Delphine

by Sylvia Halliday

  She was near tears. “Ah Dieu! You villain.”

  “Pah! You ate the food I put on the table, you wore the clothes, the pearl drops at your ears and bosom. You wear them even now!”

  “Take them!” she cried, pulling the jewels from her. “They burn my flesh!” She fled his room, his house, stopping only long enough to snatch up a cloak before escaping into the honest February day. She wandered the streets for hours, drifted down to the harbor, paced the long stone quai. All that time with Gilles, and she had never known, never guessed. Foolish, simple, trusting Gosse! Do not trust too much, her father had said. Her father! Ah Dieu! He would be home again in two months or so. She hurried along the shore, her steps purposeful now. If the cottage had not been damaged in the winter storms, she could stay there until April and her father’s return. She could wait until May if need be. She had only five sols in her pocket, but there might be a few supplies left in the cottage from her father’s last visit in September. And then, when the child was born, she would have milk to feed it, as long as her breasts were full. She herself could manage with little food.

  Thanks be to God the cottage was intact. The pitch-pine caulking (for Fresnel had built his cottage like a ship) was dry and cracked in some places, and the bitter wind blew through the spaces, but the building was sound and she could patch the holes with reeds and mud. The grasses on the floor were tinder-dry and crunched under her feet, but they too could be replaced. There were a few pieces of hardtack and some dried beans and a goodly chunk of salt pork in the box hidden under the straw-palleted bunk where she had slept; more fortunate still was the finding of a small barrel of apples, barely rotted, cached in a corner behind her father’s rolled-up hammock. Though the physicians still understood little of the disease, every seaman knew that only fresh vegetables and fruits could stave off scurvy, even ashore. If she could not find a few turnips still in the ground, or a green weed or moist root that had not withered over the winter, she would find her teeth beginning to loosen in her head and sores forming on her body. But with the apples, she need have no fear of scurvy.

  She picked up her broom and began to sweep the dry rushes into a large pile in the center of the floor, then stopped and sat down heavily on the single wooden bench. Dieu, but she was tired today! She shivered. It was cold. Better to forage for driftwood and start a fire in the open fire-pit. There would be time when she was warm to go about replacing the reeds and fetching a bucket of water for her supper. She searched for a tallow candle and the tinderbox, finding them hidden behind a clay mug on the shelf. The afternoon shadows were lengthening; she left the candle and tinderbox conveniently on the small table, in case she should return after twilight.

  The driftwood was plentiful, and though she found herself waddling slowly along the beach—her bulk and the unfamiliarity of walking on shifting sand impeding her progress—she soon had a large armload of wood. She struggled up to the cottage and staggered in with her burden, dropping the pieces of wood noisily to the floor at the sight of Gilles sitting on the bunk and obviously waiting for her.

  “Will you come to your senses and return home?”

  “This is my home.”

  “Don’t be a fool, my sweet. Are you so naive that you don’t think that every man of trade has his own ways of managing? Has your father never mended a broken barrel on the voyage and told his underwriters that their cargo was untouched by seawater? Has he never bought a crate of hardtack and found that the baker had short-weighted the flour, then kept silent because the baker gave him better credit terms than anyone else? Every man cheats!”

  “Not every man steals!”

  “No. Only if he is clever enough to do so. Now come home.”

  She stamped her foot. “I shall not!”

  He sighed. “I shall not leave this cottage until you are with me.”

  “Curse your liver,” she spat, pulling her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. “Then you shall wait until hell gives up its dead!” And turning, she stormed out of the cottage and down to the beach. The wind blew with a fierceness that cut through her, and the waves crashing onto the shore sent up a fine mist that dampened her skirt hems. God’s blood, but she could not stay in the open like this! At some distance from the cottage, she saw a large boulder near the sea’s edge, and circled it slowly until she had found its lee side, where she might have some protection from the whistling wind. Sitting down in its shelter, her back against the rock, her cloak wrapped about her shivering body, she leaned back and closed her eyes. The cold made her so sleepy—

  It was dark when she awoke. Her hands and feet were numb, and her throat felt raw. I shall take a fever, she thought, if I do not go indoors soon. Surely Gilles would have gone home by now, persuaded of her determination to stay. And if not? There was a seaside inn, half a league distant, where she could at least get a warm meal and a few hours’ respite from the cold. It would take nearly all of her money, but in the morning she could return to Gilles’s house and collect her possessions. If she were forced to it, she might sell her books and even her finely wrought sea knife. She stood up clumsily, feeling the stiffness in her bones, the dull ache that had begun in the small of her back. She rubbed her fingers briskly together to start the blood flowing again, then stepped out from the shelter of the rock.

