Summer advanced, and, at the end of August, with the first autumnal mists, the Icelanders came home.
For the last three months the two lone women had lived together at Ploubazlanec in the Moan's cottage. Gaud filled a daughter's place in the poor birthplace of so many dead sailors. She had sent hither all that remained from the sale of her father's house; her grand bed in the town fashion, and her fine, different coloured dresses. She had made herself a plainer black dress, and like old Yvonne, wore a mourning cap, of thick white muslin, adorned merely with simple plaits. Every day she went out sewing at the houses of the rich people in the town, and returned every evening without being detained on her way home by any sweetheart. She had remained as proud as ever, and was still respected as a fine lady; and as the lads bade her good-night, they always raised a hand to their caps.
Through the sweet evening twilight, she walked home from Paimpol, all along the cliff road inhaling the fresh, comforting sea air. Constant sitting at needlework had not deformed her like many others, who are always bent in two over their work—and she drew up her beautiful supple form perfectly erect in looking over the sea, fairly across to where Yann was it seemed.
The same road led to his home. Had she walked on much farther, towards a well-known rocky windswept nook, she would come to that hamlet of Pors-Even, where the trees, covered with gray moss, grew crampedly between the stones, and are slanted over lowly by the western gales. Perhaps she might never more return there, although it was only a league away; but once in her lifetime she had been there, and that was enough to cast a charm over the whole road; and, besides, Yann would certainly often pass that way, and she could fancy seeing him upon the bare moor, stepping between the stumpy reeds.
She loved the whole region of Ploubazlanec, and was almost happy that fate had driven her there; she never could have become resigned to live in any other place.
Towards this end of August, a southern warmth, diffusing languor, rises and spreads towards the north, with luminous afterglows and stray rays from a distant sun, which float over the Breton seas. Often the air is calm and pellucid, without a single cloud on high.
At the hour of Gaud's return journey, all things had already begun to fade in the nightfall, and become fused into close, compact groups. Here and there a clump of reeds strove to make way between stones, like a battle-torn flag; in a hollow, a cluster of gnarled trees formed a dark mass, or else some straw-thatched hamlet indented the moor. At the cross-roads the images of Christ on the cross, which watch over and protect the country, stretched out their black arms on their supports like real men in torture; in the distance the Channel appeared fair and calm, one vast golden mirror, under the already darkened sky and shade-laden horizon.
In this country even the calm fine weather was a melancholy thing; notwithstanding, a vague uneasiness seemed to hover about; a palpable dread emanating from the sea to which so many lives are intrusted, and whose everlasting threat only slumbered.
Gaud sauntered along as in a dream, and never found the way long enough. The briny smell of the shore, and a sweet odour of flowerets growing along the cliffs amid thorny bushes, perfumed the air. Had it not been for Granny Yvonne waiting for her at home, she would have loitered along the reed-strewn paths, like the beautiful ladies in stories, who dream away the summer evenings in their fine parks.
Many thoughts of her early childhood came back to her as she passed through the country; but they seemed so effaced and far away now, eclipsed by her love looming up between.
In spite of all, she went on thinking of Yann as engaged in a degree—a restless, scornful betrothed, whom she never would really have, but to whom she persisted in being faithful in mind, without speaking about it to any one. For the time, she was happy to know that he was off Iceland; for there, at least, the sea would keep him lonely in her deep cloisters, and he would belong to no other woman.
True, he would return one of these days, but she looked upon that return more calmly than before. She instinctively understood that her poverty would not be a reason for him to despise her; for he was not as other men. Moreover, the death of poor Sylvestre would draw them closer together. Upon his return, he could not do otherwise than come to see his friend's old granny; and Gaud had decided to be present at that visit; for it did not seem to her that it would be undignified. Appearing to remember nothing, she would talk to him as to a long-known friend; she would even speak with affection, as was due to Sylvestre's brother, and try to seem easy and natural. And who knows? Perhaps it would not be impossible to be as a sister to him, now that she was so lonely in the world; to rely upon his friendship, even to ask it as a support, with enough preliminary explanation for him not to accuse her of any after-thought of marriage.
