Delphine

by Sylvia Halliday

  He rubbed his eyes. “I could not come to see you until we had settled our accounts with Monsieur Ramy.”

  “Where is my father?”

  “I told Master Fresnel the barrels were too big, but he thought there would be more profit, and he needed the money. The repairs in September were more than he had bargained for.”

  “What happened?” Her blood had run to ice.

  “We were five days out of Martinique. The ship was riding low. The barrels were filled with tobacco and tortoise oil—the hold was crammed gunwale to gunwale—and furs we had bartered for in New France. And then the squall struck—a great gale blowing out of the north—”

  Delphine’s eyes were almost pleading. “Olympie is a worthy ship! She could ride out any storm. Is it not so?”

  He shook his head. “She was overloaded, and riding the swells badly. We prayed to God she would not capsize. Master Fresnel decided to jettison some of the barrels. We untied a few and tossed them over the side. But the lashings gave way—one rope snapped and then another—and the barrels broke loose—every lubbardly one of ’em—rolling with every pitch of the sea—crashing into the hull till some of the planks cracked and the water gushed in. Be hanged if we did not think it was the end of us and Olympie too. We lashed them down at last—thanks be to God—or old Gunner would not be here now to tell the tale. Brise cracked his pate, and Michel broke a leg—”

  She felt numb and cold. “And my father?”

  “Crushed by a barrel. He lingered for a day, then went peacefullike, be hanged if he didn’t, and sending his blessings to his Gosse.”

  “I was always his good luck, wasn’t I, Gunner?”

  “That you were, Gosse.”

  “I heard the crew—before you sailed last June—talking among themselves. It was bad luck, they said, because I was not with them. Did I do it, Gunner, letting Olympie go without me?”

  Gunner crossed himself hurriedly. “Now, Gosse. You know as well as I that Olympie wasn’t cursed by you staying ashore! Else why was the voyage to the Levant safe? Aye, and profitable too! It was just God’s will, this time.”

  “Thank you for telling me, Gunner.” She took a deep breath, feeling no pain. She must think clearly. She must think of Robert—the living, not the dead. “The cargo is gone?”

  “We lost some over the side, and some of the tobacco was spoiled by the seawater, but we salvaged a little.”

  “Enough to pay back the moneylenders for the supplies?”

  “Not quite enough.”

  “Well, we’ll pay them back double from the profits of the next voyage.”

  “Monsieur Ramy has already paid them back. Out of respect for your father. He did not want to leave Master Fresnel’s debts as a burden to you.”

  “How kind of him. Then we can plan the next voyage with no drag-sail to hinder us.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean? I shall name you master, or become Olympie’s master myself.”

  Gunner looked shamefaced. “Begging your pardon, Gosse, but Olympie is not yours anymore. I told you. The repairs last fall—more than the master thought. He—he borrowed of Monsieur Ramy against her ownership—”

  “It cannot be!”

  “I have spent two days with Monsieur Ramy’s lawyers and clerks. I am a simple man, but I know they did not cheat Master Fresnel. Ramy is swallowing the loss himself, but Olympie is his now. He has asked me to stay on as master, with Michel for bosun’s mate when he can walk again.”

  “There—there is nothing—nothing left?”

  “Master Fresnel’s sea chest is still aboard with all his belongings, and yours as well. If you want to send someone ’round to fetch them.”

  She nodded wordlessly, numb with shock, and ushered Gunner to the gate of the garden that led to the street. She shook his hand, and kissed him on the cheek, then turned to go into the house.

  “Gosse!” he burst out. “If—if you want it, be hanged if there won’t always be a berth for you aboard Olympie, so long as I am master! We’re away for the coast of Africa in a month or two.”

  “Thank you.” She stumbled into the house and up the stairs to the nursery, taking Robert in her arms and rocking him gently to soothe the panic that threatened to drown her. She could not weep; her grief was replaced by desperation. She had relied on her father, on Olympie’s profit, to rescue her from Gilles.

