— II —
THE BEACON
It was half clay, half mud; but out of it one could fashion the little poupées, the dolls for the children. They would not last very long, it was true; but then one fashioned them quickly, and there was delight in making them.
Jean dug a piece of the clay with his sheaf knife, leaned over from the bank of the little creek, and moistened it in the water. He dug another, moistened that, moulded the two together—and Marie-Louise smiled at him a little tremulously, as their eyes met.
The tears were very near to those brave dark eyes since three days ago. Jean mechanically added a third piece of clay to the other two. Much had happened in those three days—all Bernay-sur-Mer seemed changed since that afternoon when Gaston, so Marie-Louise had told him, seeing a boat adrift and fearing there might be some one in it, had tried during a lull in the storm to reach it with her assistance, and an oar had broken, and the tide on the ebb had driven them close to the Perigeau where they had swamped, and somehow Gaston had been flung upon the outer edges of the reef, and the boat, sodden, weighted, following, had crushed him against the rocks.
Jean looked at Marie-Louise again. She was all in black now—she and good Mother Fregeau had made the dress between them for the church that morning, when Father Anton had said the mass for Gaston. But Marie-Louise was not looking at him—her elbows were on the ground, her chin was cupped in her hands, and the long black lashes veiled her eyes. She had not told him any more of the story—Jean could picture that for himself. How many times must she have risked her life to have pulled Gaston to the rocks higher up upon the reef! A daughter of France, Gaston had called her. Bon Dieu, but she was that, with her courage and her strength! One would not think the strength was there, but then the black dress did not cling like the wet clothes that other night to show the litheness of the rounded limbs.
His fingers began to work into the clay, unnaturally diffident and hesitant at first, not with the deft certainty of their custom, but as though groping tentatively for something that was curiously intangible, that eluded them. Marie-Louise, as she had been that night, was living before him again—the lines of her form so full of grace and so beautiful, so full of the virility of her young womanhood, the shapely head, the hair streaming in abandon about her shoulders—and it was like and yet not like that great bronze statue so often in his dreams, imaginary and yet so real, that was set in the midst of that great city in a great square. And then suddenly, strangely, of their own volition, it seemed, his fingers, where they had been hesitant before, began now to work with a sure swiftness.
His eyes were drinking in the contour of Marie-Louise's face in a rapt, eager, subconscious way. There was something deeper there than the mere prettiness of feature, something that was impressing itself in an absorbing, insistent way upon him. Her face made him think of the face of that statue—there was a hint of masculinity that brought with it no coarseness, nor robbed it of its sweetness or its charm, but like that massive face of bronze that towered high, that people with uplifted heads stood and gazed upon, that none passed by without a pause, stamped it with calm fearlessness; and courage and resolve outshone all else and alone was dominant there.
Marie-Louise sat up suddenly from the ground and turned toward him, her brows gathered in a pretty, puzzled way.
"Why do you look at me like that, Jean?" she demanded abruptly. "And what are you doing there? It is not the doll you promised to make for little Ninon Lachance—it is much too big." She leaned forward. "What are you making?"
"Ma foi!" Jean muttered, with a little start—and stared at the lump of clay. "I—I do not know."
"Well, then," said Marie-Louise gravely, "don't do any more. I want to talk to you, Jean."
"How, not do any more!" protested Jean whimsically. "Was it not you who said, 'We will go to the creek this afternoon and make poupées'? And look"—he jerked his hand toward a large basket on the ground beside him—"to do that I shall perhaps not keep my promise to meet the Lucille when she comes in and bring a panier of fish to Jacques Fregeau at the Bas Rhône. And now you say, 'Don't do any more'!"
"Yes; I know," admitted Marie-Louise. "But I want to talk to you. Listen, Jean. To-morrow Mother Fregeau must go back to the Bas Rhône. She has been too long away in her kindness now. You know how she came to me the next morning after Uncle Gaston died, and put her arms around me and has stayed ever since."
Jean shifted the lump of clay a little away from Marie-Louise, but his fingers still worked on.
"She has a heart of gold," asserted Jean. "Who should know any better than I, who have lived with her all these years?"
Marie-Louise's eyes travelled slowly in a half tender, half pensive way over Jean. His coat was off; the loose shirt was open at the neck displaying the muscular shoulders, and the sleeves were rolled up over the brown, tanned arms; the powerful hands, powerful for all their long, slim, tapering fingers, worked on and on; the black hair clustered truantly, as it always did, over the broad, high forehead. She had known Jean all her life, as many years as she could remember, and her love for him was very deep. It had come to seem her life, that love; and each night in her prayers she had asked the bon Dieu to bless and take care of Jean, and to make her a good wife to him when that time should come. It was so great, that love, that sometimes it frightened her—somehow it was frightening her now, for there was a side to Jean that, well as she knew him, she felt intuitively she had never been able to understand.
She spoke abruptly again, a little absently.
"I do not know yet what I am to do. There is the house, and Father Anton says I must not live there alone."
"But, no!" agreed Jean. "Of course not! That is what I say, too. It is all the more reason why we should not wait any longer, you and I, Marie-Louise."
A tinge of colour crept shyly into Marie-Louise's face, as she shook her head.
"No; we must wait, Jean. It is too soon after—after poor Uncle Gaston."
"But it was Gaston's wish, that," persisted Jean gently. "Have I not told you what he said, petite?"
Again Marie-Louise shook her head.
"But one is sad for all that," she answered. "And to go to the church, Jean, when one is sad, when one should go so happy! Oh, I want to be happy then, Jean. I do not want to think of anything that day but only you, Jean—and sing, and there must be sunshine and fête. But now, for a little while, it is Uncle Gaston. You do not think that wrong?"
