The Toilers of the Sea (45 page)

A few moments ago Déruchette had come into the room. She had said nothing and made no noise, but had glided in like a shadow. She had sat down, almost unnoticed, on a chair behind Mess Lethierry, who was still standing, in a most joyful mood, pouring out a storm of words in a loud voice and gesturing vigorously. Soon after her arrival there was another silent apparition. A man dressed in black, with a white cravat, holding his hat in his hand, had stopped in the doorway. The number of people in the room had slowly increased, and several of them were holding candles. They illuminated the profile of the man in black, which was of a charming, youthful whiteness and stood out against the dark background with the sharpness of a figure on a medal. He was leaning his elbow against one corner of a panel on the door and holding his forehead in his right hand, in an attitude of unconscious grace, the smallness of his hand bringing out the height of his brow. His lips were pursed in an expression of anguish. He watched and listened with profound attention. The people in the room, recognizing the Reverend Mr. Caudray, rector of the parish, had drawn aside to let him through, but he had remained standing on the threshold. There was an air of hesitation in his posture and of decision in his glance. Now and then his eyes met Déruchette's.

Gilliatt, meanwhile, whether by chance or design, was in shadow and could not be seen clearly.

Mess Lethierry did not at first notice the rector, but he saw Déruchette. He went up to her and kissed her with all the passion that a kiss on the forehead can contain, at the same time extending his arm toward the dark corner of the room where Gilliatt was standing.

“Déruchette,” he said, “now you are rich again, and there is your husband.”

Déruchette looked up in bewilderment and gazed into the obscurity.

Mess Lethierry went on:

“We'll have the marriage right away, tomorrow if possible. We'll have the necessary dispensations; in any case, the formalities here are not troublesome; the dean can do what he pleases, people are married before they can turn around—it's not like France, where you have to have banns and publications and delays and all the rest of it. Then you will be able to boast of having a good husband, and there's no question about it, he's a first-class seaman: I've thought that ever since the day when he brought back the little cannon from Herm. Now he's back from the Douvres, with his fortune, and mine, and the fortune of the whole district. He's a man the world will hear a deal more of one of these days. You said once, ‘I will marry him'; and so you shall. And you will have children, and I shall be a grandfather, and you'll have the good fortune to be the wife of an honest fellow, a hard worker, a handy man, a character full of surprises who's worth a hundred others, a man who saves the inventions of other people, who is a real providence. At least you won't be like almost all the shrews in the neighborhood who have married soldiers or priests, the men who kill and the men who lie. But what are you doing in that corner, Gilliatt? We can't see you. Douce! Grace! Everybody! Let us have some light, so that we can see my son-in-law by the light of day. I betroth you to each other, my children. Here is your husband, and here is my son-in-law: it is Gilliatt of the Bû de la Rue, that good fellow, that great seaman. I shall have no other son-in-law, and you will have no other husband, I pledge my word before God again. Ah, there you are, rector: you will marry these two young people for me.” His eye had just fallen on the Reverend Ebenezer Caudray.

Douce and Grace had carried out their master's order. The two candles they had set on the table lit up Gilliatt from head to foot.

“How handsome he is!” cried Lethierry.

Gilliatt was a hideous sight. He was still in the condition he had been in when he left the Douvres reef that morning—in rags, out at elbow, his beard long, his hair shaggy, his eyes bloodshot, the skin on his face peeling, his hands bleeding, his feet bare. Some of the pustules from the devilfish could still be seen on his hairy arms.

Lethierry looked at him.

“He's the right son-in-law for me. How he fought with the sea! He's all in rags! What shoulders! What hands! What a handsome fellow you are!”

Grace ran up to Déruchette and supported her head. She had fainted.

