The Book of Ebenezer le Page (41 page)

They also proved the marks on the jaw-bone was made by people of the New Stone Age, and not of the Old Stone Age; so the burial-place at La Petite Grève was made by the same people as made the one on L'Islet, and was not as prehistorical as some of the remains to be found on Jersey. It is a shame really; but if Science have proved it to be true, who is Ebenezer Le Page to say it isn't? There was one good thing came out of it. Once the bones was passed by the professors, nobody could doubt the burial-ground was the real thing; and even La Société Jersiaise daren't say the axe-heads on my wall was a fake. I was quite happy the way it turned out; but Dudley was heart-broken. He vowed he wouldn't have any more to do with old stones: he couldn't trust the professors to believe the evidence of their eyes. The next year when he came over he was on the track of the witches who used to live in Guernsey. He said they worshipped La Gran'-Mère du Chimquière at La Bellieuse, where is now St Martin's Church; and their religion was the original religion of the Guernsey people. Would I please tell him what I knew of the old witches? I would NOT! I said he wouldn't find any of those at Les Moulins. I'd had enough, and more than enough, of raking up the past! When the Germans came, they respected the prehistoric monuments and left mine alone. It is a pity they didn't respect some of the historic monuments a bit more. The whole time of the Occupation I kept it clear of brambles and furze, because I wanted the stuff to burn; then, after the Liberation, the States, when they was trying to think of something new to show to the tourists, put it on the list of Ancient Monuments and gave me the job of looking after it. So in my old age, I became a worker for the States. I never thought I would sink so low.

I was asked to say how many hours a week it would take me. I was to be paid four shillings an hour. I thought I could do it easy in four hours, or less; but I began to take notice of the fellows who was working for the States on the roads. Mind you, they worked hard leaning on their shovels watching out nobody was coming to see if they was working; but they came in a lorry in the morning, and took an hour or so to put up a canopy and collect wood to light a fire and make tea. I hadn't allowed for that in my four hours. It is true, in the evening they was quicker. The canopy was on the lorry in two shakes and they was gone; and you couldn't see them for dust. Then there was the chap who came round on a motor-bike two or three times a day to tell them what to do, if he could find them; and there was the gentleman in a motor-car who came round to tell the chap on the motor-bike what to do, if he could find him. I was going to save the States all that expense. All things considered, I thought it would be reasonable if I was to put down eight hours.

The trouble was there was so many Committees of the States. I didn't know which to send my bill to. There was the Ancient Monuments Committee. Well, I was doing eight hours a week for them for sure. There was the Cliffs Committee. The ancient monument was on the cliffs, sort of. That would be eight hours for them. There was the Natural Beauties Committee. The ancient monument was a natural beauty. I thought it was only fair they should have to pay as well. It worked out all right. I filled in eight hours on forms I got from the States Offices, and took three in every Friday morning, one to each Committee, for my money. It was a very nice girl in the office. I don't mean I had thoughts about her: I don't have to do those things now; but I took to her on sight, and I think she took to me. She is a real Guernsey girl with a twinkle in her eye. ‘All right, Mr Le Page,' she says, ‘I will put these through,' and she pays me on the dot. I don't believe for a moment it was her fault the States after a time discovered there was something wrong with their accounts. Ebenezer Le Page was in trouble again. I don't think Ebenezer Le Page and the States see quite eye to eye.

Horace came back. If ever a man had a bad angel, Raymond had one in Horace. I tried to make him see it in the end; but it was of no use. When Horace had wrecked his happiness, or at least such happiness as was his, Raymond still couldn't bring himself to turn against him. He said, ‘Horace is never sorry for anything he has done. He is sorry it happened, and he suffers for it; but he isn't sorry for what he did. I wouldn't like him, if he was. He is innocent.' It was himself Raymond blamed. He said he had been so full of himself he hadn't seen Christine as she was. ‘I disappointed her all ways,' he said: ‘She thought I was going to be a famous preacher; and I wasn't. She thought she was going to be a well-known singer in England; and she was stuck in Guernsey. She thought she was going to have a number of lovely children, and be admired by everybody as a mother of sons; and we only had one. She hoped I was going to take her to heaven in bed. I hoped so too: always hoped, always hoped; but never did. A house founded upon the sand cannot stand.'

