Jeanne of the Marshes Part 16

Cecil drew a little breath.

"It may be all right," he said, "but I am not used to this sort of thing, and it gives me the creeps."

"Of course it is all right," the Princess said composedly. "One would think that we were a pack of children, to take any notice of such trifles. It is too early, my dear Cecil, by many a day, to look for trouble yet. Lord Ronald always wandered about pretty much as he chose.

It will be months before--"

"Don't go on," Cecil interrupted. "I suppose I am a fool, but all the time I am fancying things."

Forrest moved away with a little laugh, and the Princess rose and thrust her arm through Cecil's.

"Silly boy!" she said. "You have nothing to be frightened about, I can a.s.sure you."

"I am not frightened," Cecil answered. "I don't think that I was ever a coward. All the same, there are some things about this fellow which I don't quite understand."

The Princess laughed as she swept from the room.

"Don't be foolish, Cecil," she said. "Remember that we are all here, and that nothing can go wrong unless we lose our nerve."

Forrest found the Princess alone a little later in the evening, waiting in the hall for the dinner-gong. He drew her into a corner, under pretext of showing her one of the old engravings, dark with age, which hung upon the wall.

"Ena," he said, "I suppose that you trust Cecil de la Borne? You haven't any fear about him, eh?"

The Princess shrugged her shoulders.

"No!" she answered. "He is a coward at heart, but he has enough vanity, I believe, to keep him from doing anything foolish. All the same, I think it is wiser not to leave him alone here."

"He would not stay," Forrest remarked. "He told me so only this morning."

"You suggested leaving?" the Princess asked.

Forrest nodded.

"I couldn't help it," he said, a little sullenly. "There is something about these great empty rooms, and the silence of the place, that's getting on my nerves. I start every time that great front-door bell clangs, or I hear an unfamiliar footstep in the hall. G.o.d! What fools we have been," he added, with a sudden bitter strength. "I couldn't have believed that I could ever have done anything so clumsy. Fancy giving ourselves away to a fool like Engleton, a self-opinionated young cub scarcely out of his cradle."

He felt his damp forehead. The Princess was watching him curiously.

"Don't be a fool, Nigel," she said. "We underrated Engleton, that was all. If ever a man looked an idiot, he did, and you must remember that we were in a corner. Yet," she added, leaning a little forward in her chair and gazing with hard, set face into the fire, "it was foolish of me. With Jeanne to play with, I ought to have had no such difficulties.

I never counted upon the tradespeople being so unreasonable. If they had let me finish the season it would have been all right."

Forrest walked restlessly across the room, and stood for a moment looking out of the window. Outside, the wind had suddenly changed. The sunshine had departed, and a grey fog was blowing in from the sea. He turned away with a shiver.

"What a cursed place this is!" he muttered. "I've half a mind even now to turn my back upon it and to run."

The Princess watched his pale face scornfully.

"I thought, Nigel," she said, "that you were a more reasonable person.

Remember that if we show the white feather now, it is the end of everything--the Colonies, if you like, or a little cheap watering-place at the best. As for me, I might have a better chance of brazening it out, but remember that I could never afford to be seen in the company of a suspected person."

"It was the fear of losing you," he muttered, "which made me so rash."

The Princess laughed very softly.

"My dear friend," she said, "I do not believe you. I may seem to you sometimes very foolish, but at least I understand this. Life with you is self, self, self, and nothing more. You have scarcely a generous instinct, scarcely a spark of real affection left in you."

"And yet--" he began quietly.

"And yet," she whispered, repulsing him with a little gesture, but with a suddenly altered look in her face, "and yet we women are fools!"

She turned round to meet her host, who was crossing the hall, and almost simultaneously the dinner gong rang out. Their party was perhaps a little more cheerful than it had been on any of the last few evenings. Forrest drank more wine than usual, and exerted himself to entertain. Cecil followed his example, and the Princess, who sat by his side, looked often into his face, and whispered now and then in his ear. Jeanne was the only one who was a little distrait. She left the table early, as usual, and slipped out into the garden. The Princess, contrary to her custom, rose from the table and followed her. A sudden change of wind had blown the fog away, and the night was clear. The wind, however, had gathered force, and the Princess held down her elaborately coiffured hair and cried out in dismay.

"My dear Jeanne," she exclaimed, "but it is barbarous to wander about outside a night like this!"

Jeanne laughed. Her own more simply arranged hair was blown all over her face.

"I love it," she explained. "You don't want me indoors. I am going to walk down the grove and look at the sea."

"Come back into the hall one moment," the Princess said. "I want to speak to you."

Jeanne turned unwillingly round, and her step-mother drew her into the shelter of the open door.

"Jeanne," she said, "you seem to meet your friend the fisherman very often. If you should see anything of him to-morrow, I wish you would inquire particularly as to his lodger. You know whom I mean, the man who was on the island with him yesterday afternoon."

Jeanne looked at her stepmother curiously.

"What am I to ask about him?" she demanded.

"Where he comes from, and what he is doing here," the Princess said.

"Find out if you can if Berners is really his name. I have a curious idea about him, and Cecil fancies that he has seen him before."

Jeanne looked for a minute interested.

"You are not usually so curious about people," she remarked.

The Princess lowered her voice a little.

"Jeanne," she said, "I will tell you something. Lord Ronald, when he left here, was very angry with us all. There was a quarrel, and he behaved very absurdly. Cecil fancies that this man Berners is a friend of Lord Ronald's. We want to know if it is so."

Jeanne raised her head and looked her stepmother steadily in the face.

"This is all very mysterious," she said. "I do not understand it at all. We seem to be almost in hiding here, seeing no one and going nowhere. And I notice that Major Forrest, whenever he walks even in the garden, is always looking around as though he were afraid of something.

What did you quarrel with Lord Ronald about?"

"It is no concern of yours," the Princess answered, a little sharply.

"Major Forrest has had a somewhat eventful career, and he has made enemies. It was chiefly his quarrel with Lord Ronald, and it was over a somewhat serious matter. He has an idea that this man Berners is connected with it in some way or other. Do find out if you can, there's a dear child."

"I do not suppose," Jeanne said, "that Mr. Andrew would know anything.

However, when I see him I will ask him."