"No," said Jean slowly, "it is not wrong, and I understand; but then, too, Gaston would understand, for it was his wish."
Marie-Louise bent forward with a strange little impulsive movement.
"That is twice you have said that, Jean," she said. "I—I almost wish Uncle Gaston had not said what he did to you that night. Jean, it—it is not what he said, nor what you said to him. That must not make any difference. Never, never, Jean! One does not marry for that—it is only if there is love."
"Mais, 'cré nom!" exclaimed Jean, suddenly setting aside his clay and catching Marie-Louise's face between his hands. "Why do you talk like that? What queer fancies are in that little head? Now, tell me"—he kissed her lips, while the blood rushed crimson to her cheeks—"tell me, is that not answer enough? And have we not loved each other long before that night, and does not all Bernay-sur-Mer know that it will dance at the noces?"
"Yes," whispered Marie-Louise, a little breathlessly.
"Ah, then," said Jean tenderly, "you must not talk like that. What, Marie-Louise, if I should say to myself, 'now perhaps Marie-Louise has not loved me all these years, and—'"
She drew hurriedly away.
"Don't, Jean!" she said quickly. "It hurts, that! I love you so much that sometimes I am afraid. And to-day I am afraid. I do not know why. And sometimes it is so different. That night on the reef when I thought that soon the rocks would be covered and that there was no help for Uncle Gaston and myself, and that no one could come to us even if we were seen, I saw your lantern and the bon Dieu told me it was you and I had no more fear. I was so sure then—so sure then. Oh, Jean, you must be very good to me to-day. It—it was so hard"—the dark eyes were swimming now with tears—"to say good-bye to Uncle Gaston. Perhaps it is that that is making me feel so strangely. But sometimes it seems as though it could never be, the great happiness for you and me, it is so great to think about that—that it frightens me. And I have wanted to talk to you about it, Jean, often and often. Does it make you very glad and happy, too, to think of just you and me together here, and our home, and the fishing, and—and years and years of it?"
"But, yes; of course!" smiled Jean; and, picking up the clay again, began to scrape at it with his knife.
"But are you sure, Jean?"—there was a little tremor in her voice. "I do not mean so much that you are sure you love me, but that you are sure you would always be happy to stay here in Bernay-sur-Mer. You are not like the other men."
"How not like them?" Jean demanded, surveying in an absorbed sort of way the little clay figure that was taking on rough outline now. "How not like them?"
"Well—that!"—Marie-Louise pointed at the clay in his hands. "That, for one thing—that you are always playing with, that it seems you cannot put aside for an instant, even though I asked you to a moment ago. You are always making the poupées, and if not the poupées with mud and dirt, then you must waste the inside of Mother Fregeau's loaves that she bakes herself, or steal the dough before it reaches the oven to keep your fingers busy making little faces and droll things out of it."
Jean looked up to stare at Marie-Louise a little perplexedly.
"Mais, zut!" he exclaimed. "And what of that! And if I amuse myself that way, what of that? It is nothing!"
"Nevertheless," Marie-Louise insisted, nodding her head earnestly, "it is true what I have said—that you are not like the other men in Bernay-sur-Mer. Do you think that I have not watched you, Jean? And have you not said little things to show that you grow tired of the fishing?"
"But that is true of everybody," Jean protested. "Does not Father Anton say that all the world is poor because there is none in it who is contented? And if I grumble sometimes, do not all the others do the same? Pierre Lachance will swear to you twice every hour that the fishing is a dog's life."
She shook her head.
"It is different," she said. "You are not Pierre Lachance, Jean, and I want you to be happy all your life—that is what I ask the bon Dieu for always in my prayers. And I do not know why these thoughts come, and I do not understand them, only I know that they are there."
"Then—voilà! We will drive them away, and they must never come back!" Jean burst out, half gaily, half gravely. "See, now, Marie-Louise"—he caught her hand in both of his, putting aside the lump of clay again—"it is true that sometimes I am like that, and I do not understand either; but one must take things as they are, is that not so?"
She nodded—a little doubtfully.
"Well, then," cried Jean, "why should I not be happy here? Have I not you, and is that not most of all? And as for the rest, do I not do well with the fishing? Is there any who does better? Do they not speak of the luck of Jean Laparde? 'Cré nom! Different from the others! Who is a fisherman if it is not I, who have been a fisherman all my life? And of what good is it to wish for anything else? What else, even if I wanted to, could I do? I do not know anything else but the boats and the nets. Is it not so, Marie-Louise?"
"Y-yes," she said, and her eyes lifted to meet his.
"And happy!" he went on. "Ah, Marie-Louise, with those bright eyes of yours that belong all to me, who could be anything but happy? Tiens! You are to be my little wife, and Bernay-sur-Mer and the blue water is to be our home, and we will fish together, and you shall sing all day in the boat, and—well, what more is there to ask for?"
"Oh, Jean!"—she was smiling now.
"There, you see!" said Jean, and burst out laughing. "Marie-Louise is herself again, and—pouf!—the blue devils are blown away. And now wait until I have finished this, and I will show you something"—he picked up the clay once more. "Only you must not look until it is done."
"Mustn't I? Oh!"—with a little moue of resignation. "Well, then, hurry, Jean," she commanded, and cupped her chin in her hands again, her elbows propped upon the ground.
