And now I am putting in another long night.
The storm still beats upon the roof and the wind is howling like some unmerciful beast unleashed. The _s...o...b..rd_ surely could not sail away to-day, for the dawning is showing its first gleams through the tiny window panes, and there is no sign of any change.
CHAPTER XVI
_From Miss Helen Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt_
_Dearest Aunt Jennie:_
Why does the world sometimes seem to turn the wrong way, so that everything becomes miserably topsy-turvy? I have often had to struggle to keep awake when writing you these long letters, which you say you are so glad to get. But now I am writing because I am so dreadfully awake that I don"t feel as if I ever could sleep again.
It is now a week since Stefansson came up to the house, and the water dripping from him ran down and joined the baby rivers that were rushing down the little road before our house.
"I"ve come for orders, Mr. Jelliffe," he said.
"Orders! What orders?" asked Daddy, irascibly. "I"d like to know what orders I can give except to wait till this fiendish weather gets better.
You don"t expect to start in such a gale, do you?"
"We couldn"t make it very well, sir, and that"s a fact. I don"t even think I could take her out of the cove. If we could only get her clear of the coast we"d be all right enough, but I wouldn"t like to take chances."
"Who wants to take chances? Do you suppose I"m so anxious to go that I"m going to risk all our lives? Come back or send word as soon as you think it safe to start. That"s all I want. I suppose everything is all right in the engine room now."
Our skipper confirmed this and left. All day the storm gathered greater fury, and has kept it up ever since. At times the rain stops, and the great black clouds race desperately across the sky while the world outside our little cove is a raging ma.s.s of spume that becomes wind-torn and flies like huge snow flakes high up in the air. And then the rain begins again, slanting and beating down wickedly, and I feel that no such thing can ever have existed as clear skies and balmy breezes.
A number of hours ago, I don"t really know how many, I was sitting with Daddy, who looked very disconsolate. I am afraid that this long storm has got on his nerves, or perhaps the poor dear is worrying about me. I think he has been afraid that I might catch the disease from that sick child.
And now I am sure that his worries have increased ever so much, but what can one do when it really becomes a matter of life and death to go out and help, to the best of one"s poor abilities? How could any one stand on a river bank, with a rope, however frail, in one"s hands, and obey even one"s father if he forbade you to throw it to a drowning child?
I am afraid I have again wandered off, as I so often do when I write to you, Aunt Jennie. Well, we were there, and the lamp flickered, and the rain just pelted the house so that it looked as if it were trying to wash us down into the cove. But I heard a knock at the door, and listened, and it came again. So I went and opened it to find Yves, with his long black hair disheveled and his face a picture of awful anxiety. In the gesture of his hands there was pitiful begging, and his voice came hoa.r.s.ely as he sought to explain his coming.
I interrupted him and bade him enter.
"Pardon," he said, "please pardon. Eet is de leetle bye. All day I wait.
I tink heem docteur maybe come back. But heem no come. Maybe you know about leetle byes very seek. You help docteur once."
"I am afraid I know very little, my poor Yves," I cried, shaking my head.
"What is the matter with him, Frenchy?" asked Daddy.
"Me not know, monsieur," he answered. "Heem now cry out heem want _la belle dame_. Heem lofe de yong lady. Seek all day, de poor leetle bye, an" lie down and cry so moch! An" now heem terreeble red in ze face, an"
so hot, an" speak fonny. An" heem don" want eat noding, noding at all. So I know mademoiselle she help fix heem leetle girl, de oder day, an" me tink maybe she tell me what I do. All de oder womans dey know noding at all, an" I hear Docteur say oder day zey all big fool. Please you come, mademoiselle."
"I have to go, Daddy," I cried, and caught up my woollen cap and wrapped myself up in my waterproof.
"I wish you wouldn"t, daughter," said poor Daddy. "I am sure it must be something catching."
"I"m so sorry, Daddy, but I just have to go. I"ll try to be back soon."
"But why doesn"t he go for Mrs. Barnett?" asked Dad. "She knows all about sick babies."
