YVONNEIn Two Parts
In Two Parts
A MILE or so north of the fishy little Breton harbor town of Paimpol, the hamlet of Pors Lanec is represented by a scattered cluster of low-pitched, straggling cottages built of gray granite boulders splashed with yellow lichen, their thatch of furze and reeds or broom-bush secured by lashings of rope, and heavy flagstones from the fierce assaults of the western gales. One in especial stands on an incline trending toward the beach, below the level of the Paimpol road. Its rear wall is formed by a low cliff against which it has been built, and which, rearing some twenty feet above the level of its shaggy brown roof, and throwing out a natural buttress toward the sea, protects the poor dwelling from the icy northern winds. Three uneven steps, worn by the feet of generations of fisher-dwellers, lead to the door, whose inner latch is lifted by a length of rope-yarn, reeved through a hole. On each side of the door a window has been hollowed out in the solid masonry of the wall, and roughly glazed; and beneath the rude slate ledge of each is a weather-beaten bench of drift-oak, blackened by age and usage. The door standing open gives a glimpse of the usual Breton interior, bunches ofdried herbs, nets, and baskets depending from the blackened rafters, carved sleeping-bunks set about the walls, a few quaint pewter and copper flagons hanging on pegs driven into the chimney, and reflecting the leaping blaze of the pine and beechwood branches burning on the hearth.
I do not know who lives in Mademoiselle Yvonne’s cottage now, but a year ago the western gale was churning the gray sea into futile anger, and thrashing the stunted bushes into a more bending shape. The sky was somber as the sea, with eastward-hurrying drifts of slaty cirrus, which separated to reveal pale, sun-washed sky-spaces, and closed again, making the gloom seem deeper than before.
It was the eighth of December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception—the day of the Pardon des Islandais—and the morning Angelus was ringing from the storm-beaten little chapel on the heights above, where nosegays of artificial flowers and strings of shells adorned the image of Our Lady of Good Help, and white-capped women, and rugged-faced, long-haired men knelt, rapt and serious, on the sandy stone pavement. Others were hurrying into Paimpol, where the streets were decorated with white sheets bordered with holly and ivy leaves in readiness for the procession. And a fine, icy rain was driving before the wind, and Yvonne’s tables and chairs stood out of doors while their owner beat and scrubbed them vigorously with a birch-broom dipped in soap-suds.
“She works upon thefêteday, yes; but for all that she is no heretic, the poor Yvonne,� a passer-by explained to a companion—a stranger who showed surprise at the unusual spectacle. “All days are alike to her—and Our Lady understands.�
The speaker, a brown-faced, vigorous woman of fifty, paused on the pathway, littered with brown trails of slippery seaweed, and cried:
“Hey! So you’re not going with us to Paimpol, Mademoiselle Yvonne?�
Mademoiselle Yvonne ceased flogging her table, and turned her face toward the questioner. It was a full, straight-featured, rather massive face, framed in the shell-fluted cap worn by unmarried women. The brows were broad, and from under the straight eyebrows looked a pair of eyes that were blue and clear and candid as those of the little boy who clung to the skirts of the woman who addressed her. As she drew herself up, resting on her birch-broom, it might be seen that she was tall and deep-chested and broad-bosomed, and that the massive plaits of hair coiled upon her temples were gray.
“Going to Paimpol! Sure, it is impossible,� said Mademoiselle Yvonne. “There is so much to do getting the house ready.� A rich deep color flushed her cheeks, staining her temples and tinting her full throat to the edge of her bodice. “When one is to be married, Madame understands——�
“So then! You have heard?� cried the neighbor with an elaborate pantomime of delight at the good news. “You have had a letter from Iceland at last?�
The clear blue eyes looked troubled for a moment.
“No. Not that,� said Mademoiselle Yvonne. “Not precisely a letter, but I have made out why theMarie au Secoursdelays so long. You see, they must have had a great catch at the cod-fisheries, and, being a man of brains, my Yann set out to make the most of his good luck. So theMarie au Secourswill have merely touched at Paimpol, and then sailed down to the Gulf of Gascony,where fish fetch high prices, or even to the Sandy Isles.� One of her massive plaits, released by her vigorous movements from the confining pin, uncoiled and fell below her waist. “That is how it will have been, Madame Pilot!� exclaimed Yvonne, smiling and coiling up the beautiful hair.
