II
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, Mademoiselle Yvonne—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 the Marie au Secours sailed 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 wrist and 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 the Maria 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, Yvonne bestirred 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—and sat 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 the Marie au Secours had 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 wished to 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 the Marie 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—had been 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.