Chapter 17 The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini
Temptation
That night, wakeful under the stars, Monsieur de Bernis waited in vain for Miss Priscilla to lift the curtain of her but and come to sit in talk beside him. The events of the day seemed to have created the need for so much to be said between them. There was so much that he felt the need to explain. But apparently, on her side, there was no corresponding need to hear these explanations; for the night wore on, and the curtain remained closed.
At last, understanding that this must be by design and not by chance, he fell to speculating in distress as to the reason. He could conceive that he had offended her. When he had taken her so tenderly in his arms, he had perhaps overstepped the boundaries of the relations she was disposed to tolerate between them. And yet surely she must have perceived the almost unavoidable need to create that appearance of uxoriousness, and by this have deflected any resentment.
Lest it should be so, indeed, the need to explain became of an increasing urgency. He ended by softly calling her. Three times he repeated that call before the curtain was raised. Nevertheless, despite the urgency, prudence compelled him to keep down his voice. It followed, therefore, since she heard him, that she, too, was awake.
'You called?' she said between question and assertion, and added: 'Is anything amiss?'
He had risen, and stood with the long enveloping cloak hanging loose from his shoulders.
'That is what I desired to ask you. I was led to fear it from this breach of custom. I mean your absence. Will you not sit?'
'You have something to say to me?'
She heard his muted, whimsical laugh. 'That seems to have been my constant affliction. But tonight I have something more than usual.'
She lowered herself to the cushion which served him for a pillow, and which as usual he had set for her, and he sank down beside her. 'Be frank,' he invited. 'You did not come, you would not have come had I not called you, because you are offended with me.'
'Offended? I? How could that be?' But her voice had the frosty tone of one who fences.
'It should not be. But there is always the danger of being misunderstood. I feared I had incurred it. You might have conceived that I made too free today. It was that...'
'This is unnecessary,' she interrupted. 'There is no misunderstanding. None is possible. I heard your explanation to Major Sands. It was comedy you played for the information of Captain Leach. I perceived the necessity.'
Yet there was nothing gracious in her tone, no lessening of its distant frostiness. It puzzled him.
'And you condone it?' he asked.
'But, of course. You play comedy very well, Monsieur de Bernis.'
'Ah?'
'So well that for a moment you misled me. For a moment I actually conceived that your alarm and your concern were genuine.'
'I assure you that they were,' he protested.
'But...hardly to the extent which I was so foolish as to suppose.' He was betrayed by that complaint into a display of fervour.
'Whatever the extent to which you may have supposed me moved, your assumption will hardly have done justice to the fact.'
'And yet the fact left you under the necessity to play comedy so as to provide all that you conceived the situation to require.'
'Ah, mon Dieu!' he exclaimed, lapsing into his native tongue as he sometimes did when deeply moved. 'Can you mean...' He checked himself in time. He was about to add: 'Can you mean that you are aggrieved because what I uttered of tenderness was uttered only in make-believe?'
'What were you going to say?' she asked him, as he fell silent. 'Something unutterable.'
Her tone softened a little. 'If you were to utter it, we might reach the truth between us.'
'There are truths that it is better not to reach. Truths that are like the forbidden fruit on the Tree of Knowledge.'
'This is not Paradise, Monsieur de Bernis.'
'I cannot be so sure on that. In these last days it has grown nearer to Paradise for me than any I have known in life.'
This created a silence, which endured so long that he began to fear he had now, indeed, offended. And then at last, in a small voice, looking straight before her down the pallid beach to the dusky shimmer of water beyond, and the shadowy silhouette of the Centaur where she rode at anchor in the lagoon, she answered him with a question.
'Do they play comedy in your paradise, Monsieur de Bernis?'
If he had doubted until now, he could doubt no longer on what it was that she desired his frank avowal. The invitation could scarcely have been more plain had it been plainly uttered. He passed a hand across his brow and found it moist. True, the night was warm. But not warm enough to draw the sweat from such a frame as his. It sprang, he knew, from the labours of his mind.
He answered, at last, slowly, in a voice which being of necessity muted was thereby the more easily kept level.
'Priscilla, count it my saving grace that I know where the frontiers of reality are set for me.'
'Can you think only of yourself?'
'It is perhaps my only unselfishness.'
Again there was silence; of frustration for her, of agony for him. And then, woman-like, she came back to the beginning.
