughed boisterously.
"I fancy I see myself in London, paying calls," he declared. "Give memy catboat and fishing line. I'd rather sail down the home creek, witha northeast gale in my teeth, than walk down Piccadilly in patentboots."
She sighed.
"I am afraid," she admitted, "that as a town acquaintance you arehopeless."
"I am afraid so," he answered, looking steadily seawards. "We countrypeople have strong prejudices, you see. It seems to us that all the sinand all the unhappiness and all the decadence and all the things thatmar the beauty of the world, come from the cities and from life in thecities. No wonder that we want to keep away. It isn't that we thinkourselves better than the other folk. It is simply that we haverealized pleasures greater than we could find in paved streets andunder smoke-stained skies. We know what it is to smell the salt wind,to hear it whistling in the cords and the sails of our boats, to feelthe warmth of the sun, to listen to the song of the birds, to watch thecolouring of God's land here. I suppose we have the thing in ourbloods; we can't leave it. We hear the call of the other thingssometimes, but as soon as we obey we are restless and unhappy. It isonly an affair of time, and generally a very short time. One cannotfight against nature."
"No!" she answered softly. "One cannot fight against nature. But thereare children of the cities, children of the life artificial as well aschildren of nature. Look at me!"
He turned toward her quickly.
"Look at me!" she commanded, and he obeyed.
He saw her pale skin, which the touch of the sun seemed to have nopower to burn or coarsen. The clear, wonderful eyes, the delicateeyebrows, the masses of dark hair, the scarlet lips. He saw her whitethroat swelling underneath her muslin blouse. The daintiness of hergown, airy and simple, yet fresh from a Paris workshop. The stockingsand shoes, exquisite, but strangely out of place with their high heelsburied in the sand.
"How do I know," she demanded, "that I am not one of the children ofthe cities, that I was not fashioned and made for the gas-lit life, toeat unreal food at unreal hours, and feed my brain upon the unrealepigrams of the men whom you would call decadents. Two days here, aweek--very well. In a month I might be bored. Who shall guarantee meagainst it?"
"No one," he answered. "And yet there is something in your blood whichcalls for the truth, which hates the shams, which knows real beauty.Why don't you try and cultivate it? In your heart you know where thetrue things lie. Consider! Every one with great wealth can make or marmany lives. You
enter the world almost as a divinity. Your wealth isreckoned as a quality. What you do will be right. What you condemn willbe wrong. It is a very important thing for others as well as yourself,that you should see a clear way through life."
A moment's intense dejection seized upon her. The tears stood in hereyes as she looked away from him.
"Who is there to show it me?" she asked. "Who is there to help me findit?"
"Not those friends whom you have left to play bridge in a room withdrawn curtains at this hour of the day," he answered. "Not yourstepmother, or any of her sort. Try and realize this. Even the weakestof us is not dependent upon others for support. There is only one sureguide. Trust yourself. Be faithful to the best part of yourself. Youknow what is good and what is ugly. Don't be coerced, don't be led intothe morass."
She looked at him and laughed gaily. Her mood had changed once morewith chameleon-like swiftness.
"It is all very well for you," she declared. "You are six foot four,and you look as though you could hew your way through life with acudgel. One could fancy you a Don Quixote amongst the shams, knockingthem over like ninepins, and moving aside neither to the right nor tothe left. But what is a poor weak girl to do? She wants some one, Mr.Andrew, to wield the cudgel for her."
It was several seconds before he turned his head. Then he found that,although her lips were laughing, her eyes were longing and serious. Shesprang suddenly to her feet and leaned towards him.
"This is the most delightful nonsense," she whispered. "Please!"
She was in his arms for a moment, her lips had clung to his. Then shewas away, flying along the sands at a pace which seemed to himmiraculous, swinging her hat in her hands, and humming the maddeningrefrain of some French song, which it seemed to him was always upon herlips, and which had haunted him for days. He hesitated, uncertainwhether to follow, ashamed of himself, ashamed of the passion which wasburning in his blood. And while he hesitated she passed out of sight,turning only once to wave her hand as she crossed the line ofgrass-grown hillocks which shut him out from her view.
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