It was playfully that Jean turned his back upon her, hiding his work, but as his fingers began again to draw and model the clay and his knife to chisel it, the smile went slowly from his face and his lips grew firmly closed. It was strange that Marie-Louise should have known! It was true, the fishing grew irksome too often now; for those moods, like the mood in the storm, came very often, much more often than they had been wont to do. He had laughed at her, but that was only to pretend, to chase the sadness away and make her eyes shine again. It was true, too, as he had told her, that one must take things as they were. Whether he wanted to fish or not, he must fish—voilà! How else could one make the sous with which to live?
Oh, yes, he had laughed to make her laugh; but now, pardieu! it was bringing that mood upon himself. Where was that great city and that great square, and what was that great statue before which the people stood rapt and spellbound, and why should it come so often to his thoughts and be so real as though it were a very truth and not some queer imagination of his brain? There were wonderful things in the face of that bronze figure. He leaned a little forward toward the clay before him, his lips half parted now, his fingers seeming to tingle with a life, throbbing, palpitant, that was all their own, that was apart from him entirely, for they possessed a power of movement and a purpose that he had nothing to do with. He became absorbed in his work, lost in it. Time passed.
"Jean," Marie-Louise called out, "let me see it now."
"Wait!" he said almost harshly. "Wait! Wait! Wait!"
"Jean!"—it was a hurt little cry.
He did not hear her. There was something at the base of that statue of his dreams that always troubled him, that the people always pointed at as they gazed; but he had never been able to make out what it was there at the base of the statue. It was very strange that he was never able to see that, when he could see the figure of the woman with the wonderful face so plainly!
He worked on and on. There were neither hours nor minutes—the afternoon deepened. There was no creek, no Marie-Louise, no Bernay-sur-Mer, nothing—only those dreams and the little clay figure in his hands.
And then Marie-Louise, her face a little white, timidly touched his arm.
"Jean!" she said hesitantly.
Her voice roused him. It seemed as though he was awakened from a sleep. He brushed the hair back from his eyes, and looked around.
"Mon Dieu," he said, "but that was, strange!" And then he smiled, still a little dazed, and lifted around the clay figure for her to see. "I do not know if it is finished," he said, staring at it; "but perhaps I could do no better with it even if I worked longer."
Marie-Louise's eyes, puzzled, anxious, on Jean's face, shifted to the little clay figure—and their expression changed instantly.
"But, Jean!" she cried, clasping her hands. "But, Jean, that is not a poupée you have made there. It—it will never do at all! Ninon Lachance would break the arms off at the first minute, and it is too charmante for that. Oh, but, Jean, it—it is adorable!"
Jean was inspecting the figure in a curiously abstracted way, as though he had never seen it before, turning his head now to this side, now to that, and turning the clay around and around in his hands to examine it from all angles, while a heightened colour crept into his face and dyed his cheeks. It was a small figure, hardly a foot and a half in height—the figure of a fisherwoman, barefooted, in short skirts, the clothes as though windswept clinging close around her limbs, her arms stretched out as to the sea. He laughed a little unnaturally.
"Well, then, since it will not do for Ninon Lachance, and you like it, Marie-Louise," he said a little self-consciously; "it is for you."
"For me—Jean? Really for me?" she asked happily.
"And why not?" said Jean. "Since it is you."
"Me!"—she looked at him in a prettily bewildered way.
"But, yes," said Jean, holding the figure off at arm's length. "See, it is a beacon—the welcome of the fisherman home from the sea. And are you not that, Marie-Louise, and will you not stand on the shore at evening and hold out your arms for me as I pull home in the boat? Are you not the beacon, Marie-Louise—for me?"
Her hand stole over one of his and pressed it, but it was a moment before she spoke.
"I will pray to the bon Dieu to make me that, Jean—always," she said softly.
He drew her close to him.
"It is the luck of Jean Laparde!" he whispered tenderly.
They sat for a little time in silence—then Jean sprang sharply to his feet.
"Ma foi, Marie-Louise!" he called out in sudden consternation, glancing at the sun. "I did not know we had been here so long." He picked up the little clay figure hastily, placed it in the basket, threw his coat, that was on the ground, over it, and, swinging the basket to the crook of his arm, held out his hand to Marie-Louise. "Come, petite, we will hurry back."
It was not far across the fields and down the little rise to the road that paralleled the beach; and in some five minutes, walking quickly, they came out upon the road itself by the turn near the rough wooden bridge that crossed the creek halfway between the eastern headland and the white, clustering cottages of Bernay-sur-Mer. But here, for all their hurry, they paused suddenly of one accord, looking at each other questioningly, as voices reached them from the direction of the bridge which, still hidden from their view, was just around the bend of the road ahead.
*****
"But, my dear"—it was a man speaking, his tone a sort of tolerant protest—"I am sure it is just the place we have been looking for. It is quiet here."
"Quiet!"—it was a woman's voice this time, in a wealth of irony. "It is stagnation! There isn't a single thing alive here—even the sea is dead! It is enough to give one the blues for the rest of one's life! And the accommodations at that unspeakable tavern are absolutely appalling. I can't imagine what you are dreaming of to want to stay another minute! I'm quite sure there are lots of other places that will furnish all the rest and quiet required, and where, at the same time, we can at least be comfortable. Anyway, I'm not going to stay here!"
"But, Myrna, you—"
"There is some one coming," said the girl.
*****
Jean and Marie-Louise were walking forward again.
"What are they saying, Jean?" asked Marie-Louise.
Jean shook his head.
"I do not know," he answered. "It is English. See! There they are!"
An elderly, well-dressed man, grey-haired, clean-shaven, a little stout, with a wholesomely good-natured, ruddy face, was leaning against the railing of the bridge; and beside him, digging at the planks with the tip of her parasol, stood a girl in dainty white, her head bent forward, her face hidden under the wide brim of a picture hat.
