Sir William’s experiments employed a considerable number of men. These, she learned, were lodged in the stables, and neither they nor any of the domestic staff were permitted to pass beyond the inner paling.
On the coast side there was a high wire entanglement—electrified.
There were moments when Jane was cold with fear, and moments when she told herself that Renata was a little fool who had had nightmare.
CHAPTER VII
When Jane stood at her window and looked across the sea, she saw what might have been a picture of life at Luttrell Marches during those first few days. Such a smooth stretch of water, pleasant to the eye, where blue and green, amethyst, grey and silver came and went, and under the play of colour and the shifting light and shade of day and evening, the unchanging black of rocks which showed for an instant and then left one guessing whether anything had really broken the beauty and the peace.
Over the surface all was pleasant enough, but incidents, some of them almost negligible in themselves, kept recurring to remind Jane that there were rocks beneath the sea.
The first incident came up suddenly whilst she was writing Lady Heritage’s letters on the second day.
She had beside her a little pile of correspondence, mostly about trifles. Upon each letter there was scrawled, “Yes”—“No”—“Tell them I’ll think it over,” or some such direction.
Presently Jane arrived at a letter in French, upon which Lady Heritage had written, “Make an English translation and enclose to Mrs. Blunt.” Mrs. Blunt’s own letter lay immediately underneath. It contained inquiries about some conditions of factory labour amongst women in France.
The French letter was an excellent exposition of the said conditions.