Carette of Sark Part 12

As I said, I am not going to waste time telling you of my three long voyages, beyond what is absolutely necessary. These lie for the most part like level plains in my memory, though not without their out-jutting points. But the heights and depths lay beyond.

Very clear to me, however, is the fact that it was ever-growing thought of Carette, more even, I am bound to confess, than thought of my mother and grandfather, that kept me clear of pitfalls which were not lacking to the unwary in those days as in these. Thought of Carette, too, that braced me to the quiet facing of odds on more than one occasion.

Our second voyage was distinguished by a whole day's fierce fighting with a French privateer off the Caicos Islands, while proceeding peacefully on our way from the newly acquired island of Trinidad to the St. Lawrence. It was my first experience of fighting, and a hot one at that. Between killed and wounded we lost five men, but the Frenchman left ten dead on our deck the first time he boarded, and eight the second, and after that did not try again. But he dogged us all the rest of that day and did his best to cripple us, until a fortunate shot from a carronade, which Master Nicolle ran out astern, nipped his foremast and set us free. I got a cut from a cutla.s.s in the left arm, but it healed readily, and Captain Nicolle was pleased to compliment me on my behaviour. But, to tell the truth, I was so angry at the Frenchman's insolent interference with us, that I thought of nothing at the time but taking it out of him with hearty thrust and blow whenever chance offered.

On our third voyage the _Hirondelle_ went ash.o.r.e in a gale off Cape Hatteras, and Captain Nicolle and half our crew were drowned. The rest of us scrambled ash.o.r.e _sans_ everything, but were well treated, and as soon as we could travel were forwarded to New York, and in time found a ship to take us to London.

So that, on the whole, I had seen a fair amount of life and death and the larger world outside, and felt my years almost doubled from what they were when I used to lie on Tintageu and watch the white-sailed ships pressing out to the great beyond.

But the things that stand out now most clearly in my memory are the homecomings and the partings and all they meant to me, but more especially the homecomings--the eager looking forward from the moment our bows pointed homewards; the joy of seeing my mother and grandfather and dear old Krok and George Hamon--Uncle George by adoption, failing that closer relationship which Providence had denied him--sympathetic listener to all our childish troubles and kindly rescuer from endless sc.r.a.pes; the biting intensity of longing to meet Carette again, and to find out how things were with her and how things were between us, a longing that taught me the meaning of heartache.

For this was how matters stood between us--at least as I saw them. Each time I came home I managed, in one way or another, to get a sight, at all events, of Carette, though in some cases little more. Twice I stormed the maiden fortress in George Road, and ran the gauntlet of the Miss Maugers with less discomfiture than on the first occasion, through Miss Maddy's sympathy and my added weight of years and experience. And once Carette was making holiday with Aunt Jeanne, and Beaumanoir saw more of me than did Belfontaine.

And my very vivid recollection of all those times is this--that Carette grew more beautiful each time I saw her, both in mind and body; that my feeling for her grew in me beyond all other growth, though the years were building me solidly; and that a fear sprang up in me at last that she was perhaps going to grow out of my reach, as she certainly was growing out of my understanding.

Each time we met her greeting was of the warmest, and had in it the recollection of those earlier days. That, I said to myself, was the real Carette.

And then there would gradually come upon us that thin veil of distance, as though the years and the growth and the experiences of life were setting us a little apart. And that, I said, was the Miss Maugers.

For my part I would have had Carette as satisfied with my sole companionship as in the days when we romped bare-legged among the pools and rocks, and woke the basking gulls and cormorants with our shouts, and dared the twisting currents with unfettered limbs and no thought of wrong. These things in all their fulness of delight were, of course, no longer possible to us. But the joyous spirit of them I would fain have retained, and I found it slipping elusively away.

We were, in fact, and inevitably, putting away the things of our childhood and becoming man and woman, with all the wider and deeper feelings incident thereto. The changes were inevitable and--Carette grew in some ways more quickly than I did. So that, whereas I had always been undisputed leader in all things, even when it was the accomplishing of her wishes, now I found myself looking up to her as something above me, possibly beyond me, something certainly to strive after with all that was in me, and without which everything else would be nothing.

Perhaps I had been inclined to take things somewhat for granted. Jeanne Falla did not fail, in due course, to tell me so, and she was a very shrewd woman and understood her kind better than any man that ever was born. Now, taking things for granted is always, and under any circ.u.mstances, but most especially where the unknown is in question, a most unwise thing to do. And what can equal for unfathomableness the workings of a woman's heart?

I had never given a thought to any other girl than Carette, unless by way of unfavourable comparison. It is true I had never come across any girl so well worth thinking about. The merry dark eyes with their deepening depths; the sweet wide mouth that flashed so readily into laughter, and set one thinking of the glad little waves and little white sh.e.l.ls on Herm beach; the mane of dark brown hair--she wore it primly braided at the Miss Maugers'--in which gleams of sunshine seemed to have become entangled and never been able to find their way out,--these went with me through the soft seductions of the Antilles, and the more experienced beguilements of the Mediterranean, and armed me sufficiently against them all;--these also that filled with rosy light many a long hour that for my comrades was dark and tedious, and kept my heart high and strong when the times were hard and bitter.