Jean's eyes, attracted as by a magnet, passed over the man and fixed upon the girl. At Nice, at Monte Carlo, so they said, one saw many such as she; but Bernay-sur-Mer was neither Nice nor Monte Carlo, and he had never seen a woman gowned like that before. 'Cré nom, what exquisite harmony of line and poise! If she would but look up! Bon Dieu, but it would be a desecration of the picture if she were not gloriously pretty!
The gentleman, nodding pleasantly, greeted them as they approached.
"Good afternoon!" he said smilingly, in French.
The girl had raised her head, grey eyes sweeping Marie-Louise with well bred indifference—and Jean was staring at her.
"Bon jour, m'sieu!"—he spoke mechanically, lifted his cap mechanically.
His eyes had not left the girl's face. He could not take his eyes from her face. It was a wonderful face, a beautiful face, and something in it thrilled him and bade him feast his eyes upon it to drink in its beauty. And, his head thrown back exposing the bare rugged neck, the broad, sturdy shoulders unconsciously squared a little, the fine, dark eyes wide with admiration and a strange, keen appraisement, the splendid physique, the strength, the power and vigour of young manhood outstanding in face and form, he gazed at her. And her eyes, from Marie-Louise, met his, and from them faded their expression of indifference, and into them came something Jean could not define, only that as the blood rushed suddenly unbidden to his face and he felt it hot upon his cheeks, he saw the colour ebb from hers to a queer whiteness—and then her hat hid her face again—and he had passed by.
It was as though his veins were running fire. He glanced at Marie-Louise. Shyly diffident in the presence of strangers, her head was lowered. She had seen nothing. Seen nothing! Seen what? He did not know. His blood was tingling, his brain was confusion.
He walked on, hurrying unconsciously.
It was Marie-Louise who spoke.
"They are of the grand monde," she said in a sort of wondering excitement, when they were out of ear-shot.
"Yes," said Jean absently.
"And English or American."
"Yes," said Jean.
"But the rich people do not come to Bernay-sur-Mer where there is no amusement for them," she submitted with a puzzled air. "I wonder what they are going to do here?"
Jean's eyes were on the road. He did not raise them.
"Who knows!" said Jean Laparde.
— IV —
STRANGERS WITHIN THE GATES
"Until to-morrow"—the words kept echoing in Jean's ears, as he hurried now on his way back to the Bas Rhône. "Until to-morrow"—Marie-Louise had called to him, as he had left the house on the bluff after taking her home. Well, what was there unusual in that! Though he went often, he did not go to see Marie-Louise every evening, and it was not the first time she had ever said it. Why should he be vaguely conscious of a sort of relief that she had said "until to-morrow" on this particular occasion? It was a very strange way to feel—but then his mind was in the most curiously jumbled state! That meeting at the bridge of less than half an hour ago obsessed him. Where had they come from, these strangers? How long were they going to stay? Or, perhaps—an unaccountable dismay suddenly seized him—perhaps they had already gone! But Papa Fregeau, of course, would know all that—therefore, naturally, he was impatient to reach the Bas Rhône and Papa Fregeau.
The empty basket on his arm, for Marie-Louise had taken the beacon and he had forgotten all about Papa Fregeau's fish, Jean paused as he reached the bridge. It was here that look had passed between them. He would never forget that. It meant nothing—he was not a fool—it could mean nothing. It was only a look, only an instant in which those grey eyes had met his—but he would never forget it!
He hurried on again.
Perhaps he had imagined that expression, that flash, that spark, that something that was impellingly magnetic in those grey eyes. No, he had not imagined it; he had felt it, known it, sensed it. In that one instant something had passed between them that in all his life he would never forget—it had left him like a man adrift on a shoreless sea with the startling wonder of it. She was of the grand monde—Marie-Louise had said it. And he was a fisherman. She could have no interest in a fisherman; and what interest could a fisherman—bah, it was pitifully laughable! But it was not laughable! If he could only define that look! It was as if—bon Dieu, what was it!—as if she were a woman and he were a man. Yes; it was that! It was only for a moment, by now she would have forgotten it; but for that moment it had been that. Only, whereas she would have forgotten, with him it remained. It was curious—her form was even more like that dream statue than was Marie-Louise's. If by any chance she should already have gone! The thought, recurring, brought once more that twinge of dismay. Was it strange that he should want to see her again! True, she would never look at him like that a second time, she had been off her guard for that little instant when there had been no grand monde and no fisherman, but she was still the same beautiful woman, glorious in form and face—and the allurement of her presence was like some rare, exquisite fragrance stealing upon the senses, enslaving them.
And now, as he approached the little village, and passed the first cottage, with the Bas Rhône in sight beyond, he found himself eagerly searching the beach, the single street for sign of her. But there was no sign. Everything about the village was as it always was every early evening in Bernay-sur-Mer, when it was summer and the light held late. Strewn out along the beach, the men were at work upon their boats and nets; the children played about the doorways; through the open doors one could see the women busy over the evening meal—nothing else! And surely there would have been some stir of excitement if the strangers were still there, at least amongst the children—it was an event, that, to Bernay-sur-Mer. They had gone then, evidently!
Jean's eyes lifted from a fruitless sweep of the beach to fix on the figure of Papa Fregeau emerging on the run from the Bas Rhône.
"The fish, Jean! The fish!" the fat little man called out breathlessly.
"The fish?" repeated Jean—and then, a little sheepishly, stared into the empty basket.
Papa Fregeau, who had reached Jean's side, was staring into it too.
"Yes—the fish! The fish!" he shouted. "Where are the fish you promised to bring back?"