II

THE LEATHER TRUNK

St. Sampson was up at dawn, and people from St. Peter Port were beginning to make their way there. The resurrection of the Durande caused as much excitement on the island as did the apparition at La Salette
²¹⁵
in the south of France. There was a crowd on the quay looking at the funnel emerging from the paunch. They would have liked to see and touch the engines; but Lethierry, after another triumphant examination of them in daylight, had posted two men in the paunch to keep people off. They were quite content, however, to be able to contemplate the funnel. It was a great cause of wonder. All the talk was of Gilliatt. They made great play with the name he was known by, Gilliatt the Cunning, and their admiration was often followed up by the reflection that it wasn't always agreeable to have people on the island who could achieve feats like this.

From outside the house Mess Lethierry could be seen sitting at his table by the window and writing, with one eye on the paper and the other on the engines. He was so deeply absorbed in his work that he interrupted it only once to call Douce and ask about Déruchette. Douce had replied that she was up and had gone out. Lethierry had said: “It's good for her to get some fresh air. She was a little unwell last night because of the heat. There were a lot of people in the room; and then the surprise, the joy! Besides, the windows had been closed. She's going to have a husband to be proud of!” And he had returned to his writing. He had already signed and sealed two letters to the leading shipbuilders of Bremen and had just wafered the third.

He looked up at the sound of a wheel on the quay, leaned out of the window, and saw a boy pushing a wheelbarrow coming out of the lane leading to the Bû de la Rue and making for the road to St. Peter Port. In the barrow was a trunk of yellow leather studded with copper and pewter nails. He called to the boy:

“Where are you off to, lad?”

The boy stopped and replied: “To the
Cashmere.
”

“What for?”

“To put this trunk on board.”

“Well then, you can take these three letters as well.”

Mess Lethierry opened the drawer in the table, took out a piece of string, tied his three letters together, and threw the packet to the boy, who caught it in both hands.

“Tell the captain of the
Cashmere
that they are from me, and to take care of them. They are for Germany. Bremen via London.”

“I can't tell the captain that, Mess Lethierry.”

“Why not?”

“Because the
Cashmere
is not at the quay.”

“Oh?”

“She is at anchor in the roads.”

“I see: because of the sea.”

“I can only speak to the boatman who takes things out to the ship.”

“Well, tell him to look to my letters.”

“Yes, Mess Lethierry.”

“When does the
Cashmere
sail?”

“At noon.”

“By then the tide will be coming in. She'll have the tide against her.”

“But she'll have the wind with her.”

“Boy,” said Mess Lethierry, pointing to the Durande's funnel, “do you see that? It doesn't have to worry about winds and tides.”

The boy put the letters in his pocket, took up the shafts of the barrow, and continued on his way to the town. Mess Lethierry called out: “Douce! Grace!”

Grace appeared in the half-open door.

“What is it, sir?”

“Come in, and wait a moment.”

Mess Lethierry took a sheet of paper and began to write. If Grace, standing behind him, had had the curiosity to look she would have read this note over his shoulder:

I have written to Bremen for timber. I shall be engaged all day with carpenters about the estimate. You must go to see the dean about a license. I want the marriage to take place as soon as possible: immediately would be best. I am looking after the Durande. It is for you to look after Déruchette.

He dated the letter and signed “Lethierry.”

He did not take the trouble to seal the note but merely folded it in four and handed it to Grace.

“Take that to Gilliatt.”

“At the Bû de la Rue?”

“Yes, at the Bû de la Rue.”

