Othmar

by Ouida

The night was dark, and a fine slight rain was falling, but she was not conscious of it. She found her way by instinct, as a blind dog finds his; it was long, and went over fields and pastures, but she kept straight on unerringly, going home, why she knew not, for she felt that she would never dwell there another day: now that she knew.

Now that she knew, she could not have touched a coin of that silver and gold which lay in her drawer in her room at Les Hameaux; she would not have eaten a crust of the bread which had been purchased with it. She had no idea what she would do; she was alone once more, as utterly alone as she had been when her solitary boat had been launched on the world of waters, to reach a haven or to founder as it might. Her only instinct was to go anywhere on the earth, or under the earth, where the eyes of Othmar's wife could never find her in their merciless scorn.

Everything had gone from her, all her dreams of a future, all her love for art and for the poets, all her bright and buoyant courage, all her innocent and idealised ambitions: they were all gone for evermore; she was alone without that companionship of a fearless hope which had sustained her strength upon the lonely seas, and in the hell of Paris. She had no hope now of any kind; and youth can no more live without it, than flowers can live without the air of heaven. She was weakened from fasting, and her brain was giddy; as she walked on over the rough ground through the chill rain, she thought she was on the island; she thought her grandfather was calling to her not to loiter, she thought dead Catherine was stretching out her arms to her, and crying, 'Hasten! hasten!' She smelt the odour of the orange flowers, she heard the sound of the sea washing up amongst the pebbles and the sand—'if I could only die there, if I could only die there,' she thought dully, as she stumbled through the wet grass and the fields of colza.

Death would be so easy and so sweet, amongst the blue bright rolling water, in the scented southerly air, under the broad white moon of her own skies.

She came with a shock to a knowledge that she was entering the village of Les Hameaux as a peasant driving furiously shrieked to her to move out of his road, and in the cabins around the lights twinkled as the people of the house sat at their suppers of soup and bread. Burning tears rushed to her eyes and fell down her cheeks. She knew that she would never see the shores of Bonaventure again in life.

She went through the village with weary steps, she was very tired, her wet clothes clung to her, her face was white and drawn, her hands and her throat were hot. Some people leaning against the doorposts of their houses looked at her, and wondered to see her out so late, so wet, so jaded, and all alone. She went through the hamlet without pausing and without hearing any of the words called out to her.

Outside the village and on the road to the farm of the Croix Blanche, there stood a lonely cottage, half hidden in elder trees and built two centuries before with the stones and rubble of the ruins of Port Royal. A woman whom she knew dwelt there with four young children: a widow, very poor, making what living she could from poultry and from fruit; a laborious, patient, honest, and good soul, always at work in all weathers, and happy because the four fair-haired laughing children tumbled after her in the grass or in the dust.

As she passed down the road in the grey film of rain, this woman ran out of the house to her, weeping piteously, and catching at her clothes to make her stop.

'My Pierrot is dying!' she cried to her. 'He has the ball in his throat—he will be dead by dawn—for the love of God send some one to me. I am all alone.'

Damaris pausing, looked at her stupidly. Indistinctly roused from her own stupor, she was unconscious for the moment where she was or who spoke to her. The light through the open doorway streamed out into the road; she saw the wild eyes, the tearful cheeks, the dishevelled hair of the wretched mother; she understood by instinct what woe had come upon the house. Pierrot was the youngest and the prettiest of the four little children who lived huddled together, and happy under these elder trees like small unfledged birds in a nest.