The Book of Ebenezer le Page Read online

  I saw my Cousin Mary Ann’s death in the paper and when I didn’t get an invitation to the funeral, I thought of writing a letter of sympathy to somebody; but I couldn’t think to who. I couldn’t very well write to Dora. Eugene I didn’t know; and Nora didn’t seem to me as if she would cry much. I left it. I kept my eye open for news of Nora’s wedding and when, after some months, I hadn’t seen it I wondered if perhaps she hadn’t managed to hook the Dutchman after all; but I ran into Albert Le Page, the bone-setter, who is a distant cousin of mine, and he told me Jan van Raalte had broken his thumb climbing a cliff, and put off his marriage until it was mended. I couldn’t make out why a chap should put off getting married because he had broken his thumb. I thought the least I could do was to go and see Nora again, and cheer her up while she was waiting; but the day I went to see her at the house at the Robergerie, there was no answer when I knocked on the front door. It wasn’t a Thursday, so I wandered round the back in case she was in the garden. Eugene was working in the greenhouse and came out to see what I wanted.

  He knew who I was, but I didn’t remember having seen him before. He was a big chap with a corporation already, and a flat face rather like Dora’s, and he had a thin black moustache. He looked as if he might be a French chef in a hotel. I said I had been very sorry to hear about his mother. He made a noise. It was like a laugh, but it wasn’t a laugh. He didn’t say anything more. ‘It’s a nice greenhouse you got here,’ I said. He made his noise and signed for me to go inside and see it. He got heat and water from the waterworks and a good early crop ripening; and everything was spic and span to the last degree. I went outside to have a look at the boiler, and had a quiz at the garden. It was the same. There wasn’t a weed; and the path was so raked I was afraid to walk on it. I said, ‘Well, I congratulate you. I wish my place looked like this.’ ‘I like everything to look perfect,’ he said. Those was his first words to me. I thought he was going to be a hard chap to live with for that Eva from Prospect Villa.

  I got the feeling he wanted to be friendly but didn’t know how. I liked him myself. When he nodded towards the back door as much as to say ‘Will you come in?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’d like to.’ Over the back door was a glass porch of coloured glass with ferns and geraniums in pots on the side and, as we went in, he noticed a few petals was fallen on the floor. He stooped and picked them up one by one. He then took off his boots and left them on the mat. I wondered if he expected me to do the same, but I only wiped mine hard to get the ground off. When he had washed his hands and got into some slippers, he made tea. I noticed he had very small feet for such a heavy man. He was good in the house and laid the table dainty; not rough-and-ready and without a tablecloth, as I do. He turned on the radio. It was the weather. Myself, I don’t trust the radio for the weather. I trust my nose; and nine times out of ten I am right. There was music after; and he left the thing on. I asked him where Nora was. From what I could hear him say against the noise, I understood she was at La Passée helping Jan to get ready the house where they was going to live. I noticed a shelf of new books hadn’t been in the kitchen when I was there before. I saw they was The Complete Works of Charles Dickens. ‘Have you read all those?’ I said. He said he hadn’t bought them to read: he had seen them advertised in a newspaper, and thought they would look nice on his wall.

  After tea he washed up the dishes and put everything away in its place; though I can’t laugh at him for being fussy, for I am the same about putting things away in their right place. If I didn’t, I would never remember where anything was. He made a sign for me to go upstairs with him; and he showed me the bedroom he had done up for when he was married. It was my Cousin Mary Ann’s old bedroom and I thought of her lying there dying by herself. He had changed it all. The old furniture was gone and the big bed and the picture of his father. The walls was papered with grey paper like satin; and the wood-work painted white with gold beading. The press for clothes and the dressing-table and the chest-of-drawers was of plain unvarnished wood; and there was two single beds with pink covers, and a pink velvet-pile carpet on the floor. ‘If I was married,’ I said, ‘I would want to sleep in the same bed.’ ‘I am not getting married for that,’ he said. I couldn’t make Eugene out at all. I said I hoped he would be happy; but I didn’t say I would see him again.

