By this time you know that I could not ride along the flat, open shore
between St. Peter-Port and the Vale without having a good sight of Sark,
though it lay just a little behind me. It was not in human nature to
turn my back doggedly upon it. I had never seen it look nearer; the
channel between us scarcely seemed a mile across. The old windmill above
the Havre Gosselin stood out plainly. I almost fancied that but for
Breckhou I could have seen Tardif's house, where my darling was living.
My heart leaped at the mere thought of it. Then I shook Madam's bridle
about her neck, and she carried me on at a sharp canter toward Captain
Carey's residence.
I saw Julia standing at a window up-stairs, gazing down the long white
road, which runs as straight as an arrow through the Braye du Valle to
L'Ancresse Common.
She must have seen Madam and me half a mile away; but she kept her post
motionless as a sentinel, until I jumped down to open the gate. Then she
vanished.
The servant-man was at the door by the time I reached it, and Johanna
herself was on the threshold, with her hands outstretched and her face
radiant. I was as welcome as the prodigal son, and she was ready to fall
on my neck and kiss me.
"I felt sure of you," she said, in a low voice. "I trusted to your good
sense and honor, and they have not failed you. Thank God you are come!
Julia has neither ate nor slept since I brought her here."
She led me to her own private sitting-room, where I found Julia standing
by the fireplace, and leaning against it, as if she could not stand
alone. When I went up to her and took her hand, she flung her arms round
my neck, and clung to me, in a passion of tears. It was some minutes
before she could recover her self-command. I had never seen her abandon
herself to such a paroxysm before.
"Julia, my poor girl!" I said, "I did not think you would take it so
much to heart as this."
"I shall come all right directly," she sobbed, sitting down, and
trembling from head to foot. "Johanna said you would come, but I was not
sure."
"Yes, I am here," I answered, with a very dreary feeling about me.
"That is enough," said Julia; "you need not say a word more. Let us
forget it, both of us. You will only give me your promise never to see
her, or speak to her again."
It might be a fair thing for her to ask, but it was not a fair thing for
me to promise. Olivia had told me she had no friends at all except
Tardif and me; and if the gossip of the Sark people drove her from the
shelter of his roof, I should be her only resource; and I believed she
would come frankly to me for help.
"Olivia quite understands about my engagement to you," I said. "I told
her at once that we were going to be married, and that I hoped she would
find a friend in you."'
"A friend in me, Martin!" she exclaimed, in a tone of indignant
surprise; "you could not ask me to be that!"
"Not now, I suppose," I replied; "the girl is as innocent and blameless
as any girl living; but I dare say you would sooner befriend the most
good-for-nothing Jezebel in the Channel Islands."
"Yes, I would," she said. "An innocent girl indeed! I only wish she had
been killed when she fell from the cliff."
"Hush!" I cried, shuddering at the bare mention of Olivia's death; "you
do not know what you say. It is worse than useless to talk about her. I
came to ask you to think no more of what passed between us yesterday."
"But you are going to persist in your infatuation," said Julia; "you can
never deceive me. I know you too well. Oh, I see that you still think
the same of her'"
"You know nothing about her," I replied.
"And I shall take care I never do," she interrupted, spitefully.
"So it is of no use to go on quarrelling about her," I continued, taking
no notice of the interruption. "I made up my mind before I came here
that I must see as little as possible of her for the future. You must
understand, Julia, she has never given me a particle of reason to
suppose she loves me."
"But you are still in love with her?" she asked.
I stood biting my nails to the quick, a trick I had while a boy, but one
that had been broken off by my mother's and Julia's combined vigilance.
Now the habit came back upon me in full force, as my only resource from
speaking.
"Martin," she said, with flashing eyes, and a rising tone in her voice,
which, like the first shrill moan of the wind, presaged a storm, "I will
never marry you until you can say, on your word of honor, that you love
that person no longer, and are ready to promise to hold no further
communication with her. Oh! I know what my poor aunt has had to endure,
and I will not put up with it."
