Not the next day, which was wet and windy, but the day following, did
Captain Carey take me over to Sark. I had had time to talk over all my
plans for the future with my mother, and I bore with me many messages
from her to the girl I was about to ask to become my wife.
Coxcomb as I was, there was no doubt in my mind that I could win Olivia.
To explain my coxcombry is not a very easy task. I do not suppose I had
a much higher sense of my own merits than such as is common to man. I
admit I was neither shy nor nervous on the one hand, but on the other I
was not blatantly self-conceited. It is possible that my course through
life hitherto--first as an only son adored by his mother, and secondly
as an exceedingly eligible _parti_ in a circle where there were very few
young men of my rank and family, and where there were twenty or more
marriageable women to one unmarried man--had a great deal to do with my
feeling of security with regard to this unknown, poor, and friendless
stranger. But, added to this, there was Olivia's own frank, unconcealed
pleasure in seeing me, whenever I had had a chance of visiting her, and
the freedom with which she had always conversed with me upon any topic
except that of her own mysterious position. I was sure I had made a
favorable impression upon her. In fact, when I had been talking with
her, I had given utterance to brighter and clearer thoughts than I had
ever been conscious of before. A word from her, a simple question,
seemed to touch the spring of some hidden treasure of my brain, and I
had surprised myself by what I had been enabled to say to her. It was
this, probably more than her beauty, which had drawn me to her and made
me happy in her companionship. No, I had never shown myself
contemptible, but quite the reverse, in her presence. No doubt or
misgiving assailed me as the yacht carried us out of St. Sampson's
Harbor.
Swiftly we ran across, with a soft wind drifting over the sea and
playing upon our faces, and a long furrow lying in the wake of our boat.
It was almost low tide when we reached the island--the best time for
seeing the cliffs. They were standing well out of the water, scarred and
chiselled with strange devices, and glowing in the August sunlight with
tints of the most gorgeous coloring, while their feet, swathed with
brown seaweed, were glistening with the dashing of the waves. I had seen
nothing like them since I had been there last, and the view of these
wild, rugged crags, with their regal robes of amber and gold and silver,
almost oppressed me with delight. If I could but see Olivia on this
summit!
The currents and the wind had been in favor of our running through the
channel between Sark and Jethou, and so landing at the Creux Harbor, on
the opposite coast of the island to the Havre Gosselin. I crossed in
headlong haste, for I was afraid of meeting with Julia's friends, or
some of my own acquaintances who were spending the summer months there.
I found Tardif's house completely deserted. The only sign of life was a
family of hens clucking about the fold.
The door was not fastened, and I entered, but there was nobody there. I
stood in the middle of the kitchen and called, but there was no answer.
Olivia's door was ajar, and I pushed it a little more open. There lay
books I had lent her on the table, and her velvet slippers were on the
floor, as if they had only just been taken off. Very worn and brown were
the little slippers, but they reassured me she had been wearing them a
short time ago.
I returned through the fold and mounted the bank that sheltered the
house, to see if I could discover any trace of her, or Tardif, or his
mother. All the place seemed left to itself. Tardif's sheep were
browsing along the cliffs, and his cows were tethered here and there,
but nobody appeared to be tending them. At last I caught sight of a head
rising from behind a crag, the rough shock head of a boy, and I shouted
to him, making a trumpet with my hands.
"Where is neighbor Tardif?" I called.
"Down below there," he shouted back again, pointing downward to the
Havre Gosselin. I did not wait for any further information, but darted
off down the long, steep gulley to the little strand, where the pebbles
were being lapped lazily by the ripple of the lowering tide. Tardif's
boat was within a stone's throw, and I saw Olivia sitting in the stern
of it. I shouted again with a vehemence which made them both start.
"Come back, Tardif," I cried, "and take me with you."
The boat was too far off for me to see how my sudden appearance affected
Olivia. Did she turn white or red at the sound of my voice? By the time
it neared the shore, and I plunged in knee-deep to meet it, her face was
bright with smiles, and her hands were stretched out to help me over the
boat's side.
If Tardif had not been there, I should have kissed them both. As it was,
I tucked up my wet legs out of reach of her dress, and took an oar,
unable to utter a word of the gladness I felt.
I recovered myself in a few seconds, and touched her hand, and grasped
Tardif's with almost as much force as he gripped mine.
"Where are you going to?" I asked, addressing neither of them in
particular.
"Tardif was going to row me past the entrance to the Gouliot Caves,"
answered Olivia, "but we will put it off now. We will return to the
shore, and hear all your adventures, Dr. Martin. You come upon us like a
phantom, and take an oar in ghostly silence. Are you really, truly
there?"
"I am no phantom," I said, touching her hand again. "No, we will not go
back to the shore. Tardif shall row us to the caves, and I will take you
into them, and then we two will return along the cliffs. Would you like
that, mam'zelle?"
