CHAPTER VIII
THE FALSE ALARM
Two o'clock in the morning.
It was at night, especially, that she kept attentive to approaching
footsteps; at the slightest rumour or unaccustomed noise her temples
vibrated; by dint of being strained to outward things, they had become
fearfully sensitive.
Two o'clock in the morning. On this night as on others, with her hands
clasped and her eyes wide open in the dark, she listened to the wind,
sweeping in never-ending tumult over the heath.
Suddenly a man's footsteps hurried along the path! At this hour who
would pass now? She drew herself up, stirred to the very soul, her
heart ceasing to beat.
Some one stopped before the door, and came up the small stone steps.
He!--O God!--he! Some one had knocked--it could be no other than he!
She was up now, barefooted; she, so feeble for the last few days, had
sprung up as nimbly as a kitten, with her arms outstretched to wind
round her darling. Of course the /Leopoldine/ had arrived at night,
and anchored in Pors-Even Bay, and he had rushed home; she arranged
all this in her mind with the swiftness of lightning. She tore the
flesh off her fingers in her excitement to draw the bolt, which had
stuck.
"Eh?"
She slowly moved backward, as if crushed, her head falling on her
bosom. Her beautiful insane dream was over. She just could grasp that
it was not her husband, her Yann, and that nothing of him, substantial
or spiritual, had passed through the air; she felt plunged again into
her deep abyss, to the lowest depths of her terrible despair.
Poor Fantec, for it was he, stammered many excuses, his wife was very
ill, and their child was stifling in its cot, suddenly attacked with a
malignant sore throat; so he had run over to beg for assistance on the
road to fetch the doctor from Paimpol.
What did all this matter to her? She had gone mad in her own distress,
and could give no thoughts to the troubles of others. Huddled on a
bench, she remained before him with fixed, glazed eyes, like a dead
woman's; without listening to him or even answering at random or
looking at him. What to her was the speech the man was making?
He understood it all; and guessed why the door had been opened so
quickly to him, and feeling pity for the pain he had unwittingly
caused, he stammered out an excuse.
"Just so; he never had ought to have disturbed her--her in
particular."
"I!" ejaculated Gaud, quickly, "why should I not be disturbed
particularly, Fantec?"
Life had suddenly come back to her; for she did not wish to appear in
despair before others. Besides, she pitied him now; she dressed to
accompany him, and found the strength to go and see to his little
child.
At four o'clock in the morning, when she returned to throw herself on
the bed, sleep subdued her, for she was tired out. But that moment of
excessive joy had left an impression on her mind, which, in spite of
all, was permanent; she awoke soon with a shudder, rising a little and
partially recollecting--she knew not what. News had come to her
concerning her Yann. In the midst of her confusion of ideas, she
sought rapidly in her mind what it could be, but there was nothing
save Fantec's interruption.
For the second time she fell back into her terrible abyss, nothing
changed in her morbid, hopeless waiting.
Yet in that short, hopeful moment she had felt him so near to her,
that it was as if his spirit had floated over the sea unto her, what
is called a foretoken (/pressigne/) in Breton land; and she listened
still more attentively to the steps outside, trusting that some one
might come to her to speak of him.
Just as the day broke Yann's father entered. He took off his cap, and
pushed back his splendid white locks, which were in curls like Yann's,
and sat down by Gaud's bedside.
His heart ached fully, too, for Yann, his tall, handsome Yann, was his
first-born, his favourite and his pride; but he did not despair yet.
He comforted Gaud in his own blunt, affectionate way; to begin with,
those who had last returned from Iceland spoke of the increasing dense
fogs that might well have delayed the vessel; and then, too, an idea
struck him; they might possibly have stopped at the distant Faroe
Islands on their homeward course, whence letters were so long in
travelling. This had happened to him once forty years ago, and his own
poor dead and gone mother had had a mass said for his soul. The
/Leopoldine/ was such a good boat, next to new, and her crew were such
able-bodied seamen.
Granny Moan stood by them shaking her head; the distress of her
granddaughter had almost given her back her own strength and reason;
she tidied up the place, glancing from time to time at the faded
portrait of Sylvestre, which hung upon the granite wall with its
anchor emblems and mourning-wreath of black bead-work. Ever since the
sea had robbed her of her own last offspring she believed no longer in
safe returns; she only prayed through fear, bearing Heaven a grudge in
the bottom of her heart.
But Gaud listened eagerly to these consoling reasonings; her large
sunken eyes looked with deep tenderness out upon this old sire, who so
much resembled her beloved one; merely to have him near her was like a
hostage against death having taken the younger Gaos; and she felt
reassured, nearer to her Yann. Her tears fell softly and silently, and
she repeated again her passionate prayers to the "Star of the Sea."
A delay out at those islands to repair damages was a very likely
event. She rose and brushed her hair, and then dressed as if she might
fairly expect him. All then was not lost, if a seaman, his own father,
did not yet despair. And for a few days, she resumed looking out for
him again.
Autumn at last arrived, a late autumn too, its gloomy evenings making
all things appear dark in the old cottage, and all the land looked
sombre, too.
The very daylight seemed crepuscular; immeasurable clouds, passing
slowly overhead, darkened the whole country at broad noon. The wind
blew constantly with the sound of a great cathedral organ at a
distance, but playing profane, despairing dirges; at other times the
noise came close to the door, like the howling of wild beasts.
She had grown pale, aye, blanched, and bent more than ever, as if old
age had already touched her with its featherless wing. Often did she
finger the wedding clothes of her Yann, folding and unfolding them
again and again like some maniac, especially one of his blue woolen
jerseys, which still had preserved his shape; when she threw it gently
on the table, it fell with the shoulders and chest well defined; so
she placed it by itself on a shelf of their wardrobe, and left it
there, so that it might for ever rest unaltered.
Every night the cold mists sank upon the land, as she gazed over the
depressing heath through her little window, and watched the paltry
puffs of white smoke arise from the chimneys of other cottages
scattered here and there on all sides. There the husbands had
returned, like wandering birds driven home by the frost. Before their
blazing hearths the evenings passed, cosy and warm; for the spring-
time of love had begun again in this land of North Sea fishermen.
Still clinging to the thought of those islands where he might perhaps
have lingered, she was buoyed up by a kind hope and expected him home
any day.
