Decision and Destiny

by DeVa Gantt

  “Would you really like to learn to swim, Yvette?” John asked.

  “Yes! Oh yes!”

  “Very well then, take off your shoes and stockings and get out of your dress, but leave on your petticoats, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Do you really mean to teach me?” Yvette didn’t wait for her brother’s affirmation. In a matter of minutes, she was standing on the blanket, barefoot and clad only in her undergarments. “Well? Let’s go!” she cried. With a jump, she was off and running.

  “Yvette!” Charmaine gasped. The ruse had gone too far. “Yvette, come back here! You’ll ruin your petticoats and—”

  “Who cares?” she called back. “We’re rich! Besides, I have a hundred other ones just like it in my armoire!” She was already knee-deep in the bubbling surf of the cove, squealing as the waves slapped against her legs. She took a step farther out, and Charmaine shifted uneasily and began to rise.

  John stopped her. “Leave her be,” he chided gently.

  She looked up at him, and her eyes grew wide, for he had doffed his shirt and was now bending over to pull off his boots. “Are you serious about this?”

  “Of course. Yvette will be fine. She has the good sense to wait for me.”

  The boots were tossed to the far side of the blanket. His socks followed, leaving him barefoot as well. Next came his belt, and to Charmaine’s utter humiliation, he began working at his trouser buttons, as if he fully intended to peel them off right there, in broad daylight. “Sir!” she gasped, quickly averting her gaze, mortified by what seemed a diabolical chuckle.

  “Come, Charmaine, take a look. I know you’re dying to.”

  “I’m not!” she objected, looking to Jeannette, whose eyes were trained on him, a bewildered expression giving way to a wide smile. She pulled the girl down beside her, certain she’d die of shame. “I’ll never forgive you for this!”

  “For what?” he asked and, stepping before her, laughed the louder when she clamped her eyes closed. “Such modesty, even for a woman! What will you do, my Charm, when you have a husband?”

  “Put your trousers back on!” she demanded. “Please!”

  Crouching before her, he pried free the hands that cupped her eyes. Though they remained closed, he coaxed them open with the words, “I have them on.”

  She took in the cut-off breeches the field workers wore, and her temper flared. “I’m sure you’re quite proud of yourself, tricking me like that!”

  “Perhaps, but it wasn’t planned. Once again, you’ve brought it all down upon yourself, my Charm. You concluded the worst without allowing me the chance to explain. Do you really consider me so low as to disrobe in front of my own sisters?”

  “Oh yes, you had it planned,” she returned, “or you wouldn’t have been wearing those—those things beneath your trousers in the first place!”

  “I was wearing them, yes, but not to embarrass you. I had hoped to enjoy a swim today. That’s why I chose this particular spot for our picnic.”

  Defeated, she refused to say more.

  “And you, Jeannie?” he asked. “Would you like to learn to swim, too?”

  “I don’t know if I should,” she faltered, not wanting to cause her governess further distress. But she grew exuberant when Charmaine encouraged her to go.

  “It is so warm!” Yvette shouted as they approached, standing waist deep in the surf. “And there are so many fish! Hundreds of them!”

  Jeannette dashed ahead, but as the first wave lapped at her feet, she squealed and scurried toward the sand. Then, with arms raised, she danced toward her sister. John followed, and together they made their way farther out, until the girls were shoulder-deep. There they commenced a splashing fight, dousing each other gleefully. When Yvette noticed her brother’s hair was still dry, she shouted: “Let’s get Johnny!” and turned on him. But he dove into the next wave, resurfacing some feet away, drenched. “I’ll show you!” she protested. With that, another battle ensued, the girls showering him with a salty deluge that pelted his face and stung his eyes.

  “Careful, Yvette,” he warned, “you’re setting yourself up to get dunked!”

  “Don’t threaten me!” she jeered, splashing him harder, screeching when he dove for her, laughing triumphantly when she dodged him. But he continued to stalk her, and with his second lunge, she scrambled to shore, laboring against the strong undertow. “You can’t catch me!” she teased, miffed when he ignored her and waded over to Jeannette instead. It wasn’t long before she rejoined them.

