the hill; free-stepping, strong-limbed Breton women, returning from the
cliffs with bundles of dried sea-weed on their backs: a woman and two
young lads from the furthermost cottage, with hoes in their hands, who
had stepped out on to the road from their work of weeding the sorry
piece of ground they had fenced in from the dune, and which yielded, at
the best, more stones than vegetables: a couple of fishermen, who were
tramping along the road with a basket of mackerel: and even old lame
Jacques, who had risen from the bench on which he usually sat as though
he had taken root there, and leant tottering on his stick, as he
strained his blear eyes against the sunbeams: all stopped as if by one
impulse: all seemed absorbed by one expectation, and stood gazing up the
long, white road to the West.
The road was like a sensitive thing to ears long familiar with its
various sounds, and vibrated at a mile's distance with the gallop of
unwonted hoofs, or the haste of a rider that told of strange news.
Moreover, all hearts were open to the touch of fear that October
evening, when at any hour word might be brought of the fishing fleet
that should now be returning from its long absence in distant seas: and
one dare hardly think whether Jean and Pierre and little André would all
be restored safely to the vacant places around the cottage fire: one
dared not think: one could only pray to the Saints, and wait.
The girl with the mute, patient face had been the first to catch the
sounds of galloping hoofs. She had from birth been almost speechless,
with a paralysed tongue, but as if to compensate for this, her senses of
touch and hearing were extraordinarily acute. The daughter of the
aubergiste, she knew all who came and went along the road: the sights
and sounds of the road were her interest the life of it was her life.
She had heard in the faint, faint distance the galloping hoofs to the
West: off the great rocks to the West the fleet should first be
sighted: towards the West all one's senses seemed strained, on the alert
for signals of danger, or hope: and at the sound, the heart within
Annette's breast leaped with a sudden certainty of disaster.
Annette had never thought of love and marriage as possible for herself,
but Paul Gignol had gone with the fleet for the first time this summer,
and, for Annette, danger to the fleet meant danger to Paul. Paul and
Annette were kin on her mother's side, and he being an orphan and
adopted by her father, they had been brought up together like brother
and sister. This summer had separated them for the first time, and when
he bade her good-bye and sailed away, Annette felt like an uprooted
piece of heather cast loose on the roadside, and belonging nowhere. And
the first faint sounds of the hoofs on the road had struck on her ear as
a signal from Paul. She made no sign, only stood still with a beating
heart. And when the neighbours saw the dumb girl listening, they too
came out into the road, and heard the galloping, now growing more and
more distinct; and waited for the rider to appear on the ridge of the
hill, which, some half mile off, raised its purple outline against the
western sky.
They came out when they saw the dumb girl listening: for the keenness of
the perceptions with which her fragile body was endowed, was well known
among them, and was attributed to the direct agency of the unseen
powers; with whom indeed she had been acknowledged from her birth to
have closer relations than is the lot of ordinary mortals. For there
could be no doubt that Annette's mother had received an intimation of
some sort from the other world, the night before her child was born. She
had been found lying senseless in the moonlight on the hill-top, and had
never spoken from that hour till her death a week afterwards. As to what
she had met or seen, there were various rumours: some of the shrewder
gossips declaring that it was nothing but old Marie Gourdon, the
sorceress, who had frightened her by predicting in her mysterious
wisdom, which not the shrewdest of them dared altogether disregard, that
some strange calamity would attend the life of the child she was about
to bring forth; a child that had indeed turned out speechless, and of so
sickly a constitution that from year to year one hardly expected her to
live. Moreover, was it not the ill-omened figure of the old witch-woman,
that had hobbled into the auberge with the news that Christine Leroux
was lying like one dead by the roadside? On the other hand, however, it
was asserted with equal assurance, that she had seen in the moonlight,
with her own eyes, the evil spirit of the dunes: him of whom all
travellers by night must beware; for it was his pleasure to delude them
by showing lights as if of cottage windows on the waste land, where no
cottage was: while twice within living memory, he had kindled false
fires on the great rock out at sea, which they called Le Géant, luring
mariners to their death: and woe betide the solitary wayfarer whose path
he crossed!
Annette's father knew what his wife had seen: and one winter evening
beside the peat-fire, as Annette was busy with her distaff, and he sat
smoking and watching the glowing embers, he told her her mother's story.
She and Paul's father, the elder Paul Gignol, had been betrothed in
their youth; but his fishing-smack had struck on the rocks one foggy
night, and gone down, and with it all his worldly wealth. And
Christine's father had broken off the match; for he had never been
favourable to it, and how was Paul to keep her now with nothing to look
to, but what might be picked up in the harbour? And Paul was like one
mad, and threatened to do her a bodily mischief, so that she was afraid
to walk out at night by herself: and her father offered him money to go
away: and he refused the money: but he went off at last, hiring himself
out on a cargo-boat, and declaring as he went, that one day yet, he
would meet Christine in the way, and have his revenge. And he was abroad
for years, and wedded some English woman in one of the British sea-port
towns, and at last was lost at sea on the very night on which Annette
was born.
"And his spirit it was, Annette, that appeared to your mother in the
road that night, the very hour that he died. For it was borne in on me
that he had met her in the way, as he had said, and I asked her, as she
lay a-dying, if it was Paul that she had seen; and she looked at me with
eyes that spoke as plain as the speech that she had lost: and said that
it was he."
Jules was ordinarily a silent man: he told the story slowly, with long
pauses between the sentences: and when he had once told it, he never
spoke of it again.
Now Annette thought of many things in her quiet, clear-sighted way. She
knew that her mother had been found senseless at the foot of the menhir,
which they called Jean of Kerdual, just beyond the crest of the hill:
and she had often noticed the shadow which the great, weird stone threw
across the road, and thought how like it was (especially by moonlight)
to the figure of a fisherman with his peaked cap and blouse. She
believed there was more in this than a chance resemblance; for to a
Breton girl the supernatural world is very real: and she had no doubt
that the spirit of Paul's father haunted the stone that was so like his
bodily form, and that on the night when he was drowned, the dumb menhir
had found voice, and had spoken to her mother in his name. Annette
always avoided Jean of Kerdual, if it was possible to do so, and would
never let his shadow fall upon her. She felt that the solemn, world-old
stone was in some way hostile to her, and attributed her dumbness to its
influence.
She often wished that she and her father did not live so near the stone.
It had come to be like a nightmare to her. She would dream that it stood
threateningly over her, enveloping her in its shadow: that she was
struggling to speak, and that it reached forth a hand, heavy as stone,
and laid it on her mouth, stifling utterance. Then the paralysis that
had fettered her tongue from her birth, would creep over the rest of her
senses and over all her limbs, till she lay motionless and helpless
under the hand of the menhir, like a stone herself, only alive and
conscious. This dream had come more frequently since Paul had been away,
and Annette would often look up and down the road--that road which was
her only link with the world beyond--in the vague hope that it might one
day bring her some deliverance.
