The Secret of Sarek, Maurice Leblanc [the ebook reader .txt] 📗

“And you see, M’ame Honorine, you find your boat just where she was. I came to have a look at her every day. This morning I took away her tarpaulin. Does she run as well as ever?”

“First-rate.”

“Besides, you’re a master pilot, you are. Who’d have thought, M’ame Honorine, that you’d be doing a job like this?”

“It’s the war. All the young men in our island are gone and the old ones are fishing. Besides, there’s no longer a fortnightly steamboat service, as there used to be. So I go the errands.”

“What about petrol?”

“We’ve plenty to go on with. No fear of that.”

“Well, goodbye for the present, M’ame Honorine. Shall I help you put the things on board?”

“Don’t you trouble; you’re in a hurry.”

“Well, goodbye for the present,” the old fellow repeated. “Till next time, M’ame Honorine. I’ll have the parcels ready for you.”

He went away, but, when he had gone a little distance, called out:

“All the same, mind the jagged reefs round that blessed island of yours! I tell you, it’s got a nasty name! It’s not called Coffin Island, the island of the thirty coffins, for nothing! Good luck to you, M’ame Honorine!”

He disappeared behind a rock.

Véronique had shuddered. The thirty coffins! The very words which she had read in the margin of that horrible drawing!

She leant forward. The woman had come a few steps nearer the boat and, after putting down some more provisions which she had been carrying, turned round.

Véronique now saw her full-face. She wore a Breton costume; and her headdress was crowned by two black wings.

“Oh,” stammered Véronique, “that headdress in the drawing⁠ ⁠… the headdress of the three crucified women!”

The Breton woman looked about forty. Her strong face, tanned by the sun and the cold, was bony and rough-hewn but lit up by a pair of large, dark, intelligent, gentle eyes. A heavy gold chain hung down upon her breast. Her velvet bodice fitted her closely.

She was humming in a very low voice as she took up her parcels and loaded the boat, which made her kneel on a big stone against which the boat was moored. When she had done, she looked at the horizon, which was covered with black clouds. She did not seem anxious about them, however, and, loosing the painter, continued her song, but in a louder voice, which enabled Véronique to hear the words. It was a slow melody, a children’s lullaby; and she sang it with a smile which revealed a set of fine, white teeth.

“And the mother said,
Rocking her child abed:

‘Weep not. If you do,
The Virgin Mary weeps with you.

Babes that laugh and sing
Smiles to the Blessed Virgin bring.

Fold your hands this way
And to sweet Mary pray.’ ”

She did not complete the song. Véronique was standing before her, with her face drawn and very pale.

Taken aback, the other asked:

“What’s the matter?”

Véronique, in a trembling voice, replied:

“That song! Who taught it you? Where do you get it from?⁠ ⁠… It’s a song my mother used to sing, a song of her own country, Savoy.⁠ ⁠… And I have never heard it since⁠ ⁠… since she died.⁠ ⁠… So I want⁠ ⁠… I should like⁠ ⁠…”

She stopped. The Breton woman looked at her in silence, with an air of stupefaction, as though she too were on the point of asking questions. But Véronique repeated:

“Who taught it you?”

“Someone over there,” the woman called Honorine answered, at last.

“Over there?”

“Yes, someone on my island.”

Véronique said, with a sort of dread:

“Coffin Island?”

“That’s just a name they call it by. It’s really the Isle of Sarek.”

They still stood looking at each other, with a look in which a certain doubt was mingled with a great need of speech and understanding. And at the same time they both felt that they were not enemies.

Véronique was the first to continue:

“Excuse me, but, you see, there are things which are so puzzling⁠ ⁠…”

The Breton woman nodded her head in approval and Véronique continued:

“So puzzling and so disconcerting!⁠ ⁠… For instance, do you know why I’m here? I must tell you. Perhaps you alone can explain⁠ ⁠… It’s like this: an accident⁠—quite a small accident, but really it all began with that⁠—brought me to Brittany for the first time and showed me, on the door of an old, deserted, roadside cabin, the initials which I used to sign when I was a girl, a signature which I have not used for fourteen or fifteen years. As I went on, I discovered the same inscription many times repeated, with each time a different consecutive number. That was how I came here, to the beach at Beg-Meil and to this part of the beach, which appeared to be the end of a journey foreseen and arranged by⁠ ⁠… I don’t know whom.”

“Is your signature here?” asked Honorine, eagerly. “Where?”

“On that stone, above us, at the entrance to the shelter.”

“I can’t see from here. What are the letters?”

“V. d’H.”

The Breton woman suppressed a movement. Her bony face betrayed profound emotion, and, hardly opening her lips, she murmured:

“Véronique⁠ ⁠… Véronique d’Hergemont.”

“Ah,” exclaimed the younger woman, “so you know my name, you know my name!”

Honorine took Véronique’s two hands and held them in her own. Her weather-beaten face lit up with a smile. And her eyes grew moist with tears as she repeated:

“Mademoiselle Véronique!⁠ ⁠… Madame Véronique!⁠ ⁠… So it’s you, Véronique!⁠ ⁠… O Heaven, is it possible! The Blessed Virgin Mary be praised!”

Véronique felt utterly confounded and kept on saying:

“You know my name⁠ ⁠… you know who I am.⁠ ⁠… Then you can explain all this riddle to me?”

After a long pause, Honorine replied:

“I can explain nothing. I don’t understand either. But we can try to find out together.⁠ ⁠… Tell me, what was the name of that Breton village?”

“Le Faouet.”

“Le Faouet. I know. And where was the deserted cabin?”

“A mile and a quarter away.”

“Did you look in?”

“Yes; and that was the most terrible thing of all. Inside the cabin was⁠ ⁠…”

“What was in the cabin?”

“First of all, the dead body of a man, an old man, dressed in the local costume, with long white hair and a grey