"Very much," she answered, the smile still playing about her face. It
was brown and freckled with exposure to the sun, but so full of health
and life as to be doubly beautiful to me, who saw so many wan and sickly
faces. There was a bloom and freshness about her, telling of pure air,
and peaceful hours and days spent in the sunshine. I was seated on the
bench before Tardif, with my back to him, and Olivia was in front of
me--she, and the gorgeous cliffs, and the glistening sea, and the
cloudless sky overhead. No, there is no language on earth that could
paint the rapture of that moment.
"Doctor," said Tardif's deep, grave voice behind me, "your mother, is
she better?"
It was like the sharp prick of a poniard, which presently you knew must
pierce your heart.
The one moment of rapture had fled. The paradise, that had been about me
for an instant, with no hint of pain, faded out of my sight. But Olivia
remained, and her face grew sad, and her voice low and sorrowful, as she
leaned forward to speak to me.
"I have been so grieved for you," she said. "Your mother came to see me
once, and promised to be my friend. Is it true? Is she so very ill?"
"Quite true," I answered, in a choking voice.
We said no more for some minutes, and the splash of the oars in the
water was the only sound. Olivia's air continued sad, and her eyes were
downcast, as if she shrank from looking me in the face.
"Pardon me, doctor," said Tardif in our own dialect, which Olivia could
not understand, "I have made you sorry when you were having a little
gladness. Is your mother very ill?"
"There is no hope, Tardif," I answered, looking round at his honest and
handsome face, full of concern for me.
"May I speak to you as an old friend?" he asked. "You love mam'zelle,
and you are come to tell her so?"
"What makes you think that?" I said.
"I see it in your face," he answered, lowering his voice, though he knew
Olivia could not tell what we were saying. "Your marriage with
mademoiselle your cousin was broken off--why? Do you suppose I did not
guess? I knew it from the first-week you stayed with us. Nobody could
see mam'zelle as we see her, without loving her."
"The Sark folks say you are in love with her yourself, Tardif," I said,
almost against my will, and certainly without any intention beforehand
of giving expression to such a rumor.
His lips contracted and his face saddened, but he met my eyes frankly.
"It is true," he answered; "but what then? If it had only pleased God to
make me like you, or that she should be of my class, I would have done
my utmost to win her. But that is impossible! See, I am nothing else
than a servant in her eyes. I do not know how to be any thing else, and
I am content. She is as far above my reach as one of the white clouds up
yonder. To think of myself as any thing but her servant would be
irreligious."
"You are a good fellow, Tardif," I exclaimed.
"God is the judge, of that," he said, with a sigh. "Mam'zelle thinks of
me only as her servant. 'My good Tardif, do this, or do that.' I like
it. I do not know any happier moment than when I hold her little boots
in my hand and brush them. You see she is as helpless and tender as my
little wife was; but she is very much higher than my poor little wife.
Yes, I love her as I love the blue sky, and the white clouds and the
stars shining in the night. But it will be quite different between her
and you."
"I hope so," I thought to myself.
"You do not feel like a servant," he continued, his oars dipping a
little too deeply and setting the boat a-rocking. "By-and-by, when you
are married, she will look up to you and obey you. I do not understand
altogether why the good God has made this difference between us two; but
I see it and feel it. It would be fitting for you to be her husband; it
would be a shame to her to become my wife."
"Are you grieved about it, Tardif?" I asked.
"No, no," he answered; "we have always been good friends, you and I,
doctor. No, you shall marry her, and I will be happy. I will come to
visit you sometimes, and she will call me her good Tardif. That is
enough for me."
"What are you talking about?" asked Olivia. It was impossible to tell
her, or to continue the conversation. Moreover, the narrow channel
between Breckhou and Sark is so strong in its current, that it required
both caution and skill to steer the boat amid the needle-like points of
the rocks. At last we gained one of the entrances to the caves, but we
could not pull the boat quite up to the strand. A few paces of shallow
water, clear as glass, with pebbles sparkling like gems beneath it, lay
between us and the caves.
"Tardif," I said, "you need not wait for us. We will return by the
cliffs."
"You know the Gouliot Caves as well as I do?" he replied, though in a
doubtful tone.
"All right!" I said, as I swung over the side of the boat into the
water, when I found myself knee-deep. Olivia looked from me to Tardif
with a flushed face--an augury that made my pulses leap. Why should her
face never change when he carried her in his arms? Why should she
shrink from me?
"Are you as strong as Tardif?" she asked, lingering and hesitating
before she would trust herself to me.
"Almost, if not altogether," I answered gayly. "I'm strong enough to
undertake to carry you without wetting the soles of your feet. Come, it
is not more than half a dozen yards."
She was standing on the bench I had just left, looking down at me with
the same vivid flush upon her cheeks and forehead, and with an uneasy
expression in her eyes. Before she could speak again I put my arms round
her, and lifted her down.
"You are quite as light as a feather," I said, laughing, as I carried
her to the strip of moist and humid strand under the archway in the
rocks. As I put her down I looked back to Tardif, and saw him regarding
us with grave and sorrowful eyes.
"Adieu!" he cried; "I am going to look after my lobster-pots. God bless
you both!"
He spoke the last words heartily; and we stood watching him as long as
he was in sight. Then we went on into the caves.