The Book of Ebenezer le Page (20 page)

When he showed me his little room the first time, he said, ‘This is my cell. I ought to be a monk.' I have often thought of that since. If he had lived at the time when there was monks on Lihou Island, I think he would have been happy there and a lot of misery would have been spared to a lot of people. His room was plain enough for a cell. There was a wickerwork armchair with a cushion on it where I used to sit, and a table for his papers and a chair with a leather seat. He used to sit the wrong way round in that chair with his arms over the back, talking to me. He had one picture on the wall:
The Light of the World
. ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock.' He had dozens of books on shelves. There was some about religion and some about the history of Guernsey, and stories by Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott and others. He didn't like the stories of Sir Walter Scott himself, but had bought them for his father. He liked the stories of John Oxenham and Hall Caine and Florence Barclay.
The Manxman
by Hall Caine was on the Pictures, and for once he took his mother; but she didn't like it because there was an illegitimate baby in it. He also took her to see
The Rosary
, and that one she liked; but he said it wasn't like the book.

He was getting very worried about the War. ‘It can't be right for a Christian to go to War,' he said, ‘a Christian has to love his enemies, not go and kill them.' ‘Well, I don't know,' I said, ‘I don't go out of my way to make trouble; but if a chap punches me on the nose, I punch him back. When all is said and done, it was the Germans started it. I don't see how our side can be in the wrong.' He said, ‘The Christians in England are praying for victory, and the Christians in Germany are praying for victory. God can't answer both lots of prayers.' I said, ‘He can give victory to the best side, surely.' He said, ‘Are you saying all the battles in history have been won by the best side? History is a disgrace!' I was getting fed up with the argument. ‘I don't know nothing about the battles in history,' I said, ‘but I do know when I saw Guernsey beat Jersey in the Muratti, it was the best side won.' He said, ‘How about when Jersey beat Guernsey?' ‘Oh, that was just luck!' I said. ‘There you are, you see!' he said, ‘The trouble with you is that you don't take anything seriously.' ‘Perhaps I don't,' I said.

When Jean Batiste embarked with the First Battalion of the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry, I hoped La Tabby would come home and live with us. My mother asked her to, but she wouldn't. She said she wanted to stop and look after her house, so that it would always be ready for Jean to come back to at any time. She had her Separation Allowance and a little money they had saved; but that was all. She worked the garden, which didn't give much; and worked for neighbours, who wasn't much better off than herself. She earned a little extra that way. My mother did manage to get her to come to Les Moulins Saturdays, though she had to walk all the way; and she would stay until the Sunday night, so that for one day a week, at least, she was well fed. She was a girl who would go to any amount of trouble if somebody else was there, but couldn't be bothered, if she was on her own.

I saw nothing of Jim. I caught sight of Phoebe and Eileen in Town once or twice of a Saturday night with the Sarchets; but no Jim. I was to learn later that he was left at home to mind the baby. I had seen in the
Press
there was a second son, Eric. Actually, Jim was having his happiest times those Saturday nights. The baby was put to sleep, but Stanley, who was then running about, Jim kept up long after his bed-time. It was the only chance he got of being with his son. I think that was the one thing Phoebe did to him that hurt him most. That fool of a girl didn't know that in Jim she'd got hold of a wonderful father for her children. Naturally he wanted young Stanley to go and work with him in the garden, even if he was only being a nuisance. She made every excuse: that he'd get dirty, that he'd eat worms, that he'd fall down and hurt himself; and at last came right out with it. ‘Stanley, you are NOT to go out-of-doors with your father!' Jim could only say ‘Stanley, I would like you to come in the garden with me, please.' It was the nearest he could get to giving an order. Of course Stanley obeyed his mother.

I got some of it out of Jim in the end, but even then I daren't say a word against Phoebe. He didn't blame her. It was the way she was made. He blamed himself more. He said, ‘She made a sad mistake when she married me. I'm not her sort of bloke really.' I should jolly well think he wasn't! Nor was she thinking about what sort of bloke he was when she married him: she was thinking of what she was going to get out of him. There was times when I lost all patience with Jim; yet his faults was good faults. I am glad now I held my peace.