I had wondered at times, but always pleasurably, at the very unusual amount of education Carette was getting, for it was unusual at that time and under the circ.u.mstances, so far as I understood them. But I rejoiced at it, remembering my grandfather's saying in my own case; and even when the results of it seemed to drop little veils between us, I am certain I never wished things otherwise so far as Carette was concerned, though perhaps for my own sake I might.

Jean Le Marchant of Brecqhou had prospered in his business, I knew. His six stalwart sons had been too busy contributing to that prosperity to acquire any great book-learning. They were all excellent sailors, bold free-traders, and somewhat overbearing to their fellows. It was only slowly that the idea came to me that the blood that was in them might be of a different shade and kind from that which flowed so temperately in our cool Sercq veins.

It was much thinking of Carette and her ever-growing beauty and accomplishments which brought me to that. Truly there was no girl in all Sercq like her, nor on Guernsey I would wager, and her father and brothers also were very different from the other Island men. As likely as not they were French, come over to escape the troubles. That would account for many things, and the idea, once in my mind, took firm root there. Sometime, when opportunity offered, I would ask Jeanne Falla. She would certainly know all about her own husband's family. Whether she would tell me was quite another matter.

Up to now, you see, Carette, as Carette, had sufficed, but now Carette was growing out of herself and her surroundings, and it was the why and wherefore of this that my thoughts went in search of. For if Carette grew out of her surroundings she might grow beyond me, and it behoved me to see to it, for she had grown to be a part of my life, and life without her would be a poor thing indeed.

And all these things I used to turn over and over in my heart during the sultry night-watches in the West Indies, when the heat lightnings gleamed incessantly all round the horizon, and it was too hot to sleep even when off duty; and during the grimmer watches round about Newfoundland, with the fog as thick as wool inside and outside one, and the smell of the floating bergs in the air; and most of all when we were plunging homeward as fast as we could make it, and the call of Carette drew my heart faster than my body, till my body fairly ached for sight and sound of her.

CHAPTER XII

HOW AUNT JEANNE GAVE A PARTY

It was on my return from my fourth voyage--in the brig _Sarnia_--that things began to happen.

The voyage had been a disastrous one all through. We had bad weather right across to the Indies, and had to patch up there as best we could. It was when we were slowly making our way north that a hurricane, such as those seas know, caught us among the Bahamas and brought us to a sudden end.

The ship had been badly strained already on the voyage out, and the repairs had been none too well done. Our masts went like carrots and we were rolling helplessly in the grip of the storm, pumping doggedly but without hope against seams that gaped like a sieve, when the Providence that rules even hurricanes flung us high on a sandy coast and left us there to help ourselves.

Of our blind wanderings in that gruesome land of swamps and sand, which, when we at last escaped from it, we learned was Florida, I must not write here. It was months before such of us as were left crawled through into civilisation, and it is not too much to say that every day of the time after we parted from the wreck we carried our lives in our hands. It was sixteen months almost to a day before I set foot once more on Peter Port quay. For beggars cannot be choosers, and for the very clothes we stood in we were indebted to the kind hearts who took pity on us in the American States. We had had to wait at every point till means of forwarding us could be found, and we were welcomed in Peter Port as men returned from the dead.

Within two hours I was scrambling up through the ferns and gorse above Port a la Jument to the welcome that awaited me at home.

I peeped through the window before going in, and saw the table laid for supper and my mother busy at the hearth. She turned when I entered, supposing it was my grandfather and Krok, and then with a cry she was on my neck.

Ah, how good it was to feel her there, and to find her unbroken by all the terrible waiting! She had hoped and hoped, and refused to give up hoping long after the others had done so. She told me, between smiles and tears, that each time I went she had felt that she had probably seen me for the last time. "But," she said quietly, "I left you in the good G.o.d's hands, and I believed that however it was with you it would be well."

Then my grandfather and Krok came in, and my grandfather said very fervently, "Now G.o.d be praised!" and wrung my right hand as if he could never wring it enough, while Krok wrung the other, with eyes that stood out of his head like marbles and yet were full of tears.

During supper I told them shortly what had befallen us, and I had so much to tell, and they so much to hear, that we none of us supped over well, yet none of us had probably ever enjoyed a supper like it.

Then in turn I was hungry for news, and began asking about this one and that, intending so to come presently to Carette without baring my heart.

But my dear mother, guessing perhaps what was in me, gave me full measure.

"Jeanne Falla has a party to-night, my boy, and Carette is stopping with her. You should go down and give them a surprise."

"I will go," I said, and jumped up at once to see if, among the things I had left behind when I went away, I could find enough to rig myself out suitably to the occasion.

My mother had a new blue guernsey just finished for me, a wonderful guernsey, when you think of it. She had, I think, gone on working at it, after the others had given me up, just to show her trust in Providence, and her dear eyes shone when she saw me in it. Loans from my grandfather, whose full stature I had now attained, and whose contribution was of importance, and from Krok, who would have given me one of his eyes if I had needed it, filled all my requirements, and I set off for Beaumanoir about nine o'clock as glad a man as any in Sercq that night.

