The Book of Ebenezer le Page (37 page)

Harold really was poorly in his health for some months after the death of Hetty, and I daresay having Mrs Crewe there livened him up. For one thing, she got him to take her to the Pictures. He hadn't been able to go to the Pictures with Hetty, because he would have had to keep his cap on; but he could sit next to Mrs Crewe without his cap. She didn't care if he had a bald head, so long as he got money in the bank. Then one Sunday, when Raymond and Christine went to tea again, and Mrs Crewe did stuff down a little, Raymond said it would be a good idea if they all went to the Pictures together one night. He didn't go to the Pictures as a rule, but he thought for once he would stand the old couple a treat. He ordered a car to take them all there and back, and booked four seats in the balcony at St Julien's for the Thursday evening. When he and Christine called with the car, Mrs Crewe fainted good and proper. Harold had to lay her out flat on the sofa and give her brandy. When she opened her eyes and saw by the clock there was still time for them to get there, she fainted again. Harold had to stop at home and get her round, and Raymond and Christine go to the Pictures on their own.

It got through even Raymond's thick skull that he and Christine wasn't being made exactly welcome by Mrs Crewe. One night when he saw a light in the work-shop, he sneaked round the house to have a chat with his father by himself. ‘It isn't much good Christine and me coming to see you,' he said, ‘if every time we enter the house Mrs Crewe falls unconscious.' ‘A man can't live alone,' said Harold. Raymond explained he didn't expect his father to live alone, but surely there were enough good motherly old souls on the island for him to get hold of a decent housekeeper, if he advertised. ‘Mrs Crewe gives me the creeps,' said Raymond. ‘She is used to my ways now; and she is going to stay!' said Harold, ‘and since you have made your own bed, I think you had better go and lie on it.' Raymond said, ‘Well, you can always come and see us at any time: it isn't a mile away. If you are taken sick, or anything, be sure you send one of your chaps to let us know at once.' It was an unlucky thing to say; but Raymond didn't mean it at all in the way Harold took it. ‘I am going to live a long time yet,' said Harold, ‘don't you worry about that, my young shaver; and don't you have any hopes either!'

I wasn't seeing Raymond at the time; but I heard from Prissy he had stopped going to see his father. She was all on Raymond's side. She said she would never, never go inside Wallaballoo again, as long as that Mrs Crewe was there. She had been once and it appears the two ladies had ‘had words'. I don't know what they said to each other, those two; but I would have given anything to have been there and heard them at it. They was well-matched. La Prissy, of course, found out all there was to find out about Mrs Crewe, and came and told us. She was the widow of a sergeant-major from the Town Arsenal, and had been housekeeper to goodness knows how many old gentlemen, who died and left her money and property. She owned a house in the Rohais and another at the Vrangue; and had a niece she was paying for at the Ladies' College, who she was going to leave all her money to. I listened; but there was nothing I could do. I had my own troubles.

It was a hard winter. I got in tons of coal from the Bird Bros to try and keep my mother warm; but she was always cold. Of an evening after tea, when the lamp was lit, I would sit and read her the Births, Deaths and Marriages to cheer her up. Her poor old eyes was going. She could see to read the big print in the Bible through her magnifying-glass, but she couldn't see to read the
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. I would read out ‘Elizabeth Le Cras (née Heaume), aged 47, beloved wife of Frederick Le Cras of Le Vaugrat. Gone but not forgotten.' ‘Um,' my mother would say. ‘Well, now he will be able to marry that young Amelia Robin from La Ramée, and it is high time too!' I don't know about the next world; but about this world she was never far wrong, my mother. Sure enough, in a month or so there was the wedding in the
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; and, a few weeks later, the birth.