And now, as she stood listening to the galloping hoofs, she had an odd
feeling that Jean of Kerdual was threatening once more to render her
powerless, but that this time he would not prevail: for that something
was coming along the road, nearer--nearer--with every gallop, to free
her from him for ever. Then suddenly the sounds changed: the horseman
was ascending the hill on the other side, and the galloping grew
laboured and slower. Would he never come into sight? It seemed to
Annette that she could bear it no longer: she set off and ran along the
road and up the hill, to meet the unseen rider. The slow-thoughted,
simple-minded peasants looked after her, wondering. She had nearly
reached the top, when, silhouetted against the sky on the crest of the
hill, appeared the figure of a man on horse-back, his Breton tunic and
long hat-ribbons flying loose in the wind, as he reined in his chafing
steed. He rose a moment in his stirrups, pointed out to sea with his
whip, and shouted something inaudible: at the same instant his horse
shied violently, as it seemed, at some object by the roadside, and
threw his rider to the ground.
The man, the bringer of tidings, lay motionless in the road, the horse
galloped wildly on: the dumb girl stood, half way up the hill: the dumb
girl, who alone had heard the message. The next moment she threw her
arms convulsively above her head, turned towards the group below, and
cried in a loud, clear voice, "Le Géant brûle!"
The words fell on the ears of the listening crowd as if with an electric
shock. As they repeated them to each other with fear and amazement, and
scattered hither and thither to saddle a horse, or to catch the runaway
steed, that they might carry the news in time over the two miles that
lay between them and the harbour, the fact that the dumb had spoken,
seemed for the moment hardly noticed by them. For might not the
fishing-fleet even now be rounding the point, with darkness coming on,
and the misleading light burning on the giant rock to lure them to
destruction? A light which, as they knew too well, was not visible from
the harbour, and which might be shewing its fatal signal unguessed the
whole night through, unless as now, by favour of the saints, and
doubtless by the quick eyes of some fisherman of the neighbouring
village, who had chanced to be far enough out to sea at the time, it
were perceived before darkness should fall.
The girl turned back again, and went up to the top of the hill to tend
the fallen rider. The sun was sinking, and threw the shadow of the
menhir, enlarged to a monstrous size, across her path. A few yards
further on lay the senseless form of the Breton horseman, and it was
clear to Annette that Jean of Kerdual had purposely stayed the rider by
throwing the shadow across the road to startle his horse.
But a new exhilaration had taken possession of Annette's whole body and
mind. She feared the menhir no longer: its power over her was gone. She
kept repeating the words that had come to her at the crisis, the first
she had spoken articulately all her life, "Le Géant brûle--Le Géant
brûle," with a confidence in herself and the future, which was like new
wine to her. The fleet would come safe home now, and by her means: for
the Saints had helped her: the Saints were on her side.
PART II.
When Annette brought the fallen man (who was already recovering
consciousness when she reached him) safe back in the cart to the
auberge, she found a little crowd of peasants, men and women, gathered
there, talking loud and eagerly over the news, who looked at her with a
reverent curiosity as she entered. The injured man was assisted to a
bed, but none spoke to Annette: only silent, awe-struck glances were
turned on her: for they had gradually realized the fact that a voice had
been given to the dumb girl, and Annette's quiet, familiar presence had
become charged with mystery for them. They had no doubt that the
blessed St. Yvon, the patron saint of mariners, had himself uttered the
warning through her, at the moment when the safety of the fishing fleet
depended on a spoken word: and the miracle now occupied their attention
almost to the exclusion of the false lights and the return of the boats.
But Annette observed their whisperings and glances with a slight touch
of contempt: she knew that her own voice had been restored to her, and
that she was now like any of the other women in the village; which, in
her own simple presentment of things, must be interpreted as meaning
that she might look to have a husband and a home of her own. It was as
though she had for the first time become a real woman. She saddled the
horse and rode off to fetch a doctor to attend to the sick man, thinking
all the while that the fleet would be in before morning, that Paul would
come home, and that he would hear her voice. She made little childish
plans of pretending to be still dumb when she first saw him, so that she
might surprise him the more when she should speak.
Darkness was fast gathering now, but the old horse knew every stone in
the road: he carried her with his steady jog-trot safely enough over the
two miles that lay between the auberge and the fishing village where the
doctor lived, in a house overlooking the _rade_ and the harbour. As she
passed along, the dark quays were full of moving lights and figures;
active women with short skirts and sabots, mingling in the groups of
fishermen; while a buzz of harsh Breton speech resounded on all sides.
She caught words about a gang of wreckers that had lately infested the
coast: and the names of one or two "_mauvais sujets_" in the village,
who were supposed to be their confederates. She saw a moving light at
the mouth of the harbour, and from a low-breathed murmur that ran below
the noisier speech of the crowd, she gathered that it was a boat's crew
going out in the darkness, to scale the precipitous rock, and extinguish
the light.
All her faculties seemed quickened, and she kept repeating aloud to
herself the words she heard in the crowd, to make sure that she could
articulate as clearly as she had done in the first moment that her voice
was given to her.
When she arrived at the doctor's gate, and dismounted to pull the great
iron bell-rope that hung outside, she was trembling violently, and could
hardly steady her hands to tie up the horse. Jeanne, the cook's sister,
took her into the kitchen, while some one fetched the doctor, and she
was so anxious that her speech should seem plain to them, that for the
few first moments, from sheer nervousness, she could not utter a word.
Then the doctor entered, a tall, well-built man, with stiff, iron-grey
hair and imperial, and an expression of genial contentment with himself
and the rest of the world.
"Mais, Mademoiselle Annette," he exclaimed the moment he saw her, "What
are you doing then? You must return home and go to bed at once. Why did
you not send me word before, instead of putting it off till you got so
ill?"
He did not wait for her to reply, believing her to be speechless as
usual, but placed her in a chair and began to feel her pulse. She was
trying to speak all the time, but from excitement and a strange
dizziness that had come over her, she could not at once use her new
faculty. At last she got out the words, that it was not for herself she
had come; that a _fermier_ who had ridden fast from the village of St.
Jean, further up the coast, to bring the news of the false light on the
Géant, had been thrown from his horse--but before she had finished the
sentence, the doctor, still absorbed in the contemplation of her own
case, interrupted her, exclaiming with astonishment at her new power of
speech, and demanding to know by what means it had come, and how long
she had possessed it.
But to recall the experience of that moment on the hill, when at the
thought of the danger menacing the fishing boats, her tongue had been
loosened, and the unaccustomed words had come forth, was too much for
Annette. She trembled so, and made such painful efforts to speak, that
it seemed as though she were again losing the power of utterance; and
the doctor bade her remain perfectly quiet, gave her some soothing
medicine, and directed a bed to be prepared for her in the kitchen, as
he said she was not fit to return home that night: then he himself took
the old horse from the gate where he stood, and set off for the auberge
with what haste he might.