I went down to the farm again pretty often to get what news I could out of Mrs Mahy; but she was too much the lady to say all she thought. She visited them regularly, but I could tell she didn't enjoy her visits very much. Eileen was practically living there; and, often, Mrs Ferbrache as well. Mrs Ferbrache, who drank herself to death before long, had a tongue and didn't care what she said with it. I think Jim's mother was a bit afraid of Mrs Ferbrache. She said Stanley was a lovely little chap, but took more after the Ferbraches. The new one might turn out to be more like Jim. Jim himself did nothing but work. He was working his own place without help and also helping Mess Le Sauvage again. Mess Le Sauvage said he didn't know what he would do without Jim and was going behind doors to try for him to be kept out of the Army. Mrs Mahy smiled. ‘Jim takes me aside every time I go and whispers “How is Ebby?” I tell him you always ask after him.'

Tabby had hoped Jean would get leave for Christmas, but he didn't. She spent Christmas with us. She was quiet but happy, and didn't talk about him much; but we drank his health before we sat down to our Christmas dinner. She had brought a bottle of wine and my mother had some. Jean didn't see again the little house she was keeping ready for him. It was a telegram first; and then, later on, a letter from his officer. When she got the telegram she came straight to my mother. I was sent the news to work, and Tabby was in the kitchen helping my mother to get the tea when I got home. Thank God I didn't try to say anything. It was her who came to me and held my head against her breast and said, ‘It's all right, Ebby: it's all right.'

The officer in his letter said fine things about Jean: I think more than he need have done. Jean was only a corporal. Miss Penelope Peele, who was sister of the Rector of the Vale and a great one for comforting the bereaved, came to see Tabitha. My mother told her of the letter from Jean's officer, and she asked if she might see it; and she read it. ‘Aren't you proud?' she said to Tabitha. She was small, my sister; but she had great dignity. Her eyes blazed. ‘I was proud of him before, Miss Peele,' she said. ‘Have I any the more reason to be proud of him now?' Miss Peele didn't come to our house again.

Tabitha let her house to Philippe Batiste, Jean's cousin, who had used to help him with the fishing sometimes and now wanted to get married before he was called up. When he came back after the Armistice, she sold it to him outright, furniture and all. She even let him have Jean's clothes and fishing tackle. The only thing she kept was a guernsey she had knitted for him. She said I could wear it, if I wanted to. I didn't like to, while she was alive; but I have worn it since. I still have it and it will last longer than me.

She only stayed with us a few weeks, before she went back to live with the Priaulx. She was well paid and had everything found; but she was more like a young aunt in the family. Jack Priaulx was gone to the War, and it was her really who brought up Annette's two children. Annette Priaulx made a lot of show of loving her children, but was on committees for this and committees for that, and didn't have time to take much notice of them. Tabitha made no show, but was steady and always there. They earned great honour for themselves in the Second World War, but I don't expect anybody will have thought of thanking Tabitha for that. They was a boy and a girl, and she used to bring them along to have tea with us sometimes. I thought then how strange it was that, if Jean hadn't been killed, she might never had the chance of bringing up children; yet when I saw her with Gervase and Louise, I knew she was made for it.

I had the surprise of my life when Jim turned up one Saturday evening. It was when I wasn't going down to Wallaballoo so much, because I was getting fed up having arguments with Raymond. I had been out round the Surtaut and got a few mackerel. It was soon going to be dark and I had turned the boat to come in, when I saw old Jim on the beach. He waved and I waved. I was pleased to see him, but I knew something must be very wrong. The first thing I said was ‘Are the nippers all right?' ‘Oh yes,' he said, ‘they're fine; only I'm going away Monday. Will you come?' I said, ‘Where in the name to goodness are you going to?' He said, ‘I'm going to England and enlist.' I said, ‘Are you off your head?'