  I can’t say I was all that delighted when Dudley Waine with an ‘e’ turned up. He hadn’t changed much. He was fatter and rounder and his face fuller; but quite smooth. He hadn’t lost his hair, as I was beginning to, but it was iron grey, and he wore it long and brushed right back. He looked very distinguished. He might have been a musician. I said, ‘You’re looking well,’ and asked how he’d got on during the War. ‘A strenuous time,’ he said. He had worked for the Ministry of Information, and was in London all the years the bombs was falling; but wasn’t hit. They say the good die young; and I am sure they are right. He was back in his pre-war university job now, and was come over to go on with his researches. I was scared he would get on to the subject of the ancient monument; but it was our patois he was interested in now. Its roots. He had discovered it was really the language of the religion of the witches of the days of old, and all the dirty words in it was holy words. He said ‘Baise mon tchou!’ was a royal salute. I had never thought of it that way, me.

  He said if I had been alive in those days I would have dressed myself up like a dog with a moon painted on my behind and danced among a crowd of naked women on the sands of Rocquaine Bay. I said the only witch I knew of living round there was Mère Quéripel from Pleinmont; and she was before I was old enough to think of doing any such thing. He agreed there was no witches on the west coast now. They had all moved in from Rocquaine Castle and kept guest-houses along St George’s Esplanade. The truth was he had tried place after place along there and been unlucky; but I imagine he was a gentleman who was not all that easy to please. He was now staying at Timbuctoo. He said it was clean and comfortable, and the food was good; but you couldn’t come and go as you please, as when it was Prissy who ran it. The Misses Hocart was of the old school. The discipline was ‘severe for one who had benefited from a liberal education’.

  He wanted to know who lived at Ivy Lodge now. I didn’t know; nor who lived at Rosamunda. Old man Mahy was dead and Christine’s mother gone to live with her daughter-in-law in England. Edna and her child was among the first to go away before the Occupation; and they hadn’t come back since. Gwen was the only one of the family left on the island; but Dudley had never got on with Gwen. I was glad to be able to let him know Horace had thought enough of Gwen to make a will in her favour, leaving her his money and the Arsenal Stores. She had a room built on and lived there; and carried on the business with a boy to deliver. As a matter of fact, I got my groceries from her, and used to go down once a month to pay the bill and have a chat. She didn’t hear often from Christine and was bitter about her; but I at least knew Christine was alive. I thought I might as well get what news I could out of Dudley.

  ‘How is Christine getting on?’ I said. ‘Fine, fine!’ he said. ‘The spirit of the woman! Marvellous!’ His mother had died during the War. She wasn’t a war casualty in the ordinary way; but even more of a war casualty than those who were killed by air-raids. She died of a broken heart. The fact of it being possible for such a war to be broke her heart. She saw all she had hoped and lived for was in vain. Christine was now headmistress of the school. It was in the country and, in view of her responsibilities, she had to mind her step while she was down there. The patron of the school was a Bishop; but when she came to London, she was able to go the round of her dozens of friends. ‘Among whom I count myself her oldest and dearest,’ he said with a smirk. He was proud it was on him she relied always to take her to the Opera. ‘How many children she got now?’ I said. She had only the two. She had devoted her genius as a mother entirely to Abel and Gideon; and they both did her great credit. Abel had been to college and qualified as an electrical engineer and was now doing his National Service in Germany
. ‘National Service, what for?’ I said. ‘In the event of another war,’ he said. ‘Oh?’ I said. Gideon had been to a School for Business Management and was going in for advertising. ‘Advertising what?’ I said. ‘Anything,’ he said. It all sounded very grand, but I wondered what it amounted to in solid fact.

  ‘I don’t know what young fellows want to go in for those sort of things for?’ I said. ‘Wars are a waste of time; and advertising is all lies.’ ‘I am afraid, my dear Mister Le Page,’ he said, looking very sorry for me, ‘you are an anachronism.’ ‘Say that word again,’ I said. He said it. I said, ‘Spell it.’ He spelt it. ‘Now what do it mean, please?’ I said. ‘Out of its due time,’ he said, ‘in your case, belonging to a bygone age.’ ‘I thought you was interested in old things,’ I said. ‘So I am, so I am,’ he said. ‘I find you immensely interesting. As an object of study.’ He was looking at me through his thick round spectacles, as if I was something come out of a hole in the ground. For a minute, I felt so small I thought it would be better if I was with my Cousin Mary Ann; but I wasn’t going to give in to goggle-eyes, even if he did know everything. After all, he wasn’t so wonderful himself. ‘Baise mon tchou!’ I said.