And oh, the sweetness of the night and all things in it. The solemn pulse of the great sea in Saut de Juan; the voices of many waters in the Gouliot Pa.s.s; the great dusky cushions of gorse studded with blooms that looked white under the moon; the mingling in the soft salt air of the scent of hedge-roses and honeysuckle, of dewy, trodden gra.s.s and the sweet breath of cows--ay, even the smell of the pigsties was good that night, and mightily refreshing after the dark Everglades of Florida.

Aunt Jeanne's hospitable door stood wide. She kept open house that night, for the old observances were dear to her ever-young heart. I walked right into her kitchen, and she met me with a cry of amazement and delight, and every wrinkle in the weather-browned face creased into a smile.

"Why, Phil, mon gars! Is it possible?" she cried. "You are welcome as one from the dead. Though, ma fe, I hoped all along, as your mother did. And, my good! what a big fellow it is! And not bad-looking either! I used to think you'd grow up square. You were the squarest boy I ever saw. But foreign parts have drawn you out like a ship's mast."

She was dragging me by the hand all the time, and now halted me in front of the great square fern-bed in the corner between the window and the hearth, and stood looking up into my face with the air of an artist awaiting approval of her latest masterpiece. A dear old face, sharp-featured, clever, all alive with the brightness of that which was in her, and with two bright dark eyes sparkling like a robin's under the black silk sun-bonnet which the gossips said she wore day and night.

I knew she looked just all that, but no eyes or thought had I for Aunt Jeanne or anyone else just then.

For here in front of me was the great green fern-bed, green no longer but transformed into a radiant shrine of flowers. Nine feet long it was, and not much less in width, and its solid oaken sides rose some two feet from the floor. It was heaped indeed with the bronze-green fronds and russet-gold stalks of fresh-cut bracken, but this was only the ordinary workaday foundation, and was almost hidden beneath a coverlet of roses--roses of every hue from damask-red to saffron-yellow and purest white, heaped and strewn in richest profusion and filling the room with perfume. From somewhere in the roof above, long sprays of creeping geranium and half-opened honeysuckle and branches of tree fuchsia hung down to the sides of the couch and formed a canopy, the most beautiful one could imagine. For the flowers of the honeysuckle looked like tiny baby-fingers reaching down for something below, and the red and purple fuchsias looked like a rain of falling stars. And beneath it sat the Queen of the Revels dressed all in white, her unbound hair rippling about her like a dark sunset cloud, till it lost itself among the creamy many-coloured petals below,--Carette, the loveliest flower of all.

She had shaken her hair over her face to veil her modesty at the very outspoken admiration of some of the earlier comers, but I caught the sparkle of her dark eyes as she looked up at me through the silken mesh, and the sweet slim figure set the flowery canopy shaking with its restrained eagerness. And my heart jumped within me at the lovely sight.

Disregardful of custom, I was stooping to speak to her, when Aunt Jeanne dragged me away with a gratified laugh, and a quick "Nenni, nenni! She may not speak till the time comes, or dear knows what will happen to us! Come away, mon gars, and tell me where you have been and what you have been doing," and she sat me down in a corner at the far end of the big dresser, and herself beside me so that I should not get away, and made me talk, but I could not take my eyes fora moment off the slim white figure on the radiant bed of roses.

A most delightful place at all times was that great kitchen at Beaumanoir, with its huge fireplace like a smaller room opening off the larger, and put to many other uses besides simply that of cooking;--its black oak presses and dressers and shelves all aglow with much polishing, and bright with crockery and pewter; its great hanging rack under the ceiling, laden with hams and sides of bacon and a hundred and one odds and ends of household use; and the great table in the corner weighted now with piles of currant-cake--Aunt Jeanne's gache had a name in Sercq--and more substantial faring still.

There were about a score of young men and girls there, with a sprinkling of older folk, and every minute brought fresh arrivals to add to the talk and laughter. Each new-comer on entering paid homage to the silent figure on the green bed, and gave me boisterous welcome home as they came to receive a word of greeting from the mistress of the house.

Everyone knew everyone else most intimately. Scarce one but was related to half the people in the room. And all were in the gayest of spirits, for there, in a far corner, old Nicholas Grut every now and again gave the strings of his fiddle an impatient tw.a.n.g, as an intimation that all this was sheer waste of time, and that the only proper business in life was dancing. And presently they would begin, and they would dance until the sun rose, and then--well, the new day had its own rites and ceremonies, and eyes were bright and pulses leaping, and hearts were all a-flutter with hopes and fears of what the day might bring.

"And who is this, Jeanne Falla?" I asked, as one came in whom I had never seen before--a young man, dark and well-looking, and very handsomely dressed compared with the rest of us. And he stood so long before the green-bed, gazing at Carette, that there sprang up in me a sudden desire to take him by the neck and drag him away, or, better still, to hurl him through the open door into outer darkness.

"Tiens!" said Aunt Jeanne softly, "it is the young Torode--"

"Torode? I do not know him. Who is he?"