The Book of Ebenezer le Page Read online

  I will say for my mother she was not vainglorious for the things of this world; but there was one thing she was proud of. I often heard her say to people ‘When I marry, I do not change my name, me.’ It was true. She was a Le Page and my father was a Le Page; but, as she said, he was no relation. He was a Le Page from the Clos-du-Valle and his people all had to do with the sea. His great-grandfather, Captain Alf Le Page, was Master of the schooner Daisy; and Captain Alf Le Page’s brother, Dick, was the famous Richard Le Page who served under Admiral Lord de Saumarez and got killed at the Battle of the Nile. When the quarries was opened in the North, there was good money to be made; and my grandfather, who was no higher than a cook aboard ship, gave up going to sea and worked in the Chouey quarry. He can’t have done too bad. It was him built Les Moulins, where I have lived all my life. It is built of solid, blue Guernsey granite and will last for ever. It ought to, too. It cost a hundred pounds; and that’s a lot of money.

  There was plenty of talk about a great-uncle of mine, the brother of my grandfather. He came home from sea with a woman who called herself Bella Devine. Nobody knew who she was, or where she come from. She preached in the Seaman’s Bethel on the Banks; and they lived in the dirtiest of a row of dirty old cottages by the Vale Church. He used to pick up the horse-droppings by the gate of L’Ancresse Common in a gelignite box on two wheels to put on his garden. I wasn’t supposed to know he was a relation; but when I saw him, I used to say ‘Hullo, Uncle!’

  There was nobody people could talk about much in my mother’s family; unless it was her brother. She was of the Le Pages from the Câtel, who was pretty well-to-do growers and farmers; though some of them did a bit of fishing as well. Anyhow, they was thought of as good people and well spoken-of. Her father was Nicholas Le Page of Les Sablons, Cobo; who was the son of Eliazar Le Page; who was the son of Obadiah Le Page; who was the son of Thomas Le Page, who was converted to Christianity by John Wesley, when he landed on Guernsey. Les Sablons wasn’t as good a house as ours. It was built of bricks and mortar and whitewashed, and had rooms only one side of the front door; but it had a room upstairs with a dormer window, and a room in the wing. It is there to this day; but I don’t know who live in it now.

  Nicholas Le Page, my grandfather, was a local preacher and dropped dead from a stroke in the pulpit of the Capelles Chapel. I don’t remember him. My grandmother was a widow as long as I can remember. She was a tiny little woman and wore big sabots and a big scoop. I liked my little grandmother. She went to Chapel regular, but you would never have thought she was religious: she would do anything for anybody, it didn’t matter who they was. She was dying of cancer and when I went along to see how she was, she would reach up and pick me a fig off the fig-tree because she knew I liked figs, although it hurt her to do it. I especially liked to go the day she was making bread. I would help her to cut the furze, and watch her set fire to it in the oven in the wall. She always put a small loaf on a hot stone only for me; so I could have one all to myself. She didn’t speak the English, and could only read the Bible in French. My mother spoke the English a little, and the big Bible was in English.

  My mother was the eldest of the family. After her came two or three who died, and then my Uncle Nathaniel, or Nat, as he was called. I liked my Uncle Nat. He was gay and good-looking and spent his time fishing and drinking and playing cards with the boys round Albecq and Vazon, and chasing after the girls. He had no respect for his father. One day, the Reverend Dumond, Pastor of the Capelles Chapel, knocked on the front door and, when Nat opened it, asked where his father was. He answered, ‘Aw, he’s round the back in the pigsty: he’s the one with the hat on.’ When my mother told me that terrible story, I forgot myself and bust out laughing; yet I would never have said that about my own father, because he wasn’t a pig.

  After my Uncle Nat came twins, who died, and then the two younger sisters, Priscille and Henriette, or La Prissy and La Hetty, as they was called. There was five years between them and they married the eldest and the youngest of the Martel boys, sons of Harold Martel of Ronceval, the builder. The Martels of Ronceval was quite well-to-do: but the older one, Harold, married the younger sister, Hetty, who was years younger than him; and the younger one, Percy, married the older sister, Prissy, who was years older than him. It wasn’t at all the way I would have arranged it, if it had been me.

