The Book of Ebenezer le Page (39 page)

While Harold was yet living at Wallaballoo and Mrs Crewe was only housekeeper, my Cousin Mary Ann heard Mrs Crewe slowly and step by step pulling Raymond to pieces to his father. She was clever, Mrs Crewe; for, while she was pulling Raymond to pieces, she was at the same time buttering up old Harold. He was stupid about women. He didn't know them as well as I do. ‘It is a great pity, Mr Martel,' she would say, ‘how your son, Raymond, who take after his father and is such a clever boy, haven't done better for himself, isn't it?... It is a great shame, Mr Martel, when you come to think of it, after all the money you have spent on his education, he is only a clerk in an office now.... It must be a great disappointment to a man like you, Mr Martel, who have worked hard all your life and done well and is respected by everybody, not to have a son who can carry on the business, when it is high time you began to think of taking things easy ...' and so on and so on and so on. She had another little way, according to my Cousin Mary Ann, of spreading herself out like a cat on Harold's carpenter's bench while he was working, so he could see her legs. Well, Harold was stupid; but he wasn't that stupid. Myself, I don't believe Mrs Crewe would ever have got round him, if Hetty hadn't made that silly will. I am sure it rankled in his mind, as it would have in mine, and killed the love he had felt for Hetty, and any feeling he might have had for Raymond as his mother's son. To cap it all, Mrs Crewe had the cheek to say, ‘Of course, it is only to be expected now Raymond have a wife and a home of his own, he cannot be bothered to come and visit his father, though he ought to know I am only too willing and ready to be a second mother to him.'

A buyer for the house was waiting: a Mrs Dobrée from the Forest, a widow with an only son. She was of the gentry and well off, and gave four thousand for it. The furniture was put up for auction. Mrs Crewe wanted new. It was a great sale, and the advertisement was nearly a column long in the
Press
. I thought I would go along and buy some small thing in memory of Hetty; but the last person I expected to see there was Raymond. I knew the sort of people who go to sales. They go as much to poke their noses into other people's private business and rake up the family scandal as to buy. Harold and Mrs Crewe had the sense to keep out of sight. I found Raymond wandering from room to room upstairs, as if he was walking in a dream. I didn't like the way he looked, and I kept with him. ‘She is here! She is here!' he said. The women was quacking like ducks when he came into a room; but they fell silent and watched him without a word while he passed through; and then the quacking began again. ‘These are her things,' he was saying. ‘These are her things! She touched these things, she chose and bought them one by one, she arranged them lovingly and she thought they were beautiful. Oh my mother, my poor foolish little mother!' The tears was streaming down his face.

Downstairs pictures was being sold, and odd lots. A woman I didn't know was saying, ‘I wouldn't want those pictures on my wall, me; and have everybody who come to the house know I got them for nothing with a fashion book!' ‘Ah well, one would do all right for on the back of the door of the double-u, eh?' said old Mrs Renouf from L'Islet. The pictures was of a girl in a sun-bonnet standing by a stile, or of a deer in a forest, or of a shipwreck at sea, and such-like; and they had been given free with the Christmas Number of
Weldon's Ladies' Journal
. Hetty had treasured those pictures and got them framed by Gaved in the Arcade in good gilt frames. The auctioneer, young Fuzzey, made a joke of it. ‘The frames are good stuff,' he said and everybody laughed. Raymond bought the lot. I bought the china fowl Hetty got from my Uncle Nat. It was sold with a lustre-ware jug for a few shillings, and I have since been offered twenty-five pounds for that lustre-ware jug. I said to Raymond, ‘Come on, I've got all I want.' I didn't want him to buy any more rubbage. He came with me, but insisted on bringing the pictures. I wondered what Christine was going to say.