She judged him to be untamed and stubborn in his independent ideas, yet tender and loyal, and capable of understanding the goodness that comes straight from the heart.
How would he feel when he met her again, in her poor ruined home? Very, very poor she was—for Granny Moan was not strong enough now to go out washing, and only had her small widow's pension left; granted, she ate but little, and the two could still manage to live, not dependent upon others.
Night was always fallen when she arrived home; before she could enter she had to go down a little over the worn rocks, for the cottage was placed on an incline towards the beach, below the level of the Ploubazlanec roadside. It was almost hidden under its thick brown straw thatch, and looked like the back of some huge beast, shrunk down under its bristling fur. Its walls were sombre and rough like the rocks, but with tiny tufts of green moss and lichens over them. There were three uneven steps before the threshold, and the inside latch was opened by a length of rope-yarn run through a hole. Upon entering, the first thing to be seen was the window, hollowed out through the wall as in the substance of a rampart, and giving view of the sea, whence inflowed a dying yellow light. On the hearth burned brightly the sweet-scented branches of pine and beechwood that old Yvonne used to pick up along the way, and she herself was sitting there, seeing to their bit of supper; indoors she wore a kerchief over her head to save her cap. Her still beautiful profile was outlined in the red flame of her fire. She looked up at Gaud. Her eyes, which formerly were brown, had taken a faded look, and almost appeared blue; they seemed no longer to see, and were troubled and uncertain with old age. Each day she greeted Gaud with the same words:
“Oh, dear me! my good lass, how late you are to-night!”
“No, Granny,” answered Gaud, who was used to it. “This is the same time as other days.”
“Eh? It seemed to me, dear, later than usual.”
They sat down to supper at their table, which had almost become shapeless from constant use, but was still as thick as the generous slice of a huge oak. The cricket began its silver-toned music again.
One of the sides of the cottage was filled up by roughly sculptured, worm-eaten woodwork, which had an opening wherein were set the sleeping bunks, where generations of fishers had been born, and where their aged mothers had died.
Quaint old kitchen utensils hung from the black beams, as well as bunches of sweet herbs, wooden spoons, and smoked bacon; fishing-nets, which had been left there since the shipwreck of the last Moans, their meshes nightly bitten by the rats.
Gaud's bed stood in an angle under its white muslin draperies; it seemed like a very fresh and elegant modern invention brought into the hut of a Celt.
On the granite wall hung a photograph of Sylvestre in his sailor clothes. His grandmother had fixed his military medal to it, with his own pair of those red cloth anchors that French men-of-wars-men wear on their right sleeve; Gaud had also brought one of those funereal crowns, of black and white beads, placed round the portraits of the dead in Brittany. This represented Sylvestre's mausoleum, and was all that remained to consecrate his memory in his own land.
On summer evenings they did not sit up late, to save the lights; when the weather was fine, they sat out a while on a stone bench before the door, and looked at passers-by in the road, a little over their heads. Then old Yvonne would lie down on her cupboard shelf; and Gaud on her fine bed, would fall asleep pretty soon, being tired out with her day's work, and walking, and dreaming of the return of the Icelanders. Like a wise, resolute girl, she was not too greatly apprehensive.
But one day in Paimpol, hearing thatLa Mariehad just got in, Gaud felt possessed with a kind of fever. All her quiet composure disappeared; she abruptly finished up her work, without quite knowing why, and set off home sooner than usual.
Upon the road, as she hurried on, she recognisedhim, at some distance off, coming towards her. She trembled and felt her strength giving way. He was now quite close, only about twenty steps off, his head erect and his hair curling out from beneath his fisher's cap. She was so taken by surprise at this meeting, that she was afraid she might fall, and then he would understand all; she would die of very shame at it. She thought, too, she was not looking well, but wearied by the hurried work. She would have done anything to be hidden away under the reeds or in one of the ferret-holes.
He also had taken a backward step, as if to turn in another direction. But it was too late now. Both met in the narrow path. Not to touch her, he drew up against the bank, with a side swerve like a skittish horse, looking at her in a wild, stealthy way.