“Without doubt, that is how it will have been!� assented the other.
She drove her stout elbow into the ribs of the woman who had whispered to her. “Not so loud! We people of the coast have sharper ears than you folks from inland.�
“When did he sail?�
“Twenty years ago, when she was eighteen, and all that gray hair gold.�
“Pfui! There was a blast!�
“We shall have to pick the wind’s bones all the way to Paimpol. So good-day, Mademoiselle.... Gaos, run and bid Mademoiselle Yvonne good-day.�
Madame Pilot nudged the other woman again, as much as to say: “Watch her with the child!�
Gaos obediently quitted his mother’s skirts, and Yvonne knelt down to kiss him. She whispered in the child’s ear coaxingly, and, as he hesitated, watched the innocent lips as though her fate in some inexplicable way hung upon their utterance.
“She always tries to get him to say it, and he never will!� said Madame Pilot under her breath.
“What?� mouthed the inland woman, with round, interested eyes.
The child spoke at that moment loudly and clearly.
“He will come back to-day!�
“Lord above! if he hasn’t said it!� cried MadamePilot, and crossed herself under her ample cloak as the boy came running to her.
She caught his hand, and clattered on in her heavy wooden shoes, fighting her way resolutely against the wind, followed more slowly by the gaping inlander.
“You rogue! You little villain!� she cried to the child she dragged. “What made you say it?�
“Be-be-cause—bub—bub—boo—because it’s true!� roared Gaos, through angry sobs.
His mother, with a hasty invocation of her patron saint, dropped his hand, stopped where the beach-pathway merged in the Paimpol road, and looked back. Mademoiselle Yvonne was nowhere to be seen at first, but presently her figure mounted into view climbing the pathway to the chapel.
“She has gone to burn a candle for her good news,� said Madame Pilot. “Now which have I for a son ... a liar or a prophet? If one were to mistake and smack the prophet, it’s enough to bring a judgment down....� She shook her head mournfully. “But it is to be prayed for, all the same, that that great rogue Yann may never come wheedling back. Drowned, did you suppose? Dead? Not a bit of it!... He’s living on the fat of the land in Ploubazou, where he landed his last cargo of fish nineteen years ago, married a tavern-keeper’s daughter, and set up a sailor’s drinking-house himself; ‘The Chinese Cider Cellars,’ they call it. May Heaven punish such vagabonds!� panted Madame Pilot. “As for us in Pors Lanec, we’re peace-lovers and law-abiders, but there are stones and cudgels waiting for Monsieur Yann Tregnier whenever he shows his nose here.�
Madame Pilot stopped, as a broad-shouldered young man in a sailor’s cap and pilot-cloth jacket came trampingtoward her along the puddly Paimpol road, whistling a cheerful tune. He wore thick town-made brogues instead of woodensabots, and saluted the women in the country fashion, though to him personally they were unknown, and passed by, leaving the mother of the possible prophet staring; for he was known to her as the son of the Ploubazou tavern-keeper Yann Tregnier, christened Jean-Marie after his mother’s father. He was a well-looking, sturdy young fellow of eighteen, who had always hankered to join the Icelanders, as the cod-trawlers are called, and sail with the yearly fleet on the last day of February for the big, dangerous fisheries in the icy regions where the summers have no night. But Yann, his father, would not hear of it, and Jean-Marie had been apprenticed to a cooper in Paimpol. He had grumbled, but his fate appeared less hard now that he was in love with Gaud. Gaud lived with an aunt in the village of Pors Lanec, a place Jean-Marie knew as yet only by hearsay, since her parents lived in Paimpol, and she had met her lover while upon a visit to them. Pors Lanec lay by the beach a mile or two from Paimpol, Gaud had told him. The cottage was built against a great rock, the doorstep was the beach, and the sea the duck-pond before the door; he could not fail to recognize the place, Gaud had described it so clearly.
