Jeanne of the Marshes Part 15

Berners came in, and threw himself into an easychair in the sitting-room.

"Make what use you like of my man, Andrew," he said. "I will have a cup of tea in here afterwards."

"I'm very much obliged, sir," Andrew answered.

The Princess called out to him, and he stepped back once more to where they were all sitting.

"It is a shame," she said, "that we drive your lodger away from his seat. Will you not ask him to take tea with us?"

"I am afraid," Andrew answered, "that he is not a very sociable person.

He has come down here because he wants a complete rest, and he does not speak to any one unless he is obliged. He has just asked me to have his tea sent into his room."

"Where does he come from, this strange man?" the Princess asked. "It is all the time in my mind that I have met him somewhere. I am sure that he is one of us."

"I believe that he lives in London," Andrew answered, "and his name is Berners, Mr. Richard Berners."

"I do not seem to remember the name," the Princess remarked, "but the man's face worries me. What a delightful looking tea-tray! Mr. Andrew, you must really sit down with us. We ought to apologize for taking you by storm like this, and I have not thanked you yet for being so kind to my daughter." Andrew stepped back toward the cottage with a firm refusal upon his lips, but Jeanne's hand suddenly rested upon the arm of his coa.r.s.e blue jersey.

"If you please, Mr. Andrew," she begged, "I want you to sit by me and tell me how you came to live in so strange a place. Do you really not mind the solitude?"

Andrew looked down at her for a moment without answering. For the first time, perhaps, he realized the charm of her pale expressive face with its rapid changes, and the soft insistent fire of her beautiful eyes.

He hesitated for a moment and then remained where he was, leaning against the flag-staff.

"It is very good of you, miss," he said. "As to why I came to live here, I do so simply because the house belongs to me. It was my father's and his father's. We folk who live in the country make few changes."

She looked at him curiously. The men whom she had known, even those of the cla.s.s to whom he might be supposed to belong, were all in a way different. This man talked only when he was obliged. All the time she felt in him the attraction of the unknown. He answered her questions and remarks in words, the rest remained unspoken. She looked at him contemplatively as he stood by her side with a tea-cup in his hand, leaning still a little against the flag-staff. Notwithstanding his rough clothes and heavy fisherman's boots, there was nothing about his att.i.tude or his speech, save in its dialect, to denote the fact that he was of a different order from that in which she had been brought up.

She felt an immense curiosity concerning him, and she felt, too, that it would probably never be gratified. Most men were her slaves from the moment she smiled upon them. This one she fancied seemed a little bored by her presence. He did not even seem to be thinking about her. He was watching steadily and with somewhat bent eyebrows Cecil de la Borne and Forrest. Something struck her as she looked from one to the other.

"I read once," she remarked, "that people who live in a very small village for generation after generation grow to look like one another.

In a certain way I cannot conceive two men more unlike, and yet at that moment there was something in your face which reminded me of Mr. De la Borne."

He looked down at her with a quick frown. Decidedly he was annoyed.

"You are certainly the first," he said drily, "who has ever discovered the likeness, if there is any."

"It does not amount to a likeness," she answered, "and you need not look so angry. Mr. De la Borne is considered very good-looking. Dear me, what a nuisance! Do you see? We are going!"

Andrew de la Borne took the cup from her hand and helped to prepare the boat. With a faint smile upon his lips he heard a little colloquy between Cecil and the Princess which amused him. The Princess, as he prepared to hand her into the boat, showed herself at any rate possessed of the instincts of her order. She held out her hand and smiled sweetly upon Andrew.

"We are so much obliged to you for your delightful tea, Mr. Andrew,"

she said. "I hope that next time my daughter goes wandering about in dangerous places you may be there to look after her."

Andrew looked swiftly away towards Jeanne. Somehow or other the Princess' words seemed to come to him at that moment charged with some secondary meaning. He felt instinctively that notwithstanding her thoroughly advanced airs, Jeanne was little more than a child as compared with these people. She met his eyes with one of her most delightful smiles.

"Some day, I hope," she said, "that you will take me out in the punt again. I can a.s.sure you that I quite enjoyed being rescued."

The little party sailed away, Cecil with an obvious air of relief.

Andrew turned slowly round, and met his friend issuing from the door of the cottage.

"Andrew," he said, "no wonder you did not care about being host to such a crowd!"

There was meaning in his tone, and Andrew looked at him thoughtfully.

"Do you know--anything definite?" he asked.

Berners nodded.

"About one of them," he said, "I certainly do. I wonder what on earth has become of Ronald. He was with them yesterday."

"Had enough, perhaps," Andrew suggested.

Berners shook his head.

"I am afraid not," he answered slowly. "I wish I could think that he had so much sense."

CHAPTER XIII

Cecil came into the room abruptly, and closed the door behind him. He was breathing quickly as though he had been running. His lips were a little parted, and in his eyes shone an unmistakable expression of fear. Forrest and the Princess both looked towards him apprehensively.

"What is it, Cecil?" the latter asked quickly. "You are a fool to go about the house looking like that."

Cecil came further into the room and threw himself into a chair.

"It is that fellow upon the island," he said. "You remember we all said that his face was familiar. I have seen him again, and I have remembered."

"Remembered what?" the Princess asked.

"Where it was that I saw him last," Cecil answered. "It was in Pall Mall, and he was walking with--with Engleton. It was before I knew him, but I knew who he was. He must be a friend of Engleton's. What do you suppose that he is doing here?"

Cecil was shaking like a leaf. The Princess looked towards him contemptuously.

"Come," she said, "there is no need for you to behave like a terrified child. Even if you have seen him once with Lord Ronald, what on earth is there in that to be terrified about? Lord Ronald had many friends and acquaintances everywhere. This one is surely harmless enough. He behaved quite naturally on the island, remember."

Cecil shook his head.

"I do not understand," he said. "I do not understand what he can be doing in this part of the world, unless he has some object. I saw him just now standing behind a tree at the entrance to the drive, watching me drive golf b.a.l.l.s out on to the marsh. I am almost certain that he was about the place last night. I saw some one who looked very much like him pa.s.s along the cliffs just about dinner-time."

"You are frightened at shadows," the Princess declared contemptuously.

"If he were one of Lord Ronald's friends, and he had come here to look for him, he wouldn't play about watching you from a distance. Besides, there has been no time yet. Lord Ronald only--left here yesterday morning."

"What is he doing, then, watching this house?" Cecil asked. "That is what I do not like."

The Princess raised her eyebrows contemptuously.

"My dear Cecil," she said, "it is just a coincidence, and not a very remarkable one at that. Lord Ronald had the name, you know, of having acquaintances in every quarter of the world."