It was one night after Christmas we had the worst storm I have ever lived through. From the noise on the roof, I thought the rain was coming down solid; and there was a rumbling behind the house made me think Mont Cuet was going to fall on top of us. My mother went to bed as usual. She wasn't afraid if it was the end: she was ready. Myself, I lay awake half the night, afraid of what I would find when I went out in the morning. To my astonishment, I didn't have a pane of glass broken, and Percy's wall had kept my land from being washed away; but what I hadn't taken of what may have been the old lady's land at the top of the gully was gone and, among the mud and rubbage, I noticed a number of rough brown stones like the one the builder for my grandfather had used for the trough of the pigsty. They wasn't arranged in any special way; but a few days later I went down and had a look at those by Sandy Hook and saw how it was done. I thought it would be a pity if, when Dudley Waine came to see me the next summer, he didn't find what he was looking for.

My mother died in the February. It came as a surprise, rather; for she was up, as usual, and seemed better, if anything. I ought to have known when my Cousin Mary Ann turned up that day after dinner to ask if there was anything she could do. She washed up the dishes and said she would scrub out the kitchen. I went out to the greenhouse to transplant some seedlings in boxes. It was the first year I had thought of growing my own tomato plants from seeds, instead of buying young plants big enough to put in the ground from Mr Dorey. When I came in, the kitchen smelt nice and clean and my Cousin Mary Ann had laid the table for tea. I asked her to have it with us, and she laid a place for herself and cleared up after. I gave her a cut off the ham to take home, and she said she would come again next day in case there was anything more I wanted done. The boy had brought the
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and I read it to my mother. I got the supper and cleared away and washed up; and, after, she sat up to the table by the light, reading her Bible.

I think the religion of my mother was the most frightful I have ever heard of. I don't know what her idea of heaven was, for she didn't often speak of heaven. In the Bible it say they play harps up there; but that would never have done for my mother. I know what she thought hell was like. The damned was going to be tormented for ever and ever in the presence of the holy angels, and have no rest day or night. The awful part was it was all cut and dried before you was born, which place you was going to. If I had thought that, it would have left me free to be as wicked as I liked in this world, since it wouldn't make any difference in the next; but my mother was a good woman. It is true she didn't go out of her way to help other people; but she didn't interfere either, and make trouble. She was always for peace.

It may be she knew what I was thinking that night, sitting in the armchair by the fire, smoking my pipe, while she was reading her Bible; for she often knew what I was thinking, almost before I did. She was reading half aloud in her sad-sing-song voice from the Book of Revelations, and I could hear the terrible words ‘and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone' and I was thinking well, I am one of those; when she stopped reading and put down her reading-glass and looked at me in a strange way. ‘It is a pity,' she said, ‘it is a great pity!' and her old eyes filled with tears and they splashed on to the pages of the Bible.

I went and lit the candle in her room, as I always did; and came back and helped her to get up from her chair. She walked to her room without my help and I followed her in and undid the hooks of her bodice and her waistband, so as she could undress herself. ‘Good-night, my mother,' I said; and she said, ‘Good-night, my son.' In the morning I had cooked the breakfast and made the tea; but she hadn't come in. Usually she came out of her room when she heard the teapot; and I would hook up her dress for her. I think I knew then she was dead. I called out and knocked on her door; and, when there was no answer, I went in. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed, as if she was asleep, and her arms crossed on her breast. The puffiness of her cheeks and round her eyes was gone, and her straight white hair was drawn back, showing her high forehead. She had a noble face. I went to the Post Office at L'Islet to telephone for the doctor and when I came back my Cousin Mary Ann was there.

I had to let Prissy know. I went down to Timbuctoo and knocked on the front door, but couldn't make anybody hear. I went round the back, but Percy wasn't about; so I walked in and through the kitchen, and called up the stairs. I heard a bedroom door open and Prissy came out on the landing with her hair in curling papers, and wearing only a chemise and a petticoat. ‘Whazzit?' she said. She was drunk. I said my mother had died in her sleep. In a split-second she was stone sober. ‘Wait a minute while I dress,' she said. ‘I will come with you and see to everything!' ‘No, no!' I said. ‘My Cousin Mary Ann and Ada Domaille and Tabitha will do all that is needful.' I wasn't going to be ordered about in my own house and run off my feet by Prissy. ‘She can be buried with your father's Le Pages in the cemetery of the Vale Church,' she said. ‘There is plenty of room. They have died all over the world, that family.' I said, ‘She is going to be buried Chapel.'