And then Jean laughed.
"Why," said Jean, "I—I think I must have forgotten them."
Papa Fregeau was excited. He began to dance up and down, his fat paunch shaking like jelly.
"Idiot! Imbecile!" he stormed. "Have I not had trouble enough without this! Sacré bleu de misericorde! What an afternoon! And you laugh—bête, that you are! And now what shall I do?"
"Do?" said Jean—-and stopped laughing. "What is the matter?"
"Matter!" spluttered the patron of the Bas Rhône. "Matter! Have I not told you what is the matter? The fish!"
"Yes, but a few fish," said Jean, eyeing the other in a half puzzled way. "What are a few fish that you—"
"You do not understand!"—Papa Fregeau was still dancing up and down as he kept step with Jean, who had now started on again toward the Bas Rhône. "Listen! They are Americans of Paris, they say! They arrive in an automobile this afternoon—mademoiselle and her father, the maid and the chauffeur. It is fine, they stop at the Bas Rhône and engage rooms. Excellent! Nothing could be better. There is profit in that. I carry the trunks, the valises, a multitude of effects that are strapped all over the automobile to the rooms, and am on the point of sending for Mother Fregeau at Marie-Louise's. Sapristi—I do not pretend to be a cook! They start out for a walk, the mademoiselle and her father—and the mademoiselle, before they are out of sight from the window, returns to say that they will not stay, that I shall repack everything on that accursed car in readiness for their departure on the return from their walk. Tourment de Satan!—very good, I repack it. And now you bring no fish!"
Jean shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, since they are gone, what does it matter?"
"Gone! Tonnerre!"—Papa Fregeau's face was apoplectic, and his fat cheeks puffed in and out like toy balloons. "Gone! Have I not told you that they are not gone!"
"You have told me nothing"—there was a sudden, quick interest in Jean's voice. "They are gone—and they are not gone! What are you talking about?"
"I do not know what I am talking about!" snapped Papa Fregeau fiercely. "How should I know! It is first this, then that, then this, then that—it is a badauderie! She is crazy, the girl; the father is no better; the maid, Nanette, is a hussy. She slapped my face when I but paid her a pretty compliment; and Jules, the chauffeur, is a pig who lies on his back under the infernal machine and will not lift a finger with the baggage. Wait! Listen! Come here!" He pulled Jean in through the door and across the café to the bar at the far end of the room, where he hastily decanted a glass of cognac and tossed it off. "See! Listen!" he went on excitedly, replenishing his glass. "I repack everything on the machine again, which is out there behind the tavern. I climb the stairs and I descend the stairs three dozen times, there is always one more package. And then fifteen minutes ago mademoiselle returns from her walk alone, and waves her hands—pouf!—just like that—and she says: 'Monsieur Fregeau, we will stay; take the baggage back to the rooms!' C'est insupportable, ça!" Papa Fregeau flung out his arms in abandoned despair. "And now there is no supper for them. Sapristi, I am no cook; but I could cook fish if you, misérable that you are, had brought them—heh! And it is too late now to send for Mother Fregeau."
Jean was paying but slender attention. They had not gone! They were going to stay!
"Get Madame Lachance, next door, to help you," he said absently. Then abruptly: "Mademoiselle returned alone, you say—and what of monsieur, her father?"
Papa Fregeau made a gulp at his second glass.
"He is impossible!" he choked. "With him it is the sunset! Who ever heard of such a thing! He is on the beach to gaze at the sunset! Nom d'un nom, is it extraordinary that the sun should set! But it is not him, it is mademoiselle. I am sure he knows nothing of all this, and concerns himself less. It is mademoiselle's doing. And I have had enough! I will not any longer be made a fool of!" He banged his pudgy fist on the comptoir. "Is it to stand on my head that I am patron of the Bas Rhône! Sacré bleu! I will not support it! I tell you that I will not—" Papa Fregeau's mouth remained wide open.
"Monsieur Fregeau!" a voice called softly in excellent French from the rear door. "Nanette is struggling with a valise on the back stairs that is much too heavy for her, and perhaps if you—"
Papa Fregeau's mouth closed, opened again—and, in his haste to make a bow, the cognac glass became a shower of tinkling splinters on the floor.
"But immediatement! Instantly, Mademoiselle!" cried Papa Fregeau effusively. "On the moment! A valise that is too heavy for her! It is a sacrilege! It is unpardonable! Instantly, Mademoiselle, on the instant! On the moment!"—and he rushed from the room.
She stood in the doorway; and, from under bewitchingly half closed lids, the grey eyes met Jean's. And under her gaze that was quite calm, unruffled, self-possessed now, the blood rushed tingling again through his veins, and again he felt it mounting to his cheeks. She wore no hat now; and, with the sun's last rays through the doorway falling softly upon her wealth of hair, it was as though it were a wondrously woven mass of glinting bronze that crowned her head.
Jean's cap was in his hand.
"Oh!" she said. "You are the"—there was just a trace of hesitation over the choice of the word—"the man who passed us on the bridge a little while ago, aren't you?"
There was something, a sort of indefinable challenge, in the voice and eyes, a carelessness that, well as it was simulated, was not wholly genuine. Jean's eyes met the grey ones, held them—and suddenly he smiled, accepting the challenge.
"It is good of mademoiselle to recognise me," he answered.
She stared at him for an instant, her eyes opening wide; and then, with a contagious, impulsive laugh, she came forward into the room.
"Of course!" she cried. "You would answer like that! I knew it! You are less like a fisherman, for all your clothes, than any man I ever saw."