  There was quite a bit in the Press about Nora’s wedding. It was said he was Dutch and his achievements as a horticulturalist much appreciated in Guernsey. The Guernsey and Dutch seem to be hand in glove. It certainly sounded as if he was on the right side of the right people already. I must say in the Press photograph he looked a pleasant chap; and she looked so happy, she looked almost as young as he was. They was married at the Greffe; and it said they was going to Holland for their honeymoon. I thought I would give them a few weeks to settle in when they got back, before I went to see them. When I did go, I found Nora in on her own. I hadn’t brought a present; really only because I didn’t know what to bring: but she gave me such a welcome, I was sorry I hadn’t thought of something. However, I thought I might make it up to her another way. She was much more the sort I would rather leave my money to than Dora. I asked her how she liked it in Holland. She said she liked the Dutch people very much. They was free-and-easy and friendly, and not stiff and stand-offish like the English; but she wouldn’t like to live there for always. It was too flat. When you come to a town it seem to be floating in the air. She stayed in a place called Zwolle, where Jan’s parents was living, and near by was a hill; but that was the only hill she saw, and it wasn’t as high as the Vale. For the rest, it was smooth fields and dykes to keep the sea out and canals and thousands and thousands of bicycles. She saw the Queen on a bicycle.

  I was more interested to know how she was getting along with Jan; but I didn’t like to ask straight out. I had gone latish, expecting him to be in from work. ‘Where’s Jan?’ I said. He had gone to Town that afternoon on some business to do with the Growers’ Association; but the meeting must be over hours ago. ‘I know I am a fool,’ she said, ‘but I can’t bear it when he is out of my sight. He will most likely only spend the evening in the Channel Islands, talking to commercial travellers; but I can never be sure. He is such a dear simple boy, any woman who sets her mind to it can lead him by the nose.’ She laughed, or tried to. ‘I have been on and off up to now, as you know, Ebenezer,’ she said, ‘but this time I am caught good and proper! Life is hell when you’re happy!’ ‘Well, I have never been happy, so I wouldn’t know,’ I said, ‘and I certainly won’t be now.’

  He came in while I was talking; and she was in his arms and clinging to him, as if he had come back from the grave. I was sorry for her, and yet I envied her; and him too. As my Cousin Mary Ann said: it was not for me. Nora waited on him hand and foot, and he smiled up at her; but he took it as his right. I didn’t think he was quite as young as he looked; but I could see he had something about him many a girl would take to. Over tea, we talked growers’ talk, and she hung on to his every word, though I am sure she wasn’t interested in anything he was saying. He was a go-ahead chap, and was getting ready to grow white chrysanths in pots under glass for the Christmas market, and coloured freesias for the spring, and tulips outside. I liked him all right and, when I left, wished them both every happiness, and meant it; but on my way home I thought to myself no: I am not going to leave my money to a Dutchman.

  One Saturday night I got so fed up with being on my own, I went to Town for a drink; and who should I run into but Eugene? It must have been quite a year since the day I went and saw him. He was leaning against the bar in Moore’s Hotel, togged up to the eyebrows in a light blue woolly suit and a fancy pullover and a felt hat with a feather in it. I said, ‘Hullo, how is it you are not out with the girl?’ He made his noise like a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. ‘She won’t have me,’ he said. I noticed he was drinking spirits like water. Well, a chap got to do something. Man cannot live by bread alone. I asked him to have a drink with me; and spent the rest of the evening with him. I was careful to keep behind in drinking, or I wouldn’t have been able to get him on the bus. I saw him safe to the end of his road; but I ticked him off my list. I wasn’t going to leave my money to another miserable old bachelor like me.

