Frenchman's Creek

She went to bed as soon as she returned, for the walk had tired her, and she fell asleep almost at once, in spite of the curtains drawn wide, and the shining moon. And then, just after midnight it must have been, for subconsciously she had heard the stable clock strike the hour, she was awake, aware of a footstep that had crunched the gravel beneath her window. She was instantly alert, the household should be sleeping at such an hour, she was suspicious of footsteps in the night. She rose from bed then, and went to the casement, and looked out into the garden. She could see nothing beneath her, the house was in shadow, and whoever had stood there, beneath the casement, must have passed on. She waited and watched, and suddenly, from the belt of trees beyond the lawn, a figure stole into a square patch of moonlight, and looked up towards the house. She saw him cup his hands to his mouth and give a soft low whistle. At once another figure crept out from the shadowed house, he must have been sheltering just inside the window of the salon, and this second figure ran swiftly across the lawn to the man by the belt of trees, his hand raised as though in warning, and she saw that the running figure was William. Dona leant forward, screened by the curtain, her ringlets falling over her face, and she breathed quicker than usual, and her heart beat fast, for there was excitement in what she saw, there was danger - her fingers beat a little nameless tune upon the sill. The two men stood together in the patch of moonlight, and Dona saw William gesticulate with his hands, and point towards the house, at which she drew back into shadow for fear of being observed. The two continued talking, the strange man looking upward at the house also, and presently he shrugged his shoulders, spreading out his hands, as though the matter were beyond his powers of settlement, and then they both withdrew into the belt of trees, and disappeared. Dona waited, and listened, but they did not return. Then she shivered, for the breeze was cool blowing upon her thin nightgown, and she returned to bed, but could not sleep, for this new departure of William's was a mystery that must be solved.

Had she seen him walk by moonlight into the trees, alone, she would have thought little of it, there might have been a woman in Helford hamlet by the river who was not unpleasing to him, or his silent expedition might have been more innocent still, a moth-hunt at midnight. But that stealthy tread, as though he waited for a signal, and that dark figure with his cupped hands and the soft whistle, William's run across the lawn with his warning hand, these were graver problems, giving cause for worry.

She wondered if she had been a very great fool in trusting William. Anyone but herself would have dismissed him that first evening, on learning of his stewardship, how he had lived there in the house alone, without orders to do so. And that manner of his, so unlike the usual servant, that manner which intrigued and amused her, would no doubt have caused offence to most mistresses, to a Lady Godolphin. Harry would have sent him away at once - except that no doubt his manner would have been different with Harry, she felt that instinctively. And then the tobacco-jar, the volume of poetry - it was mystifying, beyond her comprehension, but in the morning she must do something, take the matter in hand, and so without having decided anything, her mind in disorder, she fell asleep at length, just as the grey morning light broke into the room.

The day was hot and shining, like its predecessor, a high golden sun in a cloudless sky, and when Dona came down her first movement was towards the belt of trees where the stranger and William had talked, and disappeared, the night before. Yes, it was as she had expected, their footsteps had made a little track through the bluebells, easy to follow, they led straight across the main pathway of the woods and down deep amongst the thickest trees. She continued for a while, the track leading downwards always, twisting, uneven, very hard to follow, and suddenly she realised that this way would lead her in time towards the river, or a branch of the river, because in the distance she caught the gleam of water that she had not suspected could be so close, for surely the river itself must be away behind her, to the left, and this thread of water she was coming to was something unknown, a discovery. She hesitated a moment, uncertain whether to continue, and then remembering the hour, and how the children would be looking for her, and William himself perhaps, for orders, she turned back, and climbed up through the woods once more, and so on to the lawns of Navron House. The matter must be postponed to a better time, later perhaps in the afternoon.