  “What shall I do?” she whispered. And the caged wolf cub beat in terror against its prison bars.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gilles still had not returned the following morning. Delphine spent hours in his bedchamber, ransacking drawers and cabinets. Damn! She did not even know where he kept his money! His writing table was locked, and she contemplated breaking it open, then changed her mind. If there was no gold there, and Gilles should return before she had quite decided what to do, she did not want him to guess her intentions, lest he spirit Robert away from her. She racked her brain. She must at all costs keep Gilles from taking her child. It meant hiding, or going far away where he could not find them. She remembered Gunner’s words. Why not go to sea? She had been raised on shipboard—would it not be a good life for Robert? They could settle in America someday; she had always liked Quebec. She smiled with relief, recalling the happy innocence of her life aboard Olympie. Yes. She would go to sea again.

  It was well into the afternoon when she hurried up the gangplank to Olympie’s deck, clutching the robe handrail to maneuver the steep incline. She flinched as the rough line scraped her palm, and looked at her hand, surprised to see a red welt already forming. After nearly a year ashore her hands had lost their work calluses.

  “Here’s a pretty doxy!”

  Delphine turned at the voice. It was one of the seamen she remembered had signed on at the beginning of her last voyage, but now he was leering at her, his snag-toothed face split in a wide grin. “Don’t you recognize me, Jean?” she said.

  “Gosse! By all the saints—is it you?” He let his eyes travel the length of her body in open lechery, his glance lingering at her full bosom. “Sink me, Gosse, but if I’d known what you were hiding, I should have taken you on my lap the other way ’round, not like that Monsieur André! Eh?” He laughed and slapped his hands together.

  “Where’s Gunner?” she asked coldly.

  He looked shamefaced and tugged at his forelock. “I meant no disrespect, Gosse. We were all sorry about Master Fresnel—a fine captain he was to serve under. Gunner’s in the Great Cabin aft.”

  “Thank you. I shall find my way.” She swept past him, daintily lifting her skirts to keep them from catching on the coiled lines on deck. Climbing the stairs to the quarterdeck, she resolved to cut her hair and put on her breeches again as soon as possible. Though Jean had apologized for his bawdiness, she did not like the look in his eyes, and the voyage to Africa would be long, with empty stretches that gave a man time to think. As she entered the dim passageway she could hear, from far below, the sounds of the bilge pumps in operation. Sweet Jesu, how the place stank! She covered her mouth and nose with her hand, feeling as though she would gag from nausea. Had it always been as bad as this? She blinked in the gloom and peered down the companionway to the galley deck below. She could hear the soft squeak of a rat as it scurried from its hiding place. God’s blood! she thought. Why can they not keep a cat aboard ship as we do at home? She knocked softly at the door of the Great Cabin, entering at Gunner’s command.

  He greeted her warmly and they chatted about Michel and Brise laid up in a tavern ashore until they should mend, while she tried not to let her eyes stray around the cabin and to the bunk that had belonged to André. She did not tell Gunner she had decided to ship aboard—there would be time for that after she had settled the matter of the sea chests.

  “In the roundhouse, Gosse,” said Gunner. “I have put most of Master Fresnel’s things away, but you must check to see that I have not missed anything. Your chest is in there as well. We needed your cabin for storage last voyage out.�
��

  She mounted the companionway to the roundhouse, retrieving a pipe tucked away on a shelf, a small chart tacked to the bulkhead—the few small items that Gunner had overlooked. A quick look told her that her own things were intact; closing both chests she returned to the quarterdeck to arrange with Gunner for the transport of the trunks to Gilles’s house at least until she and Robert should be permanently aboard Olympie, and out of Gilles’s clutches. She passed her old cabin. On a sudden whim she pushed open the door and went inside. Mon Dieu! How small it was! Dark and gloomy, dank and airless—suffocating after the cheeriness of her large room at home. And the stench! She shuddered at the fetid odors of rancid oil and tallow, bilge water and sweat, stepping carefully around an empty crate to sink to the narrow bunk. Three large roaches skittered out of the straw pallet to seek refuge elsewhere. Sweet Mother, she thought, feeling her revulsion growing, I don’t belong here anymore! How could she live like this for months at a time—even if she did not have Robert with her? She was used to clean floors, and sweet air in her nostrils, and food that did not crawl with vermin. Gosse, Olympie, her carefree days with Michel—they belonged to a part of her life that was gone, vanished like a dream, as dead as Copain and her father. I don’t belong here, she thought again, her heart filled with despair. Damn you, André! I might have sailed with Olympie, I might have saved my father! But for you, this might still be my life! Sick at heart, she hurried back to the Great Cabin and Gunner.