I thought he must have had a hell of a row with Phoebe. I said, ‘What about Phoebe? You can't just go and leave her like that.' ‘She'll be all right,' he said. ‘She will have an allowance for herself and for the kids. The Sarchets are going to look after the place. She says she'll get on just as well without me.' I said, ‘Have you told your people yet?' He said, ‘Yes, I've just come from there.' ‘What have they got to say about it?' I said. ‘My mother wants me to wait until I'm called up,' he said. ‘I told her I was coming to see you. She said you'd soon stop me.' ‘I can't stop you,' I said, ‘but I'm not coming with you, I'll tell you that from the start!' He said, ‘I didn't think you would.' ‘What do your father say?' I said. His father was all for it. He said a young man ought to go and fight for his King and Country. I said, ‘It's not a question of fighting for your King and Country. When your King and Country want you, they'll jolly well come and get you! It's a different matter putting your head in the lion's mouth.' I didn't know what had come over Jim. There was us standing facing each other, as if we was quarrelling. He said, ‘I want to go in the big train again.' It was too much! I sat down on the stones and burst out laughing.

He stood looking down at me, as if it was me who was off my head. I scrambled to my feet. The only sensible thing to do was to get the fish out of the boat and take it indoors. ‘Coming in?' I said. ‘I've seen your mother,' he said. ‘It was her told me you was out fishing.' ‘How about something to eat?' I said. ‘I promised I'd have supper with Mum and Dad,' he said. He had come on his bike: it was against the hedge. I said, ‘Wait a sec then, while I drop these in the wash-house; and I'll walk back with you part of the way.' I thought I would try and knock some sense into his wooden head. It was during that walk he told me how it was with him and Phoebe. I wondered if perhaps she was carrying on with one of the Sarchets. There was three brothers, and only one of them was married, and he wasn't to be trusted. I didn't like to say as much to Jim, but he guessed what I was thinking. He said Phoebe liked going out with the Sarchets for a laugh and a drink; but that was all. It was different with Eileen. She was sort of half engaged to the youngest. On second thoughts I believed him about Phoebe. She was too mean even to give him that excuse. ‘I want to be with the boy,' he said. ‘Once a chap's married he's alone for the rest of his life.'

I walked with him right as far as the Gigands, and he wanted me to go in and have supper with them; but I said no. I couldn't face his mother. I knew I hadn't done what she hoped. I have blamed myself bitterly since. If only I'd said outright, ‘Phoebe may not care if you are killed, or not: but I do! I care more for you to be alive than for anybody else on earth!' he might have listened to me. It's too late now. I didn't. When I said ‘Good-bye', he said, ‘I'll write to you.' ‘Well, don't expect much from me,' I said. I didn't expect he would write often, for he wasn't much more of a fist with a pen than I am; but I got a long letter from him every week. I still have them all: pages and pages in his big clumsy handwriting that went down-hill across the paper. I had to write back somehow and bought a dictionary from old Miss Clarke in the States Arcade who sold prayer-books and Bibles, so as to see how to spell the long words: that is, when I wasn't too lazy to look, or hadn't lost myself in what I was saying. He didn't bother with a dictionary sitting on his bed in the barrack-room, I'm sure; but I have been looking at those letters again and only Jim could have made those big curly G's and E's and those black full-stops like blots, and written the words he always ended with ‘From your old friend, Jim.'

He enjoyed going in the big train; though this time it was full of soldiers. He said England was full of soldiers; and he went right across England. He volunteered for a Welsh Regiment; and was glad he did. He liked Wales better than England, he said. It was a more beautiful country. He said there was mountains with roads winding down and around, and valleys with bridges and streams. There was thousands of sheep on the mountains, and miles and miles with very few houses. He didn't think much of the coast, though. He said it was grey rocks, or greenish and not a patch on Guernsey with its red and brown, and the sea wasn't so blue, or so green, as ours; nor purple and pink and mauve and all the other beautiful colours it is in places inshore. I think he was homesick away from Guernsey really, and that's why he wrote so much. He said he liked the Welsh fellows. He liked the Welsh better than the English. They was more natural: they was more like us. They spoke in Welsh to each other, and he could understand some of the words; and they understood some of his, if he spoke in Guernsey French. He said they had no idea where Guernsey was, most of them. Some of them thought it was off Land's End, and others that it was in the Mediterranean Sea. He wrote, ‘I wish you was here.'