I

THE CHURCH NEAR HAVELET BAY

When there is a crowd in St. Sampson, St. Peter Port is sure to be deserted. Any event of interest in one place acts as a pump, sucking people in from elsewhere. News travels fast in small places, and since the first light of dawn the great concern of the people of Guernsey had been going to see the Durande's funnel under Mess Lethierry's windows. Any other event paled into insignificance compared with that. The death of the dean of St. Asaph's had been quite forgotten; there was no further talk about the Reverend Ebenezer Caudray, nor his sudden wealth, nor his departure on the
Cashmere.
The recovery of the Durande's engines from the Douvres was the great subject of the day. People did not believe it. The wreck of the ship had seemed extraordinary enough, but its salvage seemed impossible. Everyone was anxious to confirm with their own eyes that the story was true. All other preoccupations were suspended. Streams of townsfolk with their families, from the rank of “Neighbor” to that of “Mess”—men, women, gentlemen, mothers with their children, and children with their dolls—were coming by every road and track to see the great attraction of the day at Les Bravées and were turning their backs on St. Peter Port. Many shops in St. Peter Port were closed. In the Commercial Arcade all business was at a standstill, and attention was centered on the Durande. Not a single shopkeeper had sold anything except a jeweler who, to his great surprise, had sold a gold wedding ring to “a man who had seemed to be in a great hurry and had asked where the dean's house was.” Any shops that had remained open were centers of gossip where there were lively discussions of the miraculous rescue. Not a passerby was to be seen on L'Hyvreuse, nowadays known for some reason as Cambridge Park; there was no one on High Street, then called the Grand-Rue, nor on Smith Street, then called the Rue des Forges; no one in Hauteville; and the Esplanade itself was deserted. It was like a Sunday. A visiting royal highness reviewing the militia at L'Ancresse would not have emptied the town more effectively. All this fuss about a nobody like Gilliatt caused much shrugging of the shoulders among sober citizens and persons of propriety.

The church of St. Peter Port, with its three gable-ends, its transept, and its spire, stands at the water's edge on the inner side of the harbor, almost on the landing stage, offering a welcome to those arriving and a farewell to those departing. It is the capital letter of the long line formed by the town's front on the ocean. It is both the parish church of St. Peter Port and the church of the dean of Guernsey. Its officiating priest is the suffragan dean, a clergyman in full orders. St. Peter Port's harbor, now a large and handsome port, was in those days, and as recently as ten years ago, smaller than the harbor of St. Sampson. It was formed by two great curved cyclopean walls reaching out from the shoreline to starboard and port and coming together almost at their ends, where there was a small white lighthouse. Below the lighthouse was the narrow entrance, still preserving two links of the chain that had closed the harbor in medieval times. Imagine a lobster's pincer, slightly open, and you have the harbor of St. Peter Port. This outstretched claw took from the abyss a portion of sea that it compelled to remain calm. But when an east wind was blowing there was a considerable swell at the mouth of the harbor, the water inside it was disturbed, and it was wiser not to enter. On this particular day the
Cashmere
had decided not to attempt an entry and had anchored in the roads.

This was the course followed by most ships when there was an east wind, and it had the additional advantage of saving them harbor dues. On these occasions boatmen licensed by the town—a fine breed of seamen whom the new harbor has deprived of their livelihood— picked up passengers at the landing stage or at other points on the coast and conveyed them and their luggage, often through heavy seas and always without mishap, to the vessels about to sail. The east wind is an offshore wind that is good for the passage to England; vessels roll but they do not pitch.

When a vessel about to depart was moored in the harbor, passengers embarked there. When it was anchored in the roads they had the choice of leaving from any point on the coast conveniently near the place of anchorage. In all the creeks around the coast there were boatmen ready to offer their services.

Havelet Bay was one of these creeks. This little haven (
havelet
) was quite close to the town but so isolated that it seemed a long way away. Its isolation was the result of its situation at an opening in the tall cliffs of Fort George, which loom over this discreet little inlet. There were several paths leading to Havelet Bay. The most direct ran along the water's edge; it had the advantage of leading to the town and the church in five minutes, and the disadvantage of being under water twice a day. Other paths, in varying degrees of steepness, led down to the bay through gaps and irregularities in the cliffs. Havelet Bay lay in shadow even in broad daylight. Overhanging cliffs on all sides and a dense growth of bushes and brambles cast a kind of gentle twilight on the confusion of rocks and waves below. Nothing could be more peaceful than this spot in calm weather, nothing more tumultuous in heavy seas. The tips of branches were perpetually bathed in foam. In spring the bay was alive with flowers, nests, fragrances, birds, butterflies, and bees. As a result of recent improvements this wild nook no longer exists, replaced by fine straight lines. There are now stone walls, quays, and gardens; there has been much earth-moving, and modern taste has got rid of the eccentricities of the cliffs and the irregularities of the rocks.

