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Jeanne Of The Marshes, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 2 - Chapter 15 |
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_ BOOK II CHAPTER XV For the fourth time the bell rang. The two men had now retraced their steps. Cecil, who had been standing in the hall within a few feet of the closed door, started away as though he had received some sort of shock. Forrest, who was lurking back in the shadows, cursed him for a timid fool. "Open the door, man," he whispered. "Don't stand fumbling there. Remember you are angry at being disturbed. Send them away, whoever they are. Look sharp! They are going to ring again. Can't you hear that beastly bell-wire quivering?" Cecil set his teeth, turned the huge key, and pulled back the heavy door. He gave a little gasp of astonishment. It was a woman who stood there. He held out his electric torch and stepped back with a sharp exclamation. "Kate!" he cried. "What on earth are you doing here at this hour? What do you mean by ringing the bell like that?" The girl stepped into the hall. "Close the door," she said. "The wind will blow the pictures off the walls, and I can scarcely hear you speak." Cecil obeyed at once. "Light a lamp," she said. "It is not fair that you should have all the light. I want to see your face too." "But Kate," Cecil interrupted, "why did you come like this? Why did you not--" She interrupted. "Never mind," she answered sternly. "Perhaps I did not come to see you at all. Light the lamp. There is something I have to say to you." Forrest stepped forward from the obscurity and struck a match. The girl showed no signs of fear at his coming. As the lamp grew brighter she looked at him steadfastly. "So this is the reason we are waked up in the middle of the night," Forrest remarked, with a smile which somehow or other seemed to lose its suggestiveness. "A little affair of this sort, eh, Mr. Cecil? Why don't you teach the young lady a simpler way of summoning you than by that infernal bell?" Still Kate did not reply. She was standing with her back to the oak table in the centre of the hall, and the men, who were both watching her covertly, were conscious of a certain significance in her attitude. Her black hair was tossed all over her face; from its tangled web her eyes seemed to gleam with a steady inimical gaze. Her dress of dark red stuff was splashed in places with the salt water, and her feet were soaking. With her left hand she clasped the table; her right seemed hidden in the folds of her skirt. "What do you want, Kate?" Cecil asked at last. "What do you mean by coming here like this? If you want to see me you know how, without arousing the whole household at this time of night." "You are not fool enough," Kate said calmly, "to imagine that I came to-night to listen to your lies. I came to know whom it is that you are keeping hidden away in the smugglers' room." Neither man answered. They looked at one another, and Cecil's face grew once more as pale as death. "What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "What rubbish is this you are talking, Kate?" he added, in a sharper tone. "There is no one there that I know of." "You lie," she answered calmly. "You lie, as you always do whenever it answers your purpose. Only an hour ago I lay upon the turf in the plantation there, and I heard a man moaning down in the store-room. Now tell me the truth, Cecil de la Borne. I do not wish to bring any harm upon you, although God knows you deserve it, but if you do not bring me the man whom you have down there, and set him free before my eyes at once, I'll bring half the village up to the mound there and dig him out." Forrest stepped forward. His manner was suave and his tone was smooth, but there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes. "This is rather absurd, Cecil," he said. "I do not know whom this young lady is, but I feel sure that she will listen to reason. There is no one down in the smugglers' store-room. If she heard anything, it was probably the rabbits." "Lies!" Kate answered calmly. "You are another of the breed; I can see it in your face. I would not trust the word of either of you." Forrest shrugged his shoulders. He glanced towards Cecil with a slight uplifting of the eyebrows. "Your friend, my dear Cecil," he remarked, "is like most of her sex, a trifle unreasonable. However, since she says that she will believe no evidence save the evidence of her eyes, show her the smugglers' room. It would be a quaint excursion to take at this time of night, but I will go with you for the sake of the proprieties," he added, with a little laugh. Cecil looked at him for a moment steadily, and then turned away. There was fear now upon his face, a new fear. What was this thing which Forrest could propose? "She can come if she insists," he said slowly, "but the place has not been opened for a long time. The air is bad. It really is not fit for any human being." The girl faced them both without shrinking. "Perhaps you think that I should be afraid," she answered. "Perhaps you think that when I am there it would be very easy to dispose of me, so that I shall ask no more inconvenient questions. Never mind. I am not afraid. I will go with you." Cecil shrugged his shoulders as he led the way across the hall. "There is nothing to fear," he said, "except the bad air and the ghosts of smugglers, if you are superstitious enough to fear them. Only, when you are perfectly satisfied, and you are convinced that your errand here has been fruitless, perhaps I may have something