She, too, for one half second looked up, and in spite of herself mutely implored him, with an agonized prayer. In that involuntary meeting of their eyes, swift as the firing of a gun, these gray pupils of hers had appeared to dilate and light up with some grand noble thought, which flashed forth in a blue flame, while the blood rushed crimson even to her temples beneath her golden tresses.
As he touched his cap he faltered. “Wish you good-day, Mademoiselle Gaud.”
“Good-day, Monsieur Yann,” she answered.
That was all. He passed on. She went on her way, still quivering, but feeling, as he disappeared, that her blood was slowly circulating again and her strength returning.
At home, she found Granny Moan crouching in a corner with her head held between her hands, sobbing with her childish “he, he!” her hair dishevelled and falling from beneath her cap like thin skeins of gray hemp.
“Oh, my kind Gaud! I've just met young Gaos down by Plouherzel as I came back from my wood-gathering; we spoke of our poor lad, of course. They arrived this morning from Iceland, and in the afternoon he came over to see me while I was out. Poor lad, he had tears in his eyes, too. He came right up to my door, my kind Gaud, to carry my little fagot.”
She listened, standing, while her heart seemed almost to break; so this visit of Yann's, upon which she had so much relied for saying so many things, was already over, and would doubtless not occur again. It was all done. Her poor heart seemed more lonely than ever. Her misery harder, and the world more empty; and she hung her head with a wild desire to die.
Slowly the winter drew nigh, and spread over all like a shroud leisurely drawn. Gray days followed one another, but Yann appeared no more, and the two women lived on in their loneliness. With the cold, their daily existence became harder and more expensive.
Old Yvonne was difficult to tend, too; her poor mind was going. She got into fits of temper now, and spoke wicked, insulting speeches once or twice every week; it took her so, like a child, about mere nothings.
Poor old granny! She was still so sweet in her lucid days, that Gaud did not cease to respect and cherish her. To have always been so good and to end by being bad, and show towards the close a depth of malice and spitefulness that had slumbered during her whole life, to use a whole vocabulary of coarse words that she had hidden; what mockery of the soul! what a derisive mystery! She began to sing, too, which was still more painful to hear than her angry words, for she mixed everything up together—theoremusof a mass with refrains of loose songs heard in the harbour from wandering sailors. Sometimes she sang “Les Fillettes de Paimpol” (The Lasses of Paimpol), or, nodding her head and beating time with her foot, she would mutter:
“Mon mari vient de partir; Pour la peche d'Islande, mon mari vient de partir, Il m'a laissee sans le sou, Mais—trala, trala la lou, J'en gagne, j'en gagne.”
(My husband went off sailing Upon the Iceland cruise, But never left me money, Not e'en a couple sous. But—ri too loo! ri tooral loo! I know what to do!)
She always stopped short, while her eyes opened wide with a lifeless expression, like those dying flames that suddenly flash out before fading away. She hung her head and remained speechless for a great length of time, her lower jaw dropping as in the dead.
One day she could remember nothing of her grandson. “Sylvestre? Sylvestre?” repeated she, wondering whom Gaud meant; “oh! my dear, d'ye see, I've so many of them, that now I can't remember their names!”
So saying she threw up her poor wrinkled hands, with a careless, almost contemptuous toss. But the next day she remembered him quite well; mentioning several things he had said or done, and that whole day long she wept.
Oh! those long winter evenings when there was not enough wood for their fire; to work in the bitter cold for one's daily bread, sewing hard to finish the clothes brought over from Paimpol.
Granny Yvonne, sitting by the hearth, remained quiet enough, her feet stuck in among the smouldering embers, and her hands clasped beneath her apron. But at the beginning of the evening, Gaud always had to talk to her to cheer her a little.
“Why don't ye speak to me, my good girl? In my time I've known many girls who had plenty to say for themselves. I don't think it 'ud seem so lonesome, if ye'd only talk a bit.”
So Gaud would tell her chit-chat she had heard in town, or spoke of the people she had met on her way home, talking of things that were quite indifferent to her, as indeed all things were now; and stopping in the midst of her stories when she saw the poor old woman was falling asleep.
