Jeanne awoke the next morning to find herself between lavender scented
sheets in a small iron bedstead, with a soft sea-wind blowing in
through the half-open window. Her maid was ready to wait upon her, and
her bath was of salt water fresh from the sea. She descended to find
Andrew at work in the garden, the sun already high in the heavens, and
the sea as blue and placid as though the storm of the night before were
a thing long past and forgotten.
"I am never going away," she declared, as they sat at breakfast. "I
take your rooms, Monsieur Andrew. I will import as many chaperons as
you please, but I will not leave this island."
"I am afraid," he answered smiling, "that there are other people who
would have something to say about that. Your stepmother is already
anxious. I have promised that you shall be back at the Hall by ten
o'clock."
The gaiety suddenly faded from her face. Her lips, which had been
curved in laughter, quivered.
"You mean that?" she faltered.
"Most assuredly," he answered. "I have no place for lodgers here. As a
matter of fact, if you knew the truth, you would admit that your
staying here is quite impossible."
"Well," she said, "I should like to know the truth. Suppose you tell it
me."
"I must confess, then," Andrew answered, "that I am somewhat of a
fraud. Berners was my friend, not my lodger, and I am Andrew de la
Borne, Cecil's elder brother."
She looked at him for several moments steadily.
"I think that you might have told me," was all she said.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Why?" he asked, a little brusquely. "I am not of your world, or your
stepmother's. When Cecil told me that he had invited some of his
fashionable friends down here to stay, I begged him to leave me out of
it. I chose to retire here, and I preferred not to see any of you. Mine
are country ways, Miss Le Mesurier. I am at heart what I pretended to
be, fisherman, countryman, yokel, call me what you will. The other side
of life, Cecil's side, doesn't appeal to me a bit. I felt that it would
be more comfortable for you people and for me, if I kept out of the
way."
"You class me with them," she remarked quietly, "a little ruthlessly. I
think you forget that as yet I have not chosen my way in life."
"That is true," he answered, "but how can you help but choose what
every one of those who call themselves your friends regards as
inevitable. You must dance in many ballrooms, and make your bow before
the great ones of the earth. It is a part of the penalty that you must
pay for your name and riches. All that I can wish you is that you lose
as little of yourself as possible in the days that lie before you."
"I thank you," she answered quietly. "You will let me know when you are
ready to take me back."
"Have I offended you?" he asked, as they rose from the table. "I am
clumsy, I know, and the words do not come readily to my mouth. But
after all, you must understand."
"Yes," she said sadly, "I do understand."
They went down to the beach and he helped her into the boat. Her maid
sat by her side, and he rowed them across with a few powerful strokes.
"Storm and sunshine," he remarked, "follow one another here as swiftly
as in any corner of the world. Yesterday we had wind and thunder and
rain. To-day, look! The sky is cloudless, the birds are singing
everywhere upon the marshes, the waves can do no more than ripple in
upon the sands. Will you walk across the marshes, Miss Jeanne, or will
you come to the village and wait while I send for a carriage?"
"We will walk," she answered. "It may be for the last time."
The maid fell behind. Andrew and his companion, who seemed smaller and
slimmer than ever by his side, started on their tortuous way, here and
there turning to the right and to the left to follow the course of some
tidal stream, or avoid the swampy places. The faint odour of wild
lavender was mingled with the brackish scent of the sea. The ground was
soft and spongy beneath their feet, and a breeze as soft as a caress
blew in their faces. Up before them always, gaunt and bare, surrounded
by its belts of weather-stricken trees, stood the Red Hall. Andrew
looked toward it gloomily.
"Do you wonder," he asked, "that a man is sometimes depressed who is
born the heir to a house like that, and to fortunes very similar?"
"Are you poor?" she asked him. "I thought perhaps you were, as your
brother tried to make love to me."
He frowned impatiently at her words.
"For Heaven's sake, child," he said, "don't be so cynical! Don't fancy
that every kind word that is spoken to you is spoken for your wealth.
There are sycophants enough in the world, Heaven knows, but there are
men there as well. Give a few the credit of being honest. Try and
remember that you are--"
He looked at her and away again toward the sea.
"That you are," he repeated, "young enough and attractive enough to win
kind words for your own sake."
"Then," she whispered, leaning towards him, "I do not think that I am
very fortunate."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because," she answered, "one person who might say kind things to me,
and whom my money would never influence a little bit in the world, does
not say them."
"Are you sure," he asked, "that you believe that there is any one in
the world who would be content to take you without a penny?"
She shook her head.