"Very well, Julia," I answered, controlling myself as well as I could,
"I have only one more word to say on this subject. I love Olivia, and,
as far as I know myself, I shall love her as long as I live. I did not
come here to give you any reason for supposing my mind is changed as to
her. If you consent to be my wife, I will do my best, God helping me, to
be most true, most faithful to you; and God forbid I should injure
Olivia in thought by supposing she could care for me other than as a
friend. But my motive for coming now is to tell you some particulars
about your property, which my father made known to me only last night."
It was a miserable task for me; but I told her simply the painful
discovery I had made. She sat listening with a dark and sullen face, but
betraying not a spark of resentment, so far as her loss of fortune was
concerned.
"Yes," she said, bitterly, when I had finished, "robbed by the father
and jilted by the son."
"I would give my life to cancel the wrong," I said.
"It is so easy to talk," she replied, with a deadly coldness of tone and
manner.
"I am ready to do whatever you choose," I urged. "It is true my father
has robbed you; but it is not true that I have jilted you. I did not
know my own heart till a word from Captain Carey revealed it to me; and
I told you frankly, partly because Johanna insisted upon it, and partly
because I believed it right to do so. If you demand it, I will even
promise not to see Olivia again, or to hold direct communication with
her. Surely that is all you ought to require from me."
"No," she replied, vehemently; "do you suppose I could become your wife
while you maintain that you love another woman better than me? You must
have a very low opinion of me."
"Would you have me tell you a falsehood?" I rejoined, with vehemence
equal to hers.
"You had better leave me," she said, "before we hate one another. I tell
you I have been robbed by the father and jilted by the son. Good-by,
Martin."
"Good-by, Julia," I replied; but I still lingered, hoping she would
speak to me again. I was anxious to hear what she would do against my
father. She looked at me fully and angrily, and, as I did not move, she
swept out of the room, with a dignity which I had never seen in her
before. I retreated toward the house-door, but could not make good my
escape without encountering Johanna.
"Well, Martin?" she said.
"It is all wrong," I answered. "Julia persists in it that I am jilting
her."
"All the world will think you have behaved very badly," she said.
"I suppose so," I replied; "but don't you think so, Johanna."
She shook her head in silence, and closed the hall-door after me. Many a
door in Guernsey would be shut against me as soon as this was known.
I had to go round to the stables to find Madam. The man had evidently
expected me to stay a long while, for her saddle-girths were loosened,
and the bit out of her mouth, that she might enjoy a liberal feed of
oats. Captain Carey came up tome as I was buckling the girths.
"Well, Martin?" he asked, exactly as Johanna had done before him.
"All wrong," I repeated.
"Dear! dear!" he said, in his mildest tones, and with his hand resting
affectionately on my shoulder; "I wish I had lost the use of my eyes or
tongue the other day, I am vexed to death that I found out your secret."
"Perhaps I should not have found it out myself," I said, "and it is
better now than after."
"So it is, my boy; so it is," he rejoined. "Between ourselves, Julia is
a little too old for you. Cheer up! she is a good girl, and will get
over it, and be friends again with you by-and-by. I will do all I can to
bring that about. If Olivia is only as good as she is handsome, you'll
be happier with her than with poor Julia."
He patted my back with a friendliness that cheered me, while his last
words sent the blood bounding through my veins. I rode home again, Sark
lying in full view before me; and, in spite of the darkness of my
prospects, I felt intensely glad to be free to win my Olivia.
Four days passed without any sign from either Julia or my father. I
wrote to him detailing my interview with her, but no reply came. My
mother and I had the house to ourselves; and, in spite of her frettings,
we enjoyed considerable pleasure during the temporary lull. There were,
however, sundry warnings out-of-doors which foretold tempest. I met cold
glances and sharp inquiries from old friends, among whom some rumors of
our separation were floating. There was sufficient to justify suspicion:
my father's absence, Julia's prolonged sojourn with the Careys at the
Vale, and the postponement of my voyage to England. I began to fancy
that even the women-servants flouted at me.