And again he laughed in the same jarring and ungenial way.
“Brand employs Baltazar—just as if he wasn’t his brother at all—in the office at Mundham. You remember Mundham? We came through it in the train. It’s over there,” he waved his hand in front of him, “about seven miles off. It’s a horrid place—all slums and canals. That’s where they make their beer. Their beer!” He laughed again.
“You haven’t yet told me who they are—I mean who else there is,” observed Nance while, for some reason or other, her heart began to beat tumultuously.
“Haven’t I said I’d tell you everything?” Sorio flung out. “I’ll tell you more than you bargain for, if you tease me. Oh, confound it! There’s Rachel and Linda! Look now, do they appear as if they were happy?”
Favoured by the wind which blew sea-wards, the lovers had been permitted to approach quite close to their friends without any betrayal of their presence.
Linda was seated on the river bank, her head in her hands, while Miss Doorm, like a black-robed priestess of some ancient ritual, leant against the trunk of a leafless pollard.
“They were perfectly happy when I left them,” whispered Nance, but she was conscious as she spoke of a cold, miserable misgiving in her inmost spirit. Like a flash her mind reverted to the lilac bushes of the London garden, and a sick loneliness seized her.
“Linda!” she cried, with a quiver of remorse in her voice. The young girl leapt hurriedly to her feet, and Miss Doorm removed her hand from the tree. A quick look passed between the sisters, but Nance understood nothing of what Linda’s expression conveyed. They moved on together, Adrian with Linda and Nance with Rachel.
“What do they call this river?” Nance enquired of her companion, as soon as she felt reassured by the sound of the girl’s laugh.
“The Loon, my dear,” replied Miss Doorm. “They call it the Loon. It runs through Mundham and then through the fens. It forms the harbour at Rodmoor.”