  “If you’re ready to leave, Gosse,” he said, “I’ll have a mate take the sea chests and follow you home.”

  “Thank you. Wait! No. Have someone trundle them around in a wheelbarrow whenever he can. I am not going home just yet. I have—another errand.” She hugged him tightly, wondering if she would ever see him again, ever laugh with this gentle giant who had been father and mother to her, friend and teacher.

  It was twilight before she reached the hill and Monsieur de Janequin’s manor house. She prayed that Braudel would not be in—it would be difficult enough to deal with Janequin without the accusing eyes of the lawyer upon her.

  “Madame Despreaux!” The duc greeted her warmly, bringing her fingers to his lips. “What a charming surprise!” He led her into a small room, indicating a chair. “Come. Sit. Braudel will be sorry he missed you. He is making final arrangements for our return to Paris next week. Let me send for wine. Will you take supper? What a pleasure to see you!”

  “No! No wine. And I wish to stand.” She looked at him with pain-filled eyes. “God knows I should kneel at your feet!”

  “What nonsense is this?”

  She took a deep breath. “I am a thief and a cheat. I lied to you. All that I told you was lies! My ‘noble’ birth, the deeds, the loan, all of it. But you have lost nothing. Charretier still has the diamond necklace.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “I have the necklace!”

  “No. Charretier made a copy.”

  “It cannot be. I had it authenticated when Charretier returned it.”

  “He returned the original. It was I who—” She stumbled and could not go on.

  “But how?”

  “The moneylender. My—my husband Gilles. In disguise.”

  “Nom de Dieu! He only looked at it for a second! I myself saw him return it to you in plain sight!”

  “He had—the other—tucked in his sleeve. You were not looking for it, so why should you have seen it?”

  “Why did you do it?”

  She turned away, unwilling to look in his eyes. “I have no excuses. I did it. That is all.”

  “And now you come to tell me how I may recover the necklace. Wherefore?”

  “I need your help. I must get away from him and there is nowhere else to turn. I need money, but I need your influence—and the services of Monsieur Braudel as well. I thought—if I confessed all, saw that your jewels were returned, you might be merciful to me and give me your help.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders, frowning sternly down at her. “Why should you trust me? I could have you imprisoned, branded for a thief and a swindler.” His voice rumbled angrily, clearly disappointed in her.

  She laughed bitterly. “I am branded for being his wife,” and indicated the mark of the curling iron on her neck.

  “Nom de Dieu! Why do you stay with him?”

  “Yes. I could leave him, beg in the streets. Earn my way somehow—”

  “Indeed!” he interrupted, a sardonic smile twisting his fine features. His eyes swept her body. “There is much you could do to earn money, as well you must know! So why do you risk my wrath? Have I given you cause to believe I’m a fool? Why do you come to me?”

  “Because—there is someone else—very dear to me—whom I must care for, and I fear Gilles would use the law to—track us down and harm us.”

  “Ah! The someone else! Then they were not all lies after all?”

  “No.”

  “The villainous husband, the someone who is dear to you—?”

  “No. Not lies.”

  “And the father in America, who was to return someday to pay back the ‘loans’—was he a lie?”

  She stared at him, stricken. “I was waiting for him to return that I might be free of Gilles.”

  “And—?”

  She gulped, fighting back the tears she had denied for two days. “He will never come home. I have only just learned—” She turned away, clutching her arms to herself to keep from trembling, from crying out her grief to the heavens.

  “Poor child,” he murmured, reaching out to pull her into his embrace. “My poor child—”

  “No!” She choked back her tears and broke away from him. “I am unworthy of your kindness. I am a wicked woman. But—there is nowhere else to turn.”