Gaud was a little delicate creature, with hair of burning gold hidden under her shell cap, and great violet-gray eyes, full of possible adoration for any likely young fellow who should come wooing to Pors Lanec, and the likely young fellow had come along in the person of Jean-Marie. And he had won her promise, and meant to marry her and settle down to the cooper’s trade in earnest. True, the girl was without a dower, and hisfather, with whom he had had a talk at Ploubazou last Sunday, had pulled a long lip at that piece of information, and he had said to the old man straight out: “Either I get Gaud or go to sea!�
“Either I get Gaud—or go to sea!� Jean-Marie repeated now in the most deep and manly voice he had at command. For the cottage built against the cliff had come in sight, a dwelling so weather-worn and lichen-stained that it might have been an excrescence upon the side of the rock that sheltered it. “Either I get Gaud....� Jean-Marie squared his shoulders, and marched down upon the cottage where Gaud lived. As his firm footsteps crossed the plateau of sandy rock that lay before the cottage door he heard a cry from within, and before he could lift a hand to the rope-yarn of the latch, the door was pulled violently back, thrown open, and a woman fell upon his breast with a sobbing shriek of joy.
“Yann! Oh, my beloved, at last!�
“Madame!� he stuttered.
“Our Lady sent me word you would return to-day, and even as I was upon my way to thank her for such grace, I turned back thinking. ‘If he should come and miss me!’�
The wind blew shrilly; the sky grew black with storm. Jean-Marie’s cheek was wet with rain or the woman’s tears. He was conscious of a dizziness. It was as though a web of some strange tissue were weaving in the chambers of his brain, and the pattern grew more and more familiar. The arms that clasped him were not those of a stranger; the heart that throbbed upon his own had rested there before. Even the cottage interior shown through the low doorway was familiar, and the oakenbenches to right and left, had he not carved his name on one of them, his and another’s?
But even as these strange questions awakened in the mind of the young man, he was thrust violently back, and Yvonne was gazing, with still streaming eyes, at the face of a stranger, while, partly hidden by the tall figure of her aunt, appeared the little shrinking figure of Mademoiselle Gaud!
“Who is it?� asked Yvonne dully, without removing her eyes from that unknown face of the man whose step was like Yann’s.
“I—I believe—I think—’tis Monsieur Jean-Marie,� panted Gaud. “Sweet St. Agnes!� she prayed inwardly to her patron saint, “make her not ask me his other name! If she does I am sure I shall lie and say I do not know; so, sweetest St. Agnes, preserve me from sinning!� Next moment she breathed freely, for Yvonne stepped aside, leaving the threshold free to the stranger.
“Ask of his business, little one!� she said, without looking at Gaud, “and let him know that he was mistaken for one who has a right to be welcomed with open arms.�
She had a black woollen cloak loosely thrown about her shoulders. She sat down upon the seat to the right of the door, her elbow on her knee, her chin upon her hand, the dark folds half concealing the noble outlines of her form, her eyes fixed upon the most distant turn in the Paimpol road.
Jean-Marie was at liberty to proceed with his courting; Yvonne seemed to hear and see him no longer. Only as the lover grew gayer, and the clear laugh of Gaud sounded in unison with his, a quiver passed over the face of Yvonne. At twelve o’clock, when the dinner wasready, Gaud came dutifully to tell her. She only shook her head, and the midday meal of salt fish, potatoes, and cider was shared by the lovers.
When the dishes were washed, Jean-Marie proposed a stroll to the chapel on the cliff. Gaud, her pale cheeks tipped with a little crimson, like the leaves of a daisy, came to ask Yvonne’s permission.
“My mother allowed him to visit us in Paimpol,� she said meekly, flushing deeper as she remembered that she had introduced him as Monsieur Jean-Marie, the cooper’s apprentice, and that her mother knew nothing of his relationship to the man who had used her Aunt Yvonne so wickedly. Through the crystal of Gaud’s nature ran a little streak of deceptiveness. Like all weak things, she could be cunning where her love or her interest was concerned, and what did it matter what Jean-Marie’s father had done? she argued. He was not Jean-Marie. So she and her sweetheart set out upon their walk, keeping a decorous distance of at least six feet between them, and swinging unoccupied hands that, when the path grew narrow, would meet and cling. And Yvonne saw two figures appear in the distance upon the Paimpol road, neither of which caused her any emotion. Monsieur Blandon, the Paimpol doctor, was hirpling out upon his old white mare, to visit some of his Pors Lanec patients; half an hour must elapse before he could dismount at Yvonne’s door, the mare was so old and the road so stony. She looked away, far out to sea, and watched a tossing white sail upon the inky horizon, and with the instinct of one bred by the sea knew that there would be weather yet more stormy, for the seagulls and kittiwakes were hurrying inland. Then a heavy pair of wooden shoes clacked over the stones, and a vinous voicegave her “good-day.� It was one Piggou Moan, once a smart young fisherman and avowed rival of Yann, now the smuggler, the loafer, the drunkard of the hamlet.
