Frenchman's Creek

"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.

She opened her door, and the sound of their voices rose from the dining-hall. There were the pompous tones of Godolphin, and that scratchy querulous cough of Philip Rashleigh, and a question from Rockingham, silken and smooth. She turned along the corridor to the children's room before descending, and kissed them as they slept, pulling aside the curtain so that the cool night air should come to them from the open casement, and then, as she walked once more to the head of the stairs, she heard a sound behind her, slow and dragging, as though someone, uncertain of his way in the darkness, shuffled in the passage.

"Who is there?" she whispered, and there was no answer. She waited a moment, a chill of fear upon her, while the loud voices of the guests came from below, and then once again there was the dragging shuffling sound in the dark passage, and a faint whisper, and a sigh.

She brought a candle from the children's room, and holding it high above her head, looked down into the long corridor whence the sound had come, and there, half-crouching, half-lying against the wall, was William, his face ashen pale, his left arm hanging useless at his side. She knelt down beside him, but he pushed her back, his small button mouth twisted with pain. "Don't touch me, my lady," he whispered, "you will soil your gown, there is blood on my sleeve."

"William, dear William, are you badly hurt?" she said, and he shook his head, his right hand clasping his shoulder.

"It is nothing, my lady," he said, "only somewhat unfortunate… tonight of all nights." And he closed his eyes, weak with pain, and she knew he was lying to her.

"How did it happen?" she asked.

"Coming back through the woods, my lady," he said, "I saw one of Lord Godolphin's men, and he challenged me. I managed to evade him, but received this scratch."