Leonie of the Jungle Part 15

"I say _no_!"

"But you don't understand!"

Her lashes lay like a fringe on the cheek over which swept a flood of colour as she whispered so softly that the lap of the water almost drowned the word.

"_Please_!"

Save for the murmur of the water there was no sound whatever in the rock-strewn empty spot; and save for the swaying of the seaweed in the pools there was no movement as those two stood close to each other and Fate counted time.

Then Leonie smiled radiantly and sat down upon a rock with a stocking in each hand.

"Come and lunch in the next cove!" her companion said in a matter-of-fact voice, carefully winding the cut strands of hair and slipping them, without asking permission, into his breast pocket.

"It's not so sunny in there, and I've cold soup and cold chicken, salad, jelly and cream--will you?"

"Ra-ther!" said she, beginning to lace her boots. And picnicking _is_ fun in the last cove at Rockham. The air smells so heavenly, the wind is so soft, the clouds so lumpy and white; and there are little caves in which to dress and undress for the purpose of bathing, to boil the kettle, or hunt for those little bits of over-dried wood which go off with the report of a pistol and plop out to singe your garments.

And so _very_ few get as far!

Somehow the tide is generally on the turn, and if by chance it is not, the tortuous and narrow pa.s.sages between the coves, with their rocking rocks and hidden pools, are enough to twist the ankles and temper of anyone who is not Devon born or bred.

"Yes! I am due to sail for India about this day month," said Jonathan Cuxson, Jan for short, a little later, as he drove the cold drumstick of a Devon chicken into the paper bag containing salt, while Leonie, holding the fellow leg in both hands, or at least the fingers of both hands, gnawed right heartily at the middle thereof, and the pardoned dog sat quivering with hope deferred.

"Isn't this perfectly wonderful," he went on, and Leonie mumbled "whum-whum" as interestedly and politely as her bone would allow. "I mean our meeting like this!"

She smiled and sat forward, resting one hand upon the rocks, and the puppy, with a lamentable slump in manners, crawled up from behind and gently relieved her of the bone which still had luscious sc.r.a.ps of white flesh adhering to it, and a dream of a shining gristly k.n.o.b at the end.

"Your idea of picnicing is somewhat luxurious," she said, taking a cardboard plate full of jelly which he had smothered in cream. "Tell me what you are going to make of your life!"

"You must blame or thank Mrs. Pugsley for the luxury. I'm at Woolacombe, perched on the top of the hill, and she simply spoils me.

Will you have a cigarette?"

Leonie shook her head, and the two great, hastily twisted plaits wriggled like shining snakes, causing the dog to lay one paw on his bone and snarl.

"I don't smoke!"

"How delightful!" said Jan Cuxson. "I was sure you didn't--I love women who smell of lavender."

"Won't you smoke--your pipe--and tell me what you are going to make of your life."

"They--the plans--have all been fogged up this morning !" he said slowly after a moment's pause. "How strange it all is. Do you know that I was going up to town next week to hunt up _you_, of all people?

Do you remember anything of my father's death?"

"We don't talk about it," said Leonie quietly, and the man looked at her with a sudden questioning in the steady eyes.

"I am taking on his work, you know, specialising in the brain. I have got through all my exams quite decently, thanks, I think, to his wonderful notes, have travelled a bit in the east, and before settling down intended to go to India--what for do you think?"

Leonie shook her head. "Holiday?"

"Er--yes, almost. You know I simply _loved_ my father, and his very last entry in his book of notes was about _you_. One line was this: 'Most interesting--shall go to India and find the ayah.' He died of heart failure, you know, and he must have written the last line before he died--it is: 'The answer to the problem concerning Leonie Hetth is in the third volume upon----' There was nothing after that--I thought he would be awfully pleased if I carried out his last wishes, and meant to hunt you up and see if you were still--er--bothered with dreams and then----"

He stopped short as Leonie leapt to her feet and ran back from a wave which had most unexpectedly swirled upon her from behind a rock.

"Quick!" she laughed, "quick--the tide will be in. Where's the dog?"

The dog was cavorting with a crab in a pool.

"Jingles!" sternly admonished his master, who was heaving everything pell-mell into his haversack. "By the way, what became of Jingles the first?"

A shadow crept into Leonie's eyes as she thought of the pain and disaster she invariably seemed to bring to those she loved most.

"He--he was run over--it was my fault, I whistled him across the road and a car caught him. If we hurry," she continued, "we shall be in time for tea--Auntie will love to see you again!"

"Oh! of course--I'd almost forgotten her--will she?"

CHAPTER XVII

"He that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot!"--_The Bible_.

By all the ill-luck in the world Sir Walter Hickle was sitting in the patch called the garden, turning a small parcel elatedly over and over in his pocket, as Leonie, and her companion, and the dog came sliding down the hill towards the cottage.

For the time being Leonie had totally forgotten the proceedings of the night before, which had metamorphosed her radiant self from a free into a bond woman.

"Oh!" she said, putting one hand unexpectedly on Jan Cuxson's arm and digging her stick fiercely into the ground, as the man in the garden half rose from his chair and sank back with a frown.

"Oh!" she repeated.

"Tired, dear?"

Neither of them noticed the little endearing word which had slipped out so naturally, but Leonie's face was wan and her eyes were dead as she dragged herself down the last few yards, while her aunt fluttered down to the gate to meet them, with her mind and skirts in a whirl.

"Jan Cuxson!" she exclaimed, offering a limp hand, and "How _very_ nice," she continued, lying quite successfully. "I should have known you anywhere. _Do_ come in and have tea!"

And in the same breath, and with that strange cruel cunning of the shallow mind, which is the abortive twin of decent feminine intuition, she leapt at the difficulty she saw threatening, and tried to dispel it.

"Let me introduce you to Sir Walter Hickle, my niece's fiance."

Sir Walter ambled forward with outstretched hand as Cuxson, nodding curtly, bent to pick up Leonie's stick, which had clattered to the floor.

A malicious gleam shone in the elder man's little eyes as he looked at the splendid young fellow who had seemed, physically anyway, so fit a match for Leonie as they tramped down the hill together; and though there was no sign of his inward perplexity and repulsion in Jan Cuxson's face as his eyes swept the obese figure of the notorious old knight, his jaw took a sudden, almost ugly, outward thrust with the birth of a mighty resolution.

Leonie walked to the gate with him when he took his departure, having refused tea from a certain undefined feeling that he could not even sit in the same room as the man whom he intended to do out of the odd trick.

He crushed Leonie's hand as he looked straight into her eyes, so desperate and ashamed, and spoke very gently and deliberately as he slipped his hand to her wrist and pulled her a little closer.