Frenchmans Creek - Daphne du Maurier

Dona slipped from the room, and going upstairs to her bedroom she shut the door, and then pulled the heavy bell-rope that hung beside the fireplace. A few minutes later someone knocked, and a little maid-servant came into the room.

"Will you please send William to me," said Dona.

"I am sorry, my lady," said the girl, with a curtsy, "but William is not in the house. He went out just after five o'clock and he has not returned."

"Where has he gone?"

"I have no idea, my lady."

"It does not matter then, thank you."

The girl left the room, and Dona threw herself down on her bed, her hands behind her head. William must have had the same idea as herself. He had gone to see what progress had been made upon the ship, and to warn his master that his enemies would be supping at Navron this very night. Why did he delay though? He had left the house at five and it was now nearly seven.

She closed her eyes, aware in the stillness of her quiet room that her heart was thumping now as it had done once before, when, standing on the deck of La Mouette, she had waited to go ashore in Lantic bay. She remembered the chilled cold feeling she had had, and how, when she had gone below to the cabin, and eaten and drunk a little, the fear and the anxiety left her, and she had been filled with the glow of adventure. Tonight though it was different. Tonight she was alone, and his hand was not in hers, and his eyes had not spoken to her. She was alone, and must play hostess to his enemies.

She went on lying there on her bed, and outside the rain fell away to a drizzle and ceased, and the birds began to sing, but still William did not come. She got up and went to the door and listened. She could hear the low murmur of the men's voices from the salon, and once Harry laughed and Rockingham too, and then they must have continued with their playing of piquet, for there came only the murmur again, and Harry swearing at one of the dogs for scratching. Dona could wait no longer. She wrapped a cloak around her, and stole downstairs into the great hall on tiptoe, and went out by the side-door into the garden.

The grass was wet after the rain, there was a silver sheen upon it, and there was a warm damp smell in the air like an autumn mist.

The trees dripped in the wood, and the little straggling path that led to the creek was muddied and churned. It was dark in the wood too, for the sun would not return now after the rain, and the heavy green foliage of midsummer made a pall over her head. She came to the point where the path broke off and descended rapidly, and she was about to turn leftwards as usual down to the creek when some sound made her pause suddenly, and hesitate, and she waited a moment, her hand touching the low branch of a tree. The sound was that of a twig snapping under a foot, and of someone moving through the bracken. She stood still, never moving, and presently, when all was silent again she looked over the branch that concealed her, and there, some twenty yards away, a man was standing, with his back to a tree, and a musket in his hands.

She could see the profile under the three-cornered hat, and the face was one she did not recognise, and did not know, but he stood there, waiting, peering down towards the creek.

A heavy rain-drop fell upon him from the tree above, and taking off his hat he wiped his face with his handkerchief, turning his back to her as he did so, and at once she moved away from the place where she had stood, and ran homewards along the path by which she had come. Her hands were chilled, and she drew her cloak more closely about her shoulders, and that, she thought, that is the reason why William has not returned, for either he has been caught and held, or he is hiding in the woods, even as I hid just now. For where there is one man there will be others, and the man I have just seen is not a native of Helford, but belongs to Godolphin, to Rashleigh, or to Eustick. And so there is nothing I can do, she thought, nothing but return to the house, and go up to my room, and dress myself, and put on my earrings and my pendants and my bracelets, and descend to the dining-hall with a smile on my lips, and sit at the head of the table with Godolphin on my right and Rashleigh on my left, while their men keep a watch here in the woods.

She sped back along the path to the house, the raindrops falling from the clustered trees, and the blackbirds were silent now, and the evening curiously still.

When she came to the clearing in the trees in front of the green lawns, and looked towards the house, she saw that the long window of the salon was open on to the terrace, and Rockingham was standing there, gazing up into the sky, while the dogs, Duke and Duchess, pattered at his heels. Dona drew back under cover, and then one of the dogs, snuffing at the lawn, came upon her footprints in the wet grass, and followed them, wagging his tail. She saw Rockingham watch the dog, and then he glanced up at the window above his head, and after a moment or two he advanced cautiously, stepping to the edge of the lawn and looking down upon the tell-tale footprints where they crossed the grass and disappeared amongst the trees.

Dona slipped back into the woods, and she heard Rockingham call the dog softly by her name, "Duchess… Duchess," and a little to the left of her she could hear the dog nosing amongst the bracken. She turned now amongst the trees, making her way towards the drive which would bring her back to the front of the house, and to the courtyard, and Duchess must have followed her track through the wood towards the creek, for Dona could hear her no longer, and she came to the courtyard without discovery.

She let herself into the house through the great door, and luckily the dining-hall was still in shadow, the candles not being lit, for at the farther side a maid-servant was carrying plates and piling them on a side-table, while Harry's man from London assisted her. And still no sign of William.

Dona waited in the shadows, and after a moment the servants withdrew through the opposite door to the kitchens at the back, and swiftly she climbed the stairs and so along the passage to her bedroom.

