The Book of Ebenezer le Page Page 27

  When I got home and told my mother what had happened, she shook her head and said, ‘It won’t turn out well, you’ll see.’ I was annoyed with my mother. I said, ‘Nothing ever do turn out well, according to you.’ ‘It will for some,’ she said. I helped her to the door of her bedroom and remembered she was sick. The next evening, that was the Monday, I went down to Ivy Lodge as I had promised. Christine came to the door and said Raymond was across the road at Rosamunda. I went across and knocked on the front door, but got no answer; so went round the back, and there I found Raymond sitting at the kitchen table writing a long letter to Horace. Pages and pages of it. He said, ‘I wonder what old Horace is going to say?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s none of his business anyhow.’ I had to remind Raymond what I had come for. I got out of him that all he wanted was a couple of books he had to take back to the Guille-Allès Library and his birth certificate and his bank-book of the Guernsey Savings Bank. It was all the money he had of his own and had been saved for him under his name by his mother. It amounted to about two hundred pounds. As it turned out, that was all the money he was ever to get from his people; and his mother-in-law managed to get hold of most of it.

  When I got round to Hetty’s, I heard Harold hammering away in his work-shop. Hetty, in her sabots, was getting in the day’s washing from the clothes-line, as I suppose she had done every Monday evening since she was married. She didn’t seem to have the heart in her to lift her arms, and I got the rest down myself and carried the clothes-basket indoors for her. ‘Raymond wants some books and papers from the room where he studies,’ I said. ‘They are all his,’ she said. I went up and found what he had asked me to get. When I came down, I said, ‘Why take it so hard, Hetty? Christine will make a good minister’s wife.’ I doubt if I believed it; but I said it. I wasn’t going to be a Job’s comforter like my mother. ‘Phyllis Bingley was the girl would have made a good minister’s wife,’ said Hetty, ‘and you know it. It’s hard when somebody you have always thought was your friend stab you in the back.’ ‘I am not stabbing you in the back, Hetty,’ I said. She said, ‘It was on purpose I didn’t put his bank-book with his things; and now you are helping him to run away with that girl.’ I had the bank-book in my hand. ‘Goodness, he is not running away with her!’ I said. ‘They are going to get married at the Capelles. I will let you know when.’ ‘All those who call themselves my friends will let me know,’ she said, ‘you don’t have to bother. Go now.’ I knew it was no use me talking. I didn’t know it was the last time I was to see Hetty alive.

  The rest of the story of Hetty I heard from my Cousin Mary Ann; but only many years later. For weeks Hetty wouldn’t be seen outside the house: she was so ashamed of meeting anybody. My Cousin Mary Ann had to do all the shopping, or one of her daughters. Also, Hetty was getting funny ideas in her head. She began talking of ‘le bon dieu’. Le bon dieu wasn’t going to allow it to happen. I don’t know if she imagined Christine was going to drop dead before the wedding. There wasn’t much chance of that. Myself, I can’t imagine Christine ever dying. Unless she was hit by a thunderbolt. Perhaps that is what Hetty hoped le bon dieu would do. Well, there wasn’t no thunderstorm; but there was plenty of talk. Prissy came round to ask my mother if it was true Raymond was marrying Christine Mahy because he got to. It was what everyone was saying, she said. My mother said she didn’t know, but who was everybody? If I had been there I would jolly soon have told Prissy it wasn’t true and given her a piece of my mind! Raymond spent the days he was waiting for the licence in going to the bays with Christine. He brought her to Les Moulins once to ask my mother if she would go to the wedding; but, of course, she couldn’t. I thought he was looking worried.