  John took them beyond the breaking waves where they could ride the undulating swells. Clinging to him, they squealed each time they were lifted and dropped, not truly swimming, but swimming all the same.

  Pierre awoke to a hearty appetite and ate greedily. He gazed out at the water, and his face lit up. Standing, he pointed to his siblings. “Look!”

  “Your sisters are learning to swim.”

  “Me, too!” he declared, pulling off his shoes and socks. He ran toward the water as fast as his little legs would carry him. No sooner had he reached the shoreline and he was fleeing the bubbling surf that chased him up the beach. When the water receded, he planted himself where dry sand met wet. There he stood, mesmerized by his sisters’ antics.

  Yvette continued to throw water into John’s face, knowing he wouldn’t dunk her out there. Charmaine laughed aloud as the man sputtered and objected. She waved merrily back at Jeannette, who had spotted them at the water’s edge.

  When they tired of their play, John began to teach them to swim. Yvette mastered the strokes with ease, but Jeannette remained timid, clutching John repeatedly. Later, the threesome headed toward the beach, emerging from the breakers. They were soaked from head to toe, a sight to behold with tangled hair and clinging garments.

  “Mademoiselle Charmaine,” Jeannette heaved, “you should have come swimming, too! It was wonderful!”

  “And easy!” Yvette added.

  “So I see,” Charmaine said, looking from the excited twins to John. He was pushing back a mop of hair from his saturated face.

  “Yvette,” he called, pointing to the horizon, “I think you forgot something.”

  With a frown, she squinted out to the water. He snatched her and dragged her back into the churning waves, swiftly dunking her under. She came up sputtering, her eyes shooting daggers that stifled Jeannette’s hearty guffaw. John laughed harder. “It’s not funny!” she fumed.

  “Just evening up the score. Next time, you won’t splash me every second.”

  “You make it sound like a terrible sin!”

  “Do I? Well, then, you’ve been absolved.” He reached heavenward. “Repent and sin no more!”

  “Who do you think you are anyway—John the Baptist?” With that, she sloshed to shore.

  Charmaine looked at John, who seemed to have met his match; he had no retort for his precocious sister. He shook his head and laughed anew. Then Yvette was forgotten as he noticed her at the water’s edge, his gaze as purposeful as his approach, his bare chest glistening in the blazing sun. She looked down at Pierre, who was squatting at her feet and scribbling with his finger in the wet sand. She picked him up and faced John again, quelling the urge to step back, somewhat fortified with the boy between them.

  He smiled down at the lad. “What is that in your hand, Pierre? Some hidden treasure?” The boy giggled and shook his head. “Can we see it?” John probed, poking at the pudgy knuckles.

  Pierre pulled his fist away, grazing Charmaine’s cheek and spilling its contents into her windblown hair. To her horror, the “treasure” moved, scrambling to safety in her dark tresses.

  “Get it out!” she shrieked, sending Pierre into a fit of laughter. She deposited him on the ground, her hands flying to her head, blindly searching for the tiny intruder, recoiling when she touched it. “Get it out!” she cried with each tug of her locks, imagining the cocoon it wove. “Please get it out!”

  Now she had an audience. “What’s wrong?” Yvette a
sked.

  “Miss Ryan has just made a new friend, and he’s building a nest in her hair.”

  “You’re absolutely no help!”

  “I didn’t think I was permitted to touch your hair, or perhaps you’ve changed your mind.”

  “Just get it out!”

  “Very well,” he chuckled, “now that I have permission, let’s see where our little friend has disappeared to…”

  Her eyes riveted to the flex of muscle in his arm, and her stomach fluttered as he placed a palm against her temple and raked his fingers through her long hair. Those butterflies soared when his thumb caressed her cheek. “It’s somewhere in the back!” she hissed, pulling away from his tormenting hand, unable to meet his eyes. He stepped behind her, working at the tangled strands on her neck, lifting and separating the thick curls, unafraid of what lay beneath.

  “There it is!” Yvette directed. “See—the hair is moving!”