“A drop o’ cider, Mademoiselle Yvonne, for old friendship’s sake and charity,� begged the toper. Yvonne scarcely looked at him, but made a slight motion of her hand toward the cottage door. With a slobbered blessing, red-nosed, ragged Piggou lurched in, lucky in the absence of Gaud, who would have found enough courage, at need, to have driven him forth with a broomstick. He reached a copper flagon from its peg, and went as if by instinct to the cider-cask that stood by the great, carved clothes-press. Minutes passed, and Piggou came out, brighter of eye if redder of nose than when he entered, wiping his dripping beard on his ragged sleeve.
“It’s long since you and Piggou had a crack together, Mademoiselle Yvonne—years it is, and years! I’m not as fine a fellow as I used to be, though you’re a comely figure of a woman still. Excuse the freedom, Mademoiselle!...�
She looked at the drunkard with cold dislike, and moved toward the farther end of the bench as his liquored breath and flaming face came near her.
Piggou took the movement of Yvonne toward the end of the bench as an invitation, and sat down, as the doctor, hidden by a bend in the road, hirpled nearer on his old white mare.
“I bear no malice,� the toper went on, “though, I take the saints to witness, what I am I owe to you, MademoiselleYvonne—for being so handsome and so proud, for giving me the back of your hand, and the whole of your heart to Monsieur Yann Tregnier, who went away with it and never came back.�
“He is coming back!� said Yvonne quietly, her eyes upon the most distant turn of the Paimpol road.
Piggou chuckled drunkenly.
“So you’ve said, Mademoiselle, for twenty years, since theMarie au Secourssailed for Iceland, Captain Yann aboard her.�
She repeated: “He is coming back to-night!�
Piggou leered drunkenly.
“Come, my old gossip, my handsome Yvonne, don’t play the fool with Daddy Piggou. You’re not so cracked as you pretend to be, d’ye comprehend me? You know this waiting game’s a farce. He, your Yann, won’t come back; not because he’s dead, but because he’s alive. Alive and married to Louet Kergueven, that he had an eye on because of her dad’s money; and they’ve as many children as peas in a pod—the eldest as fine a lad of eighteen as ever trod in his father’s footsteps all the ways to Pors Lanec. Didn’t I see him just now with that little white cat, Mademoiselle Gaud....�
The rest was strangled in the drunkard’s throat as upon the whitewashed wall behind him fell the stout shadow of Dr. Blandon, and the serviceable horn handle of an old-fashioned hunting-crop wielded by an arm still muscular hooked itself in Piggou’s cravat and plucked him from his seat. He sprawled, spluttering oaths.
“Begone, rascal! and if I ever hear of your trying this again, I’ll poison you next time I catch you in hospital,� foamed the doctor.
“Why shouldn’t one tell the truth and shame the devil!� grunted Piggou.
“Would you like me to tell Messieurs les Douaniers at the Paimpol Quay House the truth about those fine cod you were carrying when I met you last month on the road to Ploubazou? Ten whopping fellows, each with a box of prime Habanas in his gullet, and every box wrapped round in Spanish lace?... Be off with you!� And, assisted by some additional impetus from the toe of the doctor’s riding-boot, Piggou scrambled to his feet and clattered away.
Yvonne had not stirred while this little scene was in action. Her elbow on her knee, her chin upon her hand, she sat and watched that distant bend in the Paimpol road as she had watched it, to quote Madame Pilot, “when all that hair was gold.� Now she turned toward the doctor, who was her good friend.
“That is done with,� Monsieur Blandon pointed to the ragged figure of the receding Piggou. “He knows what he will get if he troubles you with his rubbish again. And how is the heart, Mademoiselle? Those drops I left last time.... You take them?�
“I take them; but,� said Yvonne, her quiet eyes upon the road, “they make my heart beat.�
“That’s what they are for, Mademoiselle.�
“They make my heart beat,� she said, “until night and day, day and night, the beating seems like the sound of footsteps coming to me along the road. Nearer and nearer—louder and louder. Then they grow hesitating, irregular, and stop. Stop, and then go back. And as they become fainter in the distance, I seem to grow more quiet and more cold.�
Said the doctor, possessing himself of Yvonne’s wristand watching her as he counted the pulse-beats as intently as she watched the road:
“They are footsteps of one you know, Mademoiselle?�
She turned on him those startlingly blue and brilliant eyes.
