Delphine

by Sylvia Halliday

  “Wait,” he said at last, pausing to dab his forehead against his rolled-up sleeve. He smiled warmly. “Mon Dieu, but you’re remarkably good, Gosse! What you need now are the subtleties, a little refinement. You are too direct in your attack and defense—you give the game away. Mayhap it is in your footwork. A little more grace and I would not so easily see you shifting from tierce to quarte and back again.”

  “Sink me, what bilge is this?”

  “Not bilge,” said Fresnel sharply. “Monsieur has a good eye. I should have seen that myself! What more, André?”

  André looked questioningly at Delphine. “Shall I go on, Gosse?” She frowned but said nothing. “Well, then—you are too intense. Your step is heavy to begin with, not nearly agile enough, but when you begin to concentrate so fiercely on your sword arm you lose all nimbleness. It makes you vulnerable—especially in retreat.”

  “Retreat? Damn your gizzard—I never retreat!”

  “Nom de Dieu!” he burst out, his voice rumbling with exasperation. “I do not mock your skills. Say rather ‘backstepping,’ not ‘retreat!’ But if your footing is clumsy, you have lost the match on one pass. Can you not move thus, lightly on the balls of your feet, your steps smaller, closer together?” He demonstrated the movement for her.

  “Rot and damnation,” she sneered. “Are you dancing again, my pretty popinjay, your soft hand wrapped in its glove lest it blister?” She stamped her foot resolutely. “I shall fence as I please—there is nothing you can teach me!”

  “Name of God,” he muttered, surprised at his own forebearance in the face of her bad temper. “Must I prove it to you?” He raised his sword determinedly. “Defend yourself.”

  He waited until she had put up her guard, then pressed his attack, deliberately forcing her backward with more speed than he had shown before. Her feet, caught in their clumsy anarchy, tripped one upon the other and she stumbled and fell to the deck, sprawled flat on her back. André put his foot lightly on her wrist, pressing gently until she had loosed her grasp, then hooked his sword point in the looped quillion of her blade and drew her rapier toward him. He put it aside on the deck and reached down to her, holding out a friendly hand to help her up.

  “Do you see what I mean? If you would use the feminine grace with which nature has endowed you, you would not trip so easily. Come—will you try it again?”

  Her eyes burning with fury, she sat up and slapped aside his hand, muttering a curse under her breath.

  He shrugged. “I knew that you were a stubborn child, but I am surprised to find you such a fool in a matter where your head should rule!” He turned away in disgust, sheathing his sword in the scabbard that lay across one of the kegs on deck. A belaying pin, hurled savagely through the air, caught him on the tip of his left elbow. He gasped in shock as the pain shot through his arm, and nearly sank to the deck, his face drained of color. Mouth twisted in a painful grimace, he clutched at his arm, kneading it to ease the searing fire that radiated from his elbow. He turned to Gosse as he shook his hand to relieve the numbness that had followed the fierce pain. His eyes were like two blue flames, burning with rage.

  Delphine stood her ground, hands on hips, glaring belligerently at André, ignoring the angry scowl on her father’s face. André pulled off his gauntlet and slammed it down on the deck. “Now, by my faith,” he growled, “this child has tried my patience once too often!” He strode menacingly toward Delphine; too late she read the danger in his eyes. She yelped in surprise, her mouth agape, as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to a low keg. Sitting down and slinging her roughly across his knees—face downward—he turned his attention to that portion of her anatomy that lay beneath his broad, flat palm. His hand rose and fell; she squeaked in outrage and tried to wriggle free of his firm grasp. Behind them, a horrified Michel would have rushed to her rescue, but Fresnel, his face grim, held him back.