  Charmaine groaned in misery, but in the next moment, the nasty incident was over. The twins screamed and jumped back as her unwanted “guest” toppled out of its knotted lair, hit the sand, and scrambled to the safety of the breaking waves. It too, had had enough.

  “Just a tiny sand crab,” John shrugged, looking from Charmaine to Yvette. “Nothing to be frightened of.”

  “I wasn’t frightened!” Yvette objected vehemently.

  “No? Then why did you jump so high?”

  “I was playing it safe.”

  “And now, Miss Ryan is safe as well. Delivered from one black monster…” He let his words trail off, leaving her to draw her own conclusions. “I believe I should thank you, my Charm.”

  “Thank me? For what?”

  She received a raffish leer for an answer as he lifted Pierre into his arms. “That was not a nice thing to do to your governess,” he chided lightly.

  “Yes, it was!” Pierre giggled.

  “Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry?” John probed.

  “No. It was funny.”

  “Well, then, if you’re not going to apologize, you will have to be punished.”

  Shocked, Charmaine was momentarily anchored to the spot. John was already walking back to the blanket, where he set Pierre down. He couldn’t be serious. He didn’t seem angry. She rushed up the beach after them.

  Yvette shook a finger at the boy. “You should have apologized while you had the chance, Pierre. Now you’ll catch it!” She grinned crookedly at John, as if savoring thoughts of the boy’s chastisement. “What will the treatment be?”

  “The usual, of course.”

  Charmaine began to tremble as he bent toward the boy, intent upon carrying out his ambiguous threat. To her horror, Pierre only chortled and slapped his hand away.

  “So…it’s a battle you’re after!” John declared, his voice bordering on the wicked. He caught Pierre in his grasp—easy prey.

  “No!”

  Charmaine’s cry was muffled by John’s proclamation: “Now I’ve got you!”

  He sat squarely on the blanket, tucked the boy between tented legs, and began tickling him. Pierre’s laughter intensified to a fevered pitch as he squirmed and writhed. But no sooner had he blocked one part of his body than another was exposed. “Stop it! Do it again!” the three-year-old cried over and over again, heaving and out of breath. He managed to roll beneath John’s knees and crawl to safety. Exhausted, John did not pursue him.

  “Now I get the punishment!” Jeannette exclaimed, stepping forward.

  “Only those who’ve offended Miss Ryan get the punishment.”

  “Let’s all tickle Johnny then!” Yvette suggested. “He’s offended Mademoiselle Charmaine lots of times!”

  The girls fell on him, pressing the battle. He met their onslaught with one of his own, pinning and tickling each in turn. Recovered, Pierre attempted to join in, but was unable to penetrate the melee. He devised his own plan of attack, scooping up sand and dumping it on John’s head. When he delivered a second load, John tore away and stood up. “Good God!” he complained, raking his fingers through his matted hair. “My head feels like an ant hill.”

  Charmaine’s happy laughter drew him around. “You find this amusing?” he asked, sand still clinging to the wet strands.

  “You laughed when he put a sand crab in my hair!”

  “True, but I also attempted to coax an apology out of him. What’s your excuse for not intervening?”

  “I have no excuse. I believe you’ve gotten exactly what you deserve.” She threw him a mischievous look.

  “That is a most offending statement if ever I’ve heard one,” he mused. “Don’t you agree, girls? I think Miss Ryan deserves the punishment.”

  “Oh, no!” Yvette reproved. “That’s only fun for you!”

  John missed Charmaine’s blush as he regarded his sister in astonishment. “Fun for me?” he inquired tactlessly. “And how would you know that?”

  “Because I’ve had experience.”

  “Experience?” John reiterated facetiously. “With whom? Joseph?”

  “No, not with Joseph. Not with anybody. But I have eyes and ears. I know when things are happening.”

  “Oh really? And you’ve seen and heard these ‘things’ firsthand?”

  “That’s right,” she nodded haughtily.

  “When?”

  “When we were alone in our rooms about a year ago—the week before Mademoiselle Charmaine came to live with us.”

  “Really? And what exactly happened?”

