Frenchman's Creek

Chapter XX

FOR ETERNITY it seemed he stood there staring down at her, and then slowly he descended, never taking his eyes from her face, and she backed away from him, feeling for the tabie, and sat down in her chair, and watched him. He was clad only in his shirt and breeches, and she saw now that there was blood upon his shirt, and on the knife that he held in his hand. She knew then what had happened. Somewhere, in one of the dark passages above, a man lay mortally wounded, or even dead, and it might be one of the crew from La Mouette, or it might be William. This struggle had taken place in silence and in darkness, while she had sat in the salon alone and dreaming, her rubies in her hands. Now he stood at the bottom of the stairs, and still he said nothing, but he went on watching her with his narrow cat-like eyes, and then he sat himself in Harry's chair at the far end of the table, and put the knife down on the plate before him.

When at last he spoke the familiarity of his voice sounded odd in contrast to his altered looks, for the man who faced her was not the Rockingham she had jested with in London, ridden beside at Hampton Court, and despised as a degenerate and a rake. This man had something cold about him, something evil, and from henceforward he was her enemy, wishing her suffering and pain.

"I see," he said, "that your jewels have been returned to you."

She shrugged her shoulders without answer, for how much he had guessed was of little consequence. The only thing that mattered was to know the plan in his head, and what movement he would make.

"And what," he said, "did you give in place of your jewels?"

She began to replace the rubies in her ears, watching him over her arm as she did so. And then, because his gaze was something that she hated now, and could even grow to fear, she said to him, "We have become very serious, Rockingham, all of a sudden. I should have thought this evening's jest would have amused you well."

"You are right," he answered, "it has amused me much. That twelve men could be disarmed and unbreeched in so short a time by so few jesters bears a curious likeness to the pranks we used to play at Hampton Court. But that Dona St. Columb should look upon the leader of the jesters in the way she did-in a way that could mean one thing only no, that I did not find amusing."

She leant her elbows on the table, and cupped her chin in her hands.

"And so?" she asked.

"And so in a flash I understood much that had puzzled me since my arrival here last night. That servant of yours, a spy of course of the Frenchman's. The friendliness between you, that you knew he was a spy. And those walks of yours, those wanderings in the woods, that elusive look in your eye that I had never seen before, yes, indeed, elusive to me, to Harry, to all men but one man, and I have seen that man to-night." His voice was low now, scarcely above a whisper, and all the time he looked at her with hatred.

"Well," he said, "do you deny it?"

"I deny nothing," she answered.

He picked up the knife from his plate, and began tracing lines with it upon the table, as though abstracted.

"You know," he said, "that you could be imprisoned for this, and possibly hanged, should the truth come out?"

Once again she shrugged her shoulders, and did not answer.

"Not a very pleasant ending, for Dona St. Columb," he said. "You have never been inside a jail, have you? You have never smelt the heat and the filth, you have never tasted the black broken bread, or drunk the water, thick with scum. And the feeling of a rope about your neck, as it tightens, and chokes you. How would you like that, Dona?"

"My poor Rockingham," she said slowly, "I can imagine all these things far better than you can describe them. What is your object? Do you wish to frighten me? Because you are not succeeding."

"I thought it only wise," he said, "to remind you of what may happen."

"And all this," she said, "because my lord Rockingham fancies I smiled upon a pirate when he asked me for my jewels. Tell your story to Godolphin, to Rashleigh and to Eustick, to Harry even-they will say that you are mad."

"Possibly," he said, "with your Frenchman on the high seas, and yourself sitting at your ease in Navron House. But supposing your Frenchman was not on the high seas, supposing he was caught, and bound and brought before you, and we played with him a little, as they played with prisoners some hundred years ago, Dona, with you for audience. I rather believe you would give yourself away."

Once again she saw him as she had seen him earlier in the day, a sleek cat crouching in the long grass, a bird between his claws, so padded, so soft, and she realised, her memory streaking back to the past, how she had always suspected in him some quality of deliberate and cruel depravity which, because of the foolhardy lightness of the age in which they lived, was well concealed.

"It pleases you to be dramatic," she said, "but the days of the thumb-screw and the rack are over. We no longer burn our heretics at the stake."

"Not our heretics perhaps," he said, "but our pirates are hanged, and drawn, and quartered, and their accomplices suffer the same fate."

"Very well," she said, "since you believe me an accomplice, do what you wish. Go upstairs, and unbind the guests who supped here to-night. Wake Harry from his drunken slumbers. Call the servants. Fetch horses, fetch soldiers and weapons. And then when you have caught your pirate, you may hang us both side by side from the same tree."

He did not answer. He stared at her across the table, balancing the knife in his hand.