  Delphine began to kick and swear in earnest, pouring forth a stream of foul sea oaths that might have shamed a pirate, calling him whore’s son, bloodthirsty bastard, filthy scum, and worse, until even André was shocked. Grunting in anger, he held her more securely on his lap. If he did nothing else, he would thrash the brat soundly! He could feel, through the thin cloth of her sailor’s breeches, the firm young flesh of her buttocks; from the way his own hand had begun to tingle and sting, he knew he must be inflicting some damage on those tender mounds, despite her brave curses. The thought gave him a certain degree of satisfaction and he smiled grimly as he smacked away. She would not mock his “soft” hand after this!

  Suddenly she choked on a curse and the choke turned to a sob. Knowing her well chastened, he flung her away and stalked to his cabin, borne on a tide of righteous anger. Behind him he could hear the mocking laughter of some of the crew—Gosse would not so easily intimidate them with her temper now!

  Crying, Delphine struggled to her knees and spit after him as he vanished to the passageway, humiliation as much as pain the source of her tears. Fresnel had released Michel and he rushed to Delphine’s side, helping her to her feet, his face awash with sympathy. But as soon as she was standing, she cursed fiercely and swung a tight-clenched fist at Michel’s jaw. The poor lad crumpled to the deck, stunned, as Delphine limped to her cabin—conscious of the snickers of her shipmates. There she threw herself on her bunk (face down, of course), to gently rub her outraged rump, and to curse André for a brute and a villain.

  André sipped the last of his cider, gazing morosely across the table to Gosse’s empty chair. His mind was filled with restless thoughts. God knows the little devil had deserved a beating long since, but it was his own intemperate behavior that disturbed him. He had thought himself wise enough—and old enough—by now to deal with her in a more rational fashion. But in spite of his fine resolve, she had managed to stir his basest passions, plumb emotions—anger, tenderness, unreasoning fury, remorse—that he thought had died with Marielle. It was small comfort that Fresnel and Gunner had spent the meal beaming at him. Curse them both for making him do their work!

  The door opened cautiously and Delphine peered in. She seemed disconcerted to find them still there, and she hesitated for a moment before coming into the mess-room. Head held high, she sailed around Fresnel’s chair and found her own seat, flinching almost imperceptibly as she sat down. The slight movement, however, did not escape Gunner, who grinned with delight. She ladled out a bowl of broth—thick with bread sops and onions and the last of the dried peas, and enriched with a large dollop of lard—and ate quietly, making a conscious effort to refrain from slurping so as not to earn André’s disapproving scowl. Cold and silent, stiff with injured pride, she ignored him across the table. Once, when he reached for the straw demijohn to refill his cup with cider, and she saw—beneath his still rolled-up sleeve—the terrible bruise on his elbow, purpling under his tanned flesh, her eyes locked with his for a moment until she blushed and turned away guiltily.

  Almost as though it had been planned, Gunner and Fresnel left the cabin together, abandoning her to André. He picked up his cup and came around the table to sit beside Delphine. Spearing pieces of dried apple on the point of her knife, she chewed and swallowed as though André did not even exist.

  “Gosse,” he said gently, “it was not my place to treat you so cruelly today, and I beg your forgiveness.” He gave a soft laugh. “Which is not to say that you had not earned it, God knows! But I am sorry, and would take the moment back if I could. Will you forgive me?” For answer, Delphine slammed down her knife and took a long draught of cider. “You will be a woman someday, mayhap a wife and mother,” he went on, ignoring the sudden sharp look she shot at him. “Such an unbridled temper is unseemly—by my faith, your husband will be forced to beat you every week if you play the shrew! ’Tis a pity you had no woman to teach you softness, but you are a clever child—surely you can see the folly of your ways!” At his words Delphine spat her mouthful of cider onto the floor, her face twisted with contempt.

  André sighed unhappily
. “We shall soon be in port. Can we not part as friends, remembering the times we laughed together? Nom de Dieu, Gosse! Look at me!”