"Who's that?" called Harry from his room. She did not answer, but slipped into her room, shutting the door, and in a few moments she heard his footstep outside her door, and only just in time she flung her cloak aside and lay down on her bed, throwing her coverlet over her knees, for he burst in without knocking, as was his custom, clad only in his shirt and his breeches.

"Where the devil has that fellow William gone to?" he said. "He has the key of the cellar hidden somewhere, and Thomas came to me about the wine. He tells me William is nowhere to be found."

Dona lay still, her eyes shut, and then she turned on her side and looked up at Harry yawning, as though he had woken her from sleep.

"How should I know where William is?" she said, "perhaps he is chatting with the grooms in the stables. Why don't they search for him?"

"They have searched," fumed Harry; "the fellow has simply disappeared, and here we are with George Godolphin and the rest coming to supper and no wine. I tell you, Dona, I won't stand for it. I shall sack him, you know."

"He will come back directly," said Dona wearily, "there is plenty of time."

"Confounded impudence," said Harry, "that's what happens to a servant when there's no man about the place. You have let him do exactly as he pleases."

"On the contrary, he does exactly what pleases me."

"Well, I don't like it, I tell you. Rock's quite right. The fellow has a familiar impudent manner about him. Rock's always right about these things." He stood in the middle of the room, looking moodily down at Dona, his face flushed, his blue eyes choleric, and she recognised at once his usual manner when a little drunk, and that in a moment or two he would become abusive.

"Did you win at piquet?" asked Dona, seeking to distract him, and he shrugged his shoulders, and walked over to the mirror and stared at himself, smoothing the pouches under his eyes with his fingers. "Do I ever win for ten minutes at a time playing with Rock?" he grumbled. "No, it always ends with my losing twenty or thirty sovereigns, which I can ill afford. Look here, Dona, am I going to be allowed in here tonight?"

"I thought you were to be employed in catching pirates."

"Oh, that will be over by midnight, or soon afterwards. If the fellow's in hiding on the river somewhere, as Godolphin and Eustick seem to think, he won't stand a dog's chance. There are men to be posted everywhere from here to the headland, and on either side of the river to boot. He won't slip away from the net this time."

"And what part do you propose to take yourself?"

"Oh, I shall be a looker-on, and come in at the kill. And we'll all have a drink, and have no end of fun. But you haven't answered my question, Dona."

"Shall we leave it until the time comes? Knowing what you are usually like after midnight you won't be caring very much if you lie down in my room or under the dining-table."

"That's only because you're always so damned hard on me, Dona. I tell you it's a bit thick, this business of you running off here to Navron and leaving me to kick my heels in town, and then catching some Tom-fool fever when I do come after you."

"Shut the door, Harry. I want to sleep."

"Sleep my foot. You're always wanting to sleep. It's been your answer to me under every circumstance now for God knows how long," and he stamped out of the room, banging the door, and she heard him stand a moment on the staircase and bawl out to the servant below whether that scoundrel William had returned.

And Dona, getting up from her bed and looking out of the window, saw Rockingham come back across the lawn, with the little dog Duchess pattering at his heels.

She began to dress, slowly and with great care, curling her dark ringlets round her fingers and placing them behind her ears, and into the ears themselves she screwed the rubies, and round her neck she clasped the ruby pendant. For Dona St. Columb in her cream satin gown, with her ringlets and her jewels, must bear no resemblance to that bedraggled cabin-boy of La Mouette, who with the rain streaming down his thin shirt, had stood beneath Philip Rashleigh's window only five days ago. She looked at herself in the mirror, and then up at the portrait on the wall, and she saw how she had changed, even in the short while she had been at Navron, for her face had filled out, and the sulky look had gone from her mouth, and there was something different about her eyes, as Rockingham had said. As for her gypsy tan, there was no concealing it, and her hands and throat were burnt too by the sun. Who in the world will believe, she thought to herself, that this is the result of a fever, that the sunburn is a jaundice - Harry perhaps, he has so little imagination, but Rockingham, never.

Presently she heard the jangle of the stable bell in the courtyard, and this was the first of the guests arriving, his carriage driving to the steps. Then, after a few minutes' grace, the clatter of horses' hoofs, and once again the jangle of the bell, and now she could hear the sound of voices come from the dining-hall below, and Harry's voice booming out above the others, and the barking of Duke and Duchess. It was nearly dark, the garden was in shadow outside her window, and the trees were still, Down there in the woods, she thought, that sentinel is standing, peering down towards the creek, and perhaps he has been joined now by others, and they are all waiting there, with their backs to the trees, in silence, until we have finished our supper here in the house, and Eustick looks across at Godolphin, and Godolphin at Harry, and Harry at Rockingham, and then they will push back their chairs and smile at one another, and fingering their swords, go down into the woods. And if this were a hundred years ago, she thought, I would be prepared for this, and there would be sleeping draughts to put into their wine, or I would have sold myself to the devil and placed them under a spell, but it is not a hundred years ago, it is my own time, and such things do not happen any more, and all I can do is to sit at the table and smile upon them, and encourage them to drink.