The Book of Ebenezer le Page (6 page)

Mess Phineas Le Page read it. It was in a tin box on the side table in the kitchen, where my grandmother kept the tickets she was given each month from the Capelles Chapel to show she was saved. It was as everybody expected. My Uncle Nat was to have the house and furniture until he died, and a quarter of the money. My grandmother had quite a nice little nest-egg in the pied-du-cauche. Her clothes was to be divided among the three daughters. The sharing was done in the bedroom where she died. They sat on the floor and cast lots. My Uncle Nat was out of it; but he understood enough to fish up a couple of dice out of his pocket for Mess Phineas Le Page to rattle in his tall hat.

It worked out quite peaceful to begin with. My Aunt Prissy won the sabots and my Aunt Hetty the scoop and my mother the widow's veil. The best bonnet went to Prissy, who said it was too old for her; and the second best to Hetty, who said she was only glad to have anything that had belonged to her mother. The best blouse went to my mother, who said it was too small for her and gave it to Prissy, who was thin. There was three bundles of underclothes; but they was wrapped up in brown paper, so as the men wouldn't see. They went one to each. There was only the wedding-dress left. It was a lovely dress of white corded silk and had been kept in the bottom drawer of the chest-of-drawers with camphor and between tissue paper for fifty years. It went to Prissy. Then there was the most terrible schemozzle. My Aunt Hetty said her mother had always promised the wedding-dress to her, for when she had a daughter. My Aunt Prissy said it was hers now by the will of God; and she wasn't going to part with it for anybody. My Aunt Hetty screamed, ‘Mais je te grimerai, donc!' and clawed at my Aunt Prissy's hair. My Aunt Prissy screamed, ‘Ah, tu fichu petite volresse, té!' and tried to scratch my Aunt Hetty's eyes out. The two husbands had to separate the two wives and hold them back like fighting cocks. My father didn't do nothing. Mess Phineas Le Page didn't know what to do. He kept on saying, ‘Ah, mes pigeons! mes pauvres petites pigeons!' It was my mother who showed she had the wisdom of a Solomon.

She said she had better have the wedding-dress herself. If either of the others had it now, it would make bad blood in the family; especially as they lived next door to each other. The husbands said, ‘Anything for peace!' My mother played fair. She offered to La Hetty the widow's veil and to La Prissy her bundle of underclothes. My Aunt Hetty said she didn't want the widow's veil, because when she was a widow she wasn't going to wear a veil. My Aunt Prissy said she'd have the bundle of underclothes: they would always do for rags and dusters.

It turned out for the best, in a way. My sister was married in the wedding-dress and looked lovely. La Prissy had a second, but it was a boy again when she wanted a girl; and, after Raymond, La Hetty couldn't have any more. The dress would have been wasted; and it wasn't so many years before my mother had to wear the widow's veil. Ah well, in the midst of life we are in death, as it say in the Bible.

My Uncle Nathaniel lived a few years after his mother died; but not many. There was a lot of talk about him living alone at Les Sablons. People said he ought to have been put away in the Country Hospital; but he could feed himself and do his business and mooch round the house. He didn't keep the place very clean, it is true, and his sisters went along now and again to give the house a good spring-clean. It was small thanks they got for it. ‘It aint for the sake of your brother you come,' he said, ‘it is for the sake of what the people say. What the people say is the Ten Commandments on this island. Fiche le can'!'

The fellows who had been his friends when he was in health brought him fish, if they had any to spare, and drink, which he paid for. They dug and planted the back garden for him, and the neighbours fetched his meat for him, and groceries. I suppose he had enough to eat, one way and the other. The front garden was a wilderness. The marigolds ran wild and big sunflowers on tall stalks looked down on you as you passed; and the hedge grew and grew until all you could see of Les Sablons from the road was the dormer window. It was like the forest around the Castle of Bluebeard. The neighbours, who was Domailles and cousins of the Domailles from the Hautes Capelles and so of a good family, came and complained to my mother and my aunts and said it was a disgrace. There was a council of war in our kitchen.