For three or four minutes after he was gone, Annette remained
motionless in her seat, wearing her patient, deprecatory expression,
while her eyes rested on the window, without apparently seeing the
lights and dimly outlined figures that were visible on the _rade_
outside. Then her glance seemed to concentrate itself on something: the
nervous, trembling lips closed rigidly, and before they saw what she was
about to do, she had risen from her chair, and darted from the room and
out into the night.
"Our Lady guard her! It was the boats she caught sight of," said
Victorine, the cook. "There are the lights off the bay. Go, stop her,
Jeanne! Monsieur will be angry with us if anything befall her."
"Dame! I will not go," said her sister. "Can you not see that Annette is
bewitched? If she must go, she must. I will have nought to do with it."
Victorine, however, scouted her younger sister's reasoning, and hurried
out across the small court-yard, through the gate and on to the road.
The whole village seemed gathered at the harbour-side; children and old
men, lads and women, eager, yet with the patient quietness that is the
way with the Breton folk. Here a demure group of white-coiffed girls
stood waiting with scarce a word passing among them, waiting at the
quay-side for the fathers, brothers, or sweethearts, that for months had
been facing the perils of the northern seas. There a dark-eyed,
loose-limbed Breton peasant, the wildness of whose look bewrayed the
gentleness of his nature, was arguing with a white-haired patriarch
about the probable value of this year's haul: while quaint-looking
children in little tight-fitting bonnets and clattering sabots clung
patiently to their mother's skirts, their mothers, who could remember
many a home-coming of the boats, and knew that it would be well if to
some of those now waiting at the harbour, grief were not brought instead
of joy.
The vanguard of the fleet had been sighted some half-hour ago, and the
two or three boats whose lights could now be seen approaching, one of
which was recognized as Paul Gignol's "Annette," would, if all was well,
anchor in the harbour that night: for the tide was high, so that the
harbour basin was full; and the light of the torches and lanterns that
were carried to and fro among the crowd, was reflected from its surface
in distorted and broken flashes; while the regular plashing of the water
against the quay-side accompanied the low murmur of the crowd.
Victorine sought in vain for Annette in the darkness, dressed, as she
was, like all the other peasant girls; but her eye lighted on the tall,
powerful figure of Jules Leroux, Annette's father, standing at the door
of the _bureau du port_, where he and some others were discussing the
signals.
Victorine approached the group, and announced in her emphatic way that
Annette was ill, very ill, and had gone out alone into the crowd, when
the doctor had bidden her not leave her bed. Jules, who had been down at
the harbour since midday, and had heard nothing of Annette's recovered
voice, or of her riding to the village, started off without waiting for
more, along the quay and on to the very end of the mole, where the light
guarded the entrance to the harbour, saying to himself, "It is there she
will be--if she have feet to carry her--it is there she will be--when
the boat comes in."
Victorine looked after him, murmuring, "Surely the child Annette is the
apple of her father's eye."
The outline of the foremost fishing-smack was growing more and more
distinct on the water, as he reached the end of the quay. Moving figures
on board flashed into uncertain light for a moment, then disappeared
into darkness again. A girl darted out from the crowd as he approached,
and clung to his arm. "Annette, my little one," said Jules, "never fear.
The Saints will bring him safe home."
"He is there: it is the 'Annette' that comes. I have seen him!" she
cried.
Her father drew back almost in alarm. "What! Thy tongue is loosened, my
child?"
She drew down his head, and whispered eagerly in his ear. "The blessed
St. Yvon made me speak. I will tell you afterwards: it was to save Paul.
Is it not true now that he is mine?"
At that moment a clamour of welcome ran along the quay-side, as the boat
glided silently through the harbour mouth, and into the light of the
torches that flashed from the quay.
Women's voices called upon Paul and his mate Jean, and the name of the
'Annette' (the vessel that had been christened after his foster-father's
dumb child) was passed from mouth to mouth, while the fishermen silently
got out the boat that was to carry the mooring cable to the shore.
Annette clung convulsively to her father during the few minutes' delay,
and once, as he saw the light flash on her face, he suddenly remembered
something Victorine had said about the doctor. He watched her with a
pang of alarm, and at the same time felt that she was stringing herself
up for some effort. Everyone was greeting Jean, the first of the boat's
crew that appeared, as he clambered up the quay-side, but Annette did
not stir; then the second dark, sea-beaten figure emerged from below,
and Annette darted forward. She clasped both Paul's hands and gazed into
his face, while she seemed to be struggling with herself for something a
spasm passed over her face, which was as white as her coiffe: her father
and the others gathered round, but some instinct bade them be silent.
Annette's lips opened more than once as if she were about to speak, but
no sound came forth: then she turned to her father with a look of
despairing entreaty, and at the same moment tottered and would have
fallen, had he not darted forward and caught her in his arms.
"She is dead! God help me," he cried.
"Chut! Chut!" said the voice of Victorine in the crowd. "It is but the
nerves. Did not you see she was striving to say the word of greeting,
and it was a cruel blow to find her speech had gone from her again.
Surely it is but a crisis of the nerves."
But Jules, bending his tangled beard over her, groaned "The hand of God
is heavy on me."
He and Paul raised her between them, and carried her to the doctor's,
stepping softly for fear of doing her a mischief: while the story of her
recovered speech, and the danger which had threatened the fleet, was
told to the returned fisherman in breathless, awe-struck accents. He
listened, full of wonder, and as he saw her safely tucked into her
box-bed in the doctor's kitchen, said in his light-hearted Celtic way,
that it was not for nothing she had got her voice back, and no fear but
she would soon be well, and would speak to him in the morning.
But her father, who sat watching her unconscious face, and holding her
hand in both his, as though he feared she would slip away from him,
shook his head and said, "She will not see another dawn."
They tried their utmost to restore her consciousness, but with that
ignorance of the simplest remedies which is sometimes found among the
Breton peasants, they had so far failed: and though someone had been
sent to fetch back the doctor from the auberge, Victorine and the other
women shook their heads, as Jules had done, and said to each other, "It
is in vain; she will never waken more."
But when the fainting fit had lasted nearly an hour, and in the wild
eyes of Paul, who stood leaning on the foot of the bed, a gleam of fear
was beginning to show itself; there was a stir in the lifeless form, a
struggle of the breath, a flicker of the eyelids: they opened, and a
glance, in which all Annette's pure and loving spirit seemed to shine
forth, fell direct on Paul's face at the end of the bed. She smiled
brightly, and said distinctly "Au revoir:" then turned on her side, and
died.
Jules and Paul, in their simple peasant fashion, went about seeing to
what had to be done before morning; but Annette's father spoke not a
word. Paul, to cheer him, told him of the wife he had wedded on the
other side of the sea, and who would come home to be a daughter to him:
and Jules nodded silently, without betraying a shadow of surprise:
having art enough, in the midst of his grief, to keep Annette's secret
loyally.