II

DESPAIR CONFRONTING DESPAIR

It was just short of ten o'clock in the morning—a quarter to, as they say on Guernsey. The crowds in St. Sampson, to all appearance, were still increasing. The mass of the population, consumed with curiosity, had flocked to the north of the island, and Havelet Bay, lying to the south, was even more deserted than usual.

But there was one boat in the bay, and one boatman. In the boat was a traveling bag. The boatman seemed to be waiting for someone.

The
Cashmere
could be seen at anchor in the roads. Since it was not due to sail until noon, it was making no preparations for departure.

Anyone passing by on one of the stepped footpaths in the cliffs would have heard the murmur of voices, and if he had looked down over the overhanging cliffs he would have seen, at some distance from the boat, in a nook amid the rocks and branches, out of the boatman's sight, two people: a man and a woman. It was Ebenezer Caudray and Déruchette.

These quiet little corners on the coast, which tempt women bathers, are not always as lonely as they seem. Anyone frequenting them can sometimes be observed and overheard. Thanks to the multiplicity and complication of the cliff paths, those who seek refuge and shelter there can easily be followed. The granite and the trees that conceal a private encounter may also conceal a witness.

Déruchette and Ebenezer were standing face-to-face, looking into each other's eyes, and holding each other by the hand. Déruchette was speaking. Ebenezer was silent. A tear that had gathered on his lashes hung there but did not fall.

The priest's forehead bore the imprint of grief and passion. There, too, was a poignant air of resignation—hostile to faith, though springing from it. On his face, until then of an angelic purity, were the beginnings of an expression of submission to fate. A man who had hitherto meditated only on dogma was now having to meditate on fate: an unhealthy meditation for a priest. Faith breaks down in such meditations. Nothing is more disturbing than surrendering to the unknown. Man is at the mercy of events. Life is a perpetual succession of events, and we must submit to it. We never know from what quarter the sudden blow of chance will come. Catastrophe and good fortune come upon us and then depart, like unexpected visitors. They have their own laws, their own orbits, their own gravitational force, all independent of man. Virtue does not bring happiness, crime does not bring unhappiness; our consciousness has one logic, fate another, and the two never coincide. Nothing can be foreseen. We live in uncertainty and from moment to moment. Consciousness is a straight line, but life is a whirlwind, which casts down on man's head, unpredictably, black chaos or blue skies. Fate is not skilled at transitions. Sometimes the wheel turns so rapidly that man can barely distinguish the interval between one event and another or the link between yesterday and today. Ebenezer Caudray was a believer with an admixture of reasoning and a priest whose life had been complicated by passion. Religions that impose celibacy know what they are about. Nothing so unmans a priest as loving a woman. Ebenezer's mind was darkened by all sorts of clouds.

He was looking at Déruchette—looking too long. These two beings worshiped each other. In Ebenezer's eye there was the mute adoration of despair.

Déruchette was saying:

“You mustn't go. I can't bear it. I thought I would be able to say good-bye to you, but I just can't. It's too much to ask. Why did you come yesterday? You shouldn't have come if you wanted to go away. I had never spoken to you. I loved you, but I didn't know I did. Only, that first day when Mr. Hérode read the story of Rebecca and your eyes met mine I felt my cheeks on fire and I thought, ‘Oh! how Rebecca must have turned red!' But even so, the day before yesterday, if anyone had said to me, ‘You are in love with the rector,' I would have laughed. That is the terrible thing about love: it comes on you unawares. I paid no heed. I went to church, I saw you there, and I thought that everyone was like me. I don't blame you: you did nothing to make me love you; you didn't do anything but look at me; it's not your fault if you look at people; but you did look at me, and so I fell in love with you. I didn't know I had. When you took up the book it was a flood of light; when others did it was just a book. You sometimes raised your eyes to look at me. You spoke of archangels; but you were my archangel. Whatever you said I believed in at once. Before I saw you I didn't know whether I believed in God or not. Since I have known you I have learned to pray. I used to say to Douce: ‘Dress me quickly so that I shan't be late for the service.' And I hurried to the church. So that is what being in love with a man means. I did not realize it. I used to think, How devout I am becoming! It was you who taught me that I wasn't going to church to worship God: I was going for you, I know. You are handsome, you speak well; and when you raised your arms to heaven I felt that you were holding my heart in your two white hands. I was foolish; I didn't know it. You were wrong to come into the garden yesterday and speak to me. If you had said nothing I should have known nothing. You might have gone away, and I might have been sad; but now if you go I shall die. Now that I know I love you, you can't possibly go away. What are you thinking of? I don't believe you are listening to me!”