'Then it was not comedy you played today? Not quite?' Her voice was coaxing.
'What else? I am I; you are you. The only bridge that Fate can fling between us is a bridge of make-believe.'
'Fate, perhaps. But you, yourself. You...you build no bridges?' Almost roughly he answered her. 'There is none would bear me. I am too heavily laden.'
'Can you throw off no part of this load?'
'Can a man throw off his past? His nature? It is from these I derive my load of shame.'
She shook her head slowly. She leaned against him, as she answered.
'Your nature is not so laden. I have studied it. As for the past... What is the past?'
'Our heritage in the present.'
'May not a man discard his heritage?'
'Not when he inherits from himself. It is a part of him.'
She sighed. 'How obstinate you are! Are you quite sure that your humility is not a form of pride?'
'Pride?' he echoed in repudiation, and upon the word fell silent, thoughtful, to say at last: 'Perhaps it is. An obstinate pride to serve Honour at last, that in serving it I may be worthy at least of the passing thought you have bestowed on me.'
'And if it were not passing?' she softly asked him.
'It must be.' His voice was firm. He drew away a little, as if so that the warm, sweet contact of her arm upon his own should not enfeeble his stout purpose. 'Later--soon--when you are restored to your own people and to the ways of life to which you belong, you will look back on this adventure as upon some incredible nightmare from which you have happily awakened. Take nothing from it with you into that waking future to mar its sweet serenity.'
'Charles!' She set a hand upon his, where it rested on his knee.
His hand turned in her grasp to close upon her own and press it. Still holding it he rose, and drew her up with him.
'I shall remember, Priscilla; always shall I remember; and I vow to you here that I shall be the better for remembering. So much as you have given I shall treasure till I die. But you shall give no more.'
'If it should be my will to give?' she asked him, scarcely above her breath.
His reply came instantly and firmly.
'This pride of mine will not suffer me to take such gifts. You are you, and I am I. Think well what this means: what you are, and what I am. Good night, my dear.' He raised her hand, and bending his head pressed his lips upon it. Then he released it, and lifted the curtain for her.
'Tomorrow this will be a sweet dream that I have dreamed here under the stars and you on your couch in there from which I should not have summoned you.'
For a long moment she remained standing before him, her face a white blur in which the dark pools of her eyes were turned towards him. Then, bowing her head a little, she passed into the hut without another word. Her demeanour next morning, when again he came to act as deputy for the mysteriously absent Pierre, accorded with his injunction that what had passed between them in the night should be regarded as a dream. If she was pale and of a heaviness about the eyes that argued lack of sleep, her manner at least was normally bright, and it was of the absence of Pierre that she spoke. As usual he evaded her questions on the subject. He could not again pretend to have sent the half-caste on an errand. He met her with assumptions that Pierre had taken a fancy for early morning wandering and a curious disposition to indulge Pierre in any such fancies, however discomposing in their consequences.
After breakfast there was that day no question of the usual sword practice with the Major. Following upon the events of yesterday it was tacitly agreed that the two men should never both be absent at the same time from their encampment.
Monsieur de Bernis wandered off to the northern end of the beach to observe the progress of the work upon the careened hull. The tarring was nearing its conclusion. By tomorrow, the men told him, as he mingled with them, they would start the greasing that marked the end of their toil. They would be thankful, they asserted with many a foul oath, to have the Black Swan afloat again. He jested with them, as usual, and encouraged them again with a reminder of the golden harvest they would sail away to garner. He was still in talk with them when Leach sauntered up.
There was a deliberate, sly, and wickedly purposeful air about the Captain as he joined them. It coloured the manner in which he growled at the men, reminding them that progress with the work was slow enough without their suspending it to stand idly in talk. Did they want him to spend the remainder of his life on Maldita? Then he obscenely invited Monsieur de Bernis to find other employment, and not to stand there wasting the time of the hands.
Curbing himself before the Captain's calculatedly offensive manner, Monsieur de Bernis shrugged, and began to move away without other answer. But this did not satisfy the Captain, who came briskly after him.
'D'ye shrug your shoulders at me, Bernis?' he demanded, loud enough to be heard by the men.
Over his shoulder, without checking in his stride, de Bernis answered him: 'What else would you have me do?'
'I'ld have ye attend. I'll have ye know I'm Captain here, and when I speak I expects an answer.'
'I obeyed your wishes. Is not that answer enough?'
