Daniel paused. Ernley sounded bad. How well he knew his devil--that
queer, bitter, angry, unhappy, rather common devil, who at times made
Ernley so difficult to love. He wondered what Belle was feeling--not a
single reference to her, except indirectly. It might be caution, but it
didn’t sound like that. He wished Ernley hadn’t written--worrying him
like this just before his wedding day. And about his father, too. He was
worried about his father. “Heavily fined last sessions”--he’d never
heard of that--they’d kept that from him. The old life was suddenly and
painfully reasserting itself, just as he was going to cut it off for
ever. Well, he mustn’t think of it any more--he could do nothing about
it. His responsibilities were no longer the old ones of Ernley and Belle
and the George, but the new ones of marriage, home, and children. Yes,
he supposed the day would come when he, too, would be a “proud father.”
Well, he wouldn’t sneer about it like Ernley--he’d be glad--and he knew
that already his allegiance belonged to the unborn.
§ 2
The wedding of Daniel Sheather and Rose Falla took place in the
afternoon, in the midst of a high wind stroking the back of Sark, and
rippling the buttercup-thickened hay. The sun shone gaily in spite of
the small white clouds that blew over the sky, and the general air was
one of brightness and freshness and laughter, a rollicking sort of air,
like the bride’s name.
Bride and bridegroom drove together to church with their relations. Into
the big mule-cart were packed, besides themselves, Uncle Eugene and
Uncle Philip, one or two cousin Eugenes and cousin Philips, Helier,
William and Alice. The rest, including the children, came on foot, and
as it was impossible for the mules to go at more than a foot pace most
of the way, they trod round the wheels, talking and staring.
Rose wore a new blue dress, for which her measurements had been sent to
Guernsey. Without her sophisticated work-girl’s clothes she looked more
of a child than ever and more of an islander. Stealing a secret glance
at her now and then, Dan found her sweet and appealing in her laughter
and her shyness. He was glad that she was fair and round-faced, and
would never look like Alice Hamon, who had already a witchy air about
her, with her sharp nose and black locks. She was facing her future
without a qualm, without a thought of the life and friends she had left
in Jersey, accepting trustfully the life and friends she had found in
Sark. She trusted Dan as absolutely as she had trusted him when at his
word she had faced without question the perils of La Déroute. Well, he
hoped her trust would be better justified this time, that her
matrimonial craft would not go to the bottom like the _Baleine_ ... he
clenched his hands upon his knees as he vowed to himself that, come what
might, this little thing should not suffer for the risks he had taken
... he would strive for her happiness as he would have striven for Belle
Shackford’s--she should be given no less than he would have given Belle.
They walked into the church on either side of old Eugene Le
Couteur--Rose in her blue dress, Daniel in his blue jersey and
wide-bottomed trousers. The church was packed, for weddings were a rare
excitement, and at the end of the aisle by the little bare altar, le
ministre stood already waiting, holding open in his hand the Prayer Book
of Helier de Cartaret, which was Dan’s Prayer Book now.
“_Bien-aimes, nous sommes réunis ici sous le regard de Dieu...._”
The service had begun. Daniel and Rose stood alone together, hand in
hand before the minister, for Uncle Eugene had withdrawn from publicity
into a pew, from which he did not emerge till the question “_Qui est-ce
qui donne cette femme en mariage à cet homme?_” when he shouted “_C’est
moi!_” as if across seven miles of sea. Then Daniel found himself saying
after the priest:
“_Moi Daniel, je te prends Rose, pour ma femme et mon épouse, afin de
t’avoir et de te garder, dès ce jour à l’avenir que tu sois meilleure ou
pire, plus riche ou plus pauvre, en maladie et en santé, pour t’aimer et
te chérir, jusqu’à ce que la mort nous sépare, selon la sainte
institution de Dieu, et sur cela je t’engage ma foi._”
Well, he meant it all, anyway. The strange language didn’t make any
difference. He knew that he’d promised just the same as he would have
promised in English to Belle, and having promised no less he could give
no less. Standing there with all the brown and blue eyes of the island
fixed upon him, he knew that his mind was clear of its last doubt. This
second part of his adventure with Rose would not end in shipwreck like
the first. If he only did what he had promised ... and he would. Now he
was putting the ring on her finger, and was worshipping her with his
body--now their hands were joined and le ministre was saying:
“_Puisque Daniel et Rose ont consenti à s’unir en saint mariage. Je
declare qu’ils sont entre eux mari et femme, au nom du Père et du Fils
et du Saint Esprit._”
The harmonium gave a sigh, preliminary to shaking the marriage psalm out
of its heart. Dan and Rose scrambled to their feet and followed the
clergyman into the chancel. They held hands almost convulsively during
the rest of the service, which they scarcely felt concerned them, their
own personal part being now over. They were married. They were husband
and wife, whom man could not put asunder. They who had not known each
other a month ago would from henceforward know only each other. Daniel
would belong to Rose and Rose would belong to Daniel till their eyes
were dim and their hair was grey--they would build up a new life
together in a new home--they would love beings as yet unborn, whose very
names they did not know as yet. Passionate love was waiting in their
hearts for those who were not yet alive. All the years that they had
lived before, he with his parents at Bullockdean, and she with her
father in Jersey, were only a sort of preparation to the main business
of life. His love for Belle was only an episode. This was the centre and
heart and reality of his life. This was marriage. Daniel felt almost
afraid, when he saw what marriage meant--when he saw how it could brush
aside all the fire and glory and anguish of love, and murmur its
blessing over a few stones which forthwith became bread ... water which
became wine.... “And there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee”.... A poor
little affair of stones and water, which had somehow become bread and
wine. That was his marriage with Rose.