"I?" said Jean, in quick surprise. It was strange she had said that! It was only that afternoon that Marie-Louise had said almost the same thing. Not like a fisherman! Why not? What was this imagined difference between himself and the other men in Bernay-sur-Mer?
"Yes; you," she returned briskly. "And now I suppose you will tell me that you were born here, and have lived here all your life?"
"But yes, mademoiselle," he smiled again, and shrugged his shoulders; "since it is so. I have never been anywhere else."
"And since it is so, it must be so," she nodded. "What is your name?"
"Jean Laparde," he replied.
"Jean"—she repeated the word deliberately. "I like Jean," she decided, nodding her head again. "I like Laparde, too, but I will call you Jean."
Jean's eyes met hers a little quizzically. She carried things by assault, this beautiful American girl! There was a certain element of intimacy, an air of proprietorship adopted toward him that somehow, at one and the same time, quickened his pulse at the vague promise that they would not be strangers if only she should stay in Bernay-sur-Mer, and piqued his man-mind at the hint of mastery being snatched from him.
"All call me Jean," he said quietly.
"Then that is settled!" she announced brightly. "Now tell me—Jean. Is there any other place in the village besides this impossible Taverne du Bas Rhône where we could stay for a week—a month—as long as we liked?"
"A week—a month!"—Jean leaned suddenly toward her, an incredulous delight unconsciously spontaneous in his voice. "You are going to stay that long? But Papa Fregeau said you had no sooner arrived than you decided to go again, and—"
"Your Papa Fregeau has a tongue that runs away with him," she interrupted quickly. "One may change one's mind, I suppose? This place will do for to-night; but afterwards—surely there is some other place where we could stay?"
Jean shook his head.
"There is only the Bas Rhône," he said slowly. "I—I am afraid—"
"And now, after all, you are going to be stupid!" she exclaimed reproachfully.
What was it? What did she mean? It was not the words—they were nothing. It was the tone, her eyes, an appeal in the exquisite grace of the lithe form bending toward him, the touch of the fingers laid lightly on his sleeve, that look again that levelled all barriers between them—until she was a woman and he was a man. His mind was in riot. He was a fool! And yet, fool or no, the thought would come. Why did she want to stay now? Papa Fregeau had said that almost on their arrival they had decided to go on. It was during her walk that she had changed her mind. What had happened on that walk to make her change her mind? A walk in Bernay-sur-Mer was not full of incident! It was ridiculous, absurd, fantastical, but it was there, the thought, sweeping him with a surge of wild emotion—was it that meeting on the bridge? But why? How? He was a rough-garbed fisherman, and she—
She laughed delightedly.
"What a frown! How fierce you are! Is it then such a terrible affair to help me a little—Jean?"
"Mon Dieu!" cried Jean—and the words were on his lips with a rush. "But—no!"
"Oh!" she murmured, and drew back a little; and the colour, rising, glowed pink through her cheeks. "You are impulsive, aren't you? Well, then, since you are to help me, what are we to do?"
Jean's eyes were revelling in that pink flush. It was satisfying to the man-mind, that—even though she were of the grand monde then, a woman was a woman after all. It was a sort of turning of the tables, that added to the magnetism of her presence because it put him suddenly more at his ease. But to help her—that was another matter. Bernay-sur-Mer was—Bernay-sur-Mer! Voilà tout! Apart from the Bas Rhône there was no accommodation for strangers, for there was nothing stranger than strangers in Bernay-sur-Mer. Since then there was no other place for them to go, he could think of no other place. And yet, a week, a month—to think that she would spend that time in Bernay-sur-Mer! Ciel! Where were his brains?
"Well?" she prompted, with alluring imperiousness.
It was the force of habit. In trouble, in perplexity, in joy, in sorrow, for counsel, for advice there was but one court of appeal in Bernay-sur-Mer—the good Father Anton. The rôle of Father Anton was not only spiritual—it was secular. Bernay-sur-Mer was a child and Father Anton was its parent—it had always been so.
"I will ask Father Anton," said Jean.
"Father Anton? Who is Father Anton?" she demanded.
"He is the curé," Jean answered. "I do not know of any place, but Father Anton will know if there is any, and—"
"Splendid!" she broke in excitedly. "Let us go and ask Father Anton at once. Come along"—she crossed the café to the front door. "Come along, Jean, and show me the way."
Yes, certainly, she carried things by assault this American girl. She bubbled with life and vivacity. And he was to walk with her now to Father Anton's—half an hour ago he would as soon have dreamed of possessing a fortune! It was incredible! It must be a marvellous world that, where she came from—but no, even the women of her world could not be like her! The suppleness of her form, it was divine; the carriage, the poise, the smile—it was intoxication, it went to the senses!
"I am mad! It is as though—as though I were drunk with wine!" Jean muttered—and followed her across the room.
"Now where is this Father Anton of yours?"—as Jean joined her outside the tavern.
"There," said Jean, and pointed along the street. "Do you see the church—behind the second cottage? Well, it is there—just on the other side."
She nodded—and Jean, glancing at her, found that she was not looking in that direction at all. Instead, she seemed wholly engaged in watching a boat start shoreward, as it pulled away from the side of a smack anchored out in the bay. Father Anton might have been the last thing that concerned her. Jean's eyes, a little puzzled, followed hers. When he looked up again, the grey eyes were laughing at him.
"Is it quite safe out there?" she asked, waving her hand.
"Safe?" repeated Jean, in a bewildered way.
"Stupid!" she cried merrily. "Yes, of course—safe! If I am to stay here, I cannot lie all day upon the beach and do nothing. You have a boat, haven't you, Jean?"
