Frenchmans Creek - Daphne du Maurier

"He won't be fit for a lady to see this time tomorrow my lord," he said, and Godolphin laughed loudly. "No, that is why her ladyship has come today." The guard led the way up the narrow stone stairway, taking a key from his chain, and "There is no other door," thought Dona, "no other stair. And the men below there, always on guard." The key turned in the lock, and once again her heart began to beat, foolishly, ridiculously, as it always did whenever she was about to look on him. The jailer threw open the door, and she stepped inside, with Godolphin behind her, and then the jailer withdrew, locking the door upon them. He was sitting at a table, as he had done the first time she had seen him, and on his face was the same absorbed expression that he had worn then, intent upon his occupation, thinking of nothing else, so that Godolphin, put out of countenance by his prisoner's indifference, thumped his hand on the table and said sharply, "Stand up, can't you, when I choose to visit you?"

The indifference was no play, as Dona knew, for so intent was the Frenchman upon his drawing, that he had not known the footstep of Godolphin from the jailer. He pushed the drawing aside - it was a curlew, Dona saw, flying across an estuary towards the open sea - and then for the first time he saw her, and making no sign of recognition, he stood up, and bowed, and said nothing.

"This is Lady St. Columb," said Godolphin stiffly, "who, disappointed that she cannot see you hanged tomorrow, wishes to take one of your drawings back to town with her, so that His Majesty may have a souvenir of one of the biggest blackguards that ever troubled his faithful subjects."

"Lady St. Columb is very welcome," said the prisoner. "Having had little else to do during the last few days, I can offer her a fair selection. What is your favourite bird, madam?"

"That," answered Dona, "is something I can never decide. Sometimes I think it is a night-jar."

"I regret I cannot offer you a night-jar," he said, rummaging amongst the papers on the table. "You see, when I last heard one, I was so intent upon another occupation that I did not observe the night-jar as clearly as I might have done."

"You mean," said Godolphin sternly, "that you were so intent upon robbing one of my friends of his possessions for your personal gratification that you gave no thought to any other distraction."

"My lord," bowed the captain of La Mouette, "I have never before heard the occupation in question so delicately described."

Dona turned over the drawings on the table. "Here is a herring gull," she said, "but I think you have not given him his full plumage."

"The drawing is unfinished, madam," he replied, "this particular sea-gull dropped one of its feathers in flight. If you know anything about the species you will remember, however, that they seldom venture far to sea. This particular gull, for instance, is probably only ten miles from the coast at the present moment."

"No doubt," said Dona, "and then tonight he will return again to the shore, in search of the feather he has lost."

"Your ladyship knows little of ornithology," said Godolphin. "For my part I have never heard of a seagull or any other bird picking up feathers."

"I had a feather mattress as a child," said Dona, talking rather quickly, and smiling at Godolphin, "and I remember the feathers became loose after a while, and one of them fluttered from the window of my bedroom and fell into the garden below. Of course the window was a large one, not like the slit that gives light to this cell."

"Oh, of course," answered his lordship, a little puzzled, and he glanced at her doubtfully, wondering if she still had a touch of fever, for surely she sounded a little light in the head.

"Did they ever blow under the door?" enquired the prisoner.

"Ah, that I can't remember," said Dona, "I think that even a feather would have difficulty in passing beneath a door… unless of course it was given assistance, like a strong breath of air, you know, say the draught from a barrel of a pistol. But I have not chosen my drawing. Here is a sanderling, I wonder if this would please His Majesty. My lord, do I hear wheels upon the drive? If so, it must be that the physician is departing."

Lord Godolphin clicked his tongue in annoyance, and looked towards the door. "He surely would not leave without consulting me first," he said, "are you certain you hear wheels? I am a little deaf."

"I could not be more certain in the world," answered Dona.

His lordship strode to the door, and thumped upon it.

"Ho, there," he called, "unlock the door, will you, immediately?" "

The jailer called in answer, and they could hear his footstep mount the narrow stair. In a moment Dona had passed the pistol and the knife from her ridinghabit onto the table, and the prisoner had seized them from her, and covered them with a mass of his drawings. The jailer unlocked the door, and Godolphin turned, and looked at Dona.

"Well, madam," he said, "have you chosen your drawing?"

Dona fluttered the drawings in distraction, wrinkling her brow.

"It is really most monstrously difficult," she said. "I cannot decide between the sea-gull and the sanderling. Do not wait for me, my lord, you must know by this time that a woman can never make up her mind. I will follow you in a moment or two."

"It is really imperative that I see the physician," said Godolphin, "so that if you will excuse me, madam. You remain here with her ladyship," he added to the guard, as he left the cell.

Once again the guard closed the door, and this time stood against it, his arms folded and he smiled across at Dona with understanding.

"We shall have two celebrations tomorrow, my lady," he said.

"Yes," she said, "I hope for your sake that it proves to be a boy. There will be more ale for all of you."

"Am I not the only cause for excitement?" asked the prisoner.