"Yes," he said, "you would suffer that, would you not, and be proud and glad. You would not mind dying now, because you have had, at last, the thing you wanted all your life. Is not that true?"

She looked back at him, and then she laughed.

"Yes," she said, "it is true."

He turned very white, and the gash on his face showed vivid red in contrast, altering the shape of his mouth, like a strange grimace.

"And it might have been me," he said, "it might have been me."

"Never," she said, "that I swear. Never in this world."

"If you had not left London, if you had not come down here to Navron, it would have been me. Yes, though it were from boredom, from idleness, from indifference, even from disgust, it would have been me."

"No, Rockingham… never…"

He got up slowly from his chair, still balancing the knife in his hands, and he kicked the spaniel away from under his feet, and he rolled his sleeves above his elbow.

She rose too, gripping the sides of her chair, and the murky light from the two candles on the wall flickered down upon his face.

"What is it, Rockingham?" she asked.

Then for the first time he smiled, and he pushed back his chair, and laid one hand on the corner of the table.

"I believe," he whispered, "that I am going to kill you."

In a moment she had flung a glass of wine, close to her hand, straight in his face, and for half a second it blinded him, while the glass shivered to fragments on the floor. Then he made a lunge towards her across the table, but she eluded him, reaching for one of the heavy chairs beside her, and she lifted it, and sent it crashing amongst the silver and the fruit on the table, the leg of it striking his shoulder. He breathed quickly, with the pain of it, and hurling the chair from the table to the ground, he held his knife poised an instant, high above his shoulder, and threw it from him, straight at her throat. It struck the ruby pendant around her neck, cracking it in two, and she felt the cold steel slip away from her, pricking her skin, catching itself in the folds of her gown. She fumbled for it, sick with horror and with pain, but before she could seize it he was upon her, one hand doubling her wrist behind her back, and the other pressing her mouth in suffocation. She felt herself falling back against the table, the glasses and the plates crashing to the ground, and somewhere beneath her was the knife which he wished to find. The dogs were barking now, furiously excited, imagining this was some new sport designed for their amusement, and they leapt up at him, scratching with their paws, so that he was forced to turn a moment, and kick them from under him, releasing the pressure of his hand upon her mouth.

She bit through the palm of his hand, and drove her left fist into his eyes, and now he released her wrist, doubled up beneath her back, so that he could have two hands on her throat, and she felt the pressure of his thumbs on her windpipe, choking her. Her right hand struggled for the knife, and suddenly her fingers closed upon it, and gripping the cold hasp she drove it upwards, under his arm-pit, and she felt the horrid yielding of his soft flesh to the blade, surprisingly easy, surprisingly warm, with the blood running thick and fast on her hand. He sighed, long-drawn and strange, his hand no longer pressing upon her throat, and fell sideways on the table amongst the glass, and she pushed him from her and stood once more on her feet, her knees trembling, with the dogs barking madly about her legs, And now he was dragging himself from the table, too, his glazed eyes turned upon her, one hand pressed to the wound under his arm, and with the other he reached for a great silver carafe that still stood upon the table, and with this he would have smashed her face and trodden her to the ground, but even as he moved towards her the last candle flickered on the wall and was gutted, and they were in darkness.

She felt the edge of the table with her hands, and worked her way round it, out of his reach, and she heard him groping for her in the black hall, stumbling over a chair that stood in his way. Now she was making for the staircase, she could see a glimmer of pale light from the window in the gallery, and here were the stairs themselves, and the rail, and she was climbing the stairs, with the two dogs barking at her heels. Somewhere from above she could hear shouts and cries, and the thumping of fists upon a door, but all this was confusion, was a dream having no connection with the battle that was hers alone. Looking back over her shoulder, sobbing, she saw Rockingham at the foot of the stairs, and he was not standing upright as he had before, but was climbing towards her on all fours like the dogs at her heels. She reached the top of the stairs, and the shouts and thumps were louder now. There was Godolphin's voice amongst them, and Harry's too, while the barking of the dogs joined the clamour, and from the direction of the nurseries came the high-pitched frightened scream of a child, woken from his sleep. Then she knew anger at last, and not fear. Then she was resolute, and calm, and cold. The grey light from the window, where the moon struggled through the clouds, shone feebly upon a shield hanging on the wall, some trophy of a dead St. Columb, and she tore it from its place on the wall, heavy and dusty with age, and the weight of it dragged her to her knees. Still Rockingham came. She could see his back, humped against the rail, as he paused for breath, and she could hear the scratching of his hands upon the stairs and the quick sound of his breathing. When he turned the corner of the stair and stood a moment, turning his head, looking for her in the darkness, she hurled the shield at him, driving it full in his face, and he staggered and fell, turning over and over on the stairs, crashing with the shield on top of him to the stone floor below. And the dogs went down after him, excited and barking, scampering in play, nosing his body as it lay there on the floor. Dona stood motionless, all feeling spent, a great ache behind her eyes, the sound of James's cry still ringing in her ears, and somewhere now there were footsteps, and a voice calling in anxiety and fear, and the splintering tearing noise of breaking wood. It would be Harry perhaps, or Eustick, or Godolphin, beating down the locked door of the bedroom where they were imprisoned, and it seemed to her that these things mattered little, for she was too weary now to care. She wanted to lie down in the darkness, and to sleep with her face between her hands, and she remembered that somewhere along this passage was her room, and her own bed, where she could hide and be forgotten. Somewhere, in the river, there was a ship called La Mouette, and the man she loved stood at the wheel now, taking his ship to the sea. She had promised to give him her answer at day-break, and to wait for him on the little spit of sand that jutted out into the sea. William would take her to him, William the faithful, somehow they would find their way across the country in the darkness, and when they reached the cove the boat would put off from the ship towards them, even as he had said. She thought of the coast of Brittany as she had seen it once before, golden at sunrise, with the rocks about it jagged and crimson, like the coast of Devon. The white breakers hurled themselves upon the sand, and the spray threw a fine mist onto the cliffs, the smell of it mingling with the warm earth and the grass.