It might have stood as well as most houses, I reckon. Raymond was a born father. He was better with Abel than Christine was. He was patient yet firm; and knew how to manage him without bullying him, or being unfair. Christine would be making a big loving fuss of him one minute; and the next minute he would be having to do exactly what she said for no reason at all, except it suited the convenience of Christine. She had a lot of other irons in the fire. It may be she would have been satisfied to have a number of men around her she could lean on, but not quite; and keep Raymond for use in the background. She even made a slave of Dudley Waine; though God knows he can have been of no use to her, except to introduce her to other young men he knew. He was a eunuch, that fellow, if ever a chap was. The pity was Raymond had spoken so much to Christine about Horace those weeks while they was waiting to get married. She had a glorified picture of Horace in her mind; and must have guessed he was no eunuch. When he turned up in the flesh, she welcomed him with open arms. Raymond was delighted. ‘It is wonderful how Christine has taken to Horace,' he said to me. ‘She doesn't mind him at all always in and out of the house. It is like old times.'

Horace had no home to go to. As Dudley was by then gone back to England, he was able to stay with Christine's mother at Ivy Lodge. I didn't even know he was back until Raymond brought him to Les Moulins. I was in the packing-shed when I heard Raymond calling out, ‘Ebby, Ebby, where are you? Come and see who is here!' I came out; and there was the big Horace! He hadn't changed much. He was bigger and manlier, if possible; and you could see he had been around the flesh-pots. He had aged more than Raymond, who was boyish yet, but he was still a darn good-looking chap. I liked him better than I had before. He was more forth-right. He gave me a real smile and shook hands as old Jim would have done. ‘Gee, I'm glad to see you, boy!' he said. He spoke with a twang, but his Guernsey sing-song wasn't altogether gone. ‘I guess I must stop speaking American,' he said. ‘I am in Guernsey now. I must speak as the Guernsey-man I am. I want to forget the United States of America. I want to forget such a country exists. Gee, I'm glad to be home!' I knew something must have happened to him over there put his nose out of joint, but I didn't know what.

As for Raymond, he looked as if he had suddenly come alive again. The last few times I had seen him he had been half dead. He had said to me, of all things to say, ‘A man must learn to live crucified. That is what marriage is for.' Well, that was never my idea of marriage; and I bet Christine didn't intend to live crucified. I thought to myself what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose; but I didn't say it. He certainly wasn't living crucified when he came up to Les Moulins that day with Horace. He was bubbling over as he used to be, and kept on looking at old Horace and chuckling to himself, as if it was the best joke in the world to have him there. I can't say it was all on one side either. Horace was proud of Raymond, and looking at him in a real warmhearted way. ‘Gee, old Ray looks good!' he said. ‘He has done the best deal of us all. Abel is a great kid!'

Raymond had come to ask me to be sure to go down to Rosamunda for dinner on the Sunday. Horace and Gwen was going to be there. I went. I stayed the afternoon and evening; and we all seemed to get on well together. I decided that, whatever had happened to Horace in America, he had improved. He played with Abel, and was very gentle with him; and he was jolly with Gwen. He didn't have much to say to Christine and she hardly said a word to him, only smiled her cat's smile and looked at him with her mysterious eyes; but Gwen warmed up and laughed and joked with him, and was gay and happy as I had never seen her before. She wasn't a girl to attract men at a glance; but she had a likeable face and a sincere smile, and you forgot about her birthmark when she was happy and came out of herself. I sat there thinking perhaps Horace and Gwen would make a match of it, if he wanted to settle down. I am always trying to arrange happy lives for other people, when I haven't managed to arrange a happy one for myself. Perhaps I would do better if I was to mind my own business.

