Lunch consisted of cold meat and bread and all the remnants of last week’s puddings heaped together in a dish and disguised beneath custard. This menu, resorted to by Sophie in moments of stress, usually produced an indignant outcry, but to-day, so great was the general goodwill, it was quite favourably received. Colin actually demanded a second helping of pudding and that though his first, beneath its yellow blanket, had contained a spoonful of tapioca—his particular detestation—a square inch of treacle tart, a slab of blancmange and the stones of three prunes now defunct.
After lunch hats and coats were put on and André brought round the landau, for they were all going in to St. Pierre. André, Rachell, Michelle, and Peronelle were going to confession, Sophie was going gallivanting with Jacquemin Gossilin, and Ranulph had promised to take the three younger children to look at the Christmas sights. The journey into St. Pierre took a long time for Lupin found the weight of the entire household, including Sophie in her stays and an electric blue coat and skirt and a scarlet hat, so preposterous that André, Ranulph, and Colin, had to get out and walk at every tiniest slope. But who minded? The air, sun-warmed yet cool and fresh as sea water, seemed to run through their veins like frosted fire, and all around them the world lay twinkling in a hushed expectancy of miracle, jewelled and glowing and palpitant, rich with stored treasure, yet held back by the fingers of the frost from the giving and the bursting and the shouting of the spring. Yet though the spring of the earth was far distant the spring of birth was in their hearts, and inwardly, beneath all the excitement and the fun, they adored and worshipped. Even Ranulph, who did not believe a word of the Christmas legend, and André, who was doubtful, caught the infection and for the moment were among the worshippers.
II
St. Pierre was reached at last and Lupin, heaving his flanks with relief, was unharnessed and established at his inn. His family bade him good-bye affectionately and pursued their way down the hill, separating at the foot of the steps leading to St. Raphael’s. Sophie, her face purple from the tightness of her stays and the nip of the frost in the air, went to La Rue Clubin to find Jacquemin Gossilin and Ranulph, with Colette clinging to his hand, and Jacqueline and Colin dancing in front of him, went downhill to the town.
“Let’s go to La Rue Clubin,” chirped Colin.
“We are in charge of two fair ladies,” Ranulph reminded him, “one doesn’t take ladies to La Rue Clubin.”
Colin looked over his shoulder and, meeting Ranulph’s twinkling eyes, perceived dimly that men and women, inhabiting the same world for eleven hours in the day flee at the twelfth hour into a little jealously guarded haven of refreshment from each other.
“We’ll go to the harbour till dark,” said Ranulph, “and then we’ll go to the market place and see the Christmas sights.”
Down through the twisted streets they went, Colette riding on Ranulph’s back, now and then, to rest her fat legs, Jacqueline and Colin chattering like magpies. Jacqueline, to whom her recent joys had come like the breaking through of spring to a little bird, seemed to have lost sight of all her fears and miseries, and chirped and hopped with an unself-consciousness akin to Peronelle’s. Ranulph marvelled at her. Amazing that two silly old nuns could have worked such a change in so short a time. Well, Jacqueline owed this to him. He felt extremely puffed up.
They walked right out to the end of the pier and settled themselves in a sheltered corner where they could watch the ships. Here, out of the wind and full in the sun’s eye, it was as warm as June. The Island could produce days of storm unrivalled for nastiness in any other part of the world, but she could also produce midwinter days of warmth and loveliness that were like gifts of unexpected joy in old age.
Ranulph, his eyes narrowed, looked from the sun-dappled waters of the harbour to the blue dome of the sky curved graciously over its glimmer, and was astounded to find himself glad to be alive. This sudden resurrection of happiness in his life was as surprising as this glowing day in the middle of winter. It was as though pink carnations had bloomed suddenly in the snow. He looked at the children grouped round him and his eyes caressed them. He owed this flowering to them. Well, he had repaid Jacqueline. He’d repay them all before he’d done. Here his old mocking habit caught him for a moment, and he jeered at himself for a sentimental fool. He had always fled sentiment. Was it to trip him up in his old age and make a prisoner of him? Well, let it. Sentiment might be as softening to the hard iron of character as warm rain to frost-bound earth, but green things, apparently, spring from its falling. He determined then and there to have a green, if silly, old age.
The children were equally happy. Jacqueline was jabbering about her Christmas presents. No one listened to her but she didn’t mind. Her talk was only her deep-charged happiness bursting to the surface in a froth of bubbles. Colette, protected against possible cold by two flannel petticoats and an overcoat, looked as fat and sleepy as an overfed nestling. Bunched in her sunny corner she blinked at the sea and wondered about who knew what?
