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 thateverything becomes miserably topsy-turvy? I have often had to struggleto keep awake when writing you these long letters, which you say you areso glad to get. But now I am writing because I am so dreadfully awakethat 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 waterdripping from him ran down and joined the baby rivers that were rushingdown 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 whatorders 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 eventhink I could take her out of the cove. If we could only get her clear ofthe 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'mgoing to risk all our lives? Come back or send word as soon as you thinkit safe to start. That's all I want. I suppose everything is all right inthe engine room now."
Our skipper confirmed this and left. All day the storm gathered greaterfury, and has kept it up ever since. At times the rain stops, and thegreat black clouds race desperately across the sky while the worldoutside our little cove is a raging mass of spume that becomes wind-tornand flies like huge snow flakes high up in the air. And then the rainbegins again, slanting and beating down wickedly, and I feel that no suchthing 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 withDaddy, who looked very disconsolate. I am afraid that this long storm hasgot on his nerves, or perhaps the poor dear is worrying about me. I thinkhe 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 whatcan one do when it really becomes a matter of life and death to go outand help, to the best of one's poor abilities? How could any one stand ona river bank, with a rope, however frail, in one's hands, and obey evenone'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 toyou, Aunt Jennie. Well, we were there, and the lamp flickered, and therain just pelted the house so that it looked as if it were trying to washus down into the cove. But I heard a knock at the door, and listened, andit came again. So I went and opened it to find Yves, with his long blackhair disheveled and his face a picture of awful anxiety. In the gestureof his hands there was pitiful begging, and his voice came hoarsely as hesought 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 knowabout 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 _labelle 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. SoI know mademoiselle she help fix heem leetle girl, de oder day, an' metink maybe she tell me what I do. All de oder womans dey know noding atall, an' I hear Docteur say oder day zey all big fool. Please youcome, mademoiselle."
"I have to go, Daddy," I cried, and caught up my woollen cap and wrappedmyself up in my waterproof.
"I wish you wouldn't, daughter," said poor Daddy. "I am sure it must besomething 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 aboutsick babies."
"Oh! I don't want her to be sent for. She has those dear little ones ofher own," I said.
Then I kissed him quickly and ran out into the darkness before he couldobject any further. The wind just tore at me, and I had to seizeFrenchy'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 floorhe had placed some pans that caught some of the drippings from the leakyroof, and a piece of sail-cloth was stretched upon a homemade palletcovered with an old caribou hide, upon which the poor little fellow waslying. Unable to bear any heat he had cast away all his coverings, in thefever that possessed him, and when I heard him moan and knelt beside himhe stretched out his arms to me, and his pleading face grew sweet withhope.
"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 weething more contented. After this I sent Frenchy to our house for somealcohol, with which I washed the boy, who finally fell into a restlesssleep.
Frenchy had placed his only chair near the pallet for me, and after awhile he drew up a big pail, on the bottom of which he sat, with hiselbows upon his knees and his jaws in the palm of his hands, staring atthe child. One could see that an immense fear was upon the man, but thatmy presence was of some comfort to him. It really looks as if men introuble always seek help from women, and this poor fellow was now leaningupon me, just as I had leaned on his big arm when we had made our waythrough the storm. Something was tearing away at his heart-strings, andafter 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 inpouring 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 thatseveral times, while he told it to me, my hand rested in sympathy uponthat great arm of his, that had now become very weak. It was at firstjust the simplest little tale of love somewhere on the coast of Brittany,and of vows exchanged before a Virgin that stretched out her arms towardsthe sea. And then Yves was taken away upon a warship, and there weretears and prayers for his return. He couldn't remember all the countriesfrom which he had sent letters, but after many months answers ceased tocome.
Then a new recruit had joined, who belonged to his town, and informed himthat 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 oneday it chanced that the cruiser was sent up there, to keep an eye on thefisheries, and he was in a fever of waiting until they should arrive. Onthe first day that he obtained shore leave he had wandered up and downthe little streets, and looked at names over _cafes_ and shops, and askedquestions of all who would listen to him. No one knew anything ofJeanne-Marie Kermadec. At last one man remembered that a family of thatname 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 calledto him to join them, but he strolled on, and suddenly he had seen ahollow-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 alittle table, with others, and tried to make him come out with her. Butthe man swore at her, and the woman left, crying, and Yves had followedher out into the street, and when he spoke she knew him, and criedharder. So he had gone as far as her house, and then she wept on hisshoulder. Her people had gone away but she had remained, for her love hadgone out to this man and the Virgin on the hill was very far away. Atfirst 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, veryunsteadily, and some of the men on his ship laughed at him. But perhapshe wa
s looking dangerous, because after he had glared at them once theyleft him alone.