"But, yes," said Jean.
"Then I am quite sure it will be safe," she decided. "I must have a boat, and, of course, a boatman. You will be the boatman, Jean. Oh, I really believe that, after all, Bernay-sur-Mer will be possible. There will be places where we can go, little excursions, and heaps of things like that. There, that is settled! And now I am more eager than ever to see Father Anton."
Yes; it was settled! It was phrase of hers, that! To have demurred would have been as impossible as to have said no. And, besides, he had no wish to either demur or refuse. It seemed as though he were hurried forward captive into some strange, unknown land of enchantment. It staggered him, bewildered him, lured him, fired his imagination—and there was no desire to rouse himself from what seemed like a wonderful dream. No woman that he had ever seen, or imagined was like her. To spend a day where he could feast his eyes upon her!—and did she not now talk of many days! Even a fisherman might lift his eyes as high as that—since she gave him leave. Afterwards, she would go away again; but, bon Dieu, one could at least live in the present! It would be something to remember! Her eyes were on him again. He felt them studying him. Her hand brushed his arm. There was a faint, enticing fragrance of violets in the air about her.
"You are not very gallant, Jean!" she laughed out. "Aren't you pleased with the suggestion; or would you rather—fish?"
They had reached the church, and turned.
"I was thinking," said Jean, with unconscious naïveté, "that I was afraid Father Anton would not know of any place."
She looked at him quickly, a flash in the grey eyes—then the lids lowered. The next instant she was pointing ahead of her.
"But there!" she cried out. "There is Monsieur le Curé's house, is it not?" She clapped her hands in sudden delight. "Why, it is a play-house, only a make-believe one! And how pretty!"
Behind the church was a little garden, full-flowered; a little white fence; a little white gate; and, at the end of the garden, a little cottage, smaller than any, where none were large, in Bernay-sur-Mer, and which was white in colour, too, if one might hazard a guess for the vines that grew over it, covering it, submerging it, clothing it in a clinging mass of green, until only the little stubby chimney peeked shyly out from the centre of the slanting roof.
"Yes," said Jean; "and there is Father Anton himself."
A bare-headed, silver-haired form in rusty black soutane, a watering pot in hand, was bending over a bed of dahlias; but at the sound of their approach the priest put down the watering pot, and came hurriedly toward them to the gate.
"Ah, Jean, my son!" he cried out heartily—and bowed with old-fashioned courtliness to Jean's companion. "I heard there were strangers in Bernay-sur-Mer, mademoiselle; but that they had gone on again. You are very welcome. Won't you come in?"
She leaned upon the gate, smiling—and shook her head.
"No, thank you, Monsieur le Curé. I must not stay long, or my father will be wondering what could have become of me. The truth is, that I—we are in trouble, and Jean here has brought me to you."
"Trouble!" exclaimed Father Anton anxiously, and his face grew suddenly grave.
She shook her head again, and laughed.
"Oh, it is not serious! You see—but I must introduce myself. I am Myrna Bliss. My father is Henry Bliss—I wonder if you have ever heard of him? We have lived for years and years in Paris."
Father Anton was genuinely embarrassed.
"I—I am afraid I never have," he admitted.
"Oh, well," she cried gaily, "you mustn't feel badly about it. His is entirely a reflected glory—that is what I tell him. Art! Everything is art with him, painting, sculpture, literature; and, as he can do neither one nor the other himself, he endows a school for this, or a société for that, and money exists for only one reason—the advancement of art. And since he calls Paris the home of art, we live in Paris. But now I am prattling like a school girl"—she laughed infectiously.
The curé's old face wrinkled into smiles.
"It is very interesting, mademoiselle," he said. "And here in Bernay-sur-Mer I fear we know too little of such things." He reached across the fence and laid his hand affectionately on Jean's shoulder. "But it is not quite all our fault, is it, Jean? The sous come hard with the fishing, and we do not have much time for anything outside our own little world. I should greatly like to talk with monsieur, your father. Is it possible that you are to stay a little while here?"
"If we do"—the girl's face was a picture of roguish merriment—"you will not be able to escape him, I promise you, Monsieur le Curé—so beware! But that is our trouble. My father is on what he calls a little holiday—it is really that he needs rest and quiet. For a man of his age, what with his own affairs and his 'art,' he is far too active. Very well. Bernay-sur-Mer is ideal, only—except—Monsieur le Curé, I am sure, will understand—except the Bas Rhône."
"Ah, the Bas Rhône!" said Father Anton. "It is that, then—the Bas Rhône?"
"Exactly!" she smiled. "And so Jean has brought me to you to suggest something else for us."
Father Anton joined his finger tips thoughtfully.
"Yes; I see," he said. "My good friends, the Fregeaus, would do all in their power for you, they are most excellent people; but, yes—h'm—I see. It is a café much more than an inn, and for a café it answers very well; and, after all, it is not their fault that there are not proper accommodations for guests. Yes; I am afraid the accommodations must be very inadequate. But you see, mademoiselle"—Father Anton's voice had a quaint, gentle note of pleading—"we are quite off the main road, and it is rare that a stranger stops in Bernay-sur-Mer, and since they are poor they could not afford, even if they had the money, to make an investment that would bring no return. But something else—h'm! Truly, mademoiselle, I do not know—there is certainly no other place to board."
"Well, a little furnished cottage then," she suggested. "I have my own maid, and, if there were some one else to help a little, nothing would suit us better. Now, Monsieur le Curé, you are not going to be so heartless as to tell me there are no cottages either!"
For a moment Father Anton did not answer—then his face broke suddenly into smiles.