There seemed nothing lively or youthful around her, whose fresh youth yearned for youth. Her beauty would fade away, lonely and barren. The wind from the sea came in from all sides, blowing her lamp about, and the roar of the waves could be heard as in a ship. Listening, the ever-present sad memory of Yann came to her, the man whose dominion was these battling elements; through the long terrible nights, when all things were unbridled and howling in the outer darkness, she thought of him with agony.
Always alone as she was, with the sleeping old granny, she sometimes grew frightened and looked in all dark corners, thinking of the sailors, her ancestors, who had lived in these nooks, but perished in the sea on such nights as these. Their spirits might possibly return; and she did not feel assured against the visit of the dead by the presence of the poor old woman, who was almost as one of them herself.
Suddenly she shivered from head to foot, as she heard a thin, cracked voice, as if stifled under the earth, proceed from the chimney corner.
In a chirping tone, which chilled her very soul, the voice sang:
“Pour la peche d'Islande, mon mari vient de partir, Il m'a laissee sans le sou, Mais—trala, trala la lou!”
Then she was seized with that peculiar terror that one has of mad people.
The rain fell with an unceasing, fountain-like gush, and streamed down the walls outside. There were oozings of water from the old moss-grown roof, which continued dropping on the self-same spots with a monotonous sad splash. They even soaked through into the floor inside, which was of hardened earth studded with pebbles and shells.
Dampness was felt on all sides, wrapping them up in its chill masses; an uneven, buffeting dampness, misty and dark, and seeming to isolate the scattered huts of Ploubazlanec still more.
But the Sunday evenings were the saddest of all, because of the relative gaiety in other homes on that day, for there are joyful evenings even among those forgotten hamlets of the coast; here and there, from some closed-up hut, beaten about by the inky rains, ponderous songs issued. Within, tables were spread for drinkers; sailors sat before the smoking fire, the old ones drinking brandy and the young ones flirting with the girls; all more or less intoxicated and singing to deaden thought. Close to them, the great sea, their tomb on the morrow, sang also, filling the vacant night with its immense profound voice.
On some Sundays, parties of young fellows who came out of the taverns or back from Paimpol, passed along the road, near the door of the Moans; they were such as lived at the land's end of Pors-Even way. They passed very late, caring little for the cold and wet, accustomed as they were to frost and tempests. Gaud lent her ear to the medley of their songs and shouts—soon lost in the uproar of the squalls or the breakers—trying to distinguish Yann's voice, and then feeling strangely perplexed if she thought she had heard it.
It really was too unkind of Yann not to have returned to see them again, and to lead so gay a life so soon after the death of Sylvestre; all this was unlike him. No, she really could not understand him now, but in spite of all she could not forget him or believe him to be without heart.
The fact was that since his return he had been leading a most dissipated life indeed. Three or four times, on the Ploubazlanec road, she had seen him coming towards her, but she was always quick enough to shun him; and he, too, in those cases, took the opposite direction over the heath. As if by mutual understanding, now, they fled from each other.
At Paimpol lives a large, stout woman named Madame Tressoleur. In one of the streets that lead to the harbour she keeps a tavern, well known to all the Icelanders, where captains and ship-owners come to engage their sailors, and choose the strongest among them, men and masters all drinking together.
At one time she had been beautiful, and was still jolly with the fishers; she has a mustache, is as broad built as a Dutchman, and as bold and ready of speech as a Levantine. There is a look of the daughter of the regiment about her, notwithstanding her ample nun-like muslin headgear; for all that, a religious halo of its sort floats around her, for the simple reason that she is a Breton born.
The names of all the sailors of the country are written in her head as in a register; she knows them all, good or bad, and knows exactly, too, what they earn and what they are worth.
One January day, Gaud, who had been called in to make a dress, sat down to work in a room behind the tap-room.
To go into the abode of our Madame Tressoleur, you enter by a broad, massive-pillared door, which recedes in the olden style under the first floor. When you go to open this door, there is always some obliging gust of wind from the street that pushes it in, and the new-comers make an abrupt entrance, as if carried in by a beach roller. The hall is adorned by gilt frames, containing pictures of ships and wrecks. In an angle a china statuette of the Virgin is placed on a bracket, between two bunches of artificial flowers.
