The Book of Ebenezer le Page (35 page)

I let two or three days pass after I knew they was back before I went down to see them. Raymond had a fortnight yet before he was due to go to his chapel. I thought they both looked very well. Raymond was in white flannels and a white open-necked shirt with a coloured tie for a belt; and Christine was in one of her famous simple frocks. It was all the colours of the rainbow, and I must say she looked nice in it. I said, ‘If that frock you got on is made of curtain material, you are a very clever girl.' ‘It is,' she said, ‘and it cost me seven-and-six.' I asked Raymond how he liked Sark. ‘God's Isle,' he said. ‘A miracle risen from the sea!' I glanced at her to see if she agreed, but there was no knowing from her face what she was thinking. It was like a big moon.

They seemed quite at home in Rosamunda. Edna had left all the furniture for their use. He was sitting in the armchair like the man of the house, and Christine was sitting on a hassock at his feet, leaning against his knees. He was telling me about Dixcart Hotel where they had stayed, and the wonderful water from the well in the valley. They had been all over the island. He had a swim in Venus' Pool off Little Sark; and the sea in it was so thick with salt, he said, he could hardly keep his body under. He had been along the Hog's Back. He had looked down into the Creux Derrible and seen the sea at the bottom swirling like a witch's cauldron. He said the view from the Pilcher Monument must be the loveliest on earth. Christine, it seemed, had to follow in his footsteps and do plenty of climbing. I wondered if she liked it. She said very little, but smiled at him adoringly from time to time. I don't know to this day how far she was playing the part of the happy young wife. For years she put on that face and didn't complain; and poor Raymond had no idea how much she was scoring up against him. It may be if they had been given a fair start and there hadn't been the trouble with his parents and trouble coming from the chapel people and everything at once, it wouldn't have turned out so bad, in spite of what my mother said.

I felt quite soft about them that night. Raymond was looking fresh and clean, as he always did; and very peaceful. When later I learned his side of the story, I realised he had been through so many feelings in those two weeks, for the time being he had none left. It was as if his whole past was wiped out and he was starting afresh on a clean page. I heard Christine's side as well when the time came; but she was so angry, I don't trust what she said. I am more ready to believe Raymond, because he was more fair to her. I may have made a great mistake that night, though I was full of goodwill towards them both. When Christine had gone out to the kitchen to make some coffee, I asked Raymond if he was going to see his mother. He said they had already been to have tea at Prissy's, but he wasn't going to risk having Christine insulted. I said, ‘Go on your own first, and ask your mother if you can bring Christine to see her. I don't see how she can refuse now you are married.' He said he would go.

I knew Hetty had a bad heart, or fancied she had a bad heart; but I didn't know she now got it into her head she was going to die. The whole time Raymond was on his honeymoon she stayed in bed, and my Cousin Mary Ann was there every day. Harold sent for the doctor, who said it was shock, but there was really nothing wrong with her and all she needed was rest and attention. Harold couldn't do enough for her and took her up fruit and chicken and cream cakes from Le Noury and everything she liked; but she wouldn't touch a thing he brought her, and made my Cousin Mary Ann promise she would always make the tea herself, in case he put poison in the pot. She unburdened her heart to my Cousin Mary Ann and cried and raved like a mad-woman. Harold was only waiting for her to die, so he could marry some young girl! He would sell up the house and everything and spend the lot on the new young wife. ‘How the people will laugh,' said Hetty, ‘when I am gone!'

Then to my Cousin Mary Ann's amazement, one day Hetty get up out of her bed and dresses herself in her best clothes and goes to Town on the bus; though she is so weak on her legs she hardly has the strength to walk to the four-cross to catch it. She was going to see a lawyer, she said, but Harold must on no account be told what she was gone to Town for. My Cousin Mary Ann had no idea then why Hetty wanted to see a lawyer; or what a lawyer could do about it. It do seem as if the fates was against Raymond, for it was on that very day he went to call on his mother on his own. He met his father in the yard. ‘What are you doing here?' said Harold. ‘I have come to see Ma,' Raymond said. ‘You don't live here now,' said Harold. ‘Clear out!' Raymond went deadly pale and began to tremble. According to my Cousin Mary Ann, he was going to hit Harold. I don't really believe Raymond was going to hit his father; but my Cousin Mary Ann ran out to separate them. Raymond walked away quietly with his head down. ‘If only Hetty had stayed at home that day,' my Cousin Mary Ann said to me often, ‘it would all have been different.'

