Frenchman's Creek

Chapter XXIV

THE ADVENTURE WAS OVER now, and the madness, and the laughter. Somewhere back on the road lay a carriage tumbled in a ditch, and a horse without bridle or rein grazed beside a hedge. There was a physician who walked along the highroad in search of his supper, and there were guards who lay bound and gagged upon a dungeon floor.

These things belonged to the evening, and had no place in the night that had come. For it was long past midnight now, and darker than it would ever be again. The stars were clustered thick like little pin-pricks of light, and the crescent moon had gone.

Dona stood beside her horse, looking down upon the lake, and she saw that it was separated from the sea by a bank of high shingle, and while the waves broke upon the shore the lake itself was still and undisturbed. There was no wind, and the sky for all its darkness had the strange clarity and radiance of midsummer. Now and again a wave a little larger than its fellows would spend itself upon the shingle beach, and murmur, and sigh, and the lake, catching a tremor from the sea would bear a ripple upon its surface of glass, and shiver an instant, while the ripple washed away into the bent reeds. Now and again there were bird noises from the pool, the startled cry of a moor-hen as it paddled amongst the reeds and hid itself, furtively rustling the tall stems, and there were whispers and stealthy movements from all the unknown nameless things that come out into the silent world at night, and live for a while, and breathe, and have their moment.

Beyond the woods and the hill lay the village of Porth-leven, where the fishing boats were moored against the quay, and William looked up into his Navrons face, and then over his shoulder again towards the hill.

"It would be wise, m'sieu," he said, "if I went now, before the day breaks, and found a boat. I will bring it round to the beach here, and we can leave as the sun rises."

"Do you think you will find a boat?" said the Frenchman.

"Yes, m'sieu," he answered, "there will be a small boat at the harbour entrance. I made enquiries, m'sieu, before I left Gweek."

"William is resourceful," said Dona. "He forgets nothing. And because of him there will be no hanging in the morning, but only a small boat putting out to sea."

The Frenchman looked at his servant, and the servant looked at Dona, as she stood beside the lake, and suddenly he went from them, over the ridge of shingle to the hill beyond, a curious little figure in his long black coat and his large three-cornered hat. He disappeared into the darkness, and they were alone. The horses grazed on the grass beside the lake, and their soft mouths made a quiet crunching sound, and from the woods opposite the tall trees rustled and whispered and were still.

There was a hollow beside the lake, of smooth white sand, and here it was they built their fire, and presently a tongue of flame leapt upwards into the air, and the dry sticks crackled and broke.

He knelt close to the fire, the flame lighting his face and his throat and his hands, and "Do you remember," said Dona, "that once you told me you would cook chicken for me on a spit?"

"Yes," he answered, "but to-night I have no chicken, and I have no spit, and my cabin-boy must be content with burnt bread instead."

He frowned, concentrating upon his task, and because the heat of the fire was great he shook his head, and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, and she knew that this was a picture of him that could never be lost, the fire, the lake, the dark sky studded with stars, and the sea breaking upon the shingle behind them.

"And so," he said later, as they ate their supper, with the fire smaller than before and the bitter smell of wood smoke lingering in the air, "you fought a man, my Dona, and he died, on the floor of Navron House."

She stared across at him, but he was not looking at her; he was crunching the bread between his teeth. "How did you know?" she asked.

"Because I was accused of his murder," he answered, "and when I was accused I remembered the companion of Hampton Court, and the face of a man who looked on me with hatred as I robbed him of his rings, and I knew then what happened, Dona, when I left you that night."

She clasped her hands round her knees, and looked out upon the lake. "When we went fishing, you and I," she said, "I could not take the hook out of the fish, do you remember? But it was different, what I did that night. At first I was afraid, and then I was angry, and when I was angry I took the shield down from the wall, and afterwards-he died."

"What made you angry?" he asked.

She thought a moment, trying to remember, and then, "It was James," she said, "it was James who woke and cried."

He said nothing, and glancing across at him she saw that he had finished his supper, and was sitting now as she did, with his hands around his knees, and he was staring at the lake.

"Ah," he said, "so it was James who woke and cried, and you and I, Dona, we meet at the Loe pool instead of Cove-rack, and your answer is the same as mine."

He threw a pebble into the lake, and a ripple formed and spread across the surface of the water, and vanished as though it had never been, and then he lay on his back on the strip of sand, and put out his hand to her, and she went and lay beside him.