Along the straight, white road there came, in the early dawn, a little
silent procession: the silent road, that was ever bringing tidings, good
or evil, to the auberge: though now no white-coiffed girl with a patient
face was waiting at the door. All the road was deserted, for the
villagers were still asleep, as the little procession wound its way
along: wrapped in the same silence in which Annette's own young life had
been passed. A cart with a plain coffin in it, was drawn by the old
horse that had carried Annette to the harbour the night before, and who
stepped as though he knew what burden he was bringing: Paul led the
horse; and beside the cart, with his head bowed on his breast, walked
Annette's father.
After the funeral rites were over, the smooth current of existence by
the roadside and the harbour flowed on, apparently in complete oblivion
of the fragile blossom of a girl's life, that had appeared for a little
while on its surface, and then been swept away for ever.
[Illustration:]
THE HALTING STEP.
CHAPTER I.
On the Western coast of one of the islands in the Channel group is a
level reach of salt marshes, to which the sea rises only at the highest
spring tides, and which at other times extends as far as the eye can
see, a dreary waste of salt pools, low rocks, and stretches of sand,
yielding its meagre product of shell-fish, samphire, and sea-weed to the
patient toil of the fisher-folk that dwell in scattered huts along the
shore. One arm of the bay, at the time of which I am writing, extended
inland to the left, being nearly cut off from the sea by a rocky
headland, behind which it had spread itself, so as almost to present the
appearance of an isolated pond or lake, encircled by low black rocks,
within which the water rose and sank at regular intervals, as if under
the influence of some strange, unknown power. On the borders of the lake
stood a low, one-roomed cabin, such as the island fishermen in the
wilder districts inhabit; and in the plot of ground beside the cabin,
one September evening, in the mellow, westering light, a woman might
have been seen busying herself by tying up into bundles the sea-weed
that had been spread out to dry in the sun. She wore a shade bonnet with
a large projecting peak and an enveloping curtain round the neck, quite
concealing her face, as she bent over her work. Presently, although no
sound had been heard, she looked up, with that apparently intuitive
sense of what is happening at sea, which sea-folk seem to possess, and
perceived an orange-sailed fishing boat just rounding the headland and
making for the open sea. The face that appeared under the bonnet, as she
looked up, had the colourless and haggard look frequently seen among
fisher-women, and which is perhaps due to too much sea-air, added to
hard living. But one was prevented from noticing the rest of the face by
the expression of the two grey eyes, peering out from under the shade of
the bonnet-peak; they were eyes that seemed always expecting: they
seemed to have nothing to do with the pallid face, and the sea-weed, and
the hut: they belonged to a different life. As she looked out over the
sea, their glance was almost stern, as though demanding something which
the sea did not give. But she only remarked to herself, in the island
patois:--"I suppose the fish have gone over to the south-west again, and
he'll make a night of it. Mackerel is such an aggravating fish, one day
here, t'other there--you never know where you'll find them."
Presently, as it grew dark, she warmed up some herb-broth for her
supper, and when she had finished it, and had fastened up the dog and
the donkey, knowing that her husband would not return till the morning,
she put out the glimmering oil-lamp, and was just going to bed, when a
sound struck her ear. For two miles round the cabin not another
human-being lived, and it was the rarest thing for any one to come in
that direction after dark, as the rocks were slippery and dangerous, and
a solitary bit of open country had to be crossed between the cabin and
the nearest houses inland. Yet this sound was distinctly that of a human
footstep, which halted in its gait.
The woman started up and listened: there was silence for a minute: then
the limping step was heard again: again it ceased. The woman went to the
door and looked out. Over the sandy, wind-swept common to the left the
darkness brooded, the outlines of a broken bit of sea-wall, and of some
giant boulders, said to be remains of a dolmen, emerging dimly therefrom
like threatening phantoms; to the right moaned the long, grey sea, and
in front was the waste of salt marshes and rocks, with the windlass of a
ship once wrecked in the bay, projecting its huge outline among the
uncertain shadows. Not a living thing was visible. She stood for several
minutes peering out into the darkness and listening; no sound was to be
heard but the lapping of the waves, and the sigh of the wind through the
bent-grass on the common.
Suddenly Josef, the dog, started up in his corner, and barked. He was a
large mastiff, with a dangerous temper, who was chained up at night in
the rough lean-to that was built against the side of the cabin. He
barked again furiously, dragging at his chain with all his might, and
quivering in every nerve of his body. The woman lighted a torch at the
dying embers on the hearth, and unfastening the dog, waited to see what
would happen. He dashed forward furiously a few steps, then suddenly
stopped, sniffed the air, made one or two uncertain darts hither and
thither, and stood still, evidently puzzled. She called to him to
encourage him, but he dropped his tail and returned to his shed, where
he curled himself up in a comfortable corner, like a dog that was not
going to be troubled by womanish fancies. The woman went round the
cabin, and the pig-stye, and the patch of meagre gooseberry-bushes,
throwing the uncertain torch-light on every dark hole or corner; but no
one was to be seen. She was none the less convinced that someone had
approached the cottage, for the dog was not likely to have been deceived
as well as herself; so she kept the light burning, called Josef to lie
down at the foot of the bed, barred the door, and went to sleep.
The sun was high the next morning when the fisherman returned. He stood
in the stream of light in the open doorway, in his blue, knitted jersey
and jack-boots; and with the beaming smile which overspread his whole
countenance, and his big, powerful limbs, he might well have been taken
for an impersonation of the sun shining in his strength.
It was as great a pleasure to him to greet his Louise now, as it had
been in the days of their early courtship; for he had courted her twice,
his sunny boyhood's lovemaking having been overclouded by the advent of
a stranger from the mainland, who, with his smooth tongue and
new-fangled ways, had gained such an influence over Louise during a four
months' absence of Peter's on a fishing cruise, that she forgot her
first love, and wedded this new settler; who took her to the town a few
miles inland, where he carried on a retail fishmonger's business,
knowing but little of fishing himself, either deep-sea or along-shore.
But Providence had not blessed their union, for not a child had been
born to them, and after but three years of married life, when Fauchon,
the husband, was out one day in a fishing smack, which he had just
bought to carry on business for himself with men under him, the boat
capsized in a sudden squall, and neither he nor the two other men were
ever seen or heard of again. Then to Louise, in her sudden poverty and
despair (for all the savings had been put into the fishing smack) came
Peter once more, and with his frank, whole-hearted love, and his
strength and confidence, fairly carried her off her feet, making her
happy with or without her own consent, in such shelter and comfort as
his fisherman's home could supply. They had been married seven years
now, and had on the whole been happy together; and as she answered his
"Well, my child, how goes it with thee to-day?" her own face lighted up
with a reflection of the beam on his.
After she had heard of the haul of mackerel, and had got Peter his
breakfast, she stood with her arms akimbo looking at him, as he gulped
down his bouillon with huge satisfaction.
