We were married as soon as the season was over, when Martin's
fashionable patients were all going away from town. Ours was a very
quiet wedding, for I had no friends on my side, and Martin's cousin
Julia could not come, for she had a baby not a month old, and Captain
Carey could not leave them. Johanna Carey and Minima were my
bridesmaids, and Jack was Martin's groomsman.
On our way home from Switzerland, in the early autumn, we went down from
Paris to Falaise, and through Noireau to Ville-en-bois. From Falaise
every part of the road was full of associations to me. This was the
long, weary journey which Minima and I had taken, alone, in a dark
November night; and here were the narrow and dirty streets of Noireau,
which we had so often trodden, cold, and hungry, and friendless. Martin
said little about it, but I knew by his face, and by the tender care he
lavished upon me, that his mind was as full of it as mine was.
There was no reason for us to stay even a day in Noireau, and we hurried
through it on our way to Ville-en-bois. This road was still more
memorable to me, for we had traversed it on foot.
"See, Martin!" I cried, "there is the trunk of the tree still, where
Minima and I sat down to rest. I am glad the tree is there yet. If we
were not in a hurry, you and I would sit there now; it is so lonely and
still, and scarcely a creature passes this way. It is delicious to be
lonely sometimes. How foot-sore and famished we were, walking along this
rough part of the road! Martin, I almost wish our little Minima were
with us. There is the common! If you will look steadily, you can just
see the top of the cross, against the black line of fir-trees, on the
far side."
I was getting so excited that I could speak no longer; but Martin held
my hand in his, and I clasped it more and more tightly as we drew nearer
to the cross, where Minima and I had sat down at the foot, forlorn and
lost, in the dark shadows of the coming night. Was it possible that I
was the same Olivia?
But as we came in sight of the little grove of cypresses and yews, we
could discern a crowd of women, in their snow-white caps, and of men and
boys, in blue blouses. The hollow beat of a drum reached our ears afar
off, and after it the shrill notes of a violin and fife playing a merry
tune. Monsieur Laurentie appeared in the foreground of the multitude,
bareheaded, long before we reached the spot.
"O Martin!" I said, "let us get out, and send the carriage back, and
walk up with them to the village."
"And my wife's luggage?" he answered, "and all the toys and presents she
has brought from Paris?"
It was true that the carriage was inconveniently full of parcels, for I
do not think that I had forgotten one of Monsieur Laurentie's people.
But it would not be possible to ride among them, while they were
walking.
"Every man will carry something," I said. "Martin, I must get out."
It was Monsieur Laurentie who opened the carriage-door for me; but the
people did not give him time for a ceremonious salutation. They thronged
about us with _vivats_ as hearty as an English hurrah.
"All the world is here to meet us, monsieur," I said.
"Madame, I have also the honor of presenting to you two strangers from
England," answered Monsieur Laurentie, while the people fell back to
make way for them. Jack and Minima! both wild with delight. We learned
afterward, as we marched up the valley to Ville-en-bois, that Dr. Senior
had taken Jack's place in Brook Street, and insisted upon him and Minima
giving us this surprise. Our procession, headed by the drum, the fife,
and the violin, passed through the village street, from every window of
which a little flag fluttered gayly, and stopped before the presbytery,
where Monsieur Laurentie dismissed it, after a last _vivat_.
The next stage of our homeward journey was made in Monsieur Laurentie's
_char à bancs_, from Ville-en-bois to Granville--Jack and Minima had
returned direct to England, but we were to visit Guernsey on the way.
Captain Carey and Julia made it a point that we should go to see them,
and their baby, before settling down in our London home. Martin was
welcomed with almost as much enthusiasm in St. Peter-Port as I had been
in little Ville-en-bois.
From our room in Captain Carey's house I could look at Sark lying along
the sea, with a belt of foam encircling it. At times, early in the
morning, or when the sunset light fell upon it, I could distinguish the
old windmill, and the church breaking the level line of the summit; and
I could even see the brow of the knoll behind Tardifs cottage. But day
after day the sea between us was rough, and the westerly breeze blew
across the Atlantic, driving the waves before it. There was no steamer
going across, and Captain Carey's yacht could not brave the winds. I
began to be afraid that Martin and I would not visit the place, which of
all others in this half of the world was dearest to me.
"To-morrow," said Martin one night, after scanning the sunset, the sky,
and the storm-glass, "if you can be up at five o'clock, we will cross to
Sark."
I was up at four, in the first gray dawn of a September morning. We had
the yacht to ourselves, for Captain Carey declined running the risk of
being weather-bound on the island--a risk which we were willing to
chance. The Havre Gosselin was still in morning shadow when we ran into
it; but the water between us and Guernsey was sparkling and dancing in
the early light, as we slowly climbed the rough path of the cliff. My
eyes were dazzled with the sunshine, and dim with tears, when I first
caught sight of the little cottage of Tardif, who was stretching out his
nets, on the stone causeway under the windows. Martin called to him, and
he flung down his nets and ran to meet us.
"We are come to spend the day with you, Tardif," I cried, when he was
within hearing of my voice.
"It will be a day from heaven," he said, taking off his fisherman's cap,
and looking round at the blue sky with its scattered clouds, and the sea
with its scattered islets.
It was like a day from heaven. We wandered about the cliffs, visiting
every spot which was most memorable to either of us, and Tardif rowed us
in his boat past the entrance of the Gouliot Caves. He was very quiet,
but he listened to our free talk together, for I could not think of good
old Tardif as any stranger; and he seemed to watch us both, with a
far-off, faithful, quiet look upon his face. Sometimes I fancied he did
not bear what we were saying, and again his eyes would brighten with a
sudden gleam, as if his whole soul and heart shone through them upon us.
It was the last day of our holiday, for in the morning we were about to
return to London, and to work; but it was such a perfect day as I had
never known before.
"You are quite happy, Mrs. Martin Dobrée?" said Tardif to me, when we
were parting from him.
"I did not know I could ever be so happy," I answered.
"We saw him to the last moment standing on the cliff, and waving his hat
to us high above his head. Now and then there came a shout across the
water. Before we were quite beyond ear-shot, we heard Tardif's voice
calling amid the splashing of the waves:
"God be with you, my friends. Adieu, mam'zelle!"