Ebenezer answered:

“You heard what was said yesterday.”

“Alas!”

“How can I help it?!”

They were silent for a moment. Then Ebenezer went on:

“There is only one thing for me to do. I must leave.”

“And for me there is nothing left but to die. Oh, how I wish that there was no sea—that there was nothing but the sky! That would make everything right, and we should both leave at the same time. You shouldn't have spoken to me. Why did you speak to me? Well, then, since you did you mustn't go away. What will become of me? I tell you, I shall die. What will you feel like when I'm in my grave? Oh, my heart is broken! I am so wretched! Yet my uncle isn't unkind.”

It was the first time that Déruchette had spoken of Mess Lethierry as her uncle. Hitherto she had always said “my father.”

Ebenezer stepped back and made a sign to the boatman. There was the sound of the boat hook on the shingle and the man's footstep on the gunwale of his boat.

“No, no!” cried Déruchette.

Ebenezer drew closer to her.

“I must go, Déruchette.”

“No, never! Because of a bit of machinery! How can it be? Did you see that horrible man yesterday? You cannot abandon me. You are clever, you will find some way. You cannot have asked me to meet you this morning with the idea of leaving me. I have done nothing to deserve this. You cannot complain about me. You want to leave on that ship? I don't want you to go. You mustn't leave me. You cannot open up heaven and then close it so soon. I tell you, you must stay. Anyway it's not time to go yet. Oh! I love you!”

And, pressing against him, she clasped her hands together around his neck, as if to hold on to him with her arms and to join her hands in a prayer to God. He freed himself from this gentle embrace, which resisted as strongly as it could. Déruchette sank down on an ivy-clad projection of the rock, mechanically pulling up the sleeve of her dress to the elbow to show her charming bare arm, with a pale diffused light in her fixed eyes. The boat was drawing near.

Ebenezer took her head in his two hands; this virgin had the air of a widow, this young man the air of a grandfather. He touched her hair with a kind of religious caution, looked fixedly at her for some moments, and planted on her forehead one of those kisses that it seems would cause a star to shine forth and, in a voice trembling with supreme anguish that reflected the devastation of his soul, said the word that is instinct with the deepest emotion: “Good-bye!”

Déruchette burst into sobs.

At this moment they heard a slow, grave voice saying:

“Why don't you get married?”

Ebenezer turned his head. Déruchette raised her eyes. It was Gilliatt, who had approached on a path from the side.

Gilliatt was no longer the same man as on the previous night. He had combed his hair and shaved, and was wearing a white sailor's shirt with a turned-down collar and his newest seaman's clothes. On his little finger was a gold ring. He seemed profoundly calm. His sunburned face was pale, with the hue of sickly bronze.

They looked at him, bewildered. Although he was almost unrecognizable, Déruchette recognized him. But the words he had just spoken were so remote from what was passing in their minds that they had left no impression.

Gilliatt went on:

“Why do you need to say good-bye? Get married, and you can leave together.”

Déruchette trembled from head to foot.

Gilliatt continued:

“Miss Déruchette is twenty-one. She is her own mistress. Her uncle is only her uncle. You love each other—”

Déruchette interrupted in a gentle voice:

“How did you come here?”

“Get married,” repeated Gilliatt.

