Frenchman's Creek

She went to her own room, and closed the door. It smelt cool and sweet, for the window was open on to the garden, and William had put lilies-of-the-valley beside her bed. She pulled aside the curtains and undressed, and lay down with her hands over her eyes, and now, she thought, now he is waking beside the creek, putting out his hand for me beside him and finding me gone, and then he remembers and smiles, and stretches, and yawns, and watches the sun come up over the trees. And later he will get up and sniff the day, as I have seen him do, whistling under his breath, scratching his left ear, and then walk down to the creek and swim. He will call up to the men on La Mouette, as they scrub the decks, and one of them will lower the rope ladder for him to climb, and another launch a boat to bring back the little boat and the supper things and the blankets. Then he will go to the cabin, and rub himself dry with a towel, glancing out of the port-hole on to the water as he does so, and presently, when he has dressed, Pierre Blanc will bring breakfast, and he will wait a little, but then because he will be hungry he will eat it without me. Later he will come up on deck and watch the path through the trees. She could see him fill his pipe, and lean against the poop rail, looking down into the water, and perhaps the swans would come back, and he would throw bread to them, idle, contented, filled with a warm laziness after his morning swim, thinking perhaps of the day's fishing to come, and the hot sun, and the sea. She knew how he would glance up towards her, if she came through the trees down to the creek, and how he would smile, saying nothing, never moving from the rail on the deck, throwing the bread down to the swans as though he did not see her. And what is the use, thought Dona, of going over this in my mind, for all that is finished, and done with, and will not happen again, for the ship must sail before she is discovered. And here am I, lying on my bed at Navron, and there is he, down in the creek, and we are not together any more, and this then, that I am feeling now, is the hell that comes with love, the hell and the damnation and the agony beyond all enduring, because after the beauty and the loveliness comes the sorrow and the pain. So she lay on her back, her arms across her eyes, never sleeping, and the sun came up and streamed into the room.

It was after nine o'clock that William came in with her breakfast, and he put the tray down onto the table beside her bed, and "Are you rested, my lady?" he asked. "Yes, William," she lied, breaking off a grape from the bunch he had brought her.

"The gentlemen are below breakfasting, my lady," he told her. "Sir Harry bade me enquire whether you were sufficiently recovered for him to see you."

"Yes, I shall have to see him, William."

"If I might suggest it, my lady, it would be prudent to draw the curtains a trifle, so that your face is in shadow. Sir Harry might think it peculiar that you look so well."

"Do I look well, William?"

"Suspiciously well, my lady."

"And yet my head is aching intolerably."

"From other causes, my lady."

"And I have shadows beneath my eyes, and I am exceedingly weary."

"Quite, my lady."

"I think you had better leave the room, William, before I throw something at you."

"Very good, my lady."

He went away, closing the door softly behind him, and Dona, rising, washed and then arranged her hair, and after drawing the curtains as he had suggested, she went back to her bed, and presently she heard the shrill yapping of the spaniels, and their scratching against the door, followed by a heavy footstep, and in a moment Harry was in the room, and the dogs with delighted barking hurled themselves upon her bed.

"Get down, now, will you, you little devils," he shouted. "Hi, Duke, hi, Duchess, can't you see your mistress is ill, come here, will you, you rascals," making, as was his wont, more ado than the dogs themselves, and then, sitting heavily upon the bed in place of them, he brushed away the marks of their feet with his scented handkerchief, puffing and blowing as he did so.

"God dammit, it's warm this morning," he said, "here I am sweating through my shirt already, and it's not yet ten o'clock. How are you, are you better, where did you get this confounded fever? Have you a kiss for me?" He bent over her, the smell of scent strong upon him, and his curled wig scratching her chin, while his clumsy fingers prodded her cheek. "You do not look very ill, my beautiful, even in this light, and here was I expecting to find you at death's door itself, from what the fellow told here. What sort of a servant is he, anyway? I'll dismiss him if you don't like him, you know."

"William is a treasure," she said, "the best servant I have ever had."