to say." The girl's lips parted. Curiously enough there was a note almost of real merriment in the laugh which followed. "I am not very brave, my dear Cecil," she said, "but I am not afraid of you. I think that one does not fear the things that one understands too well, and you I do understand too well, much too well." They reached the empty gun-room. Cecil threw open the hidden door. "Will you go first or last?" he said to the girl. "Choose your own place." The girl laughed. "The door seemed to open easily," she remarked, "considering that it has not been used for so long." "Never mind about that," Cecil said sharply. "Are you coming with us?" "I am coming," Kate answered composedly, "and I will walk last." "As you please," Cecil answered. "Come, Forrest, you may as well see this thing through with me." As they stumbled along the narrow way, Cecil whispered in Forrest's ear. "What are we going to do with her?" "God knows!" Forrest answered. "Do you suppose that any one knows where she is? Who is she?" "One of the village girls," Cecil answered, "an old sweetheart of mine. They are strange people, and have few friends. I doubt whether any one knows that she is out to-night." Forrest passed on. "If we are going to put our necks into the halter," he muttered, "a little extra trouble won't hurt us." They paused before the door. The girl was looking at the padlock. "A new padlock, I see," she remarked. "Listen!" They all listened, and now there was no doubt about it. From inside the room they could hear the sound of a man, half singing, half moaning. "Are those rabbits?" the girl asked, leaning forward, so that her eyes seemed to gleam like live coal through the darkness. "Cecil, you are being made a fool of by this man. I don't wish you any harm. Do the right thing now, and I'll stick by you. Let this man free, whoever he is. Don't listen to what he tells you," she added, pointing toward Forrest. Cecil hesitated. Forrest, who was watching him closely, could not tell whether that hesitation was genuine or only a feint. "It was only a joke, this, Kate," he muttered. "It was a joke which we have carried a little too far. Yes, you shall help me if you will. I have had enough of it. Go inside and see for yourself who is there." Cecil threw open the door and Kate stepped boldly inside. Forrest entered last and remained near the threshold. Engleton started to his feet when he saw a third person. "We have brought you a visitor," Forrest cried out. "You have complained of being lonely. You will not be lonely any longer." Kate turned toward him. "What do you mean?" she said. "We are going to leave here together, that man and myself, within the next few minutes." "You lie!" Forrest answered fiercely. "You have thrust yourself into a matter which does not concern you, and you are going to take the consequences." "And what might they be?" Kate asked slowly. "They rest with him," Forrest answered, pointing toward Engleton. "There is a man there who was our friend until a few days ago. He dared to accuse us of cheating at cards, and if we let him go he will ruin us both. We are doing what any reasonable men must do. We are seeking to preserve ourselves. We have kept him here a prisoner, but he could have gained his freedom on any day by simply promising to hold his peace. He has declined, and the time has come when we can leave him no more. To-night, if he is obstinate, we are going to throw him into the sea." "And what about me?" Kate asked. "You are going with him," Forrest answered. "If he is obstinate fool enough to chuck your life away and his, he must do it. Only he had better remember this," he added, looking across at Engleton, "it will mean two lives now, and not one." Engleton rose to his feet slowly. "Who is she?" he asked, pointing to the girl. "I am Kate Caynsard, one of the village people here," she answered. "I heard you working to-night from outside. You heard me shout back?" He nodded. "Yes!" he said. "I know." "I will tell the truth," the girl continued. "I was fool enough once to come here to meet that man"--she pointed to De la Borne--"that is all over. But one night I was restless, and I came wandering through the plantation here. It was then I saw from the other end that the place had been altered, and it struck me to listen there where the air-shaft is. I heard voices, and the next day they were all talking about the disappearance of Lord Ronald Engleton. You, I suppose," she added, "are Lord Ronald." "I believe I was," he answered, with a little catch in his throat. "God knows who I am now! I give it up, De la Borne. If you are going to send the girl after me, I give it up. I'll sign anything you like. Only let me out of the d--d place!" A flash of triumph lit up Forrest's face, but it lasted only for a second. Kate had suddenly turned upon them, and was standing with her back to the wall. The hand which had been hidden in the folds of her dress so long, was suddenly outstretched. There was a roar which rang through the place like the rattle of artillery, the smell of gunpowder, and a little cloud of smoke. Through it they could see her face; her lips parted in a smile, the wild disorder of her hair, her sea-stained gown, her splendid pose, all seemed to make her the central figure of the little tableau. "I have five more barrels," she said. "I fired that one to let you know that I was in earnest. Now if you do not let us go free, and without conditions, it will be you who will stay here instead of us, only you will stay here for ever!" _ |
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