He halted now, confronting Leach. They had moved out of earshot of the men. But they were still under their eyes, and those eyes were watchful. The buccaneers had sensed the beginnings of a very pretty quarrel in the Captain's opening words, and it being in their natures to love a fight, they looked on; hopefully without even a pretence of attending to their work.
Leach considered the Frenchman with an eye of cordial dislike.
'Ye shrugged at me,' he complained truculently. 'I'll have no man shrug at me when I gives orders. Least of all a French pimp.'
Monsieur de Bernis considered him in his turn. Himself armed, he observed that Leach, too, had hung a rapier at his side. Nor did a certain eagerness in Leach escape him.
'I see,' he said. 'Ye want to put a quarrel on me. But ye dare not do it openly, lest your followers should call you to account for it. So ye think to provoke me into striking you, with Wogan looking on up yonder. That, you suppose, will justify you in their eyes. Do I read you aright, Tom?'
The other's furious countenance told him that he did.
'Be sure as I reads thee aright, Charley. Thee's just a cowardly cuckold, impudent so long as thee counts theeself sheltered.'
But de Bernis laughed aloud. 'Maybe you are right,' said he shamelessly. Then he sobered. 'There's a day for everything, Tom. Ye may be athirst for my blood. But this is not the time to drink it. The draught would poison you. Haven't they warned you of it--Bundry and the others?'
In words at least Leach could vent some of the hatred into which de Bernis had come with him. 'Ye pitiful, tale-bearing craven!' he said, and spat deliberately in token of his contempt. Then turned on his heel, and moved away, in the direction whence Wogan was uneasily advancing. But he went ready to swing round at the first sound behind him, confidently expecting de Bernis to throw caution to the winds before that crowning insult.
Monsieur de Bernis, however, disappointed him. He remained looking after that leisurely departing scarlet figure, with narrowing, calculating eyes, and the faintest shadow of a smile under his little dark moustache, until the Captain was joined by Wogan. Then he, too, moved away, returning to his own side of the beach.
And meanwhile there was Wogan confronting Leach, arms akimbo and remonstrance in his lean, crafty face.
'Och, now Captain, darling, I was afeard you'ld be letting your temper run away with you. Bad cess to it!'
Leach laughed at him, his countenance baffled and unpleasant. 'See thee, lad! Leave me to settle my own affairs in my own way.'
'Faith, but I'll be reminding you that this is the affair of all of us, so it is.'
'When I settles it, I'll not forget that.'
'But if ye were to kill Charley, there would...'
Scornfully Leach interrupted him.
'Kill him?' He laughed aloud, contemptuous repudiation of the notion. 'I's no bungler. I know what's to do. I's not killing him. But, by God, I'll cut his poxy comb, for him. I'll mutilate him, make him helpless so as he'll not swagger any more.'
'But that's as bad now.' Wogan's alarm was clear.
'Is it?' Leach closed an eye slowly. 'Thee's no faith in me. Once I have him powerless, crippled, does thee think I've no ways to squeeze this secret o' th' plate fleet from him? Woolding mayn't do it, nor a match between his toes. But there's things we might do to that proud cold piece of his, to Mistress de Bernis, things we might do under his eyes, the threat o' which would mebbe loosen his stubborn tongue. There's more ways nor one o' persuading the dumbest man to talk.'
Wogan's eyes grew round in wonder. 'The Saints preserve us, Tom! It's a devil ye are.' But his tone was one of admiration.
They departed arm-in-arm, to their own quarters.
Monsieur de Bernis found Miss Priscilla, who was now reduced to being her own tire-woman, occupied with needlework within the hut. The Major had been seated there, too, in talk with her. But at sight of the approaching Frenchman, he rose and went forth to meet him.
'Will you walk, sir?' he invited him. 'Since we do not fence this morning, we might saunter here awhile within reach of Priscilla. I have something to say to you.'
There was an unusual geniality in his manner which took Monsieur de Bernis almost by surprise. Of late the Major had been more friendly; but never genial. There was always in his bearing a certain aloofness, suggesting that he never lost sight of the fact that he was a gentleman of family holding the King's commission and that de Bernis was just a pirate rogue towards whom necessity alone prescribed a certain degree of civility.
'At your service,' said Monsieur de Bernis, and they fell into step and paced on towards the southern rampart of rock, beyond which, unknown to them, lay Priscilla's bathing-pool into which she was not likely again to venture.