  “You did not need to tell me of the necklace. I should have helped you in any event.” He laughed softly. “I did not tell Braudel of our second visit to the moneylender. I did not want his suspicions poisoning my thoughts of you. My dear child. Jewels are but empty trifles, gold is—” He shrugged. “What is their glow next to the warmth of a human heart? You could have come to me at the very first. Did you not know that? Now go home and put your mind at rest. I must think about what is to be done, and smooth Braudel’s ruffled feathers, though I have no doubt he will be pleased to be confirmed in his low opinion of people’s honesty! I have no wish to see you in prison. I would have my sister’s diamonds, of course, but not if you must suffer. Let me think on it. Take my carriage—it has grown quite dark. I will send a message around to you in the morning.”

  For the first time in days she felt heartened, riding through the dark streets to Gilles’s house. So soon she would be free! She felt it in her soul.

  She was met at the door by Anne-Marie. “Madame!”

  Ah Dieu! she thought, seeing the housekeeper’s face. Gilles has returned! She hurried up the stairs, hand poised at the ready above her sea knife, then stopped on the landing, eyes wide with shock, to see Lucie flouncing toward her. “Whore!” she hissed. “Would you flaunt yourself in my house?”

  A simpering smile. “I’ve brought your husband back to you. Is that all the thanks I get?”

  “Be grateful I do not tear your hair out!”

  “Your husband is dying, madame! It was only my Christian charity that led me to bring him home to die in his own bed.”

  “How dying? What happened?”

  “He came to me, the other night, in the midst of that frightful storm. He has not been constant of late. I was—entertaining another gentleman. There was a fight. Your husband is not so prudent when he has been drinking. Monsieur Despreaux was stabbed.”

  “Mother of God.”

  “I paid for the doctor out of my own pocket, but when he told me today that monsieur was lost, I thought it wise to bring him to his wife’s arms to die.”

  A sardonic laugh. “More especially as it would not look well for him to die in your—establishment!”

  “I do have a certain reputation to maintain!” s
aid Lucie haughtily, and swept out of the house.

  Gilles lay propped against his pillows, his face gray and ashen, his breath heavy and labored. His shirt was mottled with dried blood, great crimson gouts that soiled the white linen; just beneath his heart the wound still oozed bright vermillion. “Is that you, Delphine?” he said softly, then coughed and groaned, the sound ending in a wheeze that was torn from his chest.

  She hurried quickly to his side. He was Gilles—but he was a dying man. “Rest quietly,” she said, with a certain sympathy. “I shall send for the doctor again.”

  “No. There is no hope. And I would speak to you.”

  “Name of God, Gilles—hush!”

  “I would speak to you—I would curse you with my dying breath. Were you with your lover tonight? Ungrateful woman! I created you. I took a crude savage,” he gasped for breath, “and made a beautiful woman. I gave you your dream. And you have repaid me by killing me—”

  “Please. Rest!”

  “No! You poisoned our marriage from the first! You—and that—” he coughed, and a thin trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth “—that lover you dreamed of, that you compared to me, every day of our lives together. I curse you—you faithless bitch—I curse you—I curse you—I—” He lapsed into unconsciousness, his head lolling to one side.

  Trembling, Delphine left his room. “See to monsieur, Anne-Marie,” she said, her voice shaky, and made for the refuge of her own room. The two sea chests had been brought from Olympie and left in the middle of her room. In a daze she dropped to her knees and lifted the lid on her own trunk, rummaging about distractedly among possessions that no longer seemed a part of her. She found Gosse’s red mariner’s cap and stood up, clutching it to her bosom. Without her willing it, her feet carried her down the stairs and out into the garden. It was true, what Gilles had said. She had killed him. She had poisoned their marriage. Had he been a saint, even, she would have tormented him, the memory of André always between them. She sat down on the garden bench and gazed up at the night sky, brilliant with stars. Gosse had gloried in those stars, filled with wonder and joy. Now they were just cold lights that shone upon her guilt and remorse.