The expectant look had not left her eyes, as, fixing them upon his, she
said, "I had a fright last night, my friend."
"Hein! How was that?" said he, with the spoon in his mouth.
"I heard a step outside, and Josef heard it too and barked; and we went
all round with a torch, but there was nobody."
"Ho! ho!" cried Peter, with his hearty laugh, "she will always hear a
step, or the wing of a sea-swallow flying overhead, or perhaps a crab
crawling in the bay, if Peter is not at home to take care of her."
"But indeed," said Louise, "it is the truth I am telling thee: it was
the step of a man, and of one that halted in his gait."
"Did Josef hear it--this step that halted?"
"Yes, he barked till I set him free: then all in a moment he stopped,
and would not search."
"Pou-ouf," crowed Peter, in jovial scorn. "Surely it was Josef
that was the wisest." Then, as she still seemed unsatisfied, he
added, "May-be 'twas the water in the smuggler's cave. Many's
the time that I've thought somebody was coming along, sort of
limping--cluck--chu--cluck--chu--when the tide was half-way up in the
cave over there. And the wind was blowing west last night: 'tis with a
west wind it sounds the plainest."
"May-be 'twas that, my friend," said the woman, taking up the pail to
fetch the water from the well across the common. But she kept looking
around her, with a half-frightened, half-expectant glance, all the way.
CHAPTER II.
For several days the halting step was not heard again, and Louise had
nearly forgotten her fright, when one morning, about six o'clock, when
Peter was out getting up his lobster pots, Louise, with her head still
buried in the bed-clothes, suddenly heard--or thought she heard--the
sound again. She started up and listened: there could be no doubt about
it; someone was approaching the cottage at the back--some one who was
lame. She hurried on some clothes and looked out of the door (the cabin
had no window). In the glittering morning light, the expanse of level
shore and common was as desolate as ever. She turned the corner of the
cottage to the left, where Jenny and the pigs were. There was no one
there; then she went round to the right, and, as she did so, distinctly
perceived a shadow vanishing swiftly round the corner of the stack of
sea-weed. She uttered a cry, and for a moment seemed like one paralysed;
then moved forward hastily a few steps; stopped again, listening with a
strange expression on her countenance to the sound of the limp, as it
grew fainter and fainter; then advanced, as if unwillingly, to the back
of the cottage, whence no one was visible. A corner of rock, round which
wound the path that ascended to the top of the cliff, projected at no
great distance from the cottage. She stood and looked at the rock, half
as if it were a threatening, monster, half as if it were the door of
hope: then she went slowly back to the cottage.
She did not tell Peter this time about the step.
A week or two afterwards, when Peter Girard was returning from the rocks
with a basketful of crabs, he was joined on the way by his mate,
Mesurier.
The two fishermen trudged along in silence for some time, one a little
in front of the other, after the manner of their kind; then Mesurier
remarked, "We shall be wanting some new line before we go out for
mackerel again." (Mackerel are caught by lines in those parts, where the
sea-bottom is too rocky for trawling).
Peter turned round and stood still to consider the question.
"I've got some strands knotted, if you and I set to work we can plait it
before night."
"I must go up to Jean's for some bait first; there won't be more than
three hours left before dark, and how are we to get it done in that
time? I'd better get some in the village when I'm up there."
"Hout, man! pay eight shillings for a line," said the economical Peter,
"and a pound of horsehair will make six. I'll send Louise for the bait,
and you come along with me--we'll soon reckon out the plait."
Mesurier, a thick-set, vigorous-looking man, shorter than Peter, stood
still a moment, looking at him rather queerly out of his keen, grey
eyes.
"Been up to Jean's much of late?" he asked, trudging on again.
"No, not I," said Peter. "Hangin' round in the village isn't much after
my mind."
"Best send Louise instead, hey?"
Peter wheeled his huge frame round in a moment.
"What do you mean, man?" he demanded, in a voice that seemed to come
from his feet.
Mesurier's face was devoid of expression, as he replied, "Nothing, to be
sure. Of course Louise will be going to the shop now and again."
Peter laid his hand, like a lion's paw, on Mesurier's shoulder, as if he
would rend the truth out of him.
"And what's the matter with her going to the shop?" said Peter, so
rapidly and thickly as to be hardly articulate.
"None that I know of," said the other uneasily, shrugging off Peter's
hand, with an attempted laugh.
"Now you understand," said Peter, with blazing eyes, "you've either got
to swear that you've heard nothing at all about Louise which you
oughtn't to have heard, or else you'll tell me who said it, and let him
know he's got me to reckon with," and Peter clenched his fist in a way
that would have made most people swear whatever he might have happened
to wish.
"Well, mate," said the other man. "You go and see Jean, and ask him what
company he's had of late." Then seeing Peter's face becoming livid, he
added briefly, "There's been a queer-looking fish staying with him the
last three weeks--walks all on one side--and Louise was talking to him
t'other evening under the church wall. 'Twas my wife saw her. That's the
truth. Nobody else has said nought about her."
Peter swung round without a word, and marched off in the direction of
the village. Mesurier watched him a moment, then called after him, "I
say, mate! mind what you're doing: the man's a poor blighted creature,
more like a monkey than a Christian."
Peter said something in his throat while he handed the crabs to
Mesurier: his hand shook so violently as he did so that the basket
nearly fell to the ground. Then he strode on again. Mesurier had glanced
at his face, and did not follow.
It took Peter less than an hour, at the pace at which he was walking,
to reach the next village along the coast where Jean lived. The mellow
afternoon sunshine was lighting up the cottage wall, and the long strip
of gaily flowering garden, as he approached. He entered the front room,
which was fitted up as a sort of shop, in which fishermen's requisites
were sold. There was no one there. He pushed the door open into the
inner room: it was also empty. He felt as if he could not breathe within
the cottage walls, and went out again. The cliff overhung the sea a few
yards in front of the cottage. He went to the edge and was scanning the
shore for a sign of Jean, when below, on a narrow, zigzag path which led
down the cliff to the beach, he perceived his wife. She stood at a turn
in the path, looking downwards. There was something about her that to
Peter made her seem different from what she had ever seemed before. He
looked at Louise, and he saw a woman with a shadow of guilt upon her.
The path below her was concealed from Peter's sight by an over-hanging
piece of rock, but she seemed to be watching someone coming slowing up
it. Then she glanced fearfully round, and saw Peter standing on the top
of the cliff. She made a hasty sign to the person below, but already a
man's hand leaning on a stick was visible beyond the edge of the rock.
Peter strode straight down the face of the cliff to the turning in the
path. Louise screamed. Peter seized by the collar a puny, crooked
creature, whom he scarcely stopped to look at, and held him, as one
might a cat, over the cliff-side.
"Swear you'll quit the island to-night, or I'll drop you," he thundered.