  The most terrible thing was what happened to my Uncle Nat. He wasn’t forty yet when he lost his strength and went funny in the head; though there was some people with bad tongues who said it was only because he was too lazy to work. He would lie on the green-bed all day long sewing pictures of boats on canvas with coloured wools. They was pictures of wild mad boats on wild mad seas, and came to his sisters when he died. There is one on the wall in front of me at this moment; and sometimes I think it is better than a real boat on a real sea.

  I had a load of great-aunts; but the only one who had anything to leave was my great-aunt Sarah. She was my mother’s aunt, her father’s sister; and they said she was mad too. She lived in a big house among a lot of trees at the Hougue Chaunée, and had a paid companion to look after her. It was a great worry in the family for years who she was going to leave her money to. My mother took me and Tabitha to show to her; and La Prissy and La Hetty took theirs, though La Hetty’s wasn’t much to show. My mother explained to us before we went that it was not for her sake she was taking us, but for ours: so as we might have that which was needful in this world and be beholden to no man. My great-aunt was wrapped up in a shawl and looked like an old bird, sitting in her chair by the fire. All Tabitha could say was ‘Ooo!’ and look at her with big eyes. I didn’t say a word because my mother had told me I mustn’t open my mouth, or I would be sure to say the wrong thing.

  Anyhow, my great-aunt gave orders that all her money was to be given to her in pound notes, so as she could burn it; because none of her relations was worth leaving it to. That was when the de Garis girl, who was her paid companion, was clever. She gave her pieces of paper cut to the size of pound notes; and my great-aunt would sit for hours throwing them one by one on the fire, and laughing and laughing at the thought of all the money going up in smoke her nieces and their brats wasn’t going to have. That’s why they said she was mad; but I think she knew what she was doing as well as I do. When she died and was buried and the will was read, it turned out she had left everything to the Presbyterian minister.

  It say in the Bible ‘Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.’ Well, those people are the rock whence I was hewn, and the hole of the pit whence I was digged. I haven’t said nothing about my cousins, and the cousins of my cousins; but then half the island is my cousins, and the cousins of my cousins.

  2

  I had a good education, me. I went to the Vale School for Boys until I was twelve. I can see the old schoolroom yet: the broken-down desks and the worn-out forms with knots in that got stuck into your backside and the picture of the old Queen on the wall and of Jesus Christ walking on the water and the jam-jar of tadpoles on the windowsill. The Headmaster was Mess Henri Falla from La Moye. He taught us Scripture first lesson in the morning; and Reading, Writing and Arithmetic later in the day. The Scripture didn’t count. All we had to do was to sit still and listen, and it went in one ear and out the other; but Reading, Writing and Arithmetic we had to learn. Mess Falla was a good schoolmaster: he taught with the stick in his hand. If I said ‘2 and 2 is 5’, he would shout ‘Come out, Le Page E!’ There was Le Page A, B, C, D, E, F, and G in the school. I was Le Page E. ‘Bend over! Touch your toes!’ he would say: ‘2 and 2 is 4!’ Whack! Whack! Whack! ‘That’ll learn you!’ It did, you know. He didn’t do it to hurt.

  Miss Emily Tostevin did, though. She had a down on me. I don’t know what for, I’m sure; because I never said a word. I would just sit with my arms folded and look at her. She said I was cheeky. ‘Come out in front for impudence, Ebenezer Le Page,’ she’d say. I would go out in front: bend over, touch
my toes. She thought that was rude. ‘Stand up!’ she’d say. ‘Hold out your hand: your LEFT hand!’ She would only hit boys on their left hand, or, after, they made out they couldn’t write. She didn’t use a cane, but the edge of a ruler; and, golly, she knew how to hurt with it, too! I learnt the trick of holding my hand out sideways and lowering it the same time as the ruler came down: then I would rub it hard under my arm-pit and wrinkle up my face as if I was going to cry, so as she wouldn’t know it hadn’t hurt much.

  She taught us History, Geography and Nature Study. History was dates. I have forgotten most of it now, but I know it began in 55 B.C. when Julius Caesar landed in Britain; and I remember A.D. 1066, because that was the year we conquered England. Geography was the countries and capitals of Europe and the capes and bays of England. Some of the countries of Europe have changed since then, I think; but, as far as I know, the capes and bays of England are the same. Nature Study was the only thing I did right for Miss Tostevin. She gave me ten out of ten once for my composition on ‘The Life of The Frog’.