These olden walls must have listened to many powerful songs of sailors, and witnessed many wild gay scenes, since the first far-off days of Paimpol—all through the lively times of the privateers, up to these of the present Icelanders, so very little different from their ancestors. Many lives of men have been angled for and hooked there, on the oaken tables, between two drunken bouts.
While she was sewing the dress, Gaud lent her ear to the conversation going on about Iceland, behind the partition, between Madame Tressoleur and two old sailors, drinking. They were discussing a new craft that was being rigged in the harbour. She never would be ready for the next season, so they said of thisLeopoldine.
“Oh, yes, to be sure she will!” answered the hostess. “I tell 'ee the crew was all made up yesterday—the whole of 'em out of the oldMarieof Guermeur's, that's to be sold for breaking up; five young fellows signed their engagement here before me, at this here table, and with my own pen—so ye see, I'm right! And fine fellows, too, I can tell 'ee; Laumec, Tugdual Caroff, Yvon Duff, young Keraez from Treguier, and long Yann Gaos from Pors-Even, who's worth any three on 'em!”
TheLeopoldine! The half-heard name of the ship that was to carry Yann away became suddenly fixed in her brain, as if it had been hammered in to remain more ineffaceably there.
At night back again at Ploubazlanec, and finishing off her work by the light of her pitiful lamp, that name came back to her mind, and its very sound impressed her as a sad thing. The names of vessels, as of things, have a significance in themselves—almost a particular meaning of their own. The new and unusual word haunted her with an unnatural persistency, like some ghastly and clinging warning. She had expected to see Yann start off again on theMarie, which she knew so well and had formerly visited, and whose Virgin had so long protected its dangerous voyages; and the change to theLeopoldineincreased her anguish.
But she told herself that that was not her concern, and nothing about him ought ever to affect her. After all, what could it matter to her whether he were here or there, on this ship or another, ashore or not? Would she feel less miserable with him back in Iceland, when the summer would return over the deserted cottages, and lonely anxious women—or when a new autumn came again, bringing home the fishers once more? All that was alike indifferent to her, equally without joy or hope. There was no link between them now, nothing ever to bring them together, for was he not forgetting even poor little Sylvestre? So, she had plainly to understand that this sole dream of her life was over for ever; she had to forget Yann, and all things appertaining to his existence, even the very name of Iceland, which still vibrated in her with so painful a charm—because of him all such thoughts must be swept away. All was indeed over, for ever and ever.
She tenderly looked over at the poor old woman asleep, who still required all her attention, but who would soon die. Then, what would be the good of living and working after that; of what use would she be?
Out of doors, the western wind had again risen; and, notwithstanding its deep distant soughing, the soft regular patter of the eaves-droppings could be heard as they dripped from the roof. And so the tears of the forsaken one began to flow—tears running even to her lips to impart their briny taste, and dropping silently on her work, like summer showers brought by no breeze, but suddenly falling, hurried and heavy, from the over-laden clouds; as she could no longer see to work, and she felt worked out and discouraged before this great hollowness of her life, she folded up the extra-sized body of Madame Tressoleur and went to bed.
She shivered upon that fine, grand bed, for, like all things in the cottage, it seemed also to be getting colder and damper. But as she was very young, although she still continued weeping, it ended by her growing warm and falling asleep.
Other sad weeks followed on, till it was early February, fine, temperate weather. Yann had just come from his shipowner's where he had received his wages for the last summer's fishery, fifteen hundred francs, which, according to the custom of the family, he carried to his mother. The catch had been a good one, and he returned well pleased.
Nearing Ploubazlanec, he spied a crowd by the side of the road. An old woman was gesticulating with her stick, while the street boys mocked and laughed around her. It was Granny Moan. The good old granny whom Sylvestre had so tenderly loved—her dress torn and bedraggled—had now become one of those poor old women, almost fallen back in second childhood, who are followed and ridiculed along their roads. The sight hurt him cruelly.