Déruchette was beginning to realize what this man was saying to her. She stammered out:

“My poor uncle—”

“He would object if you went to him and said you wanted to get married,” said Gilliatt, “but if you were actually married he would give his consent. Besides, you are going away: when you come back he will forgive you.”

He added, with a touch of bitterness: “Anyway, now he's thinking only of rebuilding his boat. That will occupy him while you are away. He has the Durande to console him.”

“I don't want to leave unhappiness behind me,” murmured Déruchette, still in a state of stupor but with a gleam of joy.

“It won't last long,” said Gilliatt.

Ebenezer and Déruchette had been bewildered, but were now recovering. As their agitation diminished they began to grasp the meaning of Gilliatt's words. There was still something of a cloud hanging over them, but it was not for them to resist. We yield easily to those who offer to save us. Objections to a return to Eden are not strongly pressed. There was something in the attitude of Déruchette, as she leaned imperceptibly on Ebenezer, that made common cause with what Gilliatt was saying. As for the enigma of this man's presence and his words, which in Déruchette's mind in particular gave rise to various kinds of astonishment, these were secondary questions. He was telling them to get married: that at least was clear. He was taking all responsibility. Déruchette had a confused feeling that, for various reasons, he had the right to do so. What he said about Mess Lethierry was true.

Ebenezer, plunged in thought, murmured: “An uncle is not a father.” He was suffering the corruption of an unexpected stroke of good fortune. The scruples that a priest might be expected to feel were melting and dissolving in this poor love-struck heart.

Gilliatt's voice became short and hard, with something like the throbbing of a fever:

“You must be quick. The
Cashmere
sails in two hours. You still have time, but only just. Come with me.”

Ebenezer, who had been observing him attentively, suddenly exclaimed:

“I know who you are. It was you who saved my life.”

Gilliatt replied:

“I don't think so.”

“Over there, at the tip of the Banks.”

“I don't know that place.”

“It was on the day I arrived here.”

“We have no time to lose,” said Gilliatt.

“And I'm sure you were the man we saw last night.”

“That's as may be.”

“What's your name?”

Gilliatt raised his voice:

“Boatman, wait for us here. We shall come back. Miss Déruchette, you asked me how I came here. The answer is very simple: I was walking behind you. You are twenty-one. In this country, when people are of age and dependent only on themselves, they can get married in a quarter of an hour. Let us take the path along the shore. It is quite safe: the sea will not cover it until midday. We must go at once. Follow me!”

Déruchette and Ebenezer were exchanging glances as if in consultation. They were standing close together, motionless; it was as if they were drunk. There are strange hesitations on the edge of that abyss that is happiness. They understood without understanding.

“His name is Gilliatt,” Déruchette whispered to Ebenezer.

Gilliatt spoke with a kind of authority:

“What are you waiting for? You must follow me.”

“Where to?” asked Ebenezer.

“There.” And Gilliatt pointed to the spire of the church.

They followed him. Gilliatt went in front, walking with a firm step. The others were unsteady on their feet.

As they drew nearer the church spire an expression dawned on these two pure and beautiful faces that would shortly turn into a smile. As they approached the church their faces lit up. In Gilliatt's hollow eyes was the darkness of night. It was like a specter leading two souls to paradise.

Ebenezer and Déruchette were barely conscious of what was happening. This man's intervention was the straw at which a drowning man clutches. They followed Gilliatt with the docility of despair, as they would have followed anyone. A man who feels himself dying is ready to accept whatever may befall him. Déruchette, more ignorant of life, was more confident. Ebenezer was thoughtful. Déruchette was of age. The formalities of marriage in England are very simple, particularly in self-governing areas where the rector of a parish has an almost discretionary power; but still, would the dean agree to celebrate the marriage without even enquiring whether her uncle agreed? They could not be sure. But at any rate they could try. They would have to wait and see.

But who was this man? If he was the man whom Mess Lethierry had declared last night to be his son-in-law, how was his present behavior to be explained? He who had seemed to be an obstacle was turning into a providence. Ebenezer was prepared to accept his help, but it was the hasty and unspoken acceptance of a man who feels that he has been rescued.