  I had to go to Sunday School as well. That was a nuisance. I would much rather have been flying my kite on the Common, or gone down on the beach; but I wasn’t allowed to fly my kite on a Sunday, and if you went down on the beach, people said you was a heathen. There was one good thing about Sunday School; and that was there was nothing you had to learn. They made you sing hymns: ‘Onward, Christian soldiers!’ or ‘Fight the good fight with all thy might!’ or ‘Trust-and-obey-there-is-no-other way-to-be-happy-in-Jesus-but-to-trust-and-obey’, while they took up a collection for Foreign Missions. My father used to give me a penny for that; and I always put it in the box. I was honest. The Headmaster, he was called the Superintendent, prayed and read a chapter from the Bible; and then there was Announcements, but I never listened to those. After that came the Lesson. The boys was sorted out, a dozen or more in a class according to their ages; and each class sat on forms making three sides of a square. The Sunday School teacher sat on a chair in the open side and told the class a story with a moral.

  I got into bad trouble at Sunday School. There was boys and girls in the same room in that school, the boys on one side and the girls on the other; and down the middle of the room the boys’ classes and the girls’ classes was back to back. A Mr Johns from on the Bridge was our teacher, I remember; and he had a long straggly moustache, and when he spoke he spat. I had to sit right back so as not to have a shower of his spit all over me. It happened on that Sunday I was sitting back to back with Marie Le Noury. I thought she was lovely. She was wearing a tight blue velvet frock and was well developed for a girl and had rosy cheeks and sly black eyes; and when I looked round, she looked round and smiled at me with those sly black eyes. I thought I would write her a little note. I had a stub of pencil in my pocket and tore a page out the back of my hymn-book and wrote, ‘Je t’aime, Marie.’ I dug her in the ribs and she took the note and the pencil. I thought she would write back ‘Je t’aime, Ebenezer’, but instead I heard her saying, ‘Look, Miss Collas, what one of the boys has given to me!’

  Her teacher was a Miss Collas from The Hermitage. She was an old maid and I am not surprised. She looked as if she had been brought up on the vinegar bottle. Mr Johns stopped telling his story with a moral and all the other classes stopped listening to their teachers. ‘Who gave you this?’ said Miss Collas. ‘Him!’ said Marie and turned round and pointed to me. My heart broke. Miss Collas was holding my poor little love-letter with the tips of her fingers, as if it was too dirty to touch. ‘Disgusting!’ she said and got up and put it under the nose of the Superintendent, old Peter Le Maître. ‘One of your boys is interfering with my girls,’ she said. Old Peter Le Maître was a big man with a big face and big spectacles, and sat at a high desk at the top end of the room. ‘Who wrote this?’ he said. ‘Ebenezer Le Page!’ screamed all the girls. ‘Come here, Ebenezer Le Page!’ said old Peter. I went and stood in front of his high desk. He looked at me over the top of his spectacles; and he looked at my note through his spectacles; and looked at me again over the top of his spectacles. ‘Is this what you come to Sunday School for?’ he said. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ I said. ‘Go and stand in the porch!’ he said. I went out to the porch with my tail between my legs; and then I said to myself, me: ‘Bugger you, old Peter Le Maître!’ and put on my cap and walked out.

  I never looked at Marie Le Noury again. She married Reg Symes, an English chap in the Artillery stationed at Castle Cornet. He was a great boy with the Indian clubs and used to give displays at military concerts; but he came out of the Army to please her and opened a little shop in the Commercial Arcade for mending clocks and watches. He worshipped the ground she walked on. When she got to middle age she left him and went to live with her married daughter in England; and he put his head in the gas oven and was found dead in the morning. I was lucky, really.

  I went home round Birdo, so as not to be back too soon. There was an old man sitting on a rock with a spy-glass. I wondered what it was he was looking at; and then I noticed a young chap and a girl had managed to get themselves cut off by the tide on the Hommet and was curled up together on the grass. I couldn’t see what they was doing; but the old man could see, him. I thought it was funny way for an old man to pass his Sunday afternoon. I went round by the Vale Mill; but the big vanes wasn’t turning. The cows was chewing the cud in the field. When I got indoors, my father asked me what the golden text was for that Sunday. He always asked me what the golden text was to make sure I hadn’t played truant. I told him. ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself.’ He said, ‘Well, if you do that, son, you can’t go far wrong.’ I had my doubts about that.