It was decided it couldn't go on any longer, something must be done about it; and the Reverend Dumond, who had managed to get himself dragged into it somehow, said it would be a good idea if the family was to call on my uncle in a body and ‘appeal to his better feelings'. The husbands didn't have time, or couldn't be bothered; but the brigade of Le Page women and children, under the command of the Reverend Dumond, advanced in line of attack on the enemy camp. The children brought up the rear to appeal to my uncle's better feelings. Raymond was three or four, and holding on to his mother's hand; and Horace was seven or eight, and rough already and throwing stones; and his young brother, Cyril, was in the bassinette. Tabby, my sister, who'd just left school, had her hair up because she was going out to service. I was in long trousers. The good minister forced a way through the jungle and got to the front door. My uncle had a crowd of fellows in the house singing drunk; and he must have had his spies out, for they had piled the furniture against the front door and barricaded themselves in. The Reverend knocked and knocked, and tried the handle, and begged them to open in the Name of the Lord. He then commanded them to let him in if they feared damnation. They didn't. He had to beat a retreat. He said even the Grace of God was unavailing against the unrepentant sinner.

The drinking and singing went on for a week. The neighbours gathered outside and stood by the hedge and listened, while the big sunflowers looked down smiling. Then one morning all was quiet. The front door was open and my Uncle Nat's friends had vanished in the night. The good neighbours got worried and, to cut a long story short, he was found lying dead with not a stitch of clothing on him, or a rag on the bed. All the money had been spent and the friends had taken everything they could lay their hands on, except the pictures and ornaments, which they didn't want, and the heavy furniture they couldn't carry.

He was put away privily, as it say in the Bible. A hearse and two carriages : the three sisters in one and the three husbands in the other. He was buried with his mother, and was the last to be put in that grave because it was full. There was a share-out of the few things left; but there was no trouble. Nobody wanted the pictures; but nobody had the heart to burn them because he had made them with his own hands, stitch by stitch. La Hetty got the china fowl she wanted; and was happy. My Aunt Prissy said I could choose anything I liked, because I had grown to be such a fine strong boy. I chose the two china dogs on the mantelpiece. They are on my mantelpiece at this moment, listening with their long ears to every word I am writing down. I like my two china dogs. When I write down anything wicked, one of them look very serious; but the other one, he wink.

The only article of furniture that came to my mother was the grandfather clock. It was made by Naftel, his name is on the front; and it have only five or six wheels and a weight on a chain and a long pendulum with a big brass bob, yet it is never a minute wrong. I don't think I could live now, if I didn't hear the slow tick-tock, tick-tock of my grandfather clock. One night, only a few weeks ago, I forgot to wind it before I went to bed. I'm getting into the way of forgetting to do things, I don't know why. When it stopped in the night, I woke up. The place was dead.

Les Sablons was sold and the money divided among the sisters. I know there was a lot of fuss and bother about getting the money, because La Prissy and La Hetty wasn't speaking at the time and wouldn't meet together in the lawyer's office to sign the papers. When La Prissy and La Hetty was speaking, they went around together like a pair of Siamese twins and wore twin mushroom hats. When they wasn't speaking, they didn't know each other if they met face to face in the Pollet. When they was speaking, we never saw them at Les Moulins; but when they wasn't speaking, they came one at a time to tell everything to my mother. I have known my Aunt Prissy be talking to my mother in the kitchen when, lo and behold, my Aunt Hetty would be coming down the garden path to the front door. My mother would let Prissy out quick by the back door, before she let Hetty in by the front. She was good that way, my mother. She was all for peace in the family.

When my Aunt Prissy and my Aunt Hetty wasn't speaking, they blamed each other for everything. When they was speaking, they blamed everybody else. I have never known the rights and the wrongs of how they came to marry the Martel boys. That's the trouble of trying to write the true story of my relations; or of myself, for that matter. I don't know the beginning, or the end. Hetty didn't want to marry Harold Martel; I'm sure of that. It was not only that he was years older, but he had been married before. Hetty really wanted to marry Jack Bourgaize, who was her own age; but he was one of those boys who was mad to get away from Guernsey, and had gone to Australia to make his fortune. He had wanted her to go with him, but she wouldn't because she didn't want to leave her mother. It happened just then that Harold Martel was on the look-out for another wife; but, to be fair, I think he liked Hetty better than his first one. Hetty said she only went out with him for company, because Prissy was going out with Percy. Prissy said she only went out with Percy, because Hetty was going out with Harold. She didn't like Percy. He was soft. Nobody could say Harold was soft. He was a big surly-looking bloke with heavy shoulders and, as the eldest, used to having his own way. Anyhow, they all four found themselves engaged.