I have never known for sure who it was kicked up a shindy over Raymond's sermon. The few people who spoke to me about it praised him. Reg Underwood thought he was grand and Mr Dorey, who always stopped and spoke to me when he saw me, said he had been glad to see me in the chapel and hoped I had enjoyed the service as much as he had. The scandal over Christine may have had something to do with it; but I wouldn't mind betting it was old Albert Nicolle who started the trouble. He was a local preacher and an old fool, who always brought Oliver Cromwell into his sermons, as being the one man who in the past had saved Guernsey from going to perdition. He hated me because I was Church, who he said was back-sliders and nearly as bad as the Roman Catholics, who was worshippers of idols of wood and stone. What made me angry about the whole affair, and it was so like those Chapel people, was it was all done behind Raymond's back. The first he heard of it was the day after he had been to see his mother, when he got a letter from his friend, the Reverend Charles Bingley, the head of his college.

Raymond didn't take it very serious. The Reverend Charles wrote that, not greatly to his surprise, he had received a complaint from the good people of Guernsey that his dear Raymond had preached a sermon of perhaps not quite sound doctrine. Raymond came to let me know he was going to England for a few days. He told me he had been to Wallaballoo and it had done no good; but he didn't tell me what had happened. I wasn't going to worry him about that then, but asked him if going to England meant he was being hauled over the coals. He said old Charles was like a father to him; but he was a fuss-pot. In his letter he had written that he hoped to be able to clear up Raymond's difficulties. ‘I haven't got any difficulties,' said Raymond. ‘They are the ones who got the difficulties.' He said Christine would miss him, and he wished she was going with him; but she thought it was better for him to go on his own. It would leave his mind free to put the matter right. Anyhow, he was wearing his dog's collar when he went; and when he came back, he wasn't.

He was rather proud of what he had done. I think he expected a pat on the back from me. ‘I had to come and let you see I have gone back to nature,' he said, ‘I bet you're pleased.' ‘I am not at all pleased,' I said, ‘and what about Christine? What do she say?' ‘She hasn't said anything,' he said. I happen to know now she felt very bitter about it. At least he was sincere in the thoughts of his head with old Charles. The pity was when Raymond was sincere in the thoughts of his head, he left his heart out of count. If you are as sympathetic with people as Raymond was in his heart, you don't go round smashing their idols. It is like taking a toy from a child. I know if somebody was to smash my two china dogs I would feel like murder. He said straight out to a minister and his teacher, if you please, he didn't believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection. Old Charles said they have to be accepted, or Jesus of Nazareth was not the Son of God. The Christian Church of every denomination was founded upon the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was the only begotten Son of God: not that He was a prophet, not even the greatest of the prophets. From what Raymond told me I thought that, for a minister, the Reverend Charles had been very patient and reasonable; and Raymond himself had shown no sense or moderation. He actually said if Jesus was born of a virgin without a natural father, far from being the Son of God, He was a freak. ‘Well, I am not surprised the Reverend Charles turfed you out,' I said.

‘Oh, he didn't turf me out,' said Raymond, ‘He agrees with me really. Those people accept this and accept that; but they don't really think it happened. They decide to believe it.' Raymond got quite excited. ‘If he had worked in the Greffe as long as I have,' he said, ‘he would know you can't be sure exactly what it was happened fifty years ago, let alone two thousand. God isn't on record in a book! He is in the nature of every creature, and beyond the nature of every creature. He is in the nature of the world, and beyond the nature of the world. If you want to see where God has trod, you can go to Sark: you don't have to go to the Holy Land!' I said, ‘Well, what did he do then? Tear your collar off?' ‘No,' he said. ‘I said I'd withdraw.' ‘Is that all?' I said. ‘He wanted me to go before a synod and plead my case,' he said. ‘Why didn't you?' I said. He shrugged his shoulders. I wouldn't have minded so much if he had stuck up for what he thought and had been turfed out because of it; but just to back out, I had no patience! I didn't want to hear any more.

