Yet looking back upon that time, now it is past, and has "rounded itself
into that perfect star I saw not when I dwelt therein," it would be
untrue to represent myself as in any way unhappy. At times I wished
earnestly that I had been born among these people, and could live
forever among them.
By degrees I discovered that Tardif led a somewhat solitary life
himself, even in this solitary island, with its scanty population. There
was an ugly church standing in as central and prominent a situation as
possible, but Tardif and his mother did not frequent it. They belonged
to a little knot of dissenters, who met for worship in a small room,
when Tardif generally took the lead. For this reason a sort of coldness
existed between him and the larger portion of his fellow-islanders. But
there was a second and more important cause for a slight estrangement.
He had married an Englishwoman many years ago, much to the astonishment
and disappointment of his neighbors; and since her death he had held
himself aloof from all the good women who would have been glad enough to
undertake the task of consoling him for her loss. Tardif, therefore, was
left very much to himself in his isolated cottage, and his mother's
deafness caused her also to be no very great favorite with any of the
gossips of the island. It was so difficult to make her understand any
thing that could not be expressed by signs, that no one except her son
attempted to tell her the small topics of the day.
All this told upon me, and my standing among them. At first I met a few
curious glances as I roamed about the island; but my dress was as poor
and plain as any of theirs, and I suppose there was nothing in my
appearance, setting aside my dress, which could attract them. I learned
afterward that Tardif had told those who asked him that my name was
Ollivier, and they jumped to the conclusion that I belonged to a family
of that name in Guernsey; this shielded me from the curiosity that might
otherwise have been troublesome and dangerous. I was nobody but a poor
young woman from Guernsey, who was lodging in the spare room of Tardif's
cottage.
I set myself to grow used to their mode of life, and if possible to
become so useful to them that, when my money was all spent, they might
be willing to keep me with them; for I shrank from the thought of the
time when I must be thrust out of this nest, lonely and silent as it
was. As the long, dismal nights of winter set in, with the wind sweeping
across the island for several days together with a dreary, monotonous
moan which never ceased, I generally sat by their fire, for I had nobody
but Tardif to talk to; and now and then there arose an urgent need
within me to listen to some friendly voice, and to hear my own speaking
in reply. There were only two books in the house, the Bible and the
"Pilgrim's Progress," both of them in French; and I had not learned
French beyond the few phrases necessary for travelling. But Tardif began
to teach me that, and also to mend fishing-nets, which I persevered in,
though the twine cut my fingers. Could I by any means make myself useful
to them?
As the spring came on, half my dullness vanished. Sark was more
beautiful in its cliff scenery than any thing I had ever seen, or could
have imagined. Why cannot I describe it to you? I have but to close my
eyes, and my memory paints it for me in my brain, with its innumerable
islets engirdling it, as if to ward off its busy, indefatigable enemy,
the sea. The long, sunken reefs, lying below the water at high tide, but
at the ebb stretching like fortifications about it, as if to make of it
a sure stronghold in the sea. The strange architecture and carving of
the rocks, with faces and crowned heads but half obliterated upon them;
the lofty arches, with columns of fretwork bearing them; the pinnacles,
and sharp spires; the fallen masses heaped against the base of the
cliffs, covered with seaweed, and worn out of all form, yet looking like
the fragments of some great temple, with its treasures of sculpture; and
about them all the clear, lucid water swelling and tossing, throwing
over them sparkling sheets of foam. And the brilliant tone of the golden
and saffron lichens, and the delicate tint of the gray and silvery ones,
stealing about the bosses and angles and curves of the rocks, as if the
rain and the wind and the frost had spent their whole power there to
produce artistic effects. I say my memory paints it again for me; but it
is only a memory, a shadow that my mind sees; and how can I describe to
you a shadow? When words are but phantoms themselves, how can I use them
to set forth a phantom?
Whenever the grandeur of the cliffs had wearied me, as one grows weary
sometimes of too long and too close a study of what is great, there was
a little, enclosed, quiet graveyard that lay in the very lap of the
island, where I could go for rest. It was a small patch of ground, a
God's acre, shut in on every side by high hedge-rows, which hid every
view from sight except that of the heavens brooding over it. Nothing was
to be seen but the long mossy mounds above the dead, and the great,
warm, sunny dome rising above them. Even the church was not there, for
it was built in another spot, and had a few graves of its own scattered
about it.
I was sitting there one evening in the early spring, after the sun had
dipped below the line of the high hedge-row, though it was still shining
in level rays through it. No sound had disturbed the deep silence for a
long time, except the twittering of birds among the branches; for up
here even the sea could not be heard when it was calm. I suppose my face
was sad, as most human faces are apt to be when the spirit is busy in
its citadel, and has left the outworks of the eyes and mouth to
themselves. So I was sitting quiet, with my hands clasped about my
knees, and my face bent down, when a grave, low voice at my side
startled me back to consciousness. Tardif was standing beside me, and
looking down upon me with a world of watchful anxiety in his deep eyes.
"You are sad, mam'zelle," he said; "too sad for one so young as you
are."
"Oh! everybody is sad, Tardif," I answered; "there is a great deal of
trouble for every one in this world. You are often very sad indeed."
"Ah! but I have a cause," he said. "Mam'zelle does not know that she is
sitting on the grave of my little wife."
He knelt down beside it as he spoke, and laid his hand gently on the
green turf. I would have risen, but he would not let me.
"No," he said, "sit still, mam'zelle. Yes, you would have loved her,
poor little soul! She was an Englishwoman, like you, only not a lady; a
pretty little English girl, so little I could carry her like a baby.
None of my people took to her, and she was very lonely, like you again;
and she pined and faded away, just quietly, never saying one word
against them. No, no, mam'zelle, I like to see you here. This is a
favorite place with you, and it gives me pleasure. I ask myself a
hundred times a day, 'Is there any thing I can do to make my young lady
happy? Tell me what I can do more than I have done."
"There is nothing, Tardif," I answered, "nothing whatever. If you see me
sad sometimes, take no notice of it, for you can do no more for me than
you are doing. As it is, you are almost the only friend, perhaps the
only true friend, I have in the world."
"May God be true to me only as I am true to you!" he said, solemnly,
while his dark skin flushed and his eyes kindled. I looked at him
closely. A more honest face one could never see, and his keen blue eyes
met my gaze steadfastly. Heavy-hearted as I was just then, I could not
help but smile, and all his face brightened, as the sea at its dullest
brightens suddenly tinder a stray gleam of sunshine. Without another
word we both rose to our feet, and stood side by side for a minute,
looking down on the little grave beneath us. I would have gladly changed
places then with the lonely English girl, who had pined away in this
remote island.
After that short, silent pause, we went slowly homeward along the quiet,
almost solitary lanes. Twice we met a fisherman, with his creel and nets
across his shoulders, who bade us good-night; but no one else crossed
our path.
It was a profound monotony, a seclusion I should not have had courage to
face wittingly. But I had been led into it, and I dared not quit it. How
long was it to last?