  I am the last person on earth fit to write anybody else’s love story. I don’t know nothing about love. On the Pictures, love is love. The lovers either end up living happy ever after, or die tragic and very beautiful; but love is love. In my experience it is not like that at all. I don’t know how far Raymond really loved Christine. I know he wanted to; and perhaps he did. He said to me once, ‘When I love Christine, I love the whole world and everybody in it. She is the hardest person in the world for me to love.’ I am quite sure Christine didn’t love Raymond; or, if she did, it was only in so far as she wanted him to be interested in her, and only in her, and in nobody else, and in nothing else. He made the great mistake of taking her to see places where he had been happy with Horace. She was not interested in how, or where he had been happy with Horace; nor in climbing down over big rocks only to look at little fishes swimming in a pool. Christine wanted to have people, different people, around her all the time, and all of them saying how wonderful she was; and then she swelled out and perhaps she was wonderful. She wasn’t a friend: she was a woman. I don’t think Raymond realised it.

  Even on the wedding morning there was something missing, I thought. It may have been because it was only in a chapel. In chapel they solemnize marriages; but it is not so very solemn. That is why I would never feel properly married, if I wasn’t married in a church. It was at eight o’clock and there was no show. Raymond didn’t even arrange for the photographer to come. Christine wore a veil, but no train, and only a white silk dress she had made herself. Gwen and Edna was bridesmaids; though I didn’t see how Edna could be a bridesmaid, when she was a widow with a girl of five. I thought a bridesmaid was supposed to be a virgin. Raymond wore the same black suit he had preached in. I had a flower in my button-hole; but Raymond forgot his. Old Mahy gave Christine away. His black clothes hung so loose on him, he looked as if he ought to have been put in a field to frighten the birds. Up to the last minute Raymond kept on looking towards the porch, hoping Harold and Hetty would appear. Prissy was there and made a great fuss of Christine after the service. She made them both promise they would go and see her as soon as they got back from their honeymoon. They was going for a fortnight’s honeymoon on Sark. That was Raymond’s idea; but Jersey would have suited Christine better. There was a wedding breakfast at Ivy Lodge which had to be eaten in a hurry, because the boat was leaving at half-past ten. I went to the Albert Pier to see them off on the Alert. Raymond, I will never forget, caught hold of my arm before he followed Christine down the gangway and said, ‘Pray for me.’

  I am not the person to pray for anybody; but I said, ‘Good luck!’ I didn’t know then what it was he was afraid of; but I did when he was living with me and said, ‘Any chap can do in, out, on guard, once he gets into the habit.’ In Raymond’s experience, marriage in heaven and marriage on earth didn’t go together. For myself, I would have been satisfied with marriage on earth and heaven in sight. He must have suffered on his honeymoon. I know he confessed to Christine every single thing about himself, even his poor little sins of when he was a boy. He was a fool there. A man got to be careful what he say to a woman; or she will turn it upside-down and inside-out and use it as evidence against him. Raymond didn’t want to keep anything secret from Christine. He trusted her completely.

  I let two or three days pass after I knew they was back before I went down to see them. Raymond had a fortnight yet before he was due to go to his chapel. I thought they both looked very well. Raymond was in white flannels and a white open-necked shirt with a coloured tie for a belt; and Christine was in one of her famous simple frocks. It was all the colours of the rainbow, and I must say she looked nice in it. I said, ‘If that frock you got on is made of curtain material, you are a very clever girl.’ ‘It is,’ she said, ‘and it cost me seven-and-six.’ I asked Raymond how he liked Sark. ‘God’s Isle,’ he said. ‘A miracle risen from the sea!’ I glanced at her to see if she agreed, but there was no knowing from her face what she was thinking. It was like a big moon.

  They seemed quite at home in Rosamunda. Edna had left all the furniture for their use. He was sitting in the armchair like the man of the house, and Christine was sitting on a hassock at his feet, leaning against his knees. He was telling me about Dixcart Hotel where they had stayed, and the wonderful water from the well in the
valley. They had been all over the island. He had a swim in Venus’ Pool off Little Sark; and the sea in it was so thick with salt, he said, he could hardly keep his body under. He had been along the Hog’s Back. He had looked down into the Creux Derrible and seen the sea at the bottom swirling like a witch’s cauldron. He said the view from the Pilcher Monument must be the loveliest on earth. Christine, it seemed, had to follow in his footsteps and do plenty of climbing. I wondered if she liked it. She said very little, but smiled at him adoringly from time to time. I don’t know to this day how far she was playing the part of the happy young wife. For years she put on that face and didn’t complain; and poor Raymond had no idea how much she was scoring up against him. It may be if they had been given a fair start and there hadn’t been the trouble with his parents and trouble coming from the chapel people and everything at once, it wouldn’t have turned out so bad, in spite of what my mother said.

