Frenchman's Creek

At seven her supper was brought to her on a tray, and she ate little of it, not being hungry. Then she gave orders to the servant not to disturb her again during the evening, for she was tired, and not to call her in the morning, for she would sleep late in all probability, before the tedium of the journey.

When she was alone, she undid the bundle that William had given her on her return from Lord Godolphin. Smiling to herself she drew out the rough stockings, the worn breeches, and the patched though gaily coloured shirt. She remembered his look of embarrassment as he had given them to her, and his words: "These are the best Grace can do for you, my lady, they belong to her brother." "They are perfect, William," she had replied, "and Pierre Blanc himself could have done no better." For she must play the boy again, for the last time, and escape from her woman's clothes for this night at least. "I will be able to run better without petticoats," she said to William, "and I can ride astride my horse, as I used to as a child." He had procured the horses, as he had promised, and was to meet her with them on the road from Navron to Gweek just after nine o'clock.

"You must not forget, my William," she said, "that you are a physician, and that I am your groom, and it were better that you should drop 'my lady' and call me Tom."

He looked away from her in embarrassment. "My lady," he said, "my lips could not frame the word, it would be too distressing." She had laughed, and told him that physicians must never be embarrassed, especially when they had just brought sons and heirs into the world. And now she was dressing herself in the lad's clothes, and they fitted her well, even the shoes, unlike the clumsy clogs belonging to Pierre Blanc; there was a handkerchief too, which she wound about her head, and a leather strap for her waist. She looked at herself in the mirror, her dark curls concealed, her skin a gypsy brown, and "I am a cabin-boy again," she thought, "and Dona St. Columb is asleep and dreaming."

She listened at her door, and all was still; the servants were safe in their own quarters. She braced herself for the ordeal of descending the stairway to the dining-hall, for this was what she dreaded most, in the darkness, with the candles unlit, and flooding her mind with sharp intensity was the memory of Rockingham crouching there, his knife in his hands. It was better, she thought, to shut her eyes, and feel her way along the landing to the stairs, for then she would not see the great shield on the wall, nor the outline of the stairs themselves. So she went down, her hands before her and her eyes tight shut, and all the while her heart was beating, and it seemed to her that Rockingham still waited for her in the darkest corner of the hall. With a sudden panic she flung herself upon the door, wrenching back the bolts, and ran out into the gathering dusk to the safety and stillness of the avenue. Once she was free of the house she was no longer afraid, the air was soft and warm, and the gravel crunched under her feet, while high in the pale sky the new moon gleamed like a sickle.

She walked swiftly, for there was freedom in her boy's clothes, and her spirits rose, and once again she fell to whistling Pierre Blanc's song, and she thought of him too, with his merry monkey face and his white teeth, waiting now on the deck of La Mouette somewhere in mid-channel, for the master he had left behind.

She saw a shadow move towards her, round the bend of the road, and there was William with the horses, and there was a lad with him, Grace's brother she presumed, and the owner of the clothes she wore.

William left the boy with the horses, and came towards her, and she saw, the laughter rising within her, that he had borrowed a black suit of clothes, and white stockings, and he wore a dark curled wig.

"Was it a son or a daughter, Doctor Williams?" she asked, and he looked at her with confusion, not entirely happy at the part he had to play: for that he should be the gentleman and she the groom seemed to him shocking, who was shocked at nothing else.

"How much does he know?" she whispered, pointing to the lad.

"Nothing, my lady," he whispered, "only that I am a friend of Grace's, and am in hiding, and that you are a companion who would help me to escape."

"Then Tom I will be," she insisted, "and Tom I will remain." And she went on whistling Pierre Blanc's song, to discomfort William, and going to one of the horses she swung herself up into the saddle, and smiled at the lad, and digging her heels into the side of the horse, she clattered ahead of them along the road, laughing at them over her shoulder. When they came to the wall of Godolphin's estate they dismounted, and left the lad there with the horses, under cover of the trees. She and William went on foot the half-mile to the park-gates, for so they had arranged earlier in the evening.