"Oh! I don"t want her to be sent for. She has those dear little ones of her own," I said.
Then I kissed him quickly and ran out into the darkness before he could object any further. The wind just tore at me, and I had to seize Frenchy"s arm as we splashed through the puddles, with heads bent low, leaning against the storm.
And so we reached the poor little shack Yves calls his home. On the floor he had placed some pans that caught some of the drippings from the leaky roof, and a piece of sail-cloth was stretched upon a homemade pallet covered with an old caribou hide, upon which the poor little fellow was lying. Unable to bear any heat he had cast away all his coverings, in the fever that possessed him, and when I heard him moan and knelt beside him he stretched out his arms to me, and his pleading face grew sweet with hope.
"Heem too young to be widout moder ven seek," said Frenchy, apologetically. "Heem moder is dead."
I bathed the hot little head, and the touch of my hand made the poor wee thing more contented. After this I sent Frenchy to our house for some alcohol, with which I washed the boy, who finally fell into a restless sleep.
Frenchy had placed his only chair near the pallet for me, and after a while he drew up a big pail, on the bottom of which he sat, with his elbows upon his knees and his jaws in the palm of his hands, staring at the child. One could see that an immense fear was upon the man, but that my presence was of some comfort to him. It really looks as if men in trouble always seek help from women, and this poor fellow was now leaning upon me, just as I had leaned on his big arm when we had made our way through the storm. Something was tearing away at his heart-strings, and after a time the pain of it, I think, opened the fount of his memories, as if an irresistible desire had come upon him for the balm there is in pouring them out.
How can I tell you all that he said? It was in fragments, disconnected, and represented the great tragedy of a humble life. I remember that several times, while he told it to me, my hand rested in sympathy upon that great arm of his, that had now become very weak. It was at first just the simplest little tale of love somewhere on the coast of Brittany, and of vows exchanged before a Virgin that stretched out her arms towards the sea. And then Yves was taken away upon a warship, and there were tears and prayers for his return. He couldn"t remember all the countries from which he had sent letters, but after many months answers ceased to come.
Then a new recruit had joined, who belonged to his town, and informed him that the family had moved away on the other side of the ocean, to St.
Pierre-Miquelon. So Yves had written, but still no letters came. But one day it chanced that the cruiser was sent up there, to keep an eye on the fisheries, and he was in a fever of waiting until they should arrive. On the first day that he obtained sh.o.r.e leave he had wandered up and down the little streets, and looked at names over _cafes_ and shops, and asked questions of all who would listen to him. No one knew anything of Jeanne-Marie Kermadec. At last one man remembered that a family of that name had remained less than a year and had gone back to France.
Then he had wandered off again, and from the cafes comrades of his called to him to join them, but he strolled on, and suddenly he had seen a hollow-eyed woman enter a drinking-shop, and on her arm she bore a baby.
So of course he had followed her, feeling as if he had been very drunk.
But he had not had a drop. She had gone to a bleary man who sat at a little table, with others, and tried to make him come out with her. But the man swore at her, and the woman left, crying, and Yves had followed her out into the street, and when he spoke she knew him, and cried harder. So he had gone as far as her house, and then she wept on his shoulder. Her people had gone away but she had remained, for her love had gone out to this man and the Virgin on the hill was very far away. At first she had been very happy, but now Yves could see what was happening, and the baby was very hungry, for there was no bread in the house.
Then Yves had emptied his pocket on the table and gone away, very unsteadily, and some of the men on his ship laughed at him. But perhaps he was looking dangerous, because after he had glared at them once they left him alone.
After this he had met Jeanne-Marie several times, but his ship soon left on a trip to some places in Canada. In one of these there was a great coal mine near the sea, and in another town perched queerly on a rock they had anch.o.r.ed in the _Saint Laurent_. Yes, perhaps it was Quebec; he knew the people spoke French there. Then after a time the cruiser had returned to St. Pierre. He thought it might be better not to go back to that house, but he found that he could not keep away.
It was some illness he did not know that killed her. Yes, he had been there when she died, and had paid money to a doctor and to the priest.