He walked so fast I had nearly to run to keep up with him. When we got to Rosamunda, he said, ‘In the back garden! I am having a bonfire.' I let him. He stacked leaves and twigs in a heap and asked me for a match and lit a fire; and then tore the frames apart with his bare hands and smashed down pictures, glass and all, into the flames. I didn't know he was so strong. ‘I am not having the people laughing at my mother!' he cried, half in anger, half in tears. ‘The people are not going to laugh at my mother!' Christine came to the back porch. ‘Whatever is happening?' she said. ‘He will be all right presently,' I said. ‘I can't stand much more of this!' she said. I felt sorry for her then; and stood by her, watching the sparks go up in the sky. Raymond looked like a devil; and I wondered if perhaps it wasn't only the people he was in a rage with, but his mother as well. He stirred the fire until the flames died down; and then walked past me and indoors as if I wasn't there. ‘Up the stairs, girl!' he said to Christine. Christine's eyes opened wide, and they really did look like a cat's eyes do in the dark. He wasn't thinking of a baby then. He grabbed hold of her hand and dragged her up the narrow stairs. I closed the back door quietly behind them and went home.

I didn't like it when Wallaballoo changed hands. I had been in and out of that house for years, as if I lived there. Mrs Dobrée had pine trees planted around to make it more private, and palms in front to make it look grand; and the yard was dug up for a lawn at the back, and a trellis-work summer-house put up. Harold's work-shop was made into a garridge for her car and, later on, another for her son's; and there was a gravel drive laid down from the road. Raoul Dobrée, the son, went to Elizabeth College and then to Oxford University; and afterwards he wrote pieces for the papers in England. They was pieces about books, and he wrote books about books, and made quite a name for himself I believe; but I noticed he didn't lower himself to write for the
Guernsey Evening Press
. Mrs Dobrée didn't mix with people like us; though I heard she did visit the Robins from Coloma and the Le Poidevins from the Grand Fort. I didn't know the son to speak to until the Occupation, and then it would have been better for him if I hadn't.

It wasn't so long before Timbuctoo changed hands as well. That was another blow. I hadn't been in the habit of going there; but it made me feel sad to go along the Braye Road and pass the two houses, and it was strangers living in both. Timbuctoo went down and down, until it was as low as it could go. It was sold first to Harry Snell from the Truchett. I don't know for how much, but I know he got it cheap. He didn't live in it himself; but let it out to three or four separate families. In a few years he sold it at a big profit, I forget to who; and it changed hands a number of times after. It was already in a filthy state when the Germans came; and, after German soldiers had been living in it for three or four years, it looked as if it had died of the D.T.'s like poor Prissy.

For that was what she died of, I am quite sure. My Cousin Mary Ann said she locked herself in her room for days and wouldn't answer; and when the door was broken open, she was found dead under the bed stark naked with empty bottles all around her on the floor. At the funeral, Lil Stonelake said it was brain-fever; and Percy called it cerebral meningitis. She was buried with the Martels; and hers was the last funeral I went to until Tabitha's. I haven't been to a funeral since; because, when my Cousin Mary Ann died, her eldest daughter, Dora, didn't invite me.

However, Prissy was very much alive her last summer, when Dudley Waine came over again in search of his prehistorical remains. He stayed at Timbuctoo from May to October; and his mother came over for August. It was lucky I saw him coming, the first day he came to Les Moulins. It gave me a chance to get out of the way. I thought it would be better if he made his great discovery without me having to point it out. He knocked on the front door and on the back, but I made out I didn't hear; and he looked in the greenhouse, but I kept out of sight behind a row of tomato-plants. I watched him go nosing round the garden; and then he noticed what the rain had done. I expected him to be down the gully like a shot to have a look at it, but instead he came running back and shouting, ‘Mister Le Page! Mister Le Page!' I thought I had better show myself, and came out and said, ‘Is somebody calling?' He said, ‘What's happened down there?' I said, ‘Oh, there was a flood in the winter, and some of the rubbage got washed away.' He said, ‘Haven't you seen?' ‘What?' I said. Well, there wasn't much to see. The stones was half covered with ground and brambles and looked quite natural. He said, ‘Come with me and look, please. I want you to be able to swear I haven't touched it. It is much too important to disturb without witnesses. It is without doubt the most perfect specimen of an Old Stone Age barrow in Europe.' I was glad he was satisfied.

I can't go into all the fuss and bother there was over those old stones. The next day he brought along a chap from the Lukis Museum and one of the masters from Elizabeth College; and day after day different people came. The stones was carefully uncovered, and the earth around raked and sifted. I must say it looked quite as good as the one on L'Islet. Myself, I thought it was better made, if anything; though, to my eye it looked newer, rather than older: but Dudley insisted it was older and more prehistorical.