They had turned from the altar and were writing their names in the
vestry. Uncle Eugene made his mark as a witness after he had been
satisfied that he was not committing himself in any way. The cousins
signed, but no one offered to kiss Rose--kissing at weddings was an
English custom, Daniel supposed, like wedding-cake and bridesmaids and
flowers and confetti and all the other things that would have been so
important at Bullockdean. All that was English on this occasion was the
music. There had been an Anglican chant for the psalm, and now
Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” burst forth, as Dan and Rose walked down
the aisle of the empty church and out into the churchyard, whither all
the congregation had rushed in a body before them.
§ 3
There was a feast at the Pêche à Agneau--a feast of lobsters and gâche
and armagniac, to which came Hamons and Carrés and Falles and de
Cartarets from all parts of the island. Somehow Daniel and Rose seemed
almost a minor part of the occasion. They sat silently side by side,
while round them flowed the island French, which is to the French of
Paris what cider is to wine. As yet it was not quite the language of
either, since Rose had not spoken it for a year and Daniel had spoken
it only for a year. If they did not listen the words came only in
scattered drops, without meaning. Dan could take for granted that his
relations and friends were not discussing the marriage, but the
prospects of next season, or the politics of Sark’s most parochial pump.
He was free to look at Rose, and think how pretty she was with her
golden hair and her blue dress, like buttercups by the sea. The line of
her chin and neck was somehow helpless and innocent, like a child’s, yet
her little mouth and nose had a funny, decided air about them, as if,
though she would rely on him in all big matters of life, in the small
she would know her business, what to eat and drink and wear. In the blue
pools of her eyes swam a queer flame, which he had not noticed till
to-day. When her eyes met his, the flame brightened, and when she turned
them away he could see it shining, as one can see the sunshine in hidden
water reflected on a rock.
They seldom spoke to each other. Once--“Are you tired?” he whispered,
and she answered “Yes.”
“I must take you home.”
Under the table her hand crept out on his knee and lay over it. He
looked round at all the Hamons and Carrés and Falles and De Cartarets
and Le Couteurs, eating and drinking and arguing, entirely forgetting
the little married pair in whose honour the feast was given.
“Uncle Philip,” said Dan.
“Yes,” Uncle Philip roared down the table to Ernest Hamon--“the King of
England will think it a fine thing when he comes to Guernsey, and the
Forty Tenants are not there to receive him.”
“Uncle Philip, would you mind----”
“He will see nothing but Le Marchants and De Jerseys, and he will
say--where is the aristocracy?”
“Would you mind if Rose and I went home now?”
“Of course I do not mind. Go. We are the aristocracy of this island, I
say, and the parish will not allow us ten shillings to go over to
Guernsey to see the King and Queen.”
“Ha! Ha! It is a fine thing if the aristocracy of this island cannot go
to see the King without ten shillings from the parish.”
“Who should pay but the parish? I will not pay ten shillings to go to
Guernsey, even to see the King. None of the Forty Tenants will go over
unless the parish pay. You are a fool, Ernest Hamon.”
Dan and Rose crept out under cover of Ernest Hamon’s retort, and the
next minute stood in the sunshine of the May evening, which trailed
golden banners over the sea. Their belongings had already been taken to
Moie Fano, so all they had to do was to walk there themselves, through
the buttercups and the long grass, with their shadows moving before
them.
“Look at us,” said Rose--“how big we are.”
Daniel put his arm round her.
“There aren’t two of us any more,” said Rose.
He stopped her with a sudden check of his arm and drew her up against
him, kissing her darling face on which he seemed to taste the sunshine.
