A Sister to Evangeline by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts
Chapter XIX
The Borderland of Life
Again I felt myself striving to grasp at something—nothing tangible now,but a long series of exhausting, infinitely confused dreams. My brainstrove desperately to retain them, but the more it strove the more theyslipped back into the darkness of the further side of memory; and, withone mighty effort to hold on to the last of the vanishing train, Iopened my eyes, oppressed with a sense of significant things forgotten.
My eyes opened, I say; and they stared widely at a patch of sky, of anuntellable blue, sparkling gem-like, and set very far off as if seenthrough the wrong end of a telescope. As I stared, the sense ofoppression slipped from me. I sat up; but the patch of sky reeled, and Ilay back again, whereupon it recovered its adorable stability. I felttired, but content. It was good to lie there, and watch that enchantedsky, and rest from thought and dreams.
After a while, however, I turned my head, and noted that I was in adeep, low-vaulted, tunnel-shaped cave—or rather bottle-shaped, for itwas enlarged about the place where I lay. I noted that I lay on furs, ona low, couch-like ledge; and I noted, too, that there was a windoutside, for at intervals a branch was bowed across the cave-mouth andwithdrawn. Then I perceived that a little jar of water and a broken cakeof barley meal stood just within reach; and straightway I was aware of amost interested appetite. I sat up again and began to eat and drink. Thepatch of sky reeled, danced, blurred, darkened,—and again grew clear andsteady. I finished the barley bread, finished the little jar of water,and sat communing lucidly with my right mind.
It was manifest that I had been saved that night of my fall over thecliff (by Anderson?—I prayed not); that I had been desperately ill—forthe hands and arms upon which I looked down with sarcastic pity wereemaciated; that I had been tenderly cared for—for the couch was soft,the cave well kept, and a rude screen stood at one side to shield mewhen the winds came into the cave-mouth. I raised my hands to my head.It was bandaged; and at one side my hair had been much cut away. But myhair—how long the rest of it was! And then came a stroke of wonder—myonce smooth chin was deeply bearded! How long, how long must I haverested here, to grow so patriarchal an adornment!
Stung to a fierce restlessness, and with a sinking at my heart, I rose,tottered to the cave-mouth, and looked out.
The world I had last seen was a green world on the threshold of June.The world I looked on now was a world of fading scarlets, the last firesof autumn fast dying from the ragged leafage.
Below, beyond trees and a field, was outspread the wide water of Minas,roughened to a cold and angry indigo under the wind. To the left,purple-dim and haze-wrapped, sat Blomidon. Grand Pré must be around tothe left. Then the cave was in the face of the Piziquid bluff. So nearto friends, yet hidden in a cave! What had happened the while I lay asdead? I tottered back to the couch, and fell on my back, and thought. Myapprehensions were like a mountain of lead upon the pit of my stomach,and I laboured for my breath.
First I thought of Nicole as having saved me—Anderson I knew would havedone his best, but was helpless among an unfriendly people, and welloccupied to keep his own scalp. Yet Nicole would have taken me to FatherFafard! And surely there were houses in Grand Pré where the son of myfather would have been nursed, and not driven to hide in a hole—till hisbeard grew! And surely, after all that had happened, Yvonne would nolonger count me a traitor, Monsieur and Madame would make amends forthis dreadful misjudgment! And surely—but if so, where were all thesefriends?
Or what had befallen Grand Pré?
“If evil has befallen them (I did not say Yvonne) I want to die! I willgo out, and fight, and die at once!” I cried, springing to my feet.
But I was still very weak, and my passion had yet further weakened me,so that I fell to the floor beside the couch; and in falling I knockedover the little jar and broke it. Even then I was conscious of a regretfor the little jar; I realized that I was thirsty; and though I wantedto die, I wanted a drink of water first.
This inconsequent mood soon passed, and I crawled back on to the couch,the conviction well hammered into my brain that I was not yet fit to diewith credit. And now, having found me no comfort in reason, and havingfaced the fact that there was nothing I could do but wait, I began tomuse more temperately, and to cast about, as one will when weak, foromens and auguries. They kill time, and I hold them harmless.
But a truce to cant. Who am I that I should dare to say I laugh at ordeny them? I may laugh at myself for a credulous fool. And I have nodoubt whatever that most omens are sheer rubbish, more vain than afloating feather. But again there are things of that kindred that haveconvinced me, and have blessed me; and I dare not be irreverent to themock mysteries, lest I be guilty of blaspheming those which are true. Weknow not—that is the most we know.
I will not agree, then, that I was a subject for laughter if, lyingthere alone, sick, tormented, loving without hope, fast bound inignorance of events most vital to my love, I let my mind recall thecurious prophesyings of old Mother Pêche. Of Yvonne directly I dared notsuffer myself to think, lest my heart should break or stop.
When fate denies occasion to play the hero, it is often well, whilewaiting, to play the child. I lay quiet, looked at the patch of sky, andoccupied myself with Mother Pêche’s soothsayings.
_Your heart’s desire is near your death of hope._
At first there was comfort in this, and I took it very seriously, forthe sake of the argument. But oh, these oracles, astute from the days ofDelphi and Dodona! Already I could perceive that my hope was not quitedead. A thousand chances came hinting about the windows of my thought.Why might not Yvonne be safe, well,—free? The odds were that things hadgone ill in my absence, but there was still the chance they might haveinstead gone well. Here and now, plainly, was not my death of hope,wherefore my heart’s desire could not be near. I turned aside the sayingin angry contempt, and fell to feeling my ribs, my shrunk chest, myskinny arms, wondering how long before I could well wield sword again.
In this far from reassuring occupation I came upon the little leatherpouch which Mother Pêche had hung about my neck. With eagerness I drewout the mystic stone and held it up before my face. The eye waned anddilated in the dim light, as if a living spirit lurked behind it.
“Le Veilleur,” I said to myself. “The Watcher. Little strange is it ifsimple souls ascribe to you sorcery and power.”
Then I remembered the snatch of doggerel which the old dame had mutteredover it as she gave it to me. _While this you wear what most you fearwill never come to pass._
Curious it seemed to me that it should have stuck in my mind, though solittle heeded at the time. _What most you fear._ What was it most Ifeared? Surely, that Yvonne should go to another. Then that, at least,should not befall while I lived, if there were force in witchcraft; forI would wear the “Watcher” till I died.
But here again my delusive little satisfaction had but a breath long tolive. For indeed what most I feared was something, alas! quitedifferent. What most I feared was calamity, evil, anguish, for Yvonne.Then, clearly, if her happiness required her to be the wife of GeorgeAnderson, I could not hinder it. Could not? Nay, “_would_ not!” I criedaloud; and thereupon, no longer able to drug myself with auguries, andno longer able to be dumb under the misery of my own soul, I sprangupright, strained my arms above my head, and prayed a selfish prayer:
“God, give her joy, but through me, through me!” Then I flung myselfdown again, and set my teeth, and turned my face to the wall. Thus I layas one dead; and so it fell that when the door of the cave was darkened,and steps came to my bed, I did not look up.