  Defiantly she banged down her cup, and turned to stare him full in the face. And then she was trapped, drowning in the blue of his eyes, helpless and tormented. Sweet Jesu, she thought he is so beautiful! Like a golden god in the stories Copain had told to her, with his strong face and clear eyes. She began to tremble, soft lips quivering, eyes sparkling with the beginning of tears, her whole body on fire with a feeling so foreign and new as to be scarcely understood.

  He looked startled, then he frowned, as though he were seeing her face for the first time. “Gosse—” he said softly, questioningly. He leaned forward and put his hand on her bare arm, sending shivers through her body. As he bent toward her, the locket around his neck slipped out from under his shirt and hung suspended between them. The locket with her picture. A woman of modesty and grace, he had called her.

  Damn him! she thought. “Take your scurvy hand off me,” she snarled, reaching for her knife and holding it poised menacingly above his arm. The magic moment had vanished; now he glared fiercely at her, his eyes daring her to strike. Her hand and eyes wavered at the same time; with an ugly curse she drove the point of her blade into the soft oak just to one side of his arm.

  “It would take a hundred beatings to tame an uncivilized whelp like you!” he spat in disgust, and stormed from the cabin.

  She jabbed her knife into the table again and again, making little nicks on its smooth surface. She would hate him forever—for everything he was, for everything he said and did. She would hate him until the day she died.

  Then, why did his eyes haunt her? Why—even when he was being kind—did she drive him away with her ugly ways? He had been right about her fencing; had her father spoken the words she would have heeded them. Ah God, she thought, and groaned aloud. What was happening to Gosse?

  She hated André. No. No. She feared him, as Copain had guessed—feared him enough to torment him constantly, though she could not even begin to understand why. But when he was near, when he spoke to her, smiled at her—Dieu! Why did she ache inside with a longing for something that had no name? He called her child, he scolded her for being unwomanly, graceless—and his words stung more than the beating she had finally goaded him to by her childish cruelties.

  What are you, child or woman, he had asked. And she had answered him every day of this accursed voyage by behaving like a child. But I’m a woman! I want to be a woman! Oh, Copain, she thought in anguish, why must Gosse die that Delphine may live?

  With a tormented cry, she cradled her head on her arms and began to weep, giving herself up to the heartbroken sobs that racked her body, to the agonizing conflicts that shook her to her very soul.

  Chapter Six

  The soft clanging of the harbor bell drifted through the night air, reverberated against Olympie’s gunwales, swirled among the fingers of mist on her decks. André’s heart gladdened at the sound. Somewhere beyond the fog was the stone quai of Dieppe, France. Home!

  They had sighted the coast just at twilight, and then the fog had closed in, so thick that Master Fresnel was afraid to advance any further, lest the ship collide with other vessels in the harbor. The crew had let go the anchor and furled the topsails, leaving the lower courses unfurled, as the wind was light. In the morning they could stand in for shore under sail, or use the pinnace and longboat to tow Olympie closer in; for tonight she rocked gently on the tide, sighing and whispering, as though she too were glad to be home.

  Home. André smiled and murmured the word aloud. Vilmorin’s rolling fields, the smell of the grapes on the vine, the amber stones of the old château. Home—to the lads who waited for him: sunny, golden-haired François and quiet, shy Alain with chestnut curls that echoed Marielle’s burnished glory. He had seen so little of them through the years filled with wars and campaigns; now he ached to stay at home and watch them grow, and hunt and ride with them, and teach them to love the land as he did. God willing, there might be a few weeks to spend with his boys, while he mobilized his troops and waited for orders from Paris.

  Paris. If le bon Dieu smiled on him, and he survived the summer’s battles, he might go to Paris during the winter. What a pleasure it would be to rediscover the theater, the glittering and erudite salons where wit and intelligence ruled, the mindless pleasures of court life, dancing and jousting and endless fêtes among perfumed courtiers and their ladies. Ah, Dieu. Their ladies. He leaned against the ship’s railing and stared into the fog-gray night. What a reckless libertine he’d been in those years before Marielle had taught him to love, taught him that love went far beyond the pleasures of the body. How she had stirred him with the strength of her devotion, so he could not even relieve himself with an unblushing wench as so many of the soldiers did while in the field. The rake-hell had become a devoted husband, needing no lover save the one who waited for him at home. For all those years—no one but Marielle.

