Where Deep Seas Moan

by E. Gallienne Robin

The ruddy colour left Perrin's tanned face.

"My God, no, I haven't seen her! What, then, can have happened?"

Then, with graphic, trembling words, Jean told how Ellenor had gone to Saint Pierre to buy some finery for her wedding bonnet; how, hour after hour, when the snow was thick and the wind howled over the moorland, she had been anxiously looked for; how, at last, in despair, he had said to his wife that he would go to Perrin, for they must be off to look for Ellenor all the way to Saint Pierre Port.

At once, Corbet went upstairs, and, waking his mother, told her the story of his girl's mysterious disappearance.

"We'll go round to Les Casquets and bring Mrs. Cartier over here, mother. She's a poor creature, and she can't be left alone. Who can tell when Cartier and I will be back!"

It was two o'clock before the men started to walk to Saint Pierre Port. It was brilliant moonlight at four o'clock, and the gusts of snow had died away with the wind; but the men searched, in vain, for any trace of Ellenor. As soon as it was dawn, the two parishes were roused, and those who were kind helped to look for the missing girl. The rest shrugged their shoulders and said that Christmas Day was not meant to be wasted in such a search, for such a queer wild girl as Ellenor Cartier. At last a child found in a hedge a paper bag: it contained a spray of artificial flowers, a few drenched roses. The child's mother guessed this must be the finery Ellenor had gone to buy, for everyone knew the pitiful story by now. But the hedge was ominously near Rocquaine Bay. What did this mean?

After three days of minute search, the band of men gave up in despair; and Jean and Perrin went back to the routine of daily work in dogged and patient despair. The fisherman wondered if Le Mierre had heard the news, shut up in Lihou Island, where his wife lay very ill of small-pox, which was raging in different parts of Guernsey. Finally Jean unburdened his mind to his friend and talked with him of Ellenor's infatuation for Dominic. Would it be that she had drowned herself to be rid of the torture of her life?

Perrin was haunted perpetually by this idea: it was with him by day and by night. He went about like a man who was half asleep, and people began to complain that he did not even nod to his acquaintances when he met them. So the Christmas season passed and it was the last day of the Old Year. The cold and the snow disappeared, and the weather was mild and calm as Perrin rowed homewards about four o'clock in the afternoon. He had been to pull up his lobster pots which had been put down not far from Lihou island. Buried in thought, he did not notice how close he was rowing to the reef of rocks off the north of the island, till a loud cry startled him and he saw that someone was signalling to him from a jutting rock close to his boat. It was a woman. It was Ellenor Cartier.

Mad with joy, Perrin brought his boat into a tiny creek, moored it and scrambled up the rocks to the girl's side.

"Don't come near me!" she cried, "for the sake of your mother! I am minding Blaisette. She is ill, dreadfully, dreadfully ill. If she gets well, the doctor says it will be a miracle. But even he is afraid to come much. Since Christmas Eve he hasn't been here. It was then I came, just after his visit."