Frenchman's Creek

She took it from him, almost ashamed of her eagerness, and he - winking at her with an absurd familiarity which made her laugh, rolled his eyes to heaven and rubbed his stomach.

"Monsieur will join you directly," he said, smiling like an accomplice, and she thought how like William they all were in their linking of two together, and how they accepted it as natural, light-hearted and lovely.

She fell upon the loaf of bread like a creature ravenous for food, cutting a chunk off the black crust, and there was butter, too, and cheese, and the heart of a lettuce. Presently she heard a step behind her and glancing up she saw the captain of La Mouette looking down upon her. He sat by her side and reached for the loaf of bread.

"The ship can take care of herself," he said, "and anyway this is her weather, she would keep to her course all day, with a finger to the wheel now and again. Give me some coffee."

She poured out the steaming brew into two cups, and they drank greedily, watching each other over the rims.

"What do you think of my ship?" he asked.

"I think she is bewitched, and is not a ship at all, for I feel as though I had never been alive before."

"That is the effect she first had upon me, when I turned to piracy. What is the cheese like?"

"The cheese is also enchanted."

"And you do not feel sick?"

"I have not felt better in my life."

"Eat all you can now, because tonight there will be little time for food. Do you want another crust of bread?"

"Please."

"This wind will hold all day, but this evening it will fall light, and we shall have to creep along the coast, taking full advantage of the tide. Are you happy?"

"Yes… Why do you ask?"

"Because I am happy too. Give me some more coffee."

"The men are very gay today," she said, reaching for the jug, "is it because of tonight, or because they are at sea again?"

"A mixture of both. And they are gay, too, because of you."

"Why should I make any difference?"

"You are an added stimulation. They will work all the better tonight because of you."

"Why did you not have a woman on board before?"

He smiled, his mouth full of bread and cheese, but he did not answer.

"I forgot to tell you," she said, "what Godolphin said the other day."

"And what did he say?"

"He told me that there were ugly rumours about the countryside, because of the men belonging to your ship. He said that he had heard of cases of women in distress."

"In distress about what?"

"The very thing I asked him. And he replied, to my choking delight, that he feared some of the countrywomen had suffered at the hands of your damned scoundrels."

"I doubt if they suffered."

"So do I."

He went on munching bread and cheese, glancing aloft now and again at the trim of the sails.

"My fellows never force their attentions upon your women," he said, "the trouble generally is that your women won't leave them alone. They creep out of their cottages, and stray upon the hills, if they think La Mouette is at anchor near their shores. Even our faithful William has trouble that way, I understand."

"William is very - Gallic."

"So am I, so are we all, but pursuit can sometimes be embarrassing."

"You forget," she said, "that the country-women find their husbands very dull."

"They should teach their husbands better manners."

"The English yokel is not at his best when he makes love."

"So I have heard. But surely he can improve, upon instruction."

"How can a woman instruct her husband in the things she does not know herself, in which she has had no intuition?"

"Surely she has instinct?"

"Instinct is not always enough."

"Then I am very sorry for your country-women."

He leant on his elbow, feeling in the pocket of his long coat for a pipe, and she watched him fill the bowl with the dark harsh tobacco that had lain once in the jar in her bedroom, and in a minute or two he began to smoke, holding the bowl in his hand.

"I told you once before," he observed, his eyes aloft at his spars, "that Frenchmen have a reputation for gallantry that is not merited. We cannot all be brilliant our side of the channel, while the blunderers remain on yours."

"Perhaps there is something in our English climate that is chilling to the imagination?"

"Climate has nothing to do with it, nor racial differences. A man, or a woman for that matter, is either born with a natural understanding of these things or he is not."

"And supposing, in marriage for example, one partner has the understanding and the other has not?"

"Then the marriage is doubtless very monotonous, which I believe most marriages to be." A wisp of smoke blew across her face, and looking up she saw that he was laughing at her.

"Why are you laughing?" she said.

"Because your face was so serious, as though you were considering writing a treatise on incompatibility."

"Perhaps I may do so, in my old age."

"The Lady St. Columb must write with knowledge of her subject, that is essential to all treatises."

"Possibly I have that knowledge."