CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.
PALMY DAYS.
We were married as soon as the season was over, when Martin's fashionable patients were all going away from town. Ours was a very quiet wedding, for I had no friends on my side, and Martin's cousin Julia could not come, for she had a baby not a month old, and Captain Carey could not leave them. Johanna Carey and Minima were my bridesmaids, and Jack was Martin's groomsman.
On our way home from Switzerland, in the early autumn, we went down from Paris to Falaise, and through Noireau to Ville-en-bois. From Falaise every part of the road was full of associations to me. This was the long, weary journey which Minima and I had taken, alone, in a dark November night; and here were the narrow and dirty streets of Noireau, which we had so often trodden, cold, and hungry, and friendless. Martin said little about it, but I knew by his face, and by the tender care he lavished upon me, that his mind was as full of it as mine was.
There was no reason for us to stay even a day in Noireau, and we hurried through it on our way to Ville-en-bois. This road was still more memorable to me, for we had traversed it on foot.
"See, Martin!" I cried, "there is the trunk of the tree still, where Minima and I sat down to rest. I am glad the tree is there yet. If we were not in a hurry, you and I would sit there now; it is so lonely and still, and scarcely a creature passes this way. It is delicious to be lonely sometimes. How foot-sore and famished we were, walking along this rough part of the road! Martin, I almost wish our little Minima were with us. There is the common! If you will look steadily, you can just see the top of the cross, against the black line of fir-trees, on the far side."
I was getting so excited that I could speak no longer; but Martin held my hand in his, and I clasped it more and more tightly as we drew nearer to the cross, where Minima and I had sat down at the foot, forlorn and lost, in the dark shadows of the coming night. Was it possible that I was the same Olivia?
But as we came in sight of the little grove of cypresses and yews, we could discern a crowd of women, in their snow-white caps, and of men and boys, in blue blouses. The hollow beat of a drum reached our ears afar off, and after it the shrill notes of a violin and fife playing a merry tune. Monsieur Laurentie appeared in the foreground of the multitude, bareheaded, long before we reached the spot.
"O Martin!" I said, "let us get out, and send the carriage back, and walk up with them to the village."
"And my wife's luggage?" he answered, "and all the toys and presents she has brought from Paris?"
It was true that the carriage was inconveniently full of parcels, for I do not think that I had forgotten one of Monsieur Laurentie's people. But it would not be possible to ride among them, while they were walking.
"Every man will carry something," I said. "Martin, I must get out."
It was Monsieur Laurentie who opened the carriage-door for me; but the people did not give him time for a ceremonious salutation. They thronged about us with vivats as hearty as an English hurrah.
"All the world is here to meet us, monsieur," I said.
"Madame, I have also the honor of presenting to you two strangers from England," answered Monsieur Laurentie, while the people fell back to make way for them. Jack and Minima! both wild with delight. We learned afterward, as we marched up the valley to Ville-en-bois, that Dr. Senior had taken Jack's place in Brook Street, and insisted upon him and Minima giving us this surprise. Our procession, headed by the drum, the fife, and the violin, passed through the village street, from every window of which a little flag fluttered gayly, and stopped before the presbytery, where Monsieur Laurentie dismissed it, after a last vivat.
The next stage of our homeward journey was made in Monsieur Laurentie's char à bancs, from Ville-en-bois to Granville—Jack and Minima had returned direct to England, but we were to visit Guernsey on the way. Captain Carey and Julia made it a point that we should go to see them, and their baby, before settling down in our London home. Martin was welcomed with almost as much enthusiasm in St. Peter-Port as I had been in little Ville-en-bois.
From our room in Captain Carey's house I could look at Sark lying along the sea, with a belt of foam encircling it. At times, early in the morning, or when the sunset light fell upon it, I could distinguish the old windmill, and the church breaking the level line of the summit; and I could even see the brow of the knoll behind Tardifs cottage. But day after day the sea between us was rough, and the westerly breeze blew across the Atlantic, driving the waves before it. There was no steamer going across, and Captain Carey's yacht could not brave the winds. I began to be afraid that Martin and I would not visit the place, which of all others in this half of the world was dearest to me.
"To-morrow," said Martin one night, after scanning the sunset, the sky, and the storm-glass, "if you can be up at five o'clock, we will cross to Sark."
I was up at four, in the first gray dawn of a September morning. We had the yacht to ourselves, for Captain Carey declined running the risk of being weather-bound on the island—a risk which we were willing to chance. The Havre Gosselin was still in morning shadow when we ran into it; but the water between us and Guernsey was sparkling and dancing in the early light, as we slowly climbed the rough path of the cliff. My eyes were dazzled with the sunshine, and dim with tears, when I first caught sight of the little cottage of Tardif, who was stretching out his nets, on the stone causeway under the windows. Martin called to him, and he flung down his nets and ran to meet us.
"We are come to spend the day with you, Tardif," I cried, when he was within hearing of my voice.
"It will be a day from heaven," he said, taking off his fisherman's cap, and looking round at the blue sky with its scattered clouds, and the sea with its scattered islets.
It was like a day from heaven. We wandered about the cliffs, visiting every spot which was most memorable to either of us, and Tardif rowed us in his boat past the entrance of the Gouliot Caves. He was very quiet, but he listened to our free talk together, for I could not think of good old Tardif as any stranger; and he seemed to watch us both, with a far-off, faithful, quiet look upon his face. Sometimes I fancied he did not bear what we were saying, and again his eyes would brighten with a sudden gleam, as if his whole soul and heart shone through them upon us. It was the last day of our holiday, for in the morning we were about to return to London, and to work; but it was such a perfect day as I had never known before.
"You are quite happy, Mrs. Martin Dobrée?" said Tardif to me, when we were parting from him.
"I did not know I could ever be so happy," I answered.
"We saw him to the last moment standing on the cliff, and waving his hat to us high above his head. Now and then there came a shout across the water. Before we were quite beyond ear-shot, we heard Tardif's voice calling amid the splashing of the waves:
"God be with you, my friends. Adieu, mam'zelle!"