"I think," he said, "that Lady St. Columb will never more royster in the streets of London, for she has had her measure of adventure."

"The Lady St. Columb," she said, "will become a gracious matron, and smile upon her servants, and her tenants, and the village folk, and one day she will have grandchildren about her knee, and will tell them the story of a pirate who escaped."

"And what will happen to the cabin-boy?" he asked.

"The cabin-boy will vigil sometimes in the night, and tear his nails, and beat his pillow, and then he will fall asleep perhaps, and dream again."

The pool lay dark and silent at their feet, and from behind them came the sound of the sea as it broke upon the shingle.

"There is a house in Brittany," he said, "where once a man lived called Jean-Benoit Aubery. It may be that he will go back there again, and cover the bare walls from floor to ceiling with pictures of birds and portraits of his cabin-boy. But as the years go by the portraits of the cabin-boy will become blurred and indistinct."

"In what part of Brittany does Jean-Benoit Aubery have his house?" she asked.

"In Finistere," he said, "which means, my Dona, the land's end."

It seemed to her that she could see the rugged cliffs and the scarred face of the headland, and she could hear the sea crash against the rocks, and the gulls cry, and she knew how sometimes the sun would beat upon the cliffs so that the grass became parched, and thirsty, and dry, and how sometimes a soft wind would blow from the west and there would be mist and rain.

"There is a jagged piece of rock," he said, "and it runs out into the Atlantic and we call it la Pointe du Raz. No tree can live upon it, and no blade of grass, for it is swept all day and all night by the west wind. And out in the sea, beyond the point, two tides meet, and surge together, and all the time forever there is a roughness and a boiling of surf and foam, and the spray rises fifty feet into the air."

A little cold wind rose from the centre of the lake and blew upon them, and the stars went misty suddenly and dim, and it was that hour of night when all is silent and still: no movement of bird or beast, no whisper in the reeds, and nothing sounding but the breaking of the sea upon the shingle.

"Do you think," she said, "that La Mouette is waiting for you, out there, on the sea, and that you will find her in the morning?"

"Yes," he said.

"And you will climb aboard and be master of her again, and hold the wheel in your hand, and feel the deck under your feet?"

"Yes," he said.

"And William," she said, "William who does not like the sea, he will be ill and wish himself back at Navron again."

"No," he said, "William will feel the salt on his lips, and the wind in his hair, and before night-fall perhaps, if the breeze is steady, he will look upon the land again, and smell the warm grass on the headland, and it will mean Brittany and home."

She lay on her back as he did, with her hands behind her head, and now there was a change in the sky, a pallor of false dawn, and the little wind blew stronger than before.

"I wonder," he said, "when it was that the world first went amiss, and men forgot how to live and to love and to be happy. For once, my Dona, there was a lake like this one in the life of every man."

"Perhaps there was a woman," she said, "and the woman told her man to build a house of reeds, and after that a house of wood, and after that a house of stone, and there came other men and other women, and soon there were no more hills and no more lakes, nothing but little round stone houses all alike."

"And you and I," he said, "we have our lake and our hills, for this night only, and we have only three hours now to sunrise."

It seemed to them, when the day came, that there was a whiteness and a cold clarity about it that they had never known before. The sky was hard and bright, and the lake lay at their feet like a sheet of silver. They got up from the spit of sand, and he bathed in the chill water, which was cold like the frozen water of the north. Presently the birds began to murmur and whisper in the woods, and he left the lake and dressed, and walked out onto the shingle beach where the tide was high, and a ridge of foam lapped against the stones. A hundred yards away from the beach a little fishing boat rocked at anchor, and when William saw the figures on the beach he drew out the long paddles and pulled towards them.

They stood there together on the beach, waiting for the boat, and suddenly on the far horizon Dona saw the white topsail of a ship, and the ship was drawing in towards the land. And the ship took shape and form, and she had raking crimson masts, and her sails were full.

La Mouette was returning for her master, and as he climbed into the waiting fishing boat, and hoisted the little sail on the single mast, it seemed to Dona that this moment was part of another moment, long ago, when she had stood upon a headland and looked out across the sea. The ship drifted on the horizon like a symbol of escape, and there was something strange about her in the morning light, as though she had no part in the breaking of the day, but belonged to another age and to another world.

She seemed a painted ship upon the still white sea, and Dona shivered suddenly, for the shingle felt cold and chill on her bare feet, while a little wave splashed upon them, and sighed, and was no more. Then out of the sea, like a ball of fire, the sun came hard and red.

The End