The Book of Ebenezer le Page (34 page)

I can remember every look and every word was said that evening. I think for once I was gifted with the second sight. I would have sworn something terrible was going to happen. I could feel it coming. I heard the front door open. ‘Ah, here they are!' said my Cousin Mary Ann. It wasn't only Raymond. He came in leading Christine by the hand and with his clergyman's hat in the other. I don't know if souls can love souls without bodies; but, if so, they looked like two souls in love. I had never thought of Christine as a beautiful girl; but that night she was beautiful. She was filled with something, as she was when she was singing. As for Raymond, he was thinking all his troubles in this world was over. I didn't like Christine and I did like Raymond; but when I saw them as they was then, I would have done anything, anything, to keep those two together.

It was Hetty who spoke. ‘Who is this?' she said. As if she didn't know! ‘She is my wife,' said Raymond, as if it was the most ordinary thing to say. For one mad moment I got the wicked thought they had already been together under a boat, or on the Hommet, or somewhere; but one look at Raymond's face and I knew no such thought could have come into his head. In his mind they was married in heaven. The face of Hetty set like a stone; and she stood up on her two dumpy legs and in her carpet slippers. ‘I have not asked that girl to my house,' she said. Raymond let go of Christine's hand. ‘Ma!' he said; and I have never heard so much pain and so much surprise in one small word; or in any number of words, for that matter. He looked to his father, tried to speak, but couldn't. ‘You heard what your mother said, son,' said Harold. Christine showed no sign of being upset. If anything, she looked more heavenly. She held her hand out for Raymond. ‘Come, dear heart,' she said, ‘we are not wanted here.' He took her hand and followed her out. They hadn't been in the room two minutes.

It would have been better, I think, if Hetty had cried and screamed and made a fuss, as I would have expected her to do; but she sat up to the table as if nothing had happened. Harold tried to jolly it off. ‘Eat and keep your pecker up, my ducks!' he said. My Cousin Mary Ann poured out the tea. Never in all my life have I sat through a more miserable meal. Harold said to me, ‘How is the good mother these days?' ‘She don't get no better,' I said. ‘Have you left her by herself, then?' said my Cousin Mary Ann. ‘La Tabby is with her,' I said. ‘Ah, bon!' said my Cousin Mary Ann. I couldn't think of another word to say. It wasn't about Raymond and Christine I was worried. She would take him to her home and he would be made welcome. It was Hetty I was sorry for. She ate half a slice of bread and butter and pushed her plate away. Again she had done a great wrong; but Raymond must have been mad to walk in and spring it on her the way he did.

My Cousin Mary Ann made a good meal, and Harold and me ate a little; then my Cousin Mary Ann got up to clear away. ‘I'll just wash up before I go,' she said and, in the same breath, ‘Raymond won't have nothing to sleep in. I had better take him something on my way home, eh?' ‘I'll get you his pyjamas,' said Hetty, and went out of the room like an old woman; and I heard her stumbling up the stairs. ‘I'll take them along,' I said to my Cousin Mary Ann, ‘and save you going the long way round.' I was dying for any excuse to get out of that house. ‘Then you had better take him another suit as well,' she said. ‘He won't want to be wearing his good black suit on a week-day.' She thought of everything, my Cousin Mary Ann. She went up the stairs after Hetty.

I got up ready to go and Harold sat by the fire with his newspaper. ‘That boy have done a bad night's work for himself,' he said. ‘Aw, it's nothing to take so much to heart,' I said, ‘He's young and he's in love with the girl. He'll come round.' ‘He walked out of his home of his own free will,' said Harold. ‘He won't come back into it again, if I know it.' It was the first hint I got of how hard Harold could be as a father. My Cousin Mary Ann came down with a suitcase. It weighed half a ton, so they must have put a lot of his things in. Hetty had gone to bed and she hadn't even drunk her tea. I thought of saying I would call back before I went home; but I didn't want to promise anything. I just said good-night.

I had never been inside Ivy Lodge before, though I had seen it often enough when I was passing up the Effards. From the outside, the house didn't look as if it was very well kept. The curtains wasn't too clean and the blinds was all anyhow. It was different from Hetty's where the starched lace curtains was spotless and the venetian blinds always all pulled up to exactly the same level. Christine's mother, Emmeline Vaudoir that was, from Fountain Street, wasn't one to bother. It was her came to the door. She was fat and free and easy and wearing a loose pink dress that looked like a night-gown. She knew me by sight. ‘Come in, come in!' she said. ‘Raymond was just saying you might bring his things.' They was all sitting round the fire in the front room, drinking coffee out of glasses and eating sandwiches from a table on the side. The room was very untidy with cushions all over the place; but everybody was comfortable. Mahy, the father, looked like a sad, long-faced dog; but he smiled and said hullo when I came in. Being Jim's uncle, he knew me from when I used to go round with Jim. Gwen was there and Edna, the sister-in-law from across the road with her little girl. Raymond still looked as if he was in heaven; but Christine was come down to earth, I thought. She had her cat face on, and I bet was feeling proud of her night's work now she was with her family. Mrs Mahy wanted me to sit down and have coffee and sandwiches, but I said I had only come to bring the suitcase and, if Raymond had a message for his people, I could take it on the way home.

It was Mrs Mahy who did most of the talking. She had her wits about her, that woman, for all her lazy ways. She was delighted she was going to have Raymond for a son-in-law: he was an only son, and would have plenty. She didn't say as much, but I knew that was what she was thinking. What she did say was it was a pity Raymond's mother had turned funny; but she would get over it. They was going to get married at the Capelles Chapel as soon as possible. In the meantime, Edna and the child was going to stay at Ivy Lodge, and Raymond was going to sleep at Rosamunda, so as people wouldn't be able to talk. Christine, of course, would have to give up her job as a teacher in a school; but she could go and help Raymond with his work in England. He was going to write to the chapel he was going to, and say he would be arriving with a wife. They would have to find him a place to live, if there wasn't room with the others. Mrs Mahy had it all thought out and he was letting it happen as if he didn't have a will of his own. He did say he would want some papers from his desk, if they hadn't been packed, but that it was too late for me to go back to Wallaballoo and fetch them that night. I said I would come and see him the next evening when he would know what it was he wanted. He came with me to the door. As I was going, he said, ‘Will you be my best man?' ‘Yes, with pleasure,' I said, ‘and I hope you are going to be very, very happy,' and I meant it. ‘Isn't it wonderful?' he said. ‘I will never be alone any more!'

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.