Colin looked at the shipping. He was capable of looking at shipping for hours without moving. Here at the pier head, swung out over the sea as though in the crow’s nest of a ship, he could imagine himself sailing the ocean in a windjammer, and as he sat he swayed a little as though with its motion. Down in the harbour the ships were lazy, revelling in their Christmas rest. Sails were furled and no smoke twisted up from the funnels of the steamers. The little rowing boats along the harbour walls were empty and tethered like resting beasts in their stalls. There seemed not a soul on board any of them. The silence was absolute and wrapped in it Colin’s spirit dipped and soared in his windjammer across the free spaces of the world; until his left foot went to sleep and the pain of it jerked him back into reality. He got up, stamped, and swore.
“Colin,” rebuked Ranulph.
Colin smiled sheepishly.
“Why does it always make one feel better to swear?” he asked.
“Because you are forbidden to do it, and freedom is your desire. The human boy invariably suffers from the delusion that to wriggle himself free of fetters is to be free.”
“Isn’t it?” gaped Colin.
“No.” Ranulph puffed at his pipe and frowned at the ocean. He had promised himself as long ago as his and Colin’s visit to Mère Tangrouille to enlighten Colin as to the nature of freedom, lest Colin should tread the same path as he had trod and eat the same dead sea apple, but the part of an instructor of youth did not come easily to him.
“I must be free,” said Colin suddenly and explosively, “and I must be a sailor.”
“Is that a free life?” inquired Ranulph.
“Yes,” said Colin, “of course.”
“Why of course? Just think. What could be more restricted than life on a ship? A ship’s not large, you know. I have known men on shipboard who felt like a hyena in a cage. I’ve felt that way myself.”
“But one sails all round the world,” objected Colin.
“In a cage,” said Ranulph, “but be a sailor by all means. You want freedom, and the sailor is the perfect type of a free man.”
“Er?” queried Colin, “but you’ve just said not.”
“He imprisons himself that he may put a girdle round the earth. His walk is limited to the length and breadth of a narrow deck, yet he looks from horizon to horizon, and is on nodding terms with all the stars.”
“Er?” Poor Colin, admiring Ranulph and having implicit faith in his judgment nevertheless found his arguments very difficult to follow.
“You can be sure of this, my son,” said Ranulph, shooting out a lean forefinger, “whatever you want in life you must go for its opposite. If you want riches woo the lady poverty. If you want freedom chain your body and mind to discipline. Everything goes by opposites. Take this piece of advice from a man who hasn’t done it, and who therefore knows.”
Colin sighed. Ranulph continued, smiling sardonically at his
own flights of fancy.
“Yes, it’s a sighing matter, my son, and difficult of comprehension at your tender age. And it’s no easy matter, if you long for light and glitter, to trample on the diamonds within easy reach and leap for the stars—it’s so uncertain one’ll get there. . . . But how explain? . . . Hopeless . . . I can only sow the seed. . . . In ten years’ time ask your mother the meaning of the word paradox. It’s an important word. Come to think of it the Christmas legend is a paradox, if ever there was one. Who’d have thought of looking for the courts of heaven in a stable? . . . And one day, mind you, ask your mother what your uncle Jean did and then don’t do it.”
Colin gave it up, but retired from argument with the impression that discipline was somehow good, and that Uncle Ranulph had no objection to his being a sailor. To these two facts his mind clung retentively.
But while they talked and wondered and brooded over the harbour warmth drained from the earth and the evening of Christmas Eve was upon them. A little flock of clouds had spread themselves in a fleecy network over the blue sky, and as the sun sank lower they turned pink while below them the sea, reflecting the diaper of pink and blue, turned lilac colour.
“Look! Look!” cried Jacqueline. They looked. It was an effect of light such as Ranulph, even in all his travels, had never seen. Brighter and brighter shone the pink and the blue, and deeper and deeper glowed the lavender until it was the colour of a purple iris. Ranulph gaped.
“The wine-dark seas of Greece,” he murmured, “I never thought to see them round the Island.”
Then quite suddenly the colours had gone. The sun, jealous for his treasure, would not leave them there for night to play with. He pulled them away with him over the rim of the sea, and the sky, robbed of the glory, grew pale and a little sad. The sea remembered that it was winter, and sighed a little at the sudden chill in the air. Along the harbour wall and up and down the streets of St. Pierre the lights pricked out the twilight like pinholes in a dusky curtain.
Ranulph leapt to his feet and pulled the children to theirs.
“It’s the twenty-fourth of December,” he reminded them, “and chestnuts are to be roasted in the market place for your pleasure.”
Squeaking with delight they ran along the pier in front of him, the little girls’ tam-o’-shanters alight like holly berries and Colin’s substantial boots going clip-clop like the hooves of an impatient pony.
Along the harbour wall they went, away from the hushed sea into the crowded streets. St. Pierre was now like a town of the Arabian Nights. The shop windows were aglow with colour and the streets with holiday finery. Oranges and lemons, and pink hams, and coloured sweets. Rosy faces and sailors’ blue blouses, and the red caps of children. Shops and crowds together threaded ribbons of colour in and out between the old grey houses, and up and down over the cobbled streets. And the houses and cobbles were not to be outdone this Christmas Eve. Lights lit behind crimson curtains and Christmas trees set in open windows were brilliant in their grey setting, and in the crannies of the cobbles frost-fires sparkled.