  He is dead now. The doctor said he had a weak heart and he got frightened and stopped drinking and dropped dead in a milk-bar down the Pollet. Nora was living with him his last years and died not long after of cancer of the liver. She didn’t have much pain and everybody was surprised, even the doctor. He didn’t know until they opened her up to see what she had died of. She had been very low in spirit since her marriage broke up. She was among the first, if not the first, to get a divorce on Guernsey. The other woman in the case was a barmaid in the Channel Islands; but Jan didn’t marry her. He sold up and went back to Holland, where he joined a firm of bulb merchants. He have been over lately as a commercial traveller; and I have seen him in Town once or twice and had a few words. Naturally I didn’t mention the business of Nora. The house at the Robergerie belongs to Dora now; and Doris, who is married to a Hubert with a good job in the Income Tax Office, lives in it. She have two children and with what her husband earns and a chap to do the greenhouse and garden, is getting along nicely. I don’t know why it is, but it is always the people I don’t like who get on well in this world. Those I do like come to a bad end.

  9

  I was haunted by Raymond. Until the day Nora said he had been a good friend to her, I had hardly given him a thought since he died. I didn’t want to, for some reason. The poor mad mixed-up Raymond was a puzzle to me; as much a puzzle as Eugene. When Dudley Waine turned up on me, he brought back the whole affair. Dudley was nothing: a baby with a big brain; but he looked down on everybody, and always came out on top. Raymond was real and loving and couldn’t look down on anybody, if he tried; yet he came to nothing, and threw himself away. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. The following winter I often got the feeling he was with me in the house. I don’t believe in ghosts. I know a number of people on the island who swear they have seen a ghost. I am willing to believe they have, but what I want to know is if the ghost saw them. I don’t think so.

  Everybody I had known when I was younger was dead. Alf Brouard was gone, and Jim Le Poidevin; Ada Domaille was gone and Olive Le Boutillier and Father Darcy, bless him; and, before that winter was through, Gwen Mahy died. I felt as if I was a ghost myself, although my strong old body went about its business as usual. I spoke to plenty of people. If I went down the Bridge to get a few things, I would stop and have a chat with a dozen before I got home. ‘Comment s’en va?’ I’d say. ‘Ah, pas trop mal!’ they’d say. ‘J’sis fier!’ I’d say. I didn’t care tuppence how they was really; and they didn’t care tuppence how I was either. I would have a look round St Sampson’s Harbour while I was there, and see what boats was in. They was steamers bringing coal or petrol mostly, but they wasn’t the fine old ships I used to see when I went down the harbour with my father. The Commodore was up for repairs, but she is not a patch on the old Courier. I bet she won’t go through half the old Courier went through.

  I don’t t
hink much of the ‘Industrial North’, as they call it. It don’t hum with hope as it did when I was a boy. The young ones of nowadays seem to think the same as me, strange to say, for St Sampson’s have the wildest gang of young hooligans on the island. I don’t like young hooligans; but they got to do something. They are young. I don’t like old men. They make me feel old. Sometimes I sit down for a spell on one of those seats by the Power Station, where there are always old men like me sitting. One will smoke his pipe, and one will chaw, and one will spit; and, if any say a word, it is only about the weather, or how much so-and-so is making, or what the States is or isn’t doing that is wrong. I don’t think anybody talk about anything else on this island now: except the weather and how much so-and-so is making and what the States is or isn’t doing that is wrong. I don’t say nothing. I get up and walk away. They don’t expect old crack-pot Le Page to take an interest like other people.

  It was of an evening when I got indoors and sat by the fire after my tea, Raymond was with me. I had been looking forward to the evening all day. I would think to myself, ah well, when I get on my own I will have company. I don’t mean I saw him sitting at the table reading the Bible, or in the chair opposite me warming his toes; but he was there. When he was living with me, we would go for hours sometimes without saying a word, or taking any notice of each other; but if he went out-of-doors for a minute, the room was empty. I don’t know I was so much company for him. There was always something he wanted me to understand, and I didn’t. He was like a child in many ways; but I often thought of the two of us he was the old one. Well, the evenings of that winter when he was with me without being there, many things he had said came back to me; but I can’t say now I got much forrarder. Perhaps a day will come when I won’t see through a glass darkly.