The guard laughed, and jerked his head towards the slit in the cell.

"You'll be forgotten by midday," he said, "you'll be dangling from the tree, while the rest of us drink to the future Lord Godolphin."

"It seems rather hard that neither the prisoner nor myself will be here to drink the health of the son and heir," smiled Dona, and she drew her purse from her pocket, and threw it to the jailer. "I wager," she said, "that you would rather do so now, than keeping watch below, hour after hour. Supposing we drink now, the three of us, while his lordship is with the physician?"

The jailer grinned, and winked at his prisoner.

"If we do, it won't be the first time I've drunk ale before an execution," he said. "But I will say one thing, and that is that I've never seen a Frenchman hang yet. They tell me they die quicker than what we do. The bones in their neck are more brittle," and winking again, he unlocked the door, and called down to his assistant.

"Bring three glasses, and a jug of ale." While his back was turned Dona questioned the prisoner with her eyes, and his lips moved soundlessly. "Tonight at eleven."

She nodded, and whispered, "William and I."

The jailer looked over his shoulder. "If his lordship catches us there'll be the devil to pay," he said.

"I would absolve you," said Dona, "this is the sort of jest that will please His Majesty when I see him at Court. What is your name?"

"Zachariah Smith, my lady."

"Very well, then, Zachariah, if trouble comes of this, I will plead your case to the King himself."

The jailer laughed, and his assistant coming this moment with the ale, he closed the door, and carried the tray to the table.

"Long life then to your ladyship," he said, "a full purse and a good appetite to myself, and to you, sir, a speedy death."

He poured the ale into the glasses, and Dona, clinking hers against the jailer's said, "Long life, then, to the future Lord Godolphin."

The jailer smacked his lips, and tilted his head.

The prisoner raised his glass and smiled at Dona.

"Should we not also drink to Lady Godolphin, at this moment, I imagine, suffering something of discomfort?"

"And," replied Dona, "to the physician also, who will be rather heated." As she drank, an idea flashed suddenly to her mind, and glancing at the Frenchman, she knew instinctively that the same thought had come to him, for he was looking at her.

"Zachariah Smith, are you a married man?" she said.

The jailer laughed. "Twice married," he said, "and the father of fourteen."

"Then you know what his lordship is enduring at this moment," she smiled, "but with so able a physician as Doctor Williams there is little cause for anxiety. You know the doctor well, I suppose?"

"No, my lady. I come from the north coast. I am not a Helston man."

"Doctor Williams," said Dona dreamily, "is a funny little fellow, with a round solemn face, and a mouth like a button. I have heard it said that he is as good a judge of ale as any man living."

"Then it's a great pity," said the prisoner, laying down his glass, "that he does not drink with us now. Perhaps he will do so later, when his day's work is finished, and he has made a father of Lord Godolphin."

"Which will not be much before midnight, what do you say, Zachariah Smith, and father of fourteen?" asked Dona.

"Midnight is generally the hour, your ladyship," laughed the jailer, "all nine of my boys were born as the clock struck twelve."

"Very well, then," said Dona, "when I see Doctor Williams directly I will tell him that in honour of the occasion, Zachariah Smith, who can boast of more than a baker's dozen, will be pleased to drink a glass of ale with him before he goes on duty for the night."

"Zachariah, you will remember this evening for the rest of your life," said the prisoner.

The jailer replaced the glasses on the tray. "If Lord Godolphin has a son," he said, winking an eye, "there'll be so much rejoicing on the estate that we'll be forgetting to hang you in the morning."

Dona took up the drawing of the sea-gull from the table.

"Well," she said, "I have chosen my drawing. And rather than his lordship should see you with the tray, Zachariah, I will descend with you, and we will leave your prisoner with his pen and his birds. Good-bye, Frenchman, and may you slip away tomorrow as easily as the feather did from my mattress."

The prisoner bowed. "It will all depend," he said, "upon the quantity of ale that my jailer consumes tonight with Doctor Williams."

"He'll have to boast a stout head if he can beat mine," said the jailer, and he unlocked the door, and held it open for her to pass.

"Goodbye, Lady St. Columb," said the prisoner, and she stood for a moment looking at him, realising that the plan they had in mind was more hazardous and more foolhardy than any that he had yet attempted, and that if it should fail there would be no further chance of escape, for tomorrow he would hang from the tree there in the park. Then he smiled, as though in secret, and it seemed to her that his smile was the personification of himself; it was the thing in him that she had first loved, and would always cherish, and it conjured the picture in her mind of La Mouette, and the sun, and the wind upon the sea, and with it too the dark shadows of the creek, the wood fire and the silence. She went out of the cell without looking at him, her head in the air, and her drawing in her hand, and "He will never know," she thought, "at what moment I have loved him best."

She followed the jailer down the narrow stair, her heart heavy, her body suddenly tired with all the weariness of anti-climax. The jailer, grinning at her, put the tray under the steps, and said, "Cold-blooded, isn't he, for a man about to die? They say these Frenchmen have no feelings."