someday, comprendre? Zo someday, I weel be somebody.'
'If you needed more, Phoebe…' He chuckled.
'Non,' she insisted, with a somber cast to her features, perhaps for the first time in his experience of her. 'You, I adore, Alain, mon coeur. Anozzer man, per'aps e ave more monnai, can mak' me to be ze somebody at once, mais … j'm'en fous! Wiz you, I am 'appy! Eef eet tak' time for to be ze grande lady, c'est dommage. I be mistress to one man, on'y. Vousl Non more putain. We mak' each ozzer appy, an' I wait for you to sail 'ome to me. W'ere I mak' you ze domicile, uhm… intimй et agrйable … 'ow you say?'
'Pleasant and cozy.' He grinned.
'Oui, pleasan' an'… cozy!' Phoebe giggled, rewarding his abbreviated English lesson with a chaste little kiss, and settling down on his side, her head on his shoulder, cooing with delight. 'Mon Dieu, I am so beaucoup appy you 'ave return-ed, Alain! I mees you so much, I ache for to be 'appy an' content, again. To be wiz ze on'y man 'oo… care for me. 'Oo tak' si… such good care of me! I weel non be expensive, you weel see! Parce que. .. be-cause, I love you so much.'
'A quiet, little place, then,' he inquired hopefully. Though coin did 'chink' about in his head. How much might that 'quiet, little place ' cost? There'd be furniture, paintings, servants' wages… And quiet, secure lodgings meant good neighborhoods, far removed from the commercial quarter; a coach-and-four might be necessary! The need for china, silver plate, cutlery, lanthorns, and candle stands, beeswax candles by the gross. Drapers and paperers in and out with even more costly…! He took a fortifying sip of wine.
'Nozzing grande, mon chou,' she reassured him, though, half lost in fantasies of domestic perfection. 'I non need ze palace, hein? Une leerle appartement, wiz balcony. We go to San Fiorenzo? Bon. So ver' steep ze hills, mais … non ze rent, Alain! Balcony wiz view of ocean. Zo I watch fo' you' navire … you' ship. Une domestique, on'y, '00 eez live zere wiz me… une 'oo come for day, to cook an' clean. Corsica… ees ver' poor. Une peu monnaie go ze long way, zere, you will see, I promesse. An' zo many йmigrйs royalistes go zere. You remember, w'en we leave Toulon, zey tak' away zere good sings? 'Ave non monnaie, now. Zey will be sell zose preety s'ings, bon marchй. Zat ees ze 'cheap'!'
Alan turned to peer at her. For such a sweet, seemingly guileless young fairy girl, Phoebe had suddenly sounded as calculating and pinch-penny, as grasping as a Haymarket horse trader!
'Be grow up poor as moi, Alain, mon chou.' She chuckled, in answer to his puzzled expression, with a wry tip of her glass in salute to her past. 'You fin' ow to shop for bargain!'
The thought did cross his mind (it must be said), even as he was placing a supportive and comforting arm about her shoulders, that there was still time to cry off their cozy arrangement. He could give her fifty pounds in coin-the Devil with his note-of-hand! Fifty pounds would be more than enough to support her for months, if Corsican living was as cheap as she described it. Certainly, it would be cheaper than establishing an entire new household, with all the requisite furnishings.
Damme, he thought wryly, I know sailors're said to have a wife in every port. But nobody said a bloody thing 'bout whole houses!
'Trus' moi, Alain,' she whispered, her soft breath close, and promising, near his ear. 'As I trus' you, wiz my 'hole 'eart.'
Well, that did it!
I do have a fair lot o' prize money, he relented, anew. Maybe it won't be as cheap as it was in Toulon, or aboard Radical after the evacuation. God, that didn't cost tuppence, really. And the Navy'd paid most of it, didn't they?
They looked into each other's eyes, fond smiles threatening to break out on each other's lips. Eyes crinkling in remembered delights.
That, too, did it!
Right, so she'd had a hard life, he told himself. She was so lost and alone, in a harsh world. Should he spurn her, she'd find a new patron, of course… that was the lot of penniless but beautiful young girls, with no family connections, or power to resist. That was the way of the world! If needs must, Phoebe might return to being a courtesan for a dozen, a hundred other men, to make her way. What was it his brother-in-law Burgess Chiswick had said, when they were besieged at Yorktown? A North Carolina folk colloquialism? 'Hard times'd make a rat eat red onions!'
She'd hate doing so, of course. Phoebe had abandoned that life to take up with poor Lieutenant Scott, as her only lover-she his only-not because Barnaby had been any sort of decent toward her, really, or kept her in any sort of style, but because she didn't want to tumble any farther down that maelstrom spiral to ruin and oblivion that was the lot of most whores, no matter how pretty or clever.
Aye, Phoebe might be a little 'Captain Sharp' when it came to finding a bargain, of wheedling for any edge that might guarantee her another week of safety and security. In that, she might be as grasping as the boldest, most raddled dockside 'mutton,' as cunning and sly, and rapacious, as a starving fox by the hen-yard fence. But Phoebe hadn't yet grown talons and teeth. Or armored herself against exploitable emotions. She was still vulnerable, and somewhat open.
For the sham, the semblance of true love and affection, Phoebe would offer him… dammit, any man who was halfway kind to her!… all that she possessed. So she'd never have to surrender herself to servitude in some filthy knocking-shop. So she could think of herself as something more than an easily expendable commodity.
So she could cling to that longed-for, sometime in the misty future, that 'Happy Isles of the West' fantasy of hers that she could rise. That she could be somebody fine before she lost her beauty and it was too late to escape her lot, or her poverty-stricken childhood.
Not much of a sham at all, really, Alan told himself as he gave her a gentle kiss on her forehead. God help me, I really am fond of her! Can't ever offer her what she most like wishes of me, but… even if I'm a halfway port on her passage, the voyage'll be great fun. She's fond enough of me, certainly. And trusting. Rather simple and trusting, when you come right down to it. God help me, again… but I'll not be the one to turn my back on her. I'll not throw her back into the sordid stew she's worked so hard to flee!
'I do trust you, Phoebe,' he told her at last. And giving her a supportive hug. 'I won't let you down. Do my best by you, hmm?'
'You' bes' eez formidable, mon amour.' She chuckled, shuddering a little with emotion, with perhaps a girlish, childish-pleased trill to her insides. And, perhaps, with some measure of relief, he imagined. 'I am you's, alone. Oh, Alain, you male' me so 'appy!'
Right then he sighed, lost in their mutual embrace; if she makes a fool of me, after all, well… I went into it with mine eyes wide open. And, 'least… I'm a well-off fool. She means half what she says,'bout bein' a careful buyer… 'bout bein' faithful to me, well. Tis a folly I can almost afford!
