'They come in dozens, always,' he told her; 'they seem to know at once when we return, and they come in here from the headlands. My men will feed them, I can't prevent them. And I am as bad myself. I am always throwing crumbs to them, from the windows here.' He laughed, and reaching for a crust of bread, he tossed it to them, and the gulls leapt upon it, screaming and fighting.
'Perhaps they have a fellow feeling for the ship,' he said; 'it is my fault for naming her La Mouette'
'La Mouette-the Sea-gull-why, of course,' she said, 'I had forgotten what it meant,' and they went on watching the gulls, leaning against the window.
'This is absurd,' Dona thought, 'why am I doing this, it is not what I meant, not what I intended. By now surely I should be bound with ropes and thrust into the dark hold of the ship, gagged and bruised, and here we are throwing bread to the sea-gulls, and I have forgotten to go on being angry.'
'Why are you a pirate?' she said at last, breaking the silence.
'Why do you ride horses that are too spirited?' he answered.
'Because of the danger, because of the speed, because I might fall,' she said.
'That is why I am a pirate,' he said.
'Yes, but…'
'There are no 'buts.' It is all very simple really. There are no dark problems about it. I have no grudge against society, no bitter hatred of my fellow-men. It just happens that the problems of piracy interest me, suit my particular bent of thought. It is not just a matter of brutality and bloodshed, you know. The organisation takes many hours of many days, every detail of a landing has to be thought out, and prepared, I hate disorder, or any slipshod method of attack. The whole thing is very much like a geometrical problem, it is food for the brain. And then-well- then I have my fun, my spice of excitement, my beating of the other fellow. It is very satisfying, very absorbing.'
'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, I understand.'
'You are puzzled, aren't you,' he said, laughing down at her, 'because you expected to find me drunk here on the floor, surrounded by blood and knives and bottles and shrieking women.'
She smiled back at him; she did not answer.
Someone knocked at the door, and when the Frenchman called 'Enter' one of his men came in, bearing a great bowl of soup upon a tray. It smelt rich and good. The hot steam rose in the air. The man proceeded to lay the table, spreading a white cloth on the farther end. He went to a locker in the bulkhead and brought out a bottle of wine. Dona watched. The smell of the soup was very tempting, and she was hungry. The wine looked cool, in its slim bottle. The man withdrew, and looking up she saw that the master of the ship was watching her, with laughter in his eyes.
'Will you have some?' he said.
She nodded, feeling foolish once again: why did he read her thoughts? And he fetched another plate and spoon, and another glass from the cupboard. Then he pulled up two chairs to the table. She saw that there was new bread too, freshly baked in the French fashion, the crust dark and brown, and little pats of very yellow butter.
They ate their meal in silence, and then he poured out the wine. It was cold and clear, and not too sweet. And all the while she kept thinking how like a dream it was, a remembered dream that she had had once; a quiet, familiar thing, a dream she recognised.
'I have done this before,' she thought, 'this is not the first time.' Yet that was absurd, for of course it was the first time, and he was a stranger to her. She wondered what hour it was. The children would have returned from their picnic, Prue would be putting them to bed. They would run and knock upon her door and she would not answer. 'It does not matter,' she thought, 'I don't care,' and she went on drinking her wine, looking at the bird pictures on the bulkhead, and now and again stealing a glance at him when she knew that his head was turned from her.
Then he reached out an arm towards a tobacco-jar on a shelf, and began to shake the mixture into his hand. It was close cut, very dark and brown. And suddenly, the truth striking at her like a blow, she saw the tobacco-jar in her bedroom, and the volume of French poetry, with the drawing of a sea-gull on the title-page. She saw William running to the belt of trees-William-his master, his master who made voyages from place to place-whose life was one continual escape. She got up from her chair, staring at him.
'Good God!' she said.
He looked up. 'What is the matter?'
'It's you,' she said, 'you who left the tobacco-jar in my bedroom, and the volume of Ronsard. It's you have been sleeping in my bed.'
He smiled at her, amused at her choice of words, smiling too at her astonishment, her confusion and dismay.
'Did I leave them there?' he said. 'I had forgotten. How very remiss and careless of William not to have noticed.'
'It was for you that William stayed at Navron,' she said; 'it was for your sake that he sent the servants away. All these months, while we were in London, you have been at Navron.'
'No,' he said, 'not continually. From time to time, when it suited my plans. And in the winter, you know, it can be damp here in the creek. It made a change, a luxurious change, to seek the comfort of your bedroom. Somehow, I always felt you would not mind.'
He went on looking at her, and always that glimmer of secret amusement in his eyes.
'I consulted your portrait, you know,' he said. 'I addressed myself to it several times. 'My lady,' I said (for I was most subservient) 'would you grant a very weary Frenchman the courtesy of your bed?' And it seemed to me that you bowed gracefully, and gave me permission. Sometimes you even smiled.'
'It was very wrong of you,' she said, 'very irregular.'
'I know,' he said.
'Besides being dangerous.'
'That was the fun of it.'
'And if I had known for one moment…'
'What would you have done?'
'I should have come down to Navron at once.'
'And then?'
'I should have barred the house. I should have dismissed William. I should have set a watch on the estate.'
'All that?'
'Yes.'
'I don't believe you.'
'Why not?'
'Because when I lay in your bed, looking up at your portrait on the wall, that was not how you behaved.'
'How did I behave?'
'Very differently.'
'What did I do?'
'Many things.'
'What sort of things?'
'You joined my ship's company, for one thing. You signed your name amongst the faithful. You were the first, and the last woman, to do so.'
And saying this, he rose from the table, and went to a drawer, and fetched out a book. This he opened, and on the page she saw the words La Mouette, followed by a string of names. Edmond Vacquier… Jules Thomas… Pierre Blanc… Luc Dumont… and so on. And he reached then for his pen, and dipped it in the ink, and handed it to her.
'Well?' he said, 'what about it?'
She took it from him, balancing it in her hand a moment, as though weighing the question, and she did not know whether it was the thought of Harry in London, yawning over his cards, or Godolphin with his bulbous eyes, or the good soup she had taken and the wine she had drunk, making her drowsy and warm, and a little careless, like a