The boys of Ploubazlanec had killed her cat, and she angrily and despairingly threatened them with her stick. “Ah, if my poor lad had only been here! for sure, you'd never dared do it, you young rascals!”
It appeared that as she ran after them to beat them, she had fallen down; her cap was awry, and her dress covered with mud; they called out that she was tipsy (as often happens to those poor old “grizzling” people in the country who have met misfortune).
But Yann clearly knew that that was not true, and that she was a very respectable old woman, who only drank water.
“Aren't you ashamed?” roared he to the boys.
He was very angry, and his voice and tone frightened them, so that in the twinkling of an eye they all took flight, frightened and confused before “Long Gaos.”
Gaud, who was just returning from Paimpol, bringing home her work for the evening, had seen all this from afar, and had recognised Granny in the group. She eagerly rushed forward to learn what the matter was, and what they had done to her; seeing the cat, she understood it all. She lifted up her frank eyes to Yann, who did not look aside; neither thought of avoiding each other now; but they both blushed deeply and they gazed rather startled at being so near one another; but without hatred, almost with affection, united as they were in this common impulse of pity and protection.
The school-children had owed a grudge to the poor dead grimalkin for some time, because he had a black, satanic look; though he was really a very good cat, and when one looked closely at him, he was soft and caress-inviting of coat. They had stoned him to death, and one of his eyes hung out. The poor old woman went on grumbling, shaking with emotion, and carrying her dead cat by the tail, like a dead rabbit.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear! my poor boy, my poor lad, if he were only here; for sure, they'd never dared a-do it.”
Tears were falling down in her poor wrinkles; and her rough blue-veined hands trembled.
Gaud had put her cap straight again, and tried to comfort her with soothing words. Yann was quite indignant to think that little children could be so cruel as to do such a thing to a poor aged woman and her pet. Tears almost came into his eyes, and his heart ached for the poor old dame as he thought of Sylvestre, who had loved her so dearly, and the terrible pain it would have been to him to see her thus, under derision and in misery.
Gaud excused herself as if she were responsible for her state. “She must have fallen down,” she said in a low voice; “'tis true her dress isn't new, for we're not very rich, Monsieur Yann; but I mended it again only yesterday, and this morning when I left home I'm sure she was neat and tidy.”
He looked at her steadfastly, more deeply touched by that simple excuse than by clever phrases or self-reproaches and tears. Side by side they walked on to the Moans' cottage. He always had acknowledged her to be lovelier than any other girl, but it seemed to him that she was even more beautiful now in her poverty and mourning. She wore a graver look, and her gray eyes had a more reserved expression, and nevertheless seemed to penetrate to the inner depth of the soul. Her figure, too, was thoroughly formed. She was twenty-three now, in the full bloom of her loveliness. She looked like a genuine fisher's daughter, too, in her plain black gown and cap; yet one could not precisely tell what gave her that unmistakable token of the lady; it was involuntary and concealed within herself, and she could not be blamed for it; only perhaps her bodice was a trifle nicer fitting than the others, though from sheer inborn taste, and showed to advantage her rounded bust and perfect arms. But, no! the mystery was revealed in her quiet voice and look.
It was manifest that Yann meant to accompany them; perhaps all the way home. They walked on, all three together, as if following the cat's funeral procession; it was almost comical to watch them pass; and the old folks on the doorsteps grinned at the sight. Old Yvonne, in the middle, carried the dead pet; Gaud walked on her right, trembling and blushing, and tall Yann on the left, grave and haughty.
The aged woman had become quiet now; she had tidied her hair up herself and walked silently, looking alternately at them both from the tail of her eyes, which had become clear again.
Gaud said nothing for fear of giving Yann the opportunity of taking his leave; she would have liked to feel his kind, tender eyes eternally on her, and to walk along with her own closed so as to think of nothing else; to wander along thus by his side in the dream she was weaving, instead of arriving so soon at their lonely, dark cottage, where all must fade away.