They had him back to the Greffe; and there he was, after years of studying and going to college, no forrarder than when he left school. It was arranged for Edna and the kid to live with the old people at Ivy Lodge for good; and Raymond and Christine made their home at Rosamunda. He paid his mother-in-law rent and, when the baker or the butcher or the grocer wouldn't let her have any more on tick, he paid the bills. He was soon keeping Christine's whole family. Rosamunda was only a one-storey cottage with two dormer windows and a small garden back and front. Raymond didn't seem to mind; but it was a great come-down for Christine. For years she had only been a visitor to Guernsey, and thought of herself as a cut above the ordinary run of Guernsey people. Now she was almost one of the poor. To make matters worse, she had no idea how to look after a house. It was a pity, because Rosamunda could have been made into quite a nice little place for the two of them, if she had been the sensible country girl she ought to have been. Instead, she would sit and sew and embroider by the hour and, when she went out, looked as if she had stepped out of a band-box; but in the house she was a slut.

Raymond had to do most of the housework. He didn't grumble at having to do it; but what he didn't like was her untidyness. In his own home, and especially in his own room, everything had a place and everything was in its place. Christine didn't even bother to clear the table, but left the tablecloth and victuals on for the next meal; and there would be wool in the butter and hair-pins on the mantelpiece and dirty underclothes on the sofa. Raymond had to go round picking up after her. ‘I'm getting him house-trained,' she said to me. That was one evening when I went down and found her in on her own. He didn't often go out by himself, but that evening he had gone to hear a Miss Margaret Murray lecture at the Ladies' College on ‘The Religion of the Witches'. She upset me another way that evening. She was a virgin when she married Raymond; but only just. She had played as near the fire as she could without actually getting burnt since she was the age of twelve, I reckon; and now the fire was lit and burning, it was reaching out in all directions. I don't say she would have done anything, if it had come to the point; but the fluence was on, and she got me hot. I was glad to get out of that house. I vowed if ever I called again when Raymond was out and she said, ‘Come in, come in, do! How nice of you to come and see me!' I would be in a hurry and wouldn't be able to come in. I would rather have killed myself than hurt Raymond in that way.

The Chapel people didn't give Raymond a chance. There was nothing said to him openly; but when Christmas came, he wasn't invited to any of the houses where he had been accustomed to go. He was treated as a criminal, or worse; for he was made to feel he had done something so bad it couldn't be talked about. It was partly his fault because he made no excuse, in fact said nothing about it; and all Christine would say was ‘There was a disagreement unfortunately.' She still sang in the choir at the Capelles, but he didn't go to any chapel at all. ‘It's a chance to get the house in order,' he said. He made no new friends; but she kept all hers as before. She was uppish with Prissy and didn't invite her to the house; but she did allow her to have them both to tea once a week at Timbuctoo. Prissy would then go round and repeat to Hetty everything she had been able to find out. Hetty lived through the winter. She got up, but didn't go out: only dragged herself about the house from morning to night, trying to keep it clean. My Cousin Mary Ann told me she would listen to every word Prissy had to say about Raymond and Christine, but wouldn't give a message, or say a word could be passed on. Prissy was pretending she was trying to make peace, or perhaps she really was doing her best; but all Hetty would say was ‘It is not to be.'

I can't say I treated Raymond any better than the others; for the once I found him on his own I quarrelled with him, and didn't go again. He kept on talking about that Clive Holyoak. He said Clive was quite right when he said ‘He who can, lives: he who cannot, preaches.' I said, ‘Clive have no right whatever to say any such thing. He play his fiddle.' Raymond laughed at that. He said, ‘Luckily you don't have to be examined in doctrine to play the fiddle.' I said, ‘If I had your head on my shoulders and could put things into words as you can, I certainly wouldn't be satisfied with going fishing and growing tomatoes. It is all wrong for you only to be working at the Greffe. It is throwing away the gifts of God.' He said, ‘I want to be an ordinary chap. I don't want to be one of a peculiar people, as Saint Peter says. If there is anything in me, it will come out anyway.' I said, ‘I would have more respect for you if you was to go and stand up in a waggon on the Albert Pier like Sequois used to do, and spout to anybody who would listen to you.' ‘I couldn't do that,' he said. ‘I know you couldn't,' I said. ‘You're soft! It's a waste of breath talking to you! It's all very well to believe in love; but you got to fight for it. Even a cow got horns!' I was angry.