When I was leaving, Horace got me on one side and said he would like to know more about what had happened to the old people. He had been to see his father, but hadn't been able to get much out of him; and Christine had warned him off raking up family troubles with Raymond. ‘It gives me an uncomfortable feeling,' he said. ‘It is almost as if a blight was fallen on our family.' I asked him to come round one evening, and we could have a chat. I thought it would be company for me, anyway. He arrived well supplied with bottles of grog. I don't drink on my own, except for a glass of cider with my dinner; but we sat and talked and drank until midnight. I didn't drink so much; but he fair swilled it down. He said the Yanks were even bigger boozers than the Guernsey boys. It was the result of Prohibition.

I didn't tell him his mother had died of drink. I didn't know it myself for sure at the time. I did tell him she got very nervy and excitable her last years. He said she never recovered from the death of Cyril. He laughed over the speakings and the not-speakings with Hetty. He remembered the famous quarrel over the planchette. He said, ‘Good old Ray knew I was pushing it; but he didn't give me away.' He wanted to know how Mrs Crewe had come into the story. I told him what I knew then, which again wasn't much. ‘She must have played her cards well to get Uncle Harold to sell the house,' he said. ‘It was dastardly to leave Raymond without anything to inherit.' He was worried about Raymond: he thought he must be pretty hard up. He couldn't be earning much at the Greffe; and he had a heavy rent to pay to Mrs Mahy. ‘She is a good business-woman, Christine's mother,' he said. He wasn't struck on Christine. In fact, he was already finding fault with her. ‘For his own sake, Raymond would have done better if he had married Gwen,' he said. ‘She is a girl would look after a man.' He criticised Christine for the way she kept, or rather, didn't keep the house. ‘If she was my wife,' he said, ‘I would make her do the housework. Helping a woman with the heavy is one thing; but Christine does nothing. She drops everything where she is.' He said he would like to help them with spare cash; but Raymond might be touchy. He didn't want any money business to come between him and Raymond. He would wait and see. He sounded as if he had plenty to throw around.

I asked him what he thought of doing now he was over here. ‘Sell,' he said. It was the one thing he had learnt how to do in the States. ‘The Yanks are great boys for selling things,' he said. ‘They know how to sell what is written on the wrapper.' Dear old Guernsey was fifty years behind the times, and the old fogeys who ran it didn't know they was born yet. He was going to show them! Well, if he was alive today he would see they have caught up, and gone further. They have forgotten a lot of other things they did know: how to give for nothing and be hospitable, for instance; but they have learnt to sell, by God they have, and rake in the shekels like a mechanical rake! They sell their own dear island every year to more and more people for a higher and a higher price. Horace ought to see the crowds in the summer sitting on the beaches in rows, looking at the blessed sea as if they was at the Pictures; and Christ knows how many pounds a week they pay for the privilege of doing it. They could look at the old sea just as well in their own country. England is an island, isn't it?

He came back more full of love for Guernsey than any Guernseyman who have never left it. He may have found a funny way of showing it, but it was a real feeling in old Horace. He described to me coming down the Russel on the boat and seeing first the low, straggly northern end of the island, and then coming in between the other islands and seeing St Peter Port from the sea in the early morning light: houses upon houses rising on the hills and the Town Church down by the quay and the Victoria Tower against the sky. ‘They can keep their little old New York,' he said. The truth was America was too big for him. He said on his job he had spent half his time travelling thousands of miles by train. ‘It is not from St Sampson's to St Peter Port on the tram,' he said. Well, even the tram have gone now. That was years before the Second World War, though the rails was left; but now they have gone too.

He'd had a good time, as good times go. He said the Yanks was easy fellows to get along with; though he had never quite been able to make out the difference between one and the other. He found friends in every place he went to; but never made a friend. ‘A guy will pour his heart out to you over a drink one night,' he said, ‘but the next day he doesn't remember who you are, unless you happen to be on his mailing list. They call each other by their nicknames, rich and poor alike. Oh, it's very democratic over there; but they got each other sorted out on a cash basis, equally as much as in Guernsey.' He said he might have fallen for America, if it hadn't been for Raymond's letters. He looked forward to receiving those letters as to nothing else; and they had followed him the length and breadth of the continent.