  She blinked in surprise. Holy Mother of God! Had Gilles built a bonfire next to the cottage? What a fool thing to do, with the dry timbers and the pitch caulking and the rushes just waiting for a spark to ignite them! And such a large bonfire—so large—“No!” she shrieked, and began to run desperately toward the cottage. By the light of the soaring flames she saw Gilles standing helplessly before the burning building; with a great cry she was upon him, assaulting him with her fists, pummeling his face and shoulders and chest. “Damn you!” Her voice was thick with anger and grief. “How could you do such a terrible thing?”

  He struggled with her until he had spun her around, her arms pinioned behind her back, while she twisted and writhed to be free of his grasp. “It was an accident,” he hissed in her ear. “I meant only to light the candle! Nom de Dieu, Delphine. It was only a little cottage!”

  She went limp in his arms, overcome with grief. “It was my father’s house,” she sobbed, then gasped as a sharp pain tore through her. “Sweet Jesu—Holy Mother—” She sank to the ground, clutching her belly, surprised at the fierceness of the onslaught. It was her time—she knew that. But so sudden, so gut-tearing a pain rolled over her in waves that it barely gave her time to catch her breath, to think clearly! She shook her head. No! She must keep her wits about her, play out the last scene of her deception. (Ah Dieu! And she had called him a cheat!) As he helped her down the beach—half supporting her, half carrying her until they should reach a house, an inn, helping hands—she stopped and turned to him, her eyes glowing by the light of the flames, her voice heavy with accusation.

  “Damn you,” she panted, “do you see what you’ve done to me? If I lose the child because it is too soon, I shall never forgive you!”

  André smiled and held out his arms to her. Laughing, Gosse scrambled down the rigging and let him swing her onto the deck, his firm hands strong and comforting about her waist. He kissed her gently and led her to the gangway and the pinnace rocking softly alongside Olympie. Her silken gown swayed as she walked with dainty steps, head held high and proud. Copain swept his cap from his head and bowed low, while Michel knelt to kiss her hem as she passed. The sun was warm—almost too warm—and she stirred uncomfortably, wishing she could cast off her coverings. She sat in the pinnace, André beside her, and waved farewell to her father, to the crew. André touched her shoulder and she turned, seeing where he pointed to the golden-stoned château set back from the beach. He laughed happily, his blue eyes glowing, his teeth white against the bronzed skin. He laughed—and laughed—and laughed—

  Damn! she thought, why must it be so hot? She pushed aside her coverlet and opened her eyes.

  “Madame! Thanks be to God!�
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  She frowned and stared about her bedchamber, dim and cheerless from the murky day. Gilles turned from the rain-streaked window to come and stand at her bedside, peering down at her with eyes that were concerned yet oddly distant. How pale and colorless he was, how devoid of humor or spirit or simple goodness. She cocked her head, squinting at him out of one eye. “Rot and damnation, Gilles,” she croaked, hearing the strangeness of her own voice, “do you never laugh?”

  “I can see you are getting better when you remember your foul ways. Mayhap in a day or two you will remember your manners as well!” He nodded stiffly to Anne-Marie. “Kindly inform me when madame is well enough to take supper with me again.” And he left the room.

  Delphine closed her eyes, still feeling trapped in the mists that swirled in her brain. Why should I not be well? Did not André and I—No—No! André was gone, and Copain was dead, and the cottage on the beach, and the cold wind, and the pain tearing at her, the inn and the house, faces, voices—and the pain. The pain. Her eyes flew open and her hands groped at her belly. It was flat, the skin still creased with flaccid folds. She looked wildly to Anne-Marie. “Did I—?”