Somewhere there was a house which she had never seen, but he would take her to it, and she would feel the grey walls with her hands. She wanted to sleep now, and dream of these things, and remember no more the guttering candles in the dining-hall below, with the smashed glass and the broken chairs, and Rockingham's face when the knife touched his flesh. She wanted to sleep, and it seemed to her suddenly that she stood no longer, that she was falling too, as Rockingham had done, and the blackness came about her and covered her, and there was a rushing of wind in her ears…

Surely it was long afterwards that people came and bent over her, and hands lifted her and carried her. And someone bathed her face, and her throat, and laid pillows under her head. There were many voices in the distance, men's voices, and the coming and going of heavy footsteps, and there must have been horses in the courtyard outside the house; she could hear their hoofs on the cobbles. Once too she heard the stable clock strike three.

And dimly, in the back of her mind, something whispered, "He will be waiting for me on the spit of sand, and I am lying here, and I cannot move, and I cannot go to him," and she tried to raise herself from her bed, but she had no strength. It was still dark, while outside her window she could hear a little thin trickle of rain. Then she must have slept, the heavy dull sleep of exhaustion, for when she opened her eyes it was daylight, and the curtains had been drawn, and there was Harry kneeling by her side, fondling her hair with his great clumsy hands. He was peering into her face, his blue eyes troubled, and he was blubbing like a child.

"Are you all right, Dona?" he said, "are you better, are you well?"

She stared at him without understanding, the dull ache still behind her eyes, and she thought how ridiculous it was that he should kneel there, in so foolish a manner, and she felt a sort of shame upon her that he should do so.

"Rock's dead," he said. "We found him dead there, on the floor, with his poor neck broken. Rock, the best friend I have ever had." And the tears rolled down his cheeks, and she went on staring at him. "He saved your life, you know," said Harry; "he must have fought that devil single-handed, alone there in the darkness, while you fled up here to warn us. My poor beautiful, my poor sweet."

She did not listen to him any more, she sat up, looking at the daylight as it streamed into her window. "What is the time?" she said, "how long has the sun been risen?"

"The sun?" he said blankly, "why, it's nearly noon I believe. What of it? You are going to rest, are you not? You must, after all you have suffered last night."

She put her hands over her eyes and tried to think. It was noon then, and the ship would have sailed, for he could not have waited for her after the day had broken. She had lain here sleeping on her bed, while the little boat put in to the spit of sand and found it empty.

"Try and rest again, my lovely," said Harry, "try and forget the confounded God-damned night. I'll never drink again, I swear it. It's my fault, I ought to have stopped it all. But you shall have your revenge, I promise you that. We've caught him, you know, we've got the blasted fellow."

"What do you mean?" she said slowly, "what are you talking about?"

"Why, the Frenchman of course," he said, "the devil who killed Rock, and would have killed you too. The ship's gone, and the rest of his battered crew, but we've got him, the leader, the damned pirate."

She went on staring at him without understanding, dazed, as though he had struck her, and he, seeing her eyes, was troubled, and began once more to fondle her hair and to kiss her fingers, murmuring, "My poor girl, what a confounded to-do, eh, what a night, what a devilish thing." And then, pausing a moment, he looked at her, and flushed, a little confused, still holding her fingers, and because the despair in her eyes was something dark and new, was a thing he did not understand, he said to her awkwardly, like a shy and clumsy boy: "That Frenchman, that pirate, he didn't molest you in any way, did he, Dona?"