'I am distressed, stab me! I tell you frankly, de Bernis, I am distressed. You seem at odds with these buccaneer rogues, Leach and the rest of them. I ask myself, if harm should come to you, what is to become of us, or, rather, what is to become of Priscilla.'
'Can you suppose, sir, that I am not considering it?'
'You are? You relieve me a deal. Yet not altogether.' The Major was very grave. 'Bear with me a moment, de Bernis. You were impatient with me once before when I asked you what is your intention by us when you sail away on this Spanish raid. Yet now that the time is drawing near, I am driven to ask this again. To ask it again. You cannot surely intend that we should sail with you. It would be--ah--unthinkable, stab me, that you should take Miss Priscilla into the horrors and the dangers of a sea-fight.'
'You might remain here at Maldita until I return to take you off,' said de Bernis.
'Ah!' Some of the gloom lifted from the Major's countenance. 'Yes.' His tone was musing. 'It is what I had thought possible. Yet...' He paused, stood still, and confronted his companion. 'What if you should not return, Monsieur de Bernis?'
'You mean?'
'You go into danger. You go into a deal of danger as it seems to me. There is danger from the Spaniards, and then there is danger from your associates. You are making bad blood with them, I fear. Bad blood. At least, after what happened yesterday with this blackguard Leach...'
'Would you have had me civil to him?'
'Sir! Sir! Can you suppose it? Stab me!' The Major became consequential. 'You bore yourself as I would have borne myself in your place. Do not misunderstand me, I implore you. Do not misunderstand me. What happened could not have been avoided. But it alters things between you and Leach. It occurs to me that he may curb his rancour only just so long as it suits his ends. And that once you have led him to the plate fleet, once you have parted with your secret, he may take a revenge upon you. Perhaps this had not occurred to you.'
Monsieur de Bernis smiled. 'My dear Major, do you suppose that it is from blindness to the obvious that I have contrived to survive all the perils of such a life as mine?'
The Major did not like his tone, and the reflection it contained upon his own acumen. His manner lost some of its geniality.
'You mean that it had already occurred to you?'
'And not merely as a possibility. Long before our yesterday's disagreement, I have known that it is not the intention of Leach to keep faith with me. He has confidently been counting upon slitting my throat and possessing himself of Miss Priscilla once I have led him to the plate fleet.'
'Oh, my God!' said the Major in a horror that blotted everything else from his mind. 'Then...Then...' He was utterly at a loss. He had stood still again. His heavy face was pale as he turned it upon de Bernis. 'But if this is so...' Still he could find no conclusion to his sentence. There was a sort of chaos in his dull mind.
Monsieur de Bernis smiled. 'It is something to be forewarned. Things may not fall out quite as Tom Leach expects them. Indeed, they may fall out very differently. I, too, have my intentions and my plans.'
The Major stared, his mind in labour. 'I suppose you think you can depend upon his followers, upon the leaders?'
'What I think is of no great account. It is what I know that matters. And what I know is that I depend upon myself. Not for the first time, Major Sands.'
Considering him, so straight and calm and resolute, Major Sands came nearer to admiring him than he had yet done. This, after all, seemed to be a man upon whom it was good to lean in an awkward situation.
'You have no anxieties, then?'
'Oh, yes. I have anxieties. Few things are certain in this life, however shrewdly a man may plan. And too great a confidence is, they say, unlucky, which possibly is true because it makes a man careless. That, at least, you may depend that I shall not be. Hitherto, Major, you have placed no great trust in me, I know. At least let my deep devotion to Priscilla and my deep concern for her assure you that I have no thought but to make her safe. In that safety you will share.' His eyes travelled up the beach towards the hut, as if following his thought. 'Ah, there is Pierre returning,' he said, and on that left the Major where he stood and strode rapidly across the sands.
The Major stared after him with a brow of thunder. 'His deep devotion to Priscilla!' he said, speaking aloud. 'Damnation take his impudence!'
Monsieur de Bernis, unconscious of the resentment he had loosed behind him, was overtaking the half-caste as he entered his tent. But before he could ask the question that trembled on his lip, the half-caste presented a blank countenance to him, thrust out a nether lip, shook his head, and shrugged.
'Rien du tout,' he said dismally.
Monsieur de Bernis' eyes dilated under a frowning brow.
'Ah! But this becomes serious.'