  I felt quite soft about them that night. Raymond was looking fresh and clean, as he always did; and very peaceful. When later I learned his side of the story, I realised he had been through so many feelings in those two weeks, for the time being he had none left. It was as if his whole past was wiped out and he was starting afresh on a clean page. I heard Christine’s side as well when the time came; but she was so angry, I don’t trust what she said. I am more ready to believe Raymond, because he was more fair to her. I may have made a great mistake that night, though I was full of goodwill towards them both. When Christine had gone out to the kitchen to make some coffee, I asked Raymond if he was going to see his mother. He said they had already been to have tea at Prissy’s, but he wasn’t going to risk having Christine insulted. I said, ‘Go on your own first, and ask your mother if you can bring Christine to see her. I don’t see how she can refuse now you are married.’ He said he would go.

  I knew Hetty had a bad heart, or fancied she had a bad heart; but I didn’t know she now got it into her head she was going to die. The whole time Raymond was on his honeymoon she stayed in bed, and my Cousin Mary Ann was there every day. Harold sent for the doctor, who said it was shock, but there was really nothing wrong with her and all she needed was rest and attention. Harold couldn’t do enough for her and took her up fruit and chicken and cream cakes from Le Noury and everything she liked; but she wouldn’t touch a thing he brought her, and made my Cousin Mary Ann promise she would always make the tea herself, in case he put poison in the pot. She unburdened her heart to my Cousin Mary Ann and cried and raved like a mad-woman. Harold was only waiting for her to die, so he could marry some young girl! He would sell up the house and everything and spend the lot on the new young wife. ‘How the people will laugh,’ said Hetty, ‘when I am gone!’

  Then to my Cousin Mary Ann’s amazement, one day Hetty get up out of her bed and dresses herself in her best clothes and goes to Town on the bus; though she is so weak on her legs she hardly has the strength to walk to the four-cross to catch it. She was going to see a lawyer, she said, but Harold must on no account be told what she was gone to Town for. My Cousin Mary Ann had no idea then why Hetty wanted to see a lawyer; or what a lawyer could do about it. It do seem as if the fates was against Raymond, for it was on that very day he went to call on his mother on his own. He met his father in the yard. ‘What are you doing here?’ said Harold. ‘I have come to see Ma,’ Raymond said. ‘You don’t live here now,’ said Harold. ‘Clear out!’ Raymond went deadly pale and began to tremble. According to my Cousin Mary Ann, he was going to hit Harold. I don’t really believe Raymond was going to hit his father; but my Cousin Mary Ann ran out to separate them. Raymond walked away quietly with his head down. ‘If only Hetty had stayed at home that day,’ my Cousin Mary Ann said to me often, ‘it would all have been different.’

  10

  I have never known for sure who it was kicked up a shindy over Raymond’s sermon. The few people who spoke to me about it praised him. Reg Underwood thought he was grand and Mr Dorey, who always stopped and spoke to me when he saw me, said he had been glad to see me in the chapel and hoped I had enjoyed the service as much as he had. The scandal over Christine may have had something to do with it; but I wouldn’t mind betting it was old Albert Nicolle who started the trouble. He was a local preacher and an old fool, who always brought Oliver Cromwell into his sermons, as being the one man who in the past had saved Guernsey from going to perdition. He hated me because I was Church, who he said was back-sliders and nearly as bad as the Roman Catholics, who was worshippers of idols of wood and stone. What made me angry about the whole affair, and it was so like those Chapel people, was it was all done behind Raymond’s back. The first he heard of it was the day after he had been to see his mother, when he got a letter from his friend, the Reverend Charles Bingley, the head of his college.

