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Jeanne Of The Marshes, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 2 - Chapter 5 |
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_ BOOK II CHAPTER V The Count de Brensault was a small man, with a large pale face. There were puffy little bags under his eyes, from which the colour had departed. His hair, though skilfully arranged, was very thin at the top, and his figure had the lumpiness of the man who has never known any sort of athletic training. He looked a dozen years older than his age, which was in reality thirty-five, and for the last ten years he had been a constant though cautious devotee of every form of dissipation. Jeanne, who sat by his side at dinner-time, found herself looking at him more than once in a sort of fascinated wonder. Was it really possible that any one could believe her capable of marrying such a creature! There were eight people at dinner, in none of whom she was in the least interested. The Count de Brensault talked a good deal, and very loudly. He spoke of his horses and his dogs and his motor cars, but he omitted to say that he had ceased to ride his horses, and that he never drove his motor car. Jeanne listened to him in quiet contempt, and the Princess fidgetted in her chair. The man ought to know that this was not the way to impress a child fresh from boarding-school! "You seem," Jeanne remarked, after listening to him almost in silence for a long time, "to give most of your time to sports. Do you play polo?" He shook his head. "I am too heavy," he said, "and the game, it is a little dangerous." "Do you hunt?" she asked. "No!" he admitted. "In Belgium we do not hunt." "Do you race with your motor cars?" "I entered one," he answered, "for the Prix des Ardennes. It was the third. My driver, he was not very clever." "You did not drive it yourself, then?" she asked. He laughed in a superior manner. "I do not wish," he said, "to have a broken neck. There are so many things in life which I still find very pleasant." He smiled at her in a knowing manner, and Jeanne looked away to hide her disgust. "Your interest in sport," she remarked, "seems to be a sort of second-hand one, does it not?" "I do not know that," he answered. "I do not know quite what you mean. At Ostend last year I won the great sweepstakes." "For shooting pigeons?" she asked. "So!" he admitted, with content. She smiled. "I see that I must beg your pardon," she said. "Have you ever done any big game shooting?" He shook his head. "I do not like to travel very much," he answered. "I do not like the cooking, and I think that my tastes are what you would call very civilized." The Princess intervened. She felt that it was necessary at any cost to do so. "The Count," she told Jeanne, "has just been elected a member of the Four-in-Hand Club here. If we are very nice to him he will take us out in his coach." "As soon," De Brensault interposed hastily, "as I have found another team not quite so what you call spirited. My black horses are very beautiful, but I do not like to drive them. They pull very hard, and they always try to run away." The Princess sighed. The man, after all, was really a little hopeless. She saw clearly that it was useless to try and impress Jeanne. The affair must take its course. Afterwards in the drawing- room the Count came and sat by Jeanne's side. "Always," he declared, "in England it is bridge. One dines with one's friends, and one would like to talk for a little time, and it is bridge. It must be very dull for you little girls who are not old enough to play. There is no one left to talk to you." Jeanne smiled. "Perhaps," she said, "I am an exception. There are very few people whom I care to have talk to me." She looked him in the eyes, but he was unfortunately a very spoilt young man, and he only stroked the waxed tip of a scanty moustache. "I am very glad to hear you say so, mademoiselle," he said. "That makes it the more pleasant that your excellent mother gives me one quarter of an hour's respite from bridge that we may have a little conversation. Have you ever been in my country, Miss Le Mesurier?" "I have only travelled through it," Jeanne answered; "but I am afraid that you did not understand what I meant just now. I said that there were very few people with whom I cared to talk. You are not one of those few, Monsieur le Comte." He looked at her with a half-open mouth. His eyes were suddenly like beads. "I do not understand," he said. "I am afraid," Jeanne answered, with a sigh, "that you are very unintelligent. What I meant to say was that I do not like to sit here and talk with you. It wearies me, because you do not say anything that interests me, and I should very much rather read my book." The Count de Brensault was nonplussed. He looked at Jeanne, and he looked vaguely across the room at the Princess, as though wondering whether he ought to appeal to her. "Have I offended you?" he asked. "Perhaps I have said something that you do not like. I am sorry." "No, it is not that at all," Jeanne answered sweetly. "It is simply that I do not like you. You must not mind if I tell you the truth. You see I have only just come from boarding-school, and there we were always taught to be quite truthful." De