"Not that," she said sadly. "I am not what you call conceited enough
for that, but I would like to believe that I might have a kind word or
two on my own account."
She tried hard to see his face, but he kept it steadfastly turned away.
She sighed. Only a few yards behind the maid was walking.
"Mr. Andrew," she said, "it was you whom I meant. Won't you say
something nice to me for my own sake?"
They were nearing the Hall now, and it seemed natural enough that he
should hold her hand for a minute in his.
"I will tell you," he said quietly, "that your coming has been a
pleasure, and your going will be a pain, and I will tell you that you
have left an empty place that no one else can fill. You have made what
our people here call the witch music upon the marshes for me, so that I
shall never walk here again as long as I live without hearing it and
thinking of you."
"Is that all?" she whispered.
He pretended not to hear her.
"I am nearly double your age," he said, "and I have lived an idle,
perhaps a worthless, life. I have done no harm. My talents, if I have
any, have certainly been buried. If I had met you out in the world,
your world, well, I might have taught myself to forget--"
He broke off abruptly in his sentence. Cecil stood before them,
suddenly emerged from the hand-gate leading into the Hall gardens. "At
last!" he exclaimed, taking Jeanne by the hands. "The Princess is
distracted. We have all been distracted. How could you make us so
unhappy?"
She drew her hands away coldly.
"I fancy that my stepmother," she said, "will have survived my absence.
I was caught in a storm. I expect that your brother has already told
you about it."
He looked from one to the other.
"So you have told her, Andrew," he said simply.
Andrew nodded. The three walked up toward the house in somewhat
constrained silence. She was trying her hardest to make Andrew look at
her, and he was trying his hardest to resist. The Princess came out to
them. The morning was warm, and she was wearing a white wrapper. Her
toilette was not wholly completed, but she was sufficiently picturesque.
"My dear Jeanne," she cried, "you have nearly sent us mad with anxiety.
How could you wander off like that!"
Jeanne stood a little apart. She avoided the Princess' hands. She stood
upon the soft turf with her hands clasped, her cheeks very pale, her
eyes bright with some inward excitement.
"Do you wish me to answer that question?" she said.
The Princess stared.
"What do you mean, my child?" she exclaimed.
"You ask me," Jeanne said, "why I went wandering off into the marshes.
I will tell you. It is because I am unhappy. It is because I do not
like the life into which you have brought me, nor the people with whom
we live. I do not like late hours, supper parties and dinner parties,
dances where half the people are bourgeois, and where all the men make
stupid love to me. I do not like the shops, the vulgar shop people,
fashionable clothes, and fashionable promenading. I am tired of it
already. If I am rich, why may I not buy the right to live as I choose?"
The Princess rarely allowed herself to show surprise. At this moment,
however, she was completely overcome.
"What is it you want, then, child?" she demanded.
"I should like," Jeanne answered, "to buy Mr. De la Borne's house upon
the island, and live there, with just a couple of maids, and my books.
I should like some friends, of course, but I should like to find them
for myself, amongst the country people, people whom I could trust and
believe in, not people whose clothes and manners and speech are all
hammered out into a type, and whose real self is so deeply buried that
you cannot tell whether they are honest or rogues. That is what I
should like, stepmother, and if you wish to earn my gratitude, that is
how you will let me live."
The Princess stared at the child as though she were a lunatic.
"Jeanne," she exclaimed weakly, "what has become of you?"
"Nothing," Jeanne answered, "only you asked me a question, and I felt
an irresistible desire to answer you truthfully. It would have come
sooner or later."
Andrew turned slowly toward the girl, who stood looking at her
stepmother with flushed cheeks and quivering lips.
"Miss Le Mesurier," he said, "on one condition I will sell you the
island, but on only one."
"And that is?" she asked.
The Princess recovered herself just in time, and sailed in between them.
"Mr. De la Borne," she said, "my daughter is too young for such
conversations. For two years she is under my complete guidance. She
must obey me just as though she were ten years older and married, and I
her husband. The law has given me absolute control over her. You
understand that yourself, don't you, Jeanne?"
"Yes," Jeanne answered quietly, "I understand."
"Go indoors, please," the Princess said. "I have something to say to
Mr. De la Borne."
"And I, too," Jeanne said. "Let me stay and say it. I will not be five
minutes."
The Princess pointed toward the door.
"I will not have it," she said coldly. "Cecil, take my daughter
indoors. I insist upon it."
She turned away unwillingly. The Princess took Andrew by the arm and
led him to a more distant seat.
"Now, if you please, my dear Mr. Andrew," she said, "will you tell me
what it is that you have done to my foolish little girl?"