At the door occurred one of those moments of indecision when the heart seems to stop beating. The grandam went in without turning round, then Gaud, hesitating, and Yann, behind, entered, too.
He was in their house for the first time in his life—probably without any reason. What could he want? As he passed over the threshold he touched his hat, and then his eyes fell and dwelt upon Sylvestre's portrait in its small black-beaded frame. He went slowly up to it, as to a tomb.
Gaud remained standing with her hands resting on the table. He looked around him; she watched him take a silent inspection of their poverty. Very poor looked this cottage of the two forsaken women. At least he might feel some pity for her, seeing her reduced to this misery inside its plain granite and whitewash. Only the fine white bed remained of all past splendour, and involuntarily Yann's eyes rested there.
He said nothing. Why did he not go? The old grandmother, although still so sharp in her lucid intervals, appeared not to notice him. How odd! So they remained over against one another, seeming respectively to question with a yearning desire. But the moments were flitting, and each second seemed to emphasize the silence between them. They gazed at one another more and more searchingly, as if in solemn expectation of some wonderful, exquisite event, which was too long in coming.
“Gaud,” he began, in a low grave voice, “if you're still of a mind now——”
What was he going to say? She felt instinctively that he had suddenly taken a mighty resolution—rapidly as he always did, but hardly dared word it.
“If you be still of a mind—d'ye see, the fish has sold well this year, and I've a little money ahead——”
“If she were still of a mind!” What was he asking of her? Had she heard aright? She felt almost crushed under the immensity of what she thought she premised.
All the while, old Yvonne, in her corner, pricked up her ears, feeling happiness approach.
“We could make a splice on it—a marriage, right off, Mademoiselle Gaud, if you are still of the same mind?”
He listened here for her answer, which did not come. What could stop her from pronouncing that “yes?” He looked astonished and frightened, she could see that. Her hands clutched the table edge. She had turned quite white and her eyes were misty; she was voiceless, and looked like some maid dying in her flower.
“Well, Gaud, why don't you answer?” said Granny Yvonne, who had risen and come towards them. “Don't you see, it rather surprises her, Monsieur Yann. You must excuse her. She'll think it over and answer you later on. Sit you down a bit, Monsieur Yann, and take a glass of cider with us.”
It was not the surprise, but ecstasy that prevented Gaud from answering; no words at all came to her relief. So it really was true that he was good and kind-hearted. She knew him aright—the same true Yann, her own, such as she never had ceased to see him, notwithstanding his sternness and his rough refusal. For a long time he had disdained her, but now he accepted her, although she was poor. No doubt it had been his wish all through; he may have had a motive for so acting, which she would know hereafter; but, for the present, she had no intention of asking him his meaning, or of reproaching him for her two years of pining. Besides, all that was past, ay, and forgotten now; in one single moment everything seemed carried away before the delightful whirlwind that swept over her life!
Still speechless, she told him of her great love and adoration for him by her sweet brimming eyes alone; she looked deeply and steadily at him, while the copious shower of happy tears poured adown her roseate cheeks.
“Well done! and God bless you, my children,” said Granny Moan. “It's thankful I be to Him, too, for I'm glad to have been let grow so old to see this happy thing afore I go.”
Still there they remained, standing before one another with clasped hands, finding no words to utter; knowing of no word sweet enough, and no sentence worthy to break that exquisite silence.
“Why don't ye kiss one another, my children? Lor'! but they're dumb! Dear me, what strange grandchildren I have here! Pluck up, Gaud; say some'at to him, my dear. In my time lovers kissed when they plighted their troth.”
Yann raised his hat, as if suddenly seized with a vast, heretofore unfelt reverence, before bending down to kiss Gaud. It seemed to him that this was the first kiss worthy of the name he ever had given in his life.
She kissed him also, pressing her fresh lips, unused to refinements of caresses, with her whole heart, to his sea-bronzed cheek.
Among the stones the cricket sang of happiness, being right for this time. And Sylvestre's pitiful insignificant portrait seemed to smile on them out of its black frame. All things, in fact, seemed suddenly to throb with life and with joy in the blighted cottage. The very silence apparently burst into exquisite music; and the pale winter twilight, creeping in at the narrow window, became a wonderful, unearthly glow.