  “Mama had just left us. She had one of those long appointments with Dr. Blackford. He kept coming to the house…at least once a week. And each time he left, Mama seemed worse. She kept saying he was helping her with his elixirs, but I didn’t believe that. I knew she wasn’t telling us the truth, and I was worried, so I decided to find out for myself. I told Jeannette to tell anybody who came to our room I had gone to the privy. That way I’d have time for my spy mission. First, I ran to the kitchen, and I got a glass from the cupboard—the one that picks up the sound best. Then I—”

  “Yvette,” John interrupted, “what are you talking about?”

  “Let me finish!” she huffed. “Since it was too risky to listen from the hallway, especially with Auntie Agatha patrolling the house, I decided to use Paul’s room. That spot would be perfect, because the wall of his bedchamber meets Mama’s dressing room wall, and I figured Paul wouldn’t be home since it was the middle of the afternoon. Well, was I wrong! Not only was he home, but he was in his room, and he wasn’t alone, either. That rude maid Felicia was with him, and she was only wearing her chemise. At first I was surprised, so I just stood at the bedroom door and watched. She was laughing because he was tickling her. Then, he pulled her real close and bit her neck like a vampire.”

  Mortified, Charmaine suffered through the narrative, certain her burning cheeks branded her the fool, and John basked in the heat of her misery.

  “Oh, it was disgusting!” Yvette continued. “And I told them so. I suppose I should have tiptoed out of the room, or better still, hid and watched, but I didn’t think of that until much later.”

  John burst into uproarious laughter, imagining his brother’s stunned surprise when he was caught red-handed in Felicia’s buxom embrace, his rapacious appetite whetted, but not satiated.

  “What’s the matter?” Yvette demanded, sure he was laughing at her.

  “Nothing, Yvette,” he breathed, “just continue the story; I’d very much like to hear how Paul extricated himself from this one.” He continued to snicker and shake his head, vivid images of the man’s volatile temper coming to the fore.

  “Well, I don’t have to tell you how angry he was!” she elaborated, confirming John’s thoughts. “In fact, I’ve never seen him so angry! First, he chased me around the room a couple of times—”

  “Don’t flower it up, Yvette. Just tell me what happened. That’s all I want.”

  “All right. He did cuss something fierce…words I’ve never heard before, not even on the dock
s. I tried to remember them all, and even Joseph didn’t know what some of them meant. Anyway, I knew I was in real trouble, and if I wanted to stay alive, I had better get out of that room. So, as he grabbed his shirt, I ran out and raced down the stairs. But he was behind me before I could hide. Was I glad when Auntie Agatha walked into the foyer with a tray of food! I ducked behind her, and Paul stopped in his tracks when he realized I’d been rescued.”

  “Rescued?”

  “Well, I’m not stupid,” Yvette declared. “I knew Paul didn’t want her to know what he was doing. He didn’t want anybody to know, so before he could say a word, I just mentioned Felicia’s name. Then he told Auntie I’d gotten into some ‘mischief’ in his room and he was taking me back to the nursery. Once we were alone, he gave me a hard shake and warned me never to tell anyone what I had seen. He even threatened me with a spanking. But I only glared at him and promised nothing. After all, what could he really do? I suppose I’m still safe, even though I’ve told you.”

  “Unbelievable,” John muttered, laughing all over again. “You seem to have a knack for uncovering the inconceivable, Yvette, and your story couldn’t have come at a better time.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Miss Ryan and I were discussing a similar matter on our ride here this morning. Isn’t that right, my Charm?” he insisted, humiliating her all the more. “That is about as concrete as evidence gets.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind. Oh, what I would have paid to have seen his face.”

  “I could do it again,” Yvette offered, “and you could wait outside his room. How much are you willing to pay?”

  “No, dear sister, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

  “I’ll give you a discount if you listen carefully for all the swear words and tell me what they mean.”

  “I think not,” he said, as he walked around the blanket and retrieved his clothing. “Your vocabulary is diverse enough.”

  “Huh! You’re just afraid he’ll say words you don’t know!”

  “You are probably right, Yvette,” he answered. “But I hope that was the last time you went into Paul’s room to eavesdrop.”