I had to buy a burial plot and decided on a private funeral for mourners only. I wanted her to be buried with dignity. I didn't want the nonsense of a tea-party afterwards, and a lot of cousins who she didn't even know having a good meal for nothing. There was a hearse and two carriages. There was no flowers on the coffin; because she wouldn't ever have a flower, even in the house. Harold came and Percy; and a Mess Tardivel from the Brethren. Mess Tardivel said a few words by the grave. It was a cold, windy day, and grey; but it didn't rain.

I wanted a stone put over her grave, and thought Percy might as well do it. He wanted to know what to put on. I thought IN MEMORY OF CHARLOTTE LE PAGE and her age and the date she died, and, underneath, the words REST IN PEACE would be enough. It was the best I could wish for anybody; but La Prissy said I ought to have as well UNTIL THE RESURRECTION MORN, and I gave in. It was two-and-six a letter; but, after all, she was my mother.

Tabitha offered to leave the Priaulx and come and keep house for me; but I wouldn't hear of it. I knew she would have more of everything where she was than she would ever have with me. Besides, she had company. She was quiet, my sister, and while she had Jean she was quite satisfied to be only with him; but, once he was gone, she liked to do things for other people. The Priaulx, from the children who was growing up to the old lady who was now an invalid, depended on her; yet they knew her worth and didn't put upon her. She always found time to knit me socks and do my mending; and she came often to see how I was making out. She sorted out my mother's clothes, and the best I sent to the Brethren for them to sell, or give away. I got Percy to come and do out what had been my mother's room and make it bright. It had always been dark while she was alive, and she would never let me have it done.

Raymond was another who turned up trumps. He came with a message from Christine: at least, he said it was from Christine, but I am sure it was his own idea. It was that I must go there for dinner Sundays, and any evening after work, if I didn't want the trouble of getting myself a meal. I didn't go as often as he said; but I went often enough. I felt uncomfortable about it at first, because I couldn't very well offer to pay him anything; but the garden at the back was in a mess and I said he could easily grow enough fruit and vegetables for themselves and, if he liked, I would give him a hand of an evening. He was quite willing and I brought most of the stuff and started him off. I had thought till then he was only good for books and preaching, and hadn't expected much of him as a gardener; but he had the green fingers, that boy, and I was surprised at the success he made of it.

I enjoyed those evenings and I think he did too. It was nice working together in the cool of the evening and with the smell of burning weeds going up in the air. Those was the only times he talked to me as he used to. When Christine was there he hadn't much to say for himself. She had a way of getting in between him and anybody else he was friendly with. Of course, she made out I was a great friend of hers as well; but I never knew quite what was going on behind those cat's eyes and that moon face and that holy voice. Raymond took her at her face value, and thought every word she said was sincere. She needn't have worried over anything he might say to me about her. He never said a word wasn't in praise of her. He was building up in his mind his dream of a perfect marriage. It wasn't the Kingdom of Heaven he was dreaming about now. Marriage was his religion. He was delighted when I told him I thought Christine was looking very well. She was, as a matter of fact. She never again looked so well as she did those years she was living with Raymond. He said he wished she was going to have a baby. It was the only justification for a man and a woman going together. Every other reason was an excuse. Well, that isn't the opinion of most people nowadays. ‘I want a dozen,' he said. I wondered how he was going to keep a dozen on his wages from the Greffe.

Prissy tried to be a help to me too, in her funny way; but she was more of a nuisance than anything else. When Percy and his chap was doing my mother's room, she came to give me advice as to how I must manage in future. The first thing I must do was to get me a wife. To hear her talk, I might have gone to Town and bought one in the French Halls. The girl must be young and strong because, after all, I was getting on. She must be a country girl who wasn't afraid of work; and be able to cook and clean and look after babies. She must on no account be the flighty sort; and it would be all to the good if she had a bit of money of her own. Poor Prissy must have thought I was taking her advice to heart when I said Percy might as well paint the whole house inside and out, while he was about it. I don't think she ever found out what I did do.