Brensault stared at her again. This was the most extraordinary young woman whom he had ever met in his life. Had not the Princess only an hour ago told him that although he might find her a little difficult at first, she was nevertheless prepared to receive his advances. He had imagined himself dazzling her a little with his title and possessions, gracefully throwing the handkerchief at her feet, and giving her that slight share in his life and affection which his somewhat continental ideas of domesticity suggested. Had she really meant to be rude to him, or was she nervous? He looked at her once more, still with that unintelligent stare. Jeanne was perfectly composed, with her pale cheeks and large serious eyes. She was obviously speaking the truth. Then as he looked the expression in his eyes changed. She was gradually becoming desirable, not only on account of her youth and dowry--there were other things. He felt a sudden desire to kiss those very shapely, somewhat full lips, which had just told him so calmly that their owner disliked him. Already he was telling himself in his mind that some day, when she was his altogether, for a plaything or what he chose to make of her, he would remind her of this evening. "I am sorry," he said, "that you do not like me, but that is because you are not used to men. Presently you will know me better, and then I am sure it will be different. As for you," he continued, looking at her in a manner which he felt should certainly awaken some different feeling in her inexperienced heart, "I admire you very much indeed. I have seen you only once or twice, but I have thought of you much. Some day I hope that we shall be very much better friends." He leaned a little toward her, and Jeanne calmly removed herself a little further away. She turned her head now to look at him, as she sat upright upon the sofa, very slim and graceful in her white gown. "I do not think so," she said. "I do not care about being friendly with people whom I dislike, and I am beginning to dislike you very much indeed because you will not go away when I ask you." He rose to his feet a little offended. "Very well," he said, "I will go and talk to your stepmother, who wants me to play bridge, but very soon I shall come back, and before long I think that I am going to make you like me very much." He crossed the room, and Jeanne's eyes followed his awkward gait with a sudden flash of quiet amusement. She watched him talk to her stepmother, and she saw the Princess' face darken. As a matter of fact De Brensault felt that he had some just cause for complaint. "Dear Princess," he said, "you did not tell me that she was so very farouche, so very shy indeed. I speak to her quite kindly, and she tells me that she does not like me, and that she wished me to go away." The Princess looked across the room towards Jeanne, who was calmly reading, and apparently oblivious of everything that was passing. "My dear Count," she said, tapping his hand with her fan, "she is very, very serious. She would like to have been a nun, but of course we would not hear of it. I think that she was a little afraid of you. You looked at her very boldly, you know, and she is not used to the glances of men. At her age, perhaps--you understand?" The Count was not quite sure that he did understand. He had a most unpleasant recollection of the firmness and decision with which Jeanne had announced her views with regard to him, but he looked towards her again and the look was fatal. Jeanne was certainly a most desirable young person, quite apart from her dowry. "It may be as you say, Princess," he said. "I must leave her to you for a little time. You must talk to her. She is quite pretty," he added with an involuntary note of condescension in his tone. "I am very pleased with her. In fact I am quite attracted." "You will remember," the Princess said, dropping her voice a little, "that before anything definite is said, you and I must have a little conversation." De Brensault twirled his moustache. He looked up at the Princess as though trying to fathom the meaning of her words. "Certainly," he answered slowly. "I have not forgotten what you said. Of course, her dot is very large, is it not?" "It is very large indeed," the Princess answered, "and there are a great many young men who would be very grateful to me indeed if I were willing even to listen to them." De Brensault nodded. "Very well," he said. "We will have that little talk whenever you like." The Princess nodded. "I suppose," she said, "we must play bridge now. They are waiting for us." De Brensault looked behind to where Jeanne was still sitting reading. Her head was resting upon a sofa pillow, deep orange coloured, against which the purity of her complexion, the delicate lines of her eyebrows, the shapeliness of her exquisite mouth, were all more than ever manifest. She read with interest, and without turning her head away from the pages of the book which she held in long, slender fingers. De Brensault sighed as he turned away. "Certainly," he said. "We will go and play bridge. But I will tell you what it is, my dear Princess. I think I am very near falling in love with your little stepdaughter." _ |
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