The creature merely screamed for mercy, and seemed unable to articulate
a sentence; while Louise knelt, clasping Peter's knees in an agony of
entreaty. Meanwhile, the screaming ceased; the creature had fainted in
Peter's grasp. He flung him down on the path, said sternly to Louise,
"Come with me," and they went up the cliff-side together.
They walked home without a word, Louise crying and moaning a little, but
not daring to speak. When they got inside the cabin, he stood and faced
her.
"Woman," he said, in a low, shaken voice, "What hast thou done?"
She fell upon her knees, crying. "Forgive me, Peter," she entreated.
"Thou art such a strong man; forgive me."
"Tell me the whole truth. What is this man to thee?"
She knelt in silence, shaken with sobs.
"Who is he?" said Peter, his voice getting deeper and hoarser.
She only kept moaning, "Forgive me." Presently she said between her
sobs, "I only went this morning to tell him to go away. I wanted him to
go away; I have prayed him to go again and again."
"Since when hast thou known him?"
Again she made no answer, but inarticulate moans.
Peter stood looking at her for a few seconds with an indescribable
expression of sorrow and aversion.
"I loved thee," he said; and turning away, left her.
CHAPTER III.
Peter went out in the evening without speaking to Louise again, and was
not seen till the following afternoon, when he called his mate to go
mackerel-fishing, and they were absent two days getting a great haul. He
came back and slept at Mesurier's, and did not go near his own home for
a week, though he sent money to Louise, when he sold the fish.
At the end of that time he went over to Jean's. The stranger had gone,
but Peter sat down on a stool opposite Jean, and began to enter into
conversation with him, with a more settled look in his hollow eyes than
had been there since the catastrophe of the week before. The meeting on
the cliff had been seen by more than one passerby, and the report had
spread that Peter had nearly murdered the stranger for intriguing with
his wife. Jean told Peter all he knew of the man, but he neither knew
his business nor whence he came. He said his name was Jacques, and would
give no other. He had gone to the nearest inland town, where he said
that a relation of his kept an "auberge." He had gone in a hurry, and
had left some bottles and things behind, containing the stuff he rubbed
his leg with, Jean thought; and Jean meant to take them to him when next
he went to the town.
"By the way," he said, taking a little book from the shelf, "I believe
this belonged to him too. I remember to have seen him more than once
poring over it with them close-seeing eyes of his. The man was a rare
scholar, and no mistake."
Peter took the little book from him, and opened it. Jean, glancing at
him as he did so, uttered an exclamation. A deadly paleness had
overspread Peter's face, and he clutched with his hand in the air, as
though for something to steady himself with. Then he staggered to his
feet, still tightly grasping the little book, and saying something
unintelligible, went out.
He went down the cliff to the place where, a week ago, he had found his
wife and the stranger, and stood under the rock, and looked at the book.
He looked at it still closed in his hand, as if it were some venomous
creature, which might, the next moment, dart forth a poisoned fang to
sting him. From the cover it appeared to be a little, much-worn
prayer-book. Presently he opened it gingerly, and read something written
on the fly-leaf. He spelled it out with some difficulty and slowly, and
yet he looked at it as if the page were a familiar vision to him. Then
he remained immovable for a long time, gazing out to sea, with the
little book crunched to a shapeless mass in his huge fist. When at last
he turned to ascend the cliff again, his face was ashen pale, and his
step was that of an old man. He trudged heavily across the common and
along the road inland, five or six miles, till he reached the town,
inquired for a certain auberge, entered the kitchen, and found himself
face to face with the man he sought. A spasm of fear passed swiftly over
the face of Jacques, as he beheld Peter, and he instinctively started up
from the bench on which he was sitting, and shrank backwards. As he did
so, he showed himself a disfigured paralytic, one side of his face being
partly drawn, and one leg crooked. He was an undersized man, with sandy
hair, quick, intelligent, grey eyes, and a well-cut profile.
"Jacques Fauchon," said Peter, "have no fear of me."
Jacques kept his eyes on him, still distrustfully.
"I did not know," continued Peter, speaking thickly and slowly, "the
other day, what I know now. I had never seen you but once--and you have
changed."
"It is not my wish to cause trouble," said Jacques, still glancing
furtively round. "Things being as they are, to my thinking, there's
nought for it but to let 'em be."
"I have not said yet," said Peter, "what it is I've come to say. This
little prayer-book with her name writ in it, and yours below,--'tis the
one she always took to church, as a girl--has shown me the path I've got
to take. How you came back from the dead, I don't know: 'twas the hand
of the Lord. But here you are, and you are her husband, and not I." He
stopped.
"Well, Mr. Girard, I know my legal rights," began Jacques, "but
considering--and I've no wish to cause unpleasantness, of that you may
be sure. 'Tis why I never wrote, not knowing how the land might lie, and
for four years I was helpless on my back."
"Never mind the past, man," interrupted Peter, "It's the future that's
to be thought of. What you've got to do is to take her away to a
distance, and settle in some place where nobody knows what's gone by."
Fauchon considered for a moment, a slight, deprecatory smile stealing
over his face.
"I suppose," he remarked, "she hasn't got any little purse of her own by
this time; considering, I mean, that she's been of use with the lines
and the nets and so on."
"Do you mean," said Peter, "that you can't support her?"
"Well, you see, I worked my passage from New Zealand as cook--that's
what I waited so long for. If she could pay her passage, the same
captain would take us again, when he starts to go back next week. And if
she had a little in hand, when we got there, we could set up a store,
may-be, and make shift to get on. I only thought, may-be, she having
been of use--"
"I'll sell the cottage and the bits of things," said Peter, "and there's
a trifle put by to add to it. But tell me this; when you're out there,
can you support her, or can't you?"
"Well, there's Mr. Boucher, that took me on as house-servant at first in
New Zealand, he being in the sailing ship when I was picked up. And when
the paralytics came on, resulting from the injury I got in the wreck, he
never let me want for nothing, the four years that I lay helpless. He's
got money to spare, you see"--with a wink--"he's well off, and he's what
I call easy-going; and if we could manage to get the right side of
him"--with another wink--"I reckon he'd help us a bit."
"Man," said Peter, letting his hand fall heavily on Fauchon's shoulder,
"tell me plain that you've got honest work as'll feed and clothe her out
there, else, by God, you shan't have her!" and his grip on Fauchon's
shoulder tightened, so that a flash of terror passed over the man's
face, and he tried to edge away, saying deprecatingly, "I've no wish,
Mr. Girard, you understand--I've no wish to offend. In fact, my whole
intention was not to cause any trouble. On my honour, I was going to
leave the island to-morrow, when I found how things were--'tis the truth
I speak."
"You are her husband," said Peter, "and she loves you, and she shall go
with you. But if you let her want, God do so unto you, and more also!"
And he let go of him, and strode away again.