After this he had met Jeanne-Marie several times, but his ship soon lefton a trip to some places in Canada. In one of these there was a greatcoal mine near the sea, and in another town perched queerly on a rockthey had anchored in the _Saint Laurent_. Yes, perhaps it was Quebec;he knew the people spoke French there. Then after a time the cruiser hadreturned to St. Pierre. He thought it might be better not to go back tothat house, but he found that he could not keep away.
It was some illness he did not know that killed her. Yes, he had beenthere 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. Shehad asked him to kiss her before she died, and it was the only time sincehe had left Brittany. Then Jeanne-Marie's husband had come into thehouse, and borrowed five francs from him and was very maudlin, and askedwhat the devil he was going to do with that brat, which cried all thetime. But the little one was quiet when Yves took it in his arms, so poorFrenchy asked if he might take it, because he knew it would die if leftthere. The man had laughed, so he had taken it on his arm and wanderedout in the street with it, and a quarter-master asked him what he wasdoing with a baby. He answered that he didn't know, for one can't takelittle ones away on warships. He had met a man from the French shore, whotold him there was a schooner from Newfoundland which had lost two men ina blow, and needed a hand or two. Then he had gone and offered to shipfor nothing, if they would let him take the baby. Yes, they had laughedat him, but the skipper was drunk and good-natured, and told him to comeaboard. He had done so at night, when no one was looking, and had withhim some milk that comes in cans. So they had sailed away forNewfoundland, and he supposed it was as good a place as any for a man whowas now a deserter. Very likely they had looked for him a long time, andhad been surprised, for he was accounted a good man. Anyway it wasJeanne-Marie's baby, and one could not leave it to be neglected and todie, because Jeanne-Marie had loved it very much.
Of course he would never see France again, unless the boy died. If thishappened he would go and give himself up, because nothing would matterany more. So many of his shipmates had gone to lands of black and yellowpeople, and had never returned. They were dead, and some day he alsowould 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 justrehearsing to himself something that had been all of his life, becauseeverything that had happened before, and the struggle for a livingafterwards, were of no moment. Through the poor man's ignorance, throughhis wondrous folly, I could discern an immense love that had overpoweredhim and broken him forever. He was an exile from his beloved land ofBrittany, and would never see its heather and gorse again, or the flamingfoxgloves that redden some of its fields.
And all this because of a little child that was the only thing left thathad belonged to the woman he had loved so greatly! He said that perhapsthat 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 roughboards of the walls. I heard him repeating, in a low voice, in soft quickwords, the prayers his faith led him to hope might be hearkened to by theLady of Sorrows, as she watched from that little hill on the other sideof the great sea.
The poor candle was guttering and the wind howled outside. I lookedaround and saw the few clothes hanging from pegs, the rusty crackedstove, the table made of rough boards, the bunk filled with dry moss andseaweed, and then my eye caught one flaring note of color. It was agaudily hued print representing a woman holding aloft a tricolor flag,and labelled _La Republique Francaise_! And the poor cheap picture wasall of the inheritance of this man, marooned and outlawed for the sake ofa woman and her dying kiss, which had been the only reward of all hisdevotion.
So I sat there, awed by the greatness of it all. There were no tears inmy eyes; indeed, it seemed too big a thing for tears, a revelation and anoutlook upon life so vast that it held me spell-bound. I had neverrealized that love could be such a thing as that, feeding upon a mere sadmemory, able to take this rough viking of a man and toss him, a playthingof its stupendous force, upon these barren rocks. Surely it was arrantfolly, utter insanity, but it showed that men's lives are not regulatedby clockwork, and that, however erring an ideal may be, the passions itmay inspire can bring out the greatness of manhood or the ardent devotionof women.
It awed me to think that among the teeming millions of the earth therewere thousands upon thousands bound to potential outbursts of a love thatmay slumber quietly until death or awake, great and inspiring in itsmight.
As the muttered prayers went on I watched the uneasy tossing of thechild, until Susie Sweetapple came in, hurried and dripping.
"You's got ter come home," she said. "Yer father he's bawlin' as how hewants yer back. My, the poor mite of a young 'un! The face o' he looksdreadful 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 Icould do. I could not let poor Daddy worry any longer about me.
"Come for me, Yves," I told the man, "if he seems worse, or if there isanything I can do."
He came to me, and I saw that his eyes were full of tears as I put myhand out to him. He lifted it up to his lips with a sob.
So we two hurried back home. By this time the wind had abated a little,and the moon was shining through some great rifts in the clouds, thewaters of the cove reflecting a shiny path. The road was no longer indarkness; I could see it dimly, rising to higher ground.
I will write again very soon,Your lovingHELEN.
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