  “A fine boy, madame. Hale and sound.”

  “Last night?”

  “Near three weeks agone, madame.”

  She touched her breasts, shrunken now to their normal size. “And did I nurse it—him—all that time?”

  Anne-Marie shook her head. “Not a drop, madame. You were so sick with fever that twice Monsieur Despreaux had to send for the priests to give the last sacraments. It was a blessing that the cook’s sister has only just been delivered of a child herself—a mite who needs so little that Berthe has milk enough for both infants. And of course Monsieur Despreaux has promised to pay her generously for as long as she must nurse the child. But—what is it, madame?” she cried as Delphine moaned softly. “Would you like aught to drink or eat? Shall I have Berthe bring your child to you?”

  “No—no. I am so weary. Let me sleep a little.” She closed her eyes and turned her head away that Anne-Marie might not see the bitter tears that seeped from beneath her lashes. Ah Dieu! She was unworthy to call herself a woman that could not even suckle her own child! Endless grief, to be a woman. For a man—for André—a moment’s pleasure soon forgotten. Curling up on her side, she filled her pillow with scalding tears.

  March blew into sweet April, while Delphine slept and ate, her strength increasing each day, her lithe figure growing slender and supple once again. The child was a joy, his little tufts of hair as blond as her own, his tiny face well-formed and beautiful. She spent hours holding him, crooning to him, delighting in his perfection. When she had carried him in her belly, she had sometimes felt anger, bitterness toward the burden in her womb—because of André. But the sweet babe she now held was hers alone; André had no part of him. She suffered only when she had to surrender him to Berthe’s nurturing breast, feeling again her deficiency as a woman. They christened him Robert, after Gilles’s grandfather; Delphine was secretly pleased at the choice because it had been Copain’s name.

  Gilles was still cool and distant to her, a strange contrast to his generosity in the hiring of Berthe. He could hardly have let the child starve; still it was one of the few expenses he did not complain about. Or perhaps he was aware that his servants gossiped regularly with the servants of his friends; it would have been unseemly to begrudge his own child. When they supped together, Delphine was careful to mind her manners, reluctant to draw Gilles’s attention to her, to antagonize him. She was content to spend her days in the solitude of her room—with her son, her books, the sweet illusion of a life without Gilles. She did not go to the shop, not wishing to know of his dishonesty, and they spoke of the weather, or the latest gossip in Dieppe—or not at all.

  She sat one morning at her window, the casement thrown wide to the sunny day. It was warm for early April, and the sweetness of the air filled her with contentment. It was a lovely crystallized moment, and the bars of her cage seemed to melt away. Her father would come at the end of the month, or the beginning of May, and release his wolf cub.

  She was combing her hair. She had thrown a little combing jacket, a casaque, over her nightdress, but her hair had grown so long, well below her shoulders, that the large-toothed comb kept snagging the ruffles. Impatiently she snatched off the casaque, then, feeling lighthearted and fanciful, she stood up and pulled off her nightdress as well. She tossed her head back and forth. How lovely it was to feel the silkiness of her long hair stroking her bare shoulders. She tilted up her chin to see how far down on her back the tresses reached; the feeling was exquisite. She felt beautiful, free. The April breeze caressed her bare flesh, and the golden curtain of her hair brushing against her stirred her senses. She kicked off her slippers and began to dance about the room, moving her head so her hair swirled around her face, her body swaying and turning sensuously. She looked up. Gilles was standing in the doorway, his face red with embarrassment and distress.

  “Forgive me,” he stammered, “I had not meant—I should have knocked—” He frowned and cleared his throat. “Are you alone?”

  What a prig! she thought. “Of course.” Unselfconsciously she stooped down and picked up her nightdress, wrapping it modestly about her shoulders like a cloak so Gilles would not be so uncomfortable. “What did you want of me?”

  “I cannot find the bill for the last hogshead of wine you bought of Monsieur Moillon. And now with the new currency that was introduced last month, he wishes to be paid in louis d’or instead of écus. I think he wishes to cheat me in the conversion. Have you the bill?”