When he got back it was dark, and he stood at his cottage door and
looked in. Louise was sitting by the hearth, with her back to him, and
her hands in her lap, rocking herself gently on her stool, and gazing
into the glowing ash on the hearthstone. Opposite, on the other side of
the hearth, Peter's own stool stood empty, and on the shelf beside it
were the two yellow porringers, out of which he and Louise used always
to sup together. His jersey, the one she had knitted for him when they
were married, hung in the corner, with the bright blue patch in it, that
she had been mending it with the last time he was at home. Louise was so
absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear his approach, and
stepping softly, he passed in and stood before her; she started back,
and immediately began to whimper a little, putting up her hands to her
face.
"Louise," said Peter, "wilt thou forgive me?"
She looked up perplexed, only half believing what she heard.
"I know everything. I have seen Jacques. I was harsh to thee, mon
enfant."
"I meant no harm," said Louise. "I begged him not to come. I knew thou
wouldest be angered."
"I am not angered. He is thy husband."
She glanced up with an irrepressible start of eagerness.
"Thou meanest--" Her very desire seemed to take away her speech.
Peter laid his hand on her wrist, as gently as a woman.
"Louise," he said, "thou lovest him?"
She gazed at him in silence; the piercing question in her eyes her only
answer.
"Thou shalt go with him," he said. "I only came to say goodbye."
He went to the door: then stood and looked back, with a world of
yearning and tenderness in his face. He stretched out his arms. "Kiss
me, Louise," he said.
She rose, still half frightened, and kissed him as she was told.
He held her tightly in his arms for a minute, then put her silently from
him, and turned away.
Peter was not seen in those parts again. It was understood that he and
his wife had emigrated to New Zealand, and the cottage was sold, and the
furniture and things dispersed.
In a fishing village on the coast of Brittany, there appeared, not long
afterwards, a tall Englishman, speaking the Channel Island patois, who
settled down to make a home among the Breton folk, adopting their ways
and language, and eking out, like them, a livelihood by hard toil early
and late among the rocks and sand-banks, or by long months of fishing on
the high seas; a man on whom the simple-minded villagers looked with a
certain respect, mingled with awe, as on one who seemed to them marked
out by heaven for some special fate; who lived alone in his cottage,
attending to his own wants, no woman being ever allowed to enter it; and
about whose past nothing was known, and no one dared to ask.
[Illustration;]
TABITHA'S AUNT.
From the very hour that Tabitha set foot in my house, I conceived a
dislike for her Aunt. In the first place I did not see why she should
have an Aunt. Tabitha was going to belong to me: and why an old, invalid
lady, whose sons were scattered over the face of the earth, and who had
never had a daughter of her own: who had been clever enough to discover
a distant relationship to Tabitha, and had promptly matured a plan by
which Tabitha was to remain always with her; to take the vacant chair
opposite and pour out tea, and be coddled and kissed and looked
after--why she might not have Tabitha herself for her whole and sole
property, I could not understand. But this Aunt was always turning up:
not visibly, I mean, but in conversation. I could never say which way I
liked Tabitha's veil to be fastened but I was told Aunt Rennie's opinion
on the matter--(Tabitha always absurdly shortened her Aunt's surname,
which was Rensworth). I never could mention a book I liked but Aunt
Rennie had either read it or not read it. It did not matter which to me,
the least. But the climax came when Aunt Rennie sent Tabitha a bicycle.
Now I know that young women bicycle nowadays; but that is no reason why
Tabitha should. I always turn away my eyes when I see a young girl pass
the window on one of those ugly, muddy, dangerous machines, with her
knees working like pumps, her skirt I don't know where, and an
expression of self-satisfied determination on her face. I don't think I
am old-fashioned, but I am sure my own dear little girl, if she had ever
come to me, would not have bicycled; and though I had no wish to put any
unfair restraint on Tabitha, still I did not want her to have a bicycle.
And that this Aunt Rennie, as Tabitha would call her, without a word of
warning, should send her one of those hideous things, as if it was _her_
business to arrange for Tabitha's exercise--I do think it was rather
uncalled for.
When Tabitha came into the room to tell me about it, with that bright,
affectionate smile she has, and her dear, plain, pale face--only that
nobody would think her plain who knew her, for everybody loves her--she
saw quickly enough that I did not like it: and then she was so sweet,
looking so disappointed, and yet ready to give up the horrid thing if I
wished, that I hardly knew what to do. Tabitha works on one in a way
that I believe nobody else can. She has such a generous, warm heart, and
is so responsive, and so quick to understand, and then she is so easily
pleased, and so free from self-consciousness, you seem to know her all
at once, and you feel as if it would be wicked to hurt her. So I don't
know how it was exactly, but I began to give in about the bicycle;
though I could not help mentioning that it was rather unnecessary for
Aunt Rennie to have taken the trouble: for Tabitha might have told me if
she wanted a bicycle so much. And Tabitha said that Aunt Rennie thought
bicycling was good for her, and, when she lived with her, a year ago,
her Aunt used to take her on her tours round the villages, distributing,
what she called "political literature." This did make me shudder, I
confess. Fancy Tabitha turning into one of those canvassing women, with
their uncivilised energy, their irritating superiority, and their entire
want of decent respect for you and your own opinions! I knew that Aunt
Rennie belonged to a Woman Suffrage Committee, but I did think she had
left the child uncontaminated. It made me more thankful than ever that I
had rescued her from the hands of such a person. However, as you see, I
could not refuse to let Tabitha ride that bicycle; but I always knew
that harm would come of it.
And it came just in the way of which my inner consciousness had warned
me. Now, of course, I never really expected to have Tabitha with me all
her life: but I did want just for a little while to make-believe, as it
were, that I had a daughter, and to feel as if she were happy and
content with me. So it was rather hard that such a thing should happen,
only the second time that she went out on that hideous machine. I can
see her telling me about it now, kneeling down in her affectionate way
by my sofa, all flushed and dishevelled after her ride, and with quite a
new expression on her face. It seemed that she had punctured her
bicycle (whatever that means) and could not get on: and then an "awfully
nice man" (she will use the modern slang; in my days we should merely
have said "a gentleman") came up with his tools and things, and put it
right for her: and ended by claiming acquaintance and proposing to call,
"Because, Mammy dear," said Tabitha, "isn't it funny, but he knows Aunt
Rennie!"
Now, kind reader, I must confess that this was a little too much for me.
To have Aunt Rennie (in spirit) perpetually between me and Tabitha was
bad enough: to have her demoralising Tabitha by sending her bicycles was
still worse: but to have her introducing, (I had nearly said intruding)
young men into the privacy of my home, and into dangerous proximity with
Tabitha was, for a moment, more than I could stand.
"Well, my child," said I, "No doubt Miss Rensworth and her friends were
more amusing than your poor sick Mammy. I suppose it was selfish of me
to want to have you all to myself. If you would like to go back to your
Aunt Rennie again, dear child." I added, "you have only to say so."
What Tabitha said in reply I shall never forget; but neither, friendly
reader, shall I tell it to you. So you must be content with knowing that
we were friends again; and that the end of it was that I gave in about
John Chambers--as his name turned out to be--just as I had given in
about the bicycle.
