Frenchman's Creek

"Excellent, William. And your face, so solemn, will be exactly right for the occasion. You are, if I may say so, a born deceiver."

"Women have occasionally informed me so, my lady."

"I believe you to be heartless, William, after all. Are you sure I can trust you all alone amongst a pack, of scatter-brained females?"

"I will be a father to them, my lady."

"You may reprimand Prue if you wish, she is inclined to be idle."

"I will do so."

"And frown upon Miss Henrietta if she talks too much."

"Yes, my lady."

"And should Master James very much desire a second helping of strawberries - "

"I am to give them to him, my lady."

"Yes, William. But not when Prue is looking… afterwards, in the pantry, by yourself."

"I understand the situation perfectly, my lady."

"Now I must go. Do you not wish you were coming with me?"

"Unfortunately, my lady, I possess an interior that does not take kindly to the motion of a ship upon the water. Your ladyship follows my meaning?"

"In other words, William, you are horridly sick."

"Your ladyship has a happy turn of phrase. In fact, since we are discussing the matter I am taking the liberty to suggest, my lady, that you should take with you this little box of pills, which I have found invaluable in the past, and which may be of help to you should some unhappy sensation come upon you."

"How very kind of you, William. Give them to me, and I will put them in my bundle. I have a wager with your master that I shall not succumb. Do you think I shall win?"

"It depends upon what your ladyship is alluding to."

"That I shall not succumb to the motion of the ship, of course. What did you think I meant?"

"Forgive me, my lady. My mind, for the moment, had strayed to other things. Yes, I think you will win that wager."

"It is the only wager we have, William."

"Indeed, my lady."

"You sound doubtful."

"When two people make a voyage, my lady, and one of them a man like my master, and the other a woman like my mistress, the situation strikes me as being pregnant with possibilities."

"William, you are very presumptuous."

"I am sorry, my lady."

"And - French in your ideas."

"You must blame my mother, my lady."

"You are forgetting that I have been married to Sir Harry for six years, and am the mother of two children, and that next month I shall be thirty."

"On the contrary, my lady, it was these three things that I was most remembering."

"Then I am inexpressibly shocked at you. Open the door at once, and let me into the garden."

"Yes, my lady."

He pulled back the shutters, and drew aside the long heavy curtains. Something fluttered against the window, seeking an outlet, and as William flung open the door a butterfly, that had become imprisoned in the folds of the curtains, winged its way into the air.

"Another fugitive seeking escape, my lady."

"Yes, William." She smiled at him an instant, and standing upon the threshold sniffed the cool morning air, and looking up saw the first pale streak of the day creep into the sky. "Goodbye, William."

"Au revoir, my lady."

She went across the grass, clutching her bundle, her shawl over her head, and looking back once saw the grey outline of the house, solid, and safe, and sleeping, with William standing sentinel by the window. Waving her hand to him in farewell she followed Pierre Blanc, with his merry eyes and his dark monkey face and his earrings, down through the woods to the pirate ship in the creek.

Somehow she had expected bustle and noise, the confusion of departure, but when they came alongside La Mouette there was the usual silence. It was only when she had climbed the ladder to the deck and looked about her that she realised that the ship was ready for sea, the decks were clear, the men were standing at their appointed places.

One of the men came forward and bowed, bending his head low.

"Monsieur wishes you to go to the quarter-deck."

She climbed the ladder to the high poop-deck, and as she did so she heard the rattle of the chain in the hawser, the grind of the capstan, and the stamping of feet. Pierre Blanc, the song-maker, began his chant, and the voices of the men, low and soft, rose in the air, so that she turned, leaning over the rail to watch them. Their steady treading upon the deck, the creak of the capstan, and the monotony of their chant made a kind of poetry in the air, a lovely thing of rhythm, all seeming part of the fresh morning and part of the adventure.

Suddenly she heard an order called out behind her, clear and decisive, and for the first time she saw the Frenchman, standing beside the helmsman at the wheel, his face tense and alert, his hands behind his back. This was a different being from the companion of the river who had sat beside her in the little boat and mended her line, and later built a wood fire on the quay and cooked the fish, his sleeves rolled above his elbows, his hair falling into his eyes.