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Page 21
For three or four minutes after he was gone, Annette remained
motionless in her seat, wearing her patient, deprecatory expression,
while her eyes rested on the window, without apparently seeing the
lights and dimly outlined figures that were visible on the _rade_
outside. Then her glance seemed to concentrate itself on something: the
nervous, trembling lips closed rigidly, and before they saw what she was
about to do, she had risen from her chair, and darted from the room and
out into the night.
"Our Lady guard her! It was the boats she caught sight of," said
Victorine, the cook. "There are the lights off the bay. Go, stop her,
Jeanne! Monsieur will be angry with us if anything befall her."
"Dame! I will not go," said her sister. "Can you not see that Annette is
bewitched? If she must go, she must. I will have nought to do with it."
Victorine, however, scouted her younger sister's reasoning, and hurried
out across the small court-yard, through the gate and on to the road.
The whole village seemed gathered at the harbour-side; children and old
men, lads and women, eager, yet with the patient quietness that is the
way with the Breton folk. Here a demure group of white-coiffed girls
stood waiting with scarce a word passing among them, waiting at the
quay-side for the fathers, brothers, or sweethearts, that for months had
been facing the perils of the northern seas. There a dark-eyed,
loose-limbed Breton peasant, the wildness of whose look bewrayed the
gentleness of his nature, was arguing with a white-haired patriarch
about the probable value of this year's haul: while quaint-looking
children in little tight-fitting bonnets and clattering sabots clung
patiently to their mother's skirts, their mothers, who could remember
many a home-coming of the boats, and knew that it would be well if to
some of those now waiting at the harbour, grief were not brought instead
of joy.
The vanguard of the fleet had been sighted some half-hour ago, and the
two or three boats whose lights could now be seen approaching, one of
which was recognized as Paul Gignol's "Annette," would, if all was well,
anchor in the harbour that night: for the tide was high, so that the
harbour basin was full; and the light of the torches and lanterns that
were carried to and fro among the crowd, was reflected from its surface
in distorted and broken flashes; while the regular plashing of the water
against the quay-side accompanied the low murmur of the crowd.
Victorine sought in vain for Annette in the darkness, dressed, as she
was, like all the other peasant girls; but her eye lighted on the tall,
powerful figure of Jules Leroux, Annette's father, standing at the door
of the _bureau du port_, where he and some others were discussing the
signals.
Victorine approached the group, and announced in her emphatic way that
Annette was ill, very ill, and had gone out alone into the crowd, when
the doctor had bidden her not leave her bed. Jules, who had been down at
the harbour since midday, and had heard nothing of Annette's recovered
voice, or of her riding to the village, started off without waiting for
more, along the quay and on to the very end of the mole, where the light
guarded the entrance to the harbour, saying to himself, "It is there she
will be--if she have feet to carry her--it is there she will be--when
the boat comes in."
Victorine looked after him, murmuring, "Surely the child Annette is the
apple of her father's eye."
The outline of the foremost fishing-smack was growing more and more
distinct on the water, as he reached the end of the quay. Moving figures
on board flashed into uncertain light for a moment, then disappeared
into darkness again. A girl darted out from the crowd as he approached,
and clung to his arm. "Annette, my little one," said Jules, "never fear.
The Saints will bring him safe home."
"He is there: it is the 'Annette' that comes. I have seen him!" she
cried.
Her father drew back almost in alarm. "What! Thy tongue is loosened, my
child?"
She drew down his head, and whispered eagerly in his ear. "The blessed
St. Yvon made me speak. I will tell you afterwards: it was to save Paul.
Is it not true now that he is mine?"
At that moment a clamour of welcome ran along the quay-side, as the boat
glided silently through the harbour mouth, and into the light of the
torches that flashed from the quay.
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