He came in just as we were having tea the next day, and the worst of it
was, I had to admit at once that he _was_ nice. Of course this proved
nothing in regard to Aunt Rennie and her friends: and it was just as
unreasonable that I should be expected to receive whoever happened to
know her, as if he had turned out to be vulgar or odious. But, as it
was, he introduced himself in a sensible, straightforward way, looked
one straight in the face when he spoke, had a deep, hearty laugh that
sounded manly and true, and evidently entertained the friendliest
sentiments for Tabitha.
Well, as you will imagine, kind reader, that tea was not the last he had
with us. He fell into our ways with delightful readiness; indeed, he was
rather "old-fashioned," as I call it. He would pour out my second cup of
tea, if Tabitha happened to be out of the room, as nicely as she herself
could have done, carefully washing the tea-leaves out of the cup first;
and he would tell Tabitha if a piece of braid were hanging down from her
skirt, when they were going bicycling together. We got quite used to
being kept in order by him in all kinds of little ways, and he grew to
be so associated with the idea of Tabitha in my mind, that my affection
for her became in a sort of way an affection for them both. The only
thing was that, as the months went on, I began to wonder why more did
not come of it. Sometimes I fancied I noted a reflection of my own
perplexed doubts crossing Tabitha's sweet, expressive face, and I
questioned within myself whether I ought (like the fathers in books) to
ask the young man about his "intentions," and imply that he could not
expect an unlimited supply of my cups of tea, unless they were made
clear: but I think that my own delicacy as well as common sense
prevented my taking such a course, and things were still _in statu quo_,
when one morning, as I was peacefully mending Tabitha's gloves (she
_will_ go out with holes in them) a ring at the front door bell was
followed by the advance of someone in rustling silk garments up the
stairs: the drawing-room door was opened, and there appeared a
young-looking, fair lady, who advanced brightly to greet me, with a
finished society manner, and an expression in her kind, blue eyes of
unmixed pleasure at the meeting. The name murmured at the door had not
reached my ears, and I was still wondering which of my child-friends had
developed into this charming and fashionable young lady, when Tabitha
burst into the room, flung her arms round the new-comer's neck, and
exclaimed, "You darling, who would have expected you to turn up so
charmingly, just when we didn't expect you!"
The light slowly dawned on my amazed intelligence. Could _this_--_this_
be the formidable, grey-haired woman, with whom I had been expecting,
and somewhat dreading, sooner or later, an encounter? Could _this_ be
the spectacled Committee-woman--the rampant bicyclist--the corrupter of
the youth of Tabitha? I looked at her immaculate dress, and pretty, neat
hair; I noted the winning expression of her eyes, and her sweetness of
manner; and instead of entrenching myself in the firm, though unspoken
hostility, which I had secretly cherished towards the idea of Aunt
Rennie, I felt myself yielding to the charm of a personality, whose
richness and sweetness were to me like a new experience of life.
I thought I had grasped the outlines of that personality in the first
interview, as we often do on forming a new acquaintance; but surprises
were yet in store for me. Aunt Rennie needed but little pressing to stay
the night, and then to add a second and a third day to her visit: she
was staying with some friends in the neighbourhood, and, it appeared,
could easily transfer herself to us. And as the time went on, I began to
feel that she had some secondary object in coming and in staying: I
thought I perceived a kind of diplomatic worldliness in Aunt Rennie,
which jarred with my first impression of her. I felt sure that her
purpose was in some way connected with Tabitha and John. She had, of
course, heard of Tabitha's friendship for him from her own letters, and
John she had known before we did. Well, it was on the fourth day that
Aunt Rennie, sitting cosily beside me, startled me by suddenly and
lightly remarking, that if I would consent, she wished to take Tabitha
back with her, at any rate for a time, to her home in the South of
England; she was almost necessary to her in her work at the present
juncture: no one could act as her Secretary so efficiently as Tabitha
could.
"Besides, to tell you a little secret," she added, with a charming air
of confidence and humour, "there is someone besides me that wants
Tabitha back: there is an excellent prospect for her, if she could only
turn her thoughts in that direction. You have heard of Horace Wetherell,
my second cousin--a rising barrister? Ah, well, a little bird has
whispered things to me. His prospects are now very different from what
they were when she was with me before, or I don't think she would ever
have come to you, to say the truth! We must not let her get involved in
anything doubtful. As you know, I have been acquainted with this John
Chambers and his family all my life. He is a good fellow enough, but
will never set the Thames on fire. She is exactly suited to my cousin,
who is a man of the highest and noblest character, and could not fail to
make her happy. It is only to take her away for a time, and I feel sure
all will be well. I knew, my dear friend, that a word to you was enough,
for Tabitha's sake: and so we will settle it between us."
I said little in reply, for I was suffering keenly. I felt as if this
fair, clever woman had struck a deliberate blow at my happiness, and in
a way to leave me resistless. I could not deny that it might be for
Tabitha's good to go away. Certainly John was poor, and in fact I had
thought lately that that might be the reason the engagement was delayed.
Tabitha was only twenty-two, and she might change her mind. I murmured
that I would leave it to Tabitha to decide; and as Aunt Rennie turned
away, I remember thinking that she was rather young to decide another
woman's destiny in such a matter. She was only six years older than
Tabitha.
* * * * *
Tabitha often says that she owes her present happiness to Aunt Rennie,
for if it had not been for the misery of the approaching separation,
John, oppressed by the sense of his poverty and humble prospects, would
never have had courage to tell her of his love. And I have sometimes
amused myself by reflecting how Aunt Rennie's shrewdness, intelligence
and determination, instead of working out her own ends, were all the
time furthering the thing that was most opposed to her wishes.
When, after those few days that followed--days for me of heart-breaking
conflict of feeling, and for my two children of tears, silent misery and
struggling passion, culminating at last, when the storm burst, in
complete mutual understanding, and a joint determination that carried
all before it--when, I say, Aunt Rennie, defeated, prepared to take her
leave, she said a word to me which I often thought of afterwards. "She
is choosing blindfold, tinsel for gold." I thought of it, not on account
of the expression, but of Aunt Rennie herself. There was something in
the pallor of her face, and in her tone, that made me ask myself whether
there could be anything in this matter that concerned Aunt Rennie
herself more closely than we thought--and, for the moment, a new and
motherly feeling rose up in my heart towards her.
Well, she has left me my two children, and though John is only "in
business," and they live on three hundred a year, they are very happy,
and I am happy in their happiness.
It was a year after their marriage, that the news came that Aunt Rennie
was engaged to be married to her cousin. Horace Wetherell. And, as I
pondered on it. I doubted whether I had, after all, quite understood the
nobility of Aunt Rennie's character.
Horace Wetherell has become an M.P., and he and his wife write books
together on social problems.
Poor John will never be an M.P., but I am glad that Tabitha loved him.
[Illustration:]