  Delphine rummaged in her writing table. “Yes. Here. Twenty crowns is what he charged.” She handed the paper to Gilles.

  “Mon Dieu! Twenty écus. What a thief. Well, he shall have to give me a discount if he wishes to be paid in louis d’or.” He turned and made for the door, then stopped, looking back at her with contemptuous eyes. “Name of God, clothe yourself. Sometimes I think you are still a wild colt!”

  He was very quiet at supper, glancing surreptitiously at her when he did not think she noticed. He seemed calm, his face betraying nothing, but she noted the way he toyed with his knife, tapping it repeatedly against his wine goblet, seeming unaware of his agitated fingers. When she rose to leave the table, he put his hand on her sleeve and would not let her go. His eyes were burning, and when he spoke it seemed as though the words were torn from him.

  “Are you well enough to receive me in your bedchamber this evening?”

  She hesitated. It was strange. The look on his face—haunted, tormented—seemed almost to be begging her to decline. Still—

  “Anne-Marie says you are well enough,” he growled. “Is it so?”

  She sighed. She was still his wife, and it was her duty. “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Then wait for me,” he said and poured himself another glass of wine.

  There had been several more glasses of wine before he appeared in her room. That was apparent—even in the light of the single candle—from the way his face was flushed and his dressing gown was carelessly tied on. He was usually so fastidious about his clothing. Has it come to this, she thought, that he must be drunk to take me? She sat on the bed, in the shadow of the draperies, watching him, waiting for him to announce his pleasure. She felt strangely numb, indifferent. Only a few more weeks until her father came home. What did it matter?

  “Get up,” he said, leaning against the closed door, “and take off your nightdress. I would see your body again.”

  Dutifully she did as he asked, dropping her gown to the floor, seeing the hungry flicker in his eyes. She nearly laughed aloud. Who would have thought it? He had used her sensuality against her, to torment her; now he burned with desire, burned despite his obvious wish to be indifferent. The lust-ridden whoreson! Let him drink his fill! Deliberately she pirouetted in front of him, enjoying the agony on his face.

  “Unpin your hair,” he ordered, his voice a hoarse croak in his
throat, “as you did this morning!” She shook her tresses about her shoulders; he ran his fingers through their silken smoothness, then pulled her to him and crushed her mouth with his. Not even his kiss had the power to arouse her anymore. When he pulled her onto the bed and began to caress her body she felt nothing at all, as though he had long since forfeited the right to stir her senses. Have done, she thought. Have done and leave me in peace. He threw off his dressing gown and entered her; she watched in loathing as he labored above her, his face twisted with the effort. Ah Dieu! she thought, closing her eyes against the sight of him. She had never loved him. Now she realized with a start that she did not even like him! There was no pleasure in his company, no satisfaction from his selfish lovemaking, nothing but disgust.

  He had finished with her and withdrawn, but he still knelt between her wide-spread knees. She opened her eyes—cold amber—and stared at him. He was peering intently at her face, his jaw set, his face black with anger. He raised his hand and slapped her violently across the face, with such force that she thought her neck would snap. She was too stunned even to cry out, not even when he slapped her again, and yet a third time. He scrambled from the bed, tossing on his dressing gown, and hurried from her room.

  She raised shaking hands to her burning cheeks. She could not even cry. He had a right. She had left his manhood in tatters, had ripped up his pride and left him bleeding.

  The caged wolf cub had become a feral beast.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the morning he behaved as though nothing had happened, but he made a point of going out in the evening and telling Anne-Marie in Delphine’s presence that she was not to expect him home until very late. There was no need for any servants to wait up for him, nor to hold supper, he was dining with a friend. The next day he sent Anne-Marie to the mercer’s to buy a lace falling band and a fan that he took with him when he went out. After nearly a week of late evenings and gifts, Anne-Marie could hardly bear to look Delphine in the eye, so mortified was she on her mistress’s behalf. The cook, with far less nicety, opined as how Monsieur Despreaux must be seeing that slut Lucie again.