Like the glowing heart in a nest of coloured flame was the market place. A great bonfire was leaping and glowing in its centre, and all round it were booths loaded with oranges and apples. Hither and thither in the crowd went the chestnut men with their little red fires in iron braziers, and floating before and behind them went the delicious scent of roasting chestnuts. The crowd, laughing and joking and jostling to get to the chestnut men, was a kaleidoscope of colour, shifting and changing against the orange hues of leaping fire and the dim blue of the quiet night.
Ranulph, with Colette in his arms for safety, bought chestnuts for the children from a blue-bloused man with gold rings in his ears, who called down the blessing of heaven upon them and added an extra chestnut for Colette because her eyes were blue as the Virgin’s mantle. After which acts of piety he swore horribly at a little thieving boy, and made for the public house across the way. Ranulph, at this, with Jacqueline’s fingers clutching rather fearfully at his hand, thought it time to make for home and glanced round for Colin.
Not far from the bonfire, behind an immense pile of oranges, sat Mère Tangrouille, with Colin bowing politely before her and presenting her with a wooden mouse carved by himself from a piece of driftwood. It had pink ears cut out of pieces of sticking plaster and nailed on with large black nails. Its tail was of string. Colin had taken immense pains with it, and presented it to Mère Tangrouille as though he were Solomon laying spices at the foot of the Queen of Sheba. Mère Tangrouille took the gift in the spirit in which it was offered. It was a love gift, fashioned with care for her delight, and as such she accepted it. Her black bonnet trembled with delight as she kissed Colin, and her twinkling little eyes were moist. She swore that he was a cherub from above and that she would keep the mouse for ever. A mouse, she said, was exactly what she wanted. Her cat had killed all hers and home, she averred, was no home without a mouse. Colin withdrew from her embrace as soon as he decently could, clicked his heels together and bowed again. Ranulph, watching over the heads of the crowd, marvelled at the unself-conscious beauty of his politeness. These children, brought up in a farmhouse at the edge of the waves, companioned by birds and beasts and plants, proved that courtesy is ingrained in natural things. Even so would a wagtail bow or a dahlia pass the time of day with the wind. Imprisoned as he was in the chaste company of Jacqueline and Colette, Ranulph, to Colin’s surprise, did not come and speak to Mère Tangrouille, but nodded to her kindly from a distance and called to Colin to come. Mère Tangrouille, nodding back, appeared to bear no ill will for this seeming rudeness. Had not the money for the rent, her Christmas present from the Jean du Frocq that was, reached her by that morning’s post? But Colin did not know this, and as he trotted through the crowd at Ranulph’s heels he felt a little puzzled. He felt that in courtesy Uncle Ranulph should have spoken to her. Was it because Jacqueline was there that he had not? Did even grown-up men sometimes hide their friendships from their womenkind? He wondered. He had wondered about it earlier in the afternoon when Uncle Ranulph would not take Jacqueline to La Rue Clubin. He wondered if all this had anything to do with Uncle Ranulph’s confusing talk about freedom. Uncle Ranulph said that if you wanted anything very badly you had to look for it in the opposite direction from the natural one. It seemed natural to Colin to look for freedom in La Rue Clubin. But was he perhaps wrong? He felt hot in the head and gave it up, but a slight seed of doubt as to the desirableness of searching for freedom in La Rue Clubin was sown in him. Ranulph, had he known, would have slept easier that night.
The fun in the market place was only just beginning to rise to its height, and gather impetus for the raid on the public houses, when Ranulph sternly led his charges away. They must not keep their father and mother and Lupin waiting, he said, and they must go early to bed in preparation for the morrow. The children, their thoughts turning to their stockings, submitted with a good grace and followed him up the gay ribbons of the streets, in and out of the old grey brooding houses that had seen so many Christmas Eves come and go, over the old cobbles that had spread themselves through the centuries beneath the feet of so great a multitude of children. Overhead the stars shone frostily brilliant in a clear sky, just as they had shone when the Island was only a great grey rock set in the hungry sea and far away in Bethlehem a Child was born.
III
Sophie said good-bye to Jacquemin Gossilin when the fun in the market place was at its height, for she too wanted to get home to Bon Repos in good time. And also she was meditating a daring adventure on the way home. She had determined to pay a visit to the fairy well in the water-lane and find out once for all if she was destined to marry Jacquemin or if she was not. The peasants say that during the eight days before Christmas the supernatural powers are all active, fairies and demons as well as angels throng the lanes and the streams and the farmyards, and any girl who has the courage to look in a fairy well will see