"But, no, mademoiselle," he declared quickly, nodding his head delightedly at Jean, "I shall tell you nothing of the sort. One might say it was almost providential. Nothing could be better! And the finest cottage in Bernay-sur-Mer, too! Mademoiselle and her father will be charmed with it—and all day I have been worrying about what to do with Marie-Louise. Would it not be just the thing, Jean?"
"Ma foi!" gasped Jean in surprise, staring from one to the other. "The house on the bluff?"
"And what else?" said Father Anton enthusiastically. "Listen, mademoiselle; I will explain to you. It is the house out there on the headland, where Gaston Bernier lived with his niece, Marie-Louise. Three days ago in the great storm le pauvre Gaston was hurt, and that night he died. Marie-Louise can no longer live there alone—it is not right for a young girl. I thought to bring her here to live with me and my old housekeeper; but now she can rent the house to you, and can help with the work for she is a very good cook."
"Father Anton, you are a treasure!" cried Myrna Bliss vivaciously. "We will take the house. And the rent? Would, say, two hundred francs a month be right?"
"Two hundred francs?" repeated Father Anton incredulously, his eyes widening.
"Yes; and another hundred for Marie-Louise."
Three hundred francs! It was not a large sum of money—it was a fortune! Father Anton, in his years of ministry at Bernay-sur-Mer, could not remember ever having seen a sum like that all at one time; also, it was out of all proportion to what he would have thought Marie-Louise should demand. The good curé's face was a picture with its mingled emotions—he was torn between a desire that this good fortune should come to Marie-Louise, and a fear in his honest heart that he should be privy to the crime of extortion!
Myrna Bliss laughed at him merrily.
"Then that is settled!" she announced. "Three hundred francs. There is nothing more to be said. The only question is, will Marie-Louise let us have the house?"
"Mademoiselle," said the old priest, his eyes twinkling, "may I say it?—you are charming! As for the arrangements, have no fear. I would go this evening, only I have some sick to visit. But very early in the morning I will see Marie-Louise, and by the time mademoiselle and her father have had breakfast the house will be at their disposal."
She reached her hand across the gate to thank Father Anton and bid the curé good evening—but Jean no longer heard a word. His mind seemed to be clashing discordantly; his thoughts in dissension, in open hostility one to another. She was to live in the house on the bluff. Marie-Louise was to stay there, too. One moment he saw no objection to the plan; the next moment, for a thousand vague, fragmentary reasons, that in their entire thousand would not form a single concrete whole that he could grasp, he did not like it at all.
He answered Father Anton's "au revoir" mechanically, as they started back for the Bas Rhône. She was in a hurry now, all life, all excitement—half running.
"Did I not tell you, Jean, that I would find just what I wanted?" she called out in gay spirits.
She had told him nothing of the sort.
"Yes," said Jean.
They reached the Bas Rhône, and there, in the doorway, she turned.
"I must find my father, and tell him," she said. There was a smile, a flash of the grey eyes, a glint from the bronze-crowned head, a quick little impetuous pressure on his arm, a laugh soft and musical as the rippling of a brook; and then: "Until to-morrow, Jean."
And she was gone.
Until to-morrow! The words were strangely familiar. Papa Fregeau was hurrying through the café. Jean turned away. He had no wish to talk to Papa Fregeau—or any one else. He walked down to the beach—and his eyes, across the bay, fixed on the headland. Yes, that was it! Until to-morrow—that was what Marie-Louise had said—until to-morrow.
He went on along the beach, his brain feverishly chaotic. She had been like a vision, a glorious vision, suddenly gone, as she had stood there in the doorway. Her name was Myrna Bliss. Why not, since Father Anton could not go that night, why not go to Marie-Louise himself and tell her about the house? Yes; he would do that.
He crossed the beach to the road again, and started on—walking rapidly. As he neared the little bridge, his pace slowed. At the bridge he halted. Perhaps it would be better not to go—it would be better left to Father Anton, that!
"Sacré bleu!" cried Jean suddenly aloud. "What is the matter with me? What has happened?"
But he went no further along the road; for, after a moment, he turned, retracing his steps slowly toward Bernay-sur-Mer.
And so that night Jean did not go to Marie-Louise. But there, at the house on the bluff, later on, Marie-Louise, after Mother Fregeau had gone to bed, took the beacon that Jean had made and placed it upon the table in the front room where, before, that other beacon, the great lamp, had stood. And for a long time she sat before it, her elbows on the table, now looking at the little clay figure, now staring through the window to the headland's point where sometimes she could see the surf splash silver white in the moonlight. It had been a happy afternoon in many ways; but there was something that would not let it be all happiness, for there was confusion in her thoughts. The house was lonely now, and Uncle Gaston had gone; it did not seem true, it did not seem that it could be he would not open that door again and come thumping in with the nets over his shoulders and the wooden floats bumping on the floor—and the tears unbidden filled her eyes. And her talk with Jean somehow had not satisfied her, had not dispelled that intuition that troubled her, for all that he had laughed at her for it; and they had not, after all, settled what she was to do now that Uncle Gaston was gone, for, instead of talking more about it, Jean had forgotten all about her for ever so long while he had worked at the little clay figure.
Her eyes, from the window, fastened on the beacon with its open, outstretched arms—and, suddenly, confusion went and great tenderness came. He had made it for her, and he had said that—that it was her.
"Jean's beacon," she said softly.
And presently she went upstairs to the little attic room, and undressed, and blew out the candle; and, in her white night-robe, the black hair streaming over her shoulders, the moonlight upon her, she knelt beside the bed.
"Make me that, mon Père," she whispered; "make me that—Jean's beacon all through my life."