Perhaps she just died of not having enough to eat, he didn"t know. She had asked him to kiss her before she died, and it was the only time since he had left Brittany. Then Jeanne-Marie"s husband had come into the house, and borrowed five francs from him and was very maudlin, and asked what the devil he was going to do with that brat, which cried all the time. But the little one was quiet when Yves took it in his arms, so poor Frenchy asked if he might take it, because he knew it would die if left there. The man had laughed, so he had taken it on his arm and wandered out in the street with it, and a quarter-master asked him what he was doing with a baby. He answered that he didn"t know, for one can"t take little ones away on warships. He had met a man from the French sh.o.r.e, who told him there was a schooner from Newfoundland which had lost two men in a blow, and needed a hand or two. Then he had gone and offered to ship for nothing, if they would let him take the baby. Yes, they had laughed at him, but the skipper was drunk and good-natured, and told him to come aboard. He had done so at night, when no one was looking, and had with him some milk that comes in cans. So they had sailed away for Newfoundland, and he supposed it was as good a place as any for a man who was now a deserter. Very likely they had looked for him a long time, and had been surprised, for he was accounted a good man. Anyway it was Jeanne-Marie"s baby, and one could not leave it to be neglected and to die, because Jeanne-Marie had loved it very much.
Of course he would never see France again, unless the boy died. If this happened he would go and give himself up, because nothing would matter any more. So many of his shipmates had gone to lands of black and yellow people, and had never returned. They were dead, and some day he also would be dead, and it made no difference.
I really think, Auntie dear, that he had quite forgotten me as he spoke, low, haltingly, in mingled French and English words. He was just rehearsing to himself something that had been all of his life, because everything that had happened before, and the struggle for a living afterwards, were of no moment. Through the poor man"s ignorance, through his wondrous folly, I could discern an immense love that had overpowered him and broken him forever. He was an exile from his beloved land of Brittany, and would never see its heather and gorse again, or the flaming foxgloves that redden some of its fields.
And all this because of a little child that was the only thing left that had belonged to the woman he had loved so greatly! He said that perhaps that Virgin on the hills might still be looking far out over the waters, and he knelt before a little crucifix which hung from a nail in the rough boards of the walls. I heard him repeating, in a low voice, in soft quick words, the prayers his faith led him to hope might be hearkened to by the Lady of Sorrows, as she watched from that little hill on the other side of the great sea.
The poor candle was guttering and the wind howled outside. I looked around and saw the few clothes hanging from pegs, the rusty cracked stove, the table made of rough boards, the bunk filled with dry moss and seaweed, and then my eye caught one flaring note of color. It was a gaudily hued print representing a woman holding aloft a tricolor flag, and labelled _La Republique Francaise_! And the poor cheap picture was all of the inheritance of this man, marooned and outlawed for the sake of a woman and her dying kiss, which had been the only reward of all his devotion.
So I sat there, awed by the greatness of it all. There were no tears in my eyes; indeed, it seemed too big a thing for tears, a revelation and an outlook upon life so vast that it held me spell-bound. I had never realized that love could be such a thing as that, feeding upon a mere sad memory, able to take this rough viking of a man and toss him, a plaything of its stupendous force, upon these barren rocks. Surely it was arrant folly, utter insanity, but it showed that men"s lives are not regulated by clockwork, and that, however erring an ideal may be, the pa.s.sions it may inspire can bring out the greatness of manhood or the ardent devotion of women.
It awed me to think that among the teeming millions of the earth there were thousands upon thousands bound to potential outbursts of a love that may slumber quietly until death or awake, great and inspiring in its might.
As the muttered prayers went on I watched the uneasy tossing of the child, until Susie Sweetapple came in, hurried and dripping.
"You"s got ter come home," she said. "Yer father he"s bawlin" as how he wants yer back. My, the poor mite of a young "un! The face o" he looks dreadful bad! D"ye know it"s most midnight? Come erlong now, ma"am."
I rose, feeling very trembly about the knees. There was nothing that I could do. I could not let poor Daddy worry any longer about me.