“Surely.... They are his!�
The doctor had often met a tall man muffled in a great country cape of frieze walking on the Paimpol road. They had never exchanged words, scarcely even looks, but the brass buttons in the back of Blandon’s old riding-coat were eyes, and he had observed how the walker turned back before reaching that last bend from which the cottage could be plainly seen.
“His evil conscience keeps him restless—or he loves her still, though he bartered her love for a tavern and a scolding wife,� the Doctor thought, noting, without seeming to do so, the changes time had made in the bold, handsome face and giant frame of Captain Yann Tregnier, late of theMaria au Secours, now landlord of the Chinese Cider Cellars at Ploubazou. “But to set foot in Pors Lanec he will not dare. The men and women would rise up and stone him out of the village.�
And Monsieur Blandon bade Yvonne adieu, and turned up his collar and got upon his shambling old white horse to ride back to Paimpol.
Yvonne sat where he had left her. The early winter evening was closing in. The wind had fallen, and the sea had gone down; only it breathed from time to time like a sleeping monster of the diluvian age. Through the black curtains of the sky some pale stars looked forth, and white spectral clouds, in shapes appalling to the sense, pursued a flying moon. The lovers had not returned, the hearth-fire was dying out. Guessing at this, Yvonnebestirred herself to go within and feed it with fresh branches. The fading flame wakened again; she turned toward the door, and as she did so the step for which she had waited twenty years crashed over the gravel, sounded on the stone plateau before the cottage, and the figure of a man—massive, almost a giant in height and breadth, his great proportions increased in bulk by a heavy cape of the country frieze—filled up the doorway.
It had come—the moment for which she had waited through the years. She did not scream and fall upon his neck; he made no movement toward her. Only he pulled his rough cap from his head with a deference that had awe in it, and fear, and his heavy black curls, grizzled now, fell over the brow that was lined and rugged, and the eyes that were no longer bright with youth and hope, but bleared with a dull, sordid life and much strong drink, and the hopeless outlook on a life that was bare of all joy.
“Yann! My love ... Yann! You have come back to me at last!�
The words were not uttered in a cry, but almost whispered. As the light of love and joy kindled in her eyes she became young once more. Her arms swept out to clasp him and found him not, for he had sunk down upon his knees; but he clutched her apron and drew her to him, and broke into hoarse, uncouth weeping, his head hidden against her, his arms clasping her, her love and pity overshadowing him like an angel’s wings.
“He weeps for joy!� she thought, whereas he wept for shame; but had she known the truth she would still have comforted him. After a while he grew calmer, and they went out together into a night suddenly become beautiful and glorious with stars—or it seemed so to Yvonne—andsat together on the bench beneath the window, cheek to cheek and arms entwined, and she poured out her brimming heart to him. How she had waited, she told. Patiently, hoping always, loving him always, never despairing, sure of his return. Had he been dead she would have known it. But in the absence of the warning that never fails to come—the midnight wail beneath the window, the midnight knock upon the door or window-pane, given by no hand of mortal flesh—she had remained quite certain that he was alive. Had she not been right in guessing that theMarie au Secourshad only touched at Paimpol and sailed down into the Gulf of Gascony, or even to Bayonne, to sell her cargo of salt cod?
“Ay. ’Twas as you thought, Yvonne!� he answered.
“And you sold well?�
“Ay!� he answered again. Truly, he had sold well, more than his fish. Honor and love, both had gone into the scales against the dowry of the tavern-keeper’s scolding wife, a houseful of children—a sordid existence flavored with the fumes of stale drink and stale tobacco, a few bags of dirty five-franc pieces stowed away in a safe hiding-place, for the Breton is a hoarder by instinct, and distrusts the Bank of France: for these rags and fardels he had bartered Yvonne. He was dully conscious of such thoughts as these even as he was conscious of the joy of being near her. Coarse-fibered as he was, this, the one pure passion of his life, revived in all its old strength at the clasp of Yvonne’s hands and the meeting of their eyes. He began to believe that the desire to be near her once more again had brought him to Pors Lanec. Perhaps he was right, but the motive, he had admitted to himself, was mean and sordid. He wishedto bring about a rupture between Jean-Marie and Gaud. The girl was penniless; Jean-Marie a love-sick young fool. Besides, his wife would never consent to a union of their families; she had never ceased to be jealous of the sweetheart to whom Yann had played false. “You threw her over for my money, rogue that you are!� she would say to him, when red wine dashed with cider had made her quarrelsome.