“Oh, Rose, my little Rose--you are so sweet! And it’s so wonderful! I
never thought it would be like this.”
She did not trouble about his words, but eagerly returned his kisses.
“Oh, my beautiful boy--my beautiful boy,” she murmured, holding his face
to hers. “Daniel--your eyes are so dark and big--I see myself in them.
Can you see yourself in mine?”
“No--not quite. Yes--now I can.”
“That means you live in my heart.”
“And you in mine.”
They walked on, across the road, past La Belle Hautgarde, out on to the
wildness of Rouge Terrier. Under their feet were the first little wild
dwarf roses, and before them lay spread the dazzled blue of Baleine Bay,
with all the rocks standing out of it, pink in the sunset, like castles.
The tide was low, and the _demies_ of l’Etac showed above the water and
all the rocks round Sercul. The bay was streaked with currents, strange,
smooth paths of rose and violet and grey winding amidst the chopped blue
water. They walked farther down the hill to the cliff edge, and the sun
was lost, while a cool air ruffled up from the sea. They were above the
terrible cliffs of Brenière, and though there was scarcely any tide, the
eastern wall of Sark was dreadful in the dusk, like a dead face with its
white gleam, the gleam of the blind white rock above Pot Bay. Towards
the north the Point du Derrible was like some horned beast kneeling down
to drink in the water. Daniel felt the strangeness and terror of Sark
very near him, and the dreadfulness of those secrets below him in the
bays, in that strange no-man’s land between the tides. His arm drew Rose
a little closer as he led her along the cliff-top, through the dusk, to
where he could see the jut of Moie Fano.
“Look! Our home!”
She pointed through the twilight, and he could just see the thatched
roof grey against the hillside and the faint gleam of the walls.
“You won’t be afraid with me alone out here?”
“Oh, no, I shan’t be alone, with you.”
They came to the little house, sheltering with its strip of garden in a
fold of the hillside. The door was unlocked, and he led her into the
dark kitchen.
“The lamp’s on the table,” said Rose. “I left out some matches. Can you
find them?”
But instead of finding them he shut the door on the last gleam of light,
and drawing her close to him in the darkness, lifted her from her feet.
The darkness was round them like a caress and a welcome as he held her
there, high against his breast. Outside the dead light lay on the sea,
and in the light lay all the empty islands and lonely rocks. The light
seemed to hold the strange unfriendly spirit of the island, the enmity
of sea and rocks, and the ghosts of their deeds; while the darkness held
the spirit of the home built in the midst of all that strangeness, and
the spirit of man loving and pitying in the midst of the pitiless sea.
§ 4
In the middle of the night Daniel woke out of a deep sleep into a
half-dreaming state, in which he lay mysteriously cut off, very quiet of
mind and body, and very happy, without quite knowing the causes of his
happiness. The darkness lay all round him so heavily that it seemed a
tangible thing; it almost seemed to be a body to him, now that he did
not feel his own. It was also a friendly, personal thing, for he knew
dimly that it was a part of home and that memory already dwelt in it.
He was waking, and two sounds mingled with the darkness, rousing him
still more. They were strange, soft, sighing sounds, like each other,
and yet astonishingly different. One he knew was a sound of terror, and
the other a sound of love, and yet in that half-dreaming moment he could
not distinguish them. Then he woke a little more and knew that one was
the sound of the sea, sighing round the rocks at the foot of Moie Fano,
and that the other was the sound of Rose’s breathing as she lay in the
crook of his arm. The two sighs mingled and wove themselves together
into a single sweetness and terror which woke him. He was awake now--he
knew where he was and all that had happened, he knew that his arm and
shoulder were stiff under the weight of little Rose, whom he could hear
and feel but could not see in the darkness. He lay motionless, holding
her, his heart full of sweetness and terror, which were now both hers.
The voice of the sea seemed to have died away--he heard only her
breathing.
Then his own breath came short with a new, strange ecstasy. He knew
that, all unexpected, all undeserving, he had stumbled upon happiness.
This was what life gave you--was meant to give. He was happy--he would
always be happy with Rose--he would always feel like this, full of love
and joy and pity, when she was near him. She was very near--part of
himself, it seemed ... part of his body, of his own flesh and blood. A
picture drew itself in the darkness before his eyes--the picture of two
country inns facing each other across a village street--it was a very
small, far-off picture, such as one sees through the wrong end of a
telescope. That was his life at Bullockdean, his love for Belle, set far
off and far behind at last. It faded, and the darkness was upon his
eyes, kinder than any light. The sea, far below at the foot of the
cliffs, drawled another long sigh. He turned his head on his shoulder,
till his cheek touched Rose’s hair; then he slept again.