“So we'll go to the wedding when the Icelanders return; eh, my dear children?”
Gaud hung her head. “Iceland,” the “Leopoldine”—so it was all real! while she had already forgotten the existence of those terrible things that arose in their way.
“When the Icelanders return.”
How long that anxious summer waiting would seem!
Yann drummed on the floor with his foot feverishly and rapidly. He seemed to be in a great hurry to be off and back, and was telling the days to know if, without losing time, they would be able to get married before his sailing. So many days to get the official papers filled and signed; so many for the banns: that would only bring them up to the twentieth or twenty-fifth of the month for the wedding, and if nothing rose in the way, they could have a whole honeymoon week together before he sailed.
“I'm going to start by telling my father,” said he, with as much haste as if each moment of their lives were now numbered and precious.
All sweethearts like to sit on the bench at their cottage door, when night falls.
Yann and Gaud did that likewise. Every evening they sat out together before the Moans' cottage, on the old granite seat, and talked love.
Others have the spring-time, the soft shadow of the trees, balmy evenings, and flowering rosebushes; they had only the February twilight, which fell over the sea-beaten land, strewn with eel-grass and stones. There was no branch of verdure above their heads or around them; nothing but the immense sky, over which passed the slowly wandering mists. And their flowers were brown sea-weeds, drawn up from the beach by the fishers, as they dragged their nets along.
The winters are not very severe in this part of the country, being tempered by currents of the sea; but, notwithstanding that, the gloaming was often laden with invisible icy rain, which fell upon their shoulders as they sat together. But they remained there, feeling warm and happy. The bench, which was more than a hundred years old, did not seem in the least surprised at their love, having seen many other pairs in its time; it had listened to many soft words, which are always the same on the lips of the young, from generation to generation; and it had become used to seeing lovers sit upon it again, when they returned to it old and trembling; but in the broad day, this time, to warm themselves in the last sun they would see.
From time to time Granny Moan would put her head out at the door to have a look at them, and try to induce them to come in. “You'll catch cold, my good children,” said she, “and then you'll fall ill—Lord knows, it really isn't sensible to remain out so late.”
Cold! they cold? Were they conscious of anything else besides the bliss of being together.
The passers-by in the evening down their pathway, heard the soft murmur of two voices mingling with the voice of the sea, down below at the foot of the cliffs. It was a most harmonious music; Gaud's sweet, fresh voice alternated with Yann's, which had soft, caressing notes in the lower tones. Their profiles could be clearly distinguished on the granite wall against which they reclined; Gaud with her white headgear and slender black-robed figure, and beside her the broad, square shoulders of her beloved. Behind and above rose the ragged dome of the straw thatch, and the darkening, infinite, and colourless waste of the sea and sky floated over all.
Finally, they did go in to sit down by the hearth, whereupon old Yvonne immediately nodded off to sleep, and did not trouble the two lovers very much. So they went on communing in a low voice, having to make up for two years of silence; they had to hurry on their courtship because it was to last so short a time.
It was arranged that they were to live with Granny Moan, who would leave them the cottage in her will; for the present, they made no alterations in it, for want of time, and put off their plan for embellishing their poor lonely home until the fisherman's return from Iceland.
One evening Yann amused himself by relating to his affianced a thousand things she had done, or which had happened to her since their first meeting; he even enumerated to her the different dresses she had had, and the jollifications to which she had been.
She listened in great surprise. How did he know all this? Who would have thought of a man ever paying any attention to such matters, and being capable of remembering so clearly?
But he only smiled at her in a mysterious way, and went on mentioning other facts to her that she had altogether forgotten.
She did not interrupt him; nay, she but let him continue, while an unexpected delicious joy welled up in her heart; she began, at length, to divine and understand everything. He, too, had loved—loved her, through that weary time. She had been his constant thought, as he was guilelessly confessing. But, in this case, what had been his reason for repelling her at first and making her suffer so long?
There always remained this mystery that he had promised to explain to her—yet still seemed to elude—with a confused, incomprehensible smile.