  And after Marielle died—he felt himself burning with shame to recall it—he had gone to the town of Vouvray, and had drunk too much and tried to rape the tavern maid, though her always-worshipful eyes made it clear that she was willing enough. And he had fled from her, howling into the night air, leaving her waiting on the floor, her skirts pushed up above her bare hips, her bosom heaving in anticipation. Fled from her, lest she discover his dark secret.

  And White Deer. She had swum naked in front of him, and leaned toward him around the campfire so her loose tunic fell away and he caught glimpses of her rounded breasts. Sometimes he had wondered if she were deliberately trying to seduce him. Poor White Deer. She must have thought he did not care for her. But how could he tell her—tell anyone—that since Marielle’s death he had no manhood left? He was too old perhaps, too jaded, to be moved by the sight of a woman, to feel the blood coursing in his veins, the stiffening, the hardening, as though all the essence of life flowed to his impatient loins. Let the young men dally with the married women, fight the clandestine duels of honor, know the joy of seduction and conquest. He was content to go home to his children and live out his remaining years.

  But—Paris. He felt a twinge of dismay. He could hear the gossips now. De Crillon? they would scoff. That impotent old man? Damn! he thought. How they would laugh when they learned the great lover was no more! Yet the pain of that humiliation was nothing compared to the deeper pain in his heart, however much he tried to deny it, of knowing that he had lost forever one of life’s sweet blessings, the joy that a woman’s body could bring. He sighed heavily. Best to think of the morrow, not the sterile years of his dotage. If there were a coach leaving Dieppe for Paris, he could be home within three or four days. He yawned and moved toward the quarterdeck. His only regret was parting with Gosse so unhappily. Since the day he had beaten her she had avoided him, taking her food to eat alone in her cabin, scorning all his attempts at reconciliation, strange and distant and—He frowned. He could scarcely fathom what he had read in her eyes. Grief? Confusion? Torment? And several times in the last few days he had come upon her and sworn she had been weeping. He moved down the passageway to the Great Cabin. Perhaps, if a light still showed under Gosse’s door he would speak to her, try once again to part as friends.

  Gosse’s cabin was dark; she must be sleeping by now. He was surprised to see the light under his own cabin door. Odd. He thought he had extinguished his lantern before his stroll on deck. He opened the door and walked in.

  Gosse was sitting at the window seat, wrapped in her boat cloak, gazing out at the misty night. André closed the door softly; she scarcely stirred, so he thought at first she had not heard him enter.

  “Gosse—what are you doing here?”

  She continued to stare out the window. “Waiting for you.”

  “But—wherefore? It is so late—and so much to be done on the morrow!”

  “I want to stay here tonight.” Her eyes flicked nervously to his face, then back to the window.

 
Mon Dieu, he thought, she sounded almost afraid! Could it be some superstition that frightened her on this last night of the voyage? Or a childish nightmare that had driven her to seek solace with him? “Would you spend the night at my window?” he asked gently.

  She stood up. He was surprised to see that, below the heavy cloth folds she had drawn about her body, her feet were bare. “No,” she said, and now her eyes met his. “In your bunk.”

  He fell back a step. “Name of God, you cannot mean—”

  She rushed on, as though to stifle his objections before they could be uttered, her trembling chin belligerent and vulnerable all at the same time. “I washed my feet! I even combed my hair!”

  “Gosse. Don’t be foolish—” He stopped. What was he to say now? How had he failed to see what was happening, failed to read the light that now shone in Gosse’s amber eyes? Had he not broken enough hearts in his time to recognize that look? He took a step toward her. “Please, Gosse—”

  “Don’t you want me?” she asked, her eyes almost pleading.