  Raymond didn’t take it very serious. The Reverend Charles wrote that, not greatly to his surprise, he had received a complaint from the good people of Guernsey that his dear Raymond had preached a sermon of perhaps not quite sound doctrine. Raymond came to let me know he was going to England for a few days. He told me he had been to Wallaballoo and it had done no good; but he didn’t tell me what had happened. I wasn’t going to worry him about that then, but asked him if going to England meant he was being hauled over the coals. He said old Charles was like a father to him; but he was a fuss-pot. In his letter he had written that he hoped to be able to clear up Raymond’s difficulties. ‘I haven’t got any difficulties,’ said Raymond. ‘They are the ones who got the difficulties.’ He said Christine would miss him, and he wished she was going with him; but she thought it was better for him to go on his own. It would leave his mind free to put the matter right. Anyhow, he was wearing his dog’s collar when he went; and when he came back, he wasn’t.

  He was rather proud of what he had done. I think he expected a pat on the back from me. ‘I had to come and let you see I have gone back to nature,’ he said, ‘I bet you’re pleased.’ ‘I am not at all pleased,’ I said, ‘and what about Christine? What do she say?’ ‘She hasn’t said anything,’ he said. I happen to know now she felt very bitter about it. At least he was sincere in the thoughts of his head with old Charles. The pity was when Raymond was sincere in the thoughts of his head, he left his heart out of count. If you are as sympathetic with people as Raymond was in his heart, you don’t go round smashing their idols. It is like taking a toy from a child. I know if somebody was to smash my two china dogs I would feel like murder. He said straight out to a minister and his teacher, if you please, he didn’t believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection. Old Charles said they have to be accepted, or Jesus of Nazareth was not the Son of God. The Christian Church of every denomination was founded upon the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was the only begotten Son of God: not that He was a prophet, not even the greatest of the prophets. From what Raymond told me I thought that, for a minister, the Reverend Charles had been very patient and reasonable; and Raymond himself had shown no sense or moderation. He actually said if Jesus was born of a virgin without a natural father, far from being the Son of God, He was a freak. ‘Well, I am not surprised the Reverend Charles turfed you out,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, he didn’t turf me out,’ said Raymond, ‘He agrees with me really. Those people accept this and accept that; but they don’t really think it happened. They decide to believe it.’ Raymond got quite excited. ‘If he had worked in the Greffe as long as I have,’ he said, ‘he would know you can’t be sure exactly what it was happened fifty years ago, let alone two thousand. God isn’t on record in a book! He is in the nature of every creature, and beyond the nature of every creature. He is in the nature of the world, and beyond the nature of the world. If you want to see where God has trod, you can go to Sark: you don’t have to go to the Holy Land!’ I said, ‘Well, what did he do then? Tear your collar off?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I said I’d withdraw.’ ‘Is that all?’ I said. ‘He wanted me to go before a synod and plead my case,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you?’ I said. He shrugged his shoulders. I woul
dn’t have minded so much if he had stuck up for what he thought and had been turfed out because of it; but just to back out, I had no patience! I didn’t want to hear any more.

  They had him back to the Greffe; and there he was, after years of studying and going to college, no forrarder than when he left school. It was arranged for Edna and the kid to live with the old people at Ivy Lodge for good; and Raymond and Christine made their home at Rosamunda. He paid his mother-in-law rent and, when the baker or the butcher or the grocer wouldn’t let her have any more on tick, he paid the bills. He was soon keeping Christine’s whole family. Rosamunda was only a one-storey cottage with two dormer windows and a small garden back and front. Raymond didn’t seem to mind; but it was a great come-down for Christine. For years she had only been a visitor to Guernsey, and thought of herself as a cut above the ordinary run of Guernsey people. Now she was almost one of the poor. To make matters worse, she had no idea how to look after a house. It was a pity, because Rosamunda could have been made into quite a nice little place for the two of them, if she had been the sensible country girl she ought to have been. Instead, she would sit and sew and embroider by the hour and, when she went out, looked as if she had stepped out of a band-box; but in the house she was a slut.