The night drew on. Drifting clouds no longer obscured the faces of the stars; the December night might, for mildness, have been May, or so it seemed to Yann and to Yvonne. There was a fragrance in the air like hawthorn, and the shrill chirping of a cricket rose from the glowing hearth in the darkened room behind them.
The lovers found few words to utter, but their silence was eloquent; the air they breathed in unison seemed the revivifying essence of joyous life. Yann yielded to the exquisite intoxication. In the glamour of that meeting he was young again, clean of heart and soul, looking forward to their wedding day with the eagerness of a true lover. He found himself replying in low, eager tones to Yvonne’s questions.... No, he would not sail for Iceland in February as a bachelor; they must get married before the Blessing of the Boats. The official papers must be filled and signed, the banns put up ... there would be a honeymoon for Yann and Yvonne before theMarie au Secours(poor old vessel, long ago cast up in driftwood on the shores of Iceland) should set sail.
“Ay, indeed, my love, we have waited long enough!� he said.
Yvonne laughed, a low melodious laugh of happiness, and owned that the wedding dress, handsomely made and trimmed with broad bands of velvet, just as he liked best—hadbeen ready a long time. She took him back to her pure heart, without a word, without a question.... He had been long in coming, but he had come at last, and she was utterly content. He drew her into his strong embrace, and she laid her head on his great shoulder with the sigh of a child that is weary with too much bliss. His arm encircled her; both her hands, clasped together, rested in his large palm. Sleep came to her, and peace; even the breath that at first had fluttered fitfully beneath his cheek could be felt no more. And the night wore on apace, and the glamour fell from him, little by little, and he was again the landlord of the Chinese Cider Cellars, with a scolding wife, and an obstinate whelp of a son, mad to marry a penniless little draggle-tail. Ay, he could speak now, and he would! He unwound his arm from the waist of Yvonne and withdrew the support of his rough palm from her clasped hands, and as he did so a long faint sigh escaped her and her head fell back against the whitewashed wall. Ay, he could speak, and did!
“Lord knows what nonsense we have been talking, you and me.... Something bewitched me.... The fine night or the sight of the old place. In truth, Yvonne, you know as well as I do that I’m a married man; that cat must ha’ got out of the bag long ago. And hearing that you never would believe I’d played fast and loose with ye made me a bit shamefaced, hence we never have clapped eyes on one another until now, Yvonne. Though my young cub has been hanging about here after the girl Gaud—threatening me with going to sea if she’s denied him—and seeing as she hasn’t a sou of dowry, I look to you to stop that foolery. For my good woman at home....I’ll own her a bit of a Tartar, and, to tell ye the truth, Yvonne——�
“Father!� said Jean-Marie, stepping forward out of the darkness, the dimly-seen, shrinking figure of Gaud behind him.
Yann rose up, threatening and formidable, his clenched fist ready to strike. Gaud cried out in fear; but Yvonne, the silvery moonlight filling the hollows of her quiet eyes and resting in the curves of her white cheeks, and kissing her closed, patient lips into the semblance of a smile, never stirred. The night wind played with a little lock of hair escaping from the edge of her shell-fluted cap, and her bosom neither rose nor fell.
“Pretty goings on.... Look here, you cub!� Yann was beginning, but his son’s eyes looked past his at the placid face of the sleeper on the bench, and the fear and awe in them were not inspired by his father. Yann looked round then, and a hoarse cry broke from him.
“Speak to her,� whispered Jean-Marie, and Gaud tremblingly touched Yvonne’s clasped hands. They were cold as the smiling lips and the sealed eyes on which rested the white peace that is the kiss of Death.
The cricket chirped within the cottage, and the deep slumbrous breathing of the sea came from beyond a curtain of chill white mist. Yvonne’s long time of waiting had ended at last.