Then Jack Bourgaize wrote from Australia to say he'd got a smallholding. From his letter, it sounded as if the smallholding was as big as Guernsey, but all trees. He said he had made a clearing in it and built a shack; and he wanted Hetty to go out at once and marry him. Her mother said she must do what she wanted; but she went to ask advice of her Aunt Sarah, who she hoped was going to leave her some money. Her Aunt Sarah, who had never married, said, ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, my girl.' Hetty married Harold Martel.

He already had a house at Pleinheaume, where he had lived with his first wife; but Hetty didn't want to live in the same house as that other woman and use the same things. Harold thought he might as well turn over a new leaf and start on a clean page. He sold the house at Pleinheaume and bought the ground to build another. Prissy said Percy must build one next to it, so as whatever was to happen, she and Hetty would always have each other. The two brothers went into partnership. Everything was arranged for the best and turned out for the worst.

It's a wonder those two houses ever got built at all, there was so many quarrels. It wasn't the brothers. Percy was quite willing to give in to Harold; and Harold worked with Percy all right, so long as he was the boss. It was the sisters. There never was two sisters more different from each other than those two. Hetty wasn't stout yet, but she was short and roundish. She had a beautiful face really: squarish with strong bones and big sky-blue eyes and a lovely straight nose. If only that face had been on a body to match, she would have been one of the beauties of those days. Prissy wasn't a beauty. She was pretty with a small face, a small body and small bones; and, though she was five years older than Hetty, could pass for the same age. She had a tongue like a needle, and she knew exactly where to dig it in so it hurt; and Hetty was easy to hurt and easy to make happy. She was always either laughing or crying.

It was agreed between them that the houses must be exactly alike, since they was for two brothers marrying two sisters; but for everything Harold did to his, Percy was made to do something different by Prissy. Harold's idea of a house was four walls and enough windows and a door back and front and a roof on top. Percy had to do everything fancy. Harold wanted plain granite. Percy had to do dashing. Both houses finished up half dashing and half granite. Percy had to build a front porch. Harold had to build a front porch. Percy had to make the top windows with points like a chapel. Harold had to re-build the top storey to have windows with points like a chapel. Then Hetty got ideas of her own. She wanted bow windows downstairs; so as she would be able to sit behind the curtains and watch the people pass, without being seen. Percy had to put in bow windows. The last great row was over the names of the houses. La Hetty decided she would have hers called Wallaballoo. It was the name of the place where Jack Bourgaize had his smallholding in Australia. La Prissy came to tell my mother about it in a rage. ‘What d'you think she's going to do now?' she said; and she told us. ‘Have anybody ever heard of such a name for a house?' she said. ‘The people will think she's mad! Well, if she's going to call hers Wallaballoo, I'm going to call ours Timbuctoo!' She did, too. There they are to this day, the two houses, in the meadow the other side of Braye-side with a high wall between them. There wasn't a high wall between them when they was built. It was a low hedge with an open gap to go from one to the other. Well, I have seen hells and hells lived through at Wallaballoo and Timbuctoo.

The Martels of Ronceval was Church and the two brothers was married at St Sampson's Church on the same day and went on the same boat to England and in the same train to London for their honeymoon. They all four put up at the Empress Hotel in Waterloo Road and went to the Zoo and the Crystal Palace and Madame Tussaud's and saw the Chamber of Horrors and the old Queen driving in her carriage out of Buckingham Palace. The sisters wasn't speaking when they came back; and the brothers wasn't allowed to speak either. There was a letter waiting for Hetty. She had written to Jack Bourgaize that she was getting married to Harold Martel, but it had crossed with a letter from him saying that, if she wouldn't go out to Australia, then he would sell his smallholding and come back and settle down in Guernsey and marry her. She cried for weeks and had to have the doctor. It was three or four years before Raymond was on the way; and when he was born she nearly died. Horace arrived before the first year was out.