  I didn’t go to Sunday School again. I left the house the same time as if I was going and took the penny my father gave me for the Foreign Missions. I was sorry to have to steal that penny from my father; but what else could I do? I went and sat on the gate of L’Ancresse Common by the Vale Church with the boys from round there. In those days there was hundreds of sheep loose on the Common and the gate had to be kept shut, or they would have strayed all over the Parish. It was a nuisance for the gentry who wanted to drive across the Common in their carriages. They had to get down and open the gate and get back up and drive through and get down again and close the gate behind them. The boys was good. They would open the gate when they saw a carriage coming and close the gate behind it: then run after the carriage, calling out ‘Apenny, please! Apenny, please!’

  Sunday afternoons was a good time for making money on the gate; because the Townies, who was all gentry on Sundays, liked to drive out to L’Ancresse Common in their carriages to look at the sheep. I will say some of them was honest and would throw a halfpenny, and there’d be a run and a fight for it; but there are always some mean people in the world. The gentleman would pull a handful of change out of his pocket and say, ‘Sorry, haven’t got a halfpenny. Have you, my dear?’ The lady would rummage in her handbag and say, ‘I am afraid I haven’t, darling.’ By that time we’d have run after the carriage nearly to the Druid’s Altar. Goodness, a penny would have done!

  I had to keep my eyes skinned for some boy who had been to Sunday School, so as I would know what the golden text was for that Sunday. I usually managed to nab Bill Rihoy, who lived at L’Islet; but I don’t think he always remembered it right. Once he told me it was ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ When I repeated it to my father, he said, ‘Well, if that’s what they teach you in Sunday School, soon there won’t be many of us with any eyes, or any teeth, left.’ As I have said before, he got some funny ideas in his head, my father.

  I put the money I made in my money-box. I didn’t tell a soul: not even my sister. It wasn’t she was a tell-tale. She was the most honest and straightforward girl and woman I have known in my whole life. She was so honest and straightforward you had to be careful what you said to her. The first thing I remember in this world is putting a penny in my money-box. I can’t have been more than three or four. I earnt it for picking slugs of
f the cabbages. My father would give me a penny for twelve slugs and drown them. It was good money, when you come to think of it. My father was good that way. He believed in paying for everything and paying on the dot. From the time I was ten I earnt extra money cracking stones. My father knew Bert Le Feuvre, the foreman of Griffith’s yard, and there was a little heap of spawls waiting ready every night in summer after school for me to crack. I was paid a shilling a week for that and my father let me keep it.

  I knew to a penny how much I got in my money-box. When I had ten pennies I’d shake them out and change them for a franc. I kept a lookout for English pennies because I could get thirteen Guernsey pennies for twelve of those. I was only a boy at school yet when I had over a pound in my money-box. On the Ash Wednesday, when we had holiday from school, I trotted into Town on my own and walked into the Old Bank and plonked down on the counter twenty-one Guernsey shillings in pennies and halfpennies and fippennies and francs. The chap behind the counter looked over at me and counted my money and pushed me across a sovereign. I had a golden sovereign in my money-box. I was rich!

  I suppose I would have gone to work in the quarries and perhaps done well, if something awful hadn’t happened at the Queen’s quarry. Young Emile Thoumine was killed in the pit. He was only nineteen and hadn’t been married three months. It was said the blasting must have loosened the side of the quarry, or water trickling down. Anyhow, a great block of granite came toppling over without warning and crushed him. I had never seen my father so upset as when he came in that evening. He was early because old Tom Mauger was with the doctor bringing up in the horse-box what was left of poor Emile; and he had asked my father to go in the trap and break the news to the young wife. They lived in Town. When my father told my mother what had happened, she said, ‘What did he belong to?’ She meant was he Church, or Chapel, or what; so as she would know where he was going to. I saw my father clench his fists; and I think, if she had been a man, he would have knocked her down. ‘The man is dead!’ he said. ‘Come with me, son!’