He didn't get everybody to agree with him, I am sorry to say. In fact, the argument went on for years. Members of La Société Jersiaise came over from Jersey to have a look at it, and had the cheek to say it was a fake. They also had a look at the stones on the top of my wall and said they had been chipped with a modern chisel. I was furious. I swore they was axe-heads made by the first people who ever lived in the world. By then, I had taken sides. The members of La Société Guernesiaise, who came in dozens, all agreed the barrow was something not to be found in Jersey; but they wasn't quite satisfied as to what it really was, unless they could find some bones. I don't remember which year it was; but I know Raymond's boy was already running about when those bones was found. There was nobody more surprised than me.

That year Dudley was lodging with Christine's mother at Ivy Lodge, where he stayed every summer after Prissy died. Percy had gone bankrupt. It wasn't only the bills Prissy had run up he couldn't pay, but when Harold gave up his business Percy tried to carry on by himself, only to land into more debts. I don't know how well off Horace was in America, but he wrote and offered to put Percy straight. Percy preferred to go bankrupt. Perhaps he remembered how badly he had treated Horace, or had the sense to realise, if he was put straight, he would soon be bankrupt again. He was let off light by the Court; and I think saved a little from the wreck. It was then the house was sold to Harry Snell, and Percy went to live with the Mansell family at the Longstore. I happen to know Horace sent money to Bill Mansell, but on condition he wasn't to say anything about it to Percy; so Horace was helping to keep his father after all. Percy was very bitter over Harold marrying Mrs Crewe and leaving him stranded; and I don't think the brothers met again. Percy died years before Harold.

I went down to Raymond's quite often while the baby was on the way. Raymond was mad with joy one was coming, and almost worshipped Christine for it; but thousands of other women have had babies without being worshipped, or expecting to be. I would come in and find him reading out loud to her. It was usually poetry and I didn't understand. I remember a book of verses called
The Angel in the House
by Coventry Patmore he read her a lot from. She seemed to be listening in a dreamy sort of way; but I doubt if she knew or cared what it was about any more than I did. At the time, however, she would be sitting very big and quiet sewing, or knitting, or embroidering. She was making what looked like a trousseau for the great event.

He couldn't do enough for her those days. He was up at all hours in the morning, working in the garden; then he would get her breakfast ready before he went to the office. He would be home on his bike dinner-time and leave her tidied up for the afternoon; and be home again in time to prepare the tea. If I was there in the evening, it was him got the meal for all of us. Christine's mother could well have come across and helped, if she had wanted to; but she was too lazy to do anything. Raymond had taken to giving lessons in the evening to boys who was backward at school; and he would go to two or three houses some nights. He got two shillings an hour, and it helped; yet he was worried he was cheating the boys. It was for mathematics, most of the lessons he gave; and he said it was the last subject he was fit to teach anybody. His conscience was always troubling him about something or another. Thank goodness I haven't got a conscience is such a nuisance.

He was worrying too if Christine would come through all right; or if perhaps there might be something wrong with the baby when it was born. He had too much imagination. He said one thing I didn't like. He said, ‘If it is a girl, I will send it back.' ‘That is not a very nice thing to say in front of Christine,' I said to him; but she didn't seem to mind. She put on her Virgin Mary look and said, ‘I was born to be the mother of sons.' It made me feel sick the way she said it. I knew she wasn't at all worried about herself, whether she would come through or not; and she had no reason to be. She was as fit and strong as a girl on a farm.

He liked me to go down and spend the evening with her when he was out giving his lessons, because he didn't want her left alone. I wasn't all that keen; but Gwen was in and out, anyhow. Gwen worked for Leale on the Bridge in the desk during the day. I liked Gwen. She was a sensible girl. It was a pity she had a birthmark down one side of her face. One evening when I was alone with Christine, she said, ‘I have decided on a name for him.' So it was going to be a him. ‘Oh what?' I said. ‘Abel,' she said. ‘Why, that's a funny name, isn't it?' I said. ‘Abel Martel,' she said. I said, ‘Well, it don't sound too bad.' I went on about names: how perhaps it would be better if we could choose our own; yet I don't suppose I would be Ebenezer Le Page the same as I am if I hadn't been christened Ebenezer Le Page. She wasn't interested in what I had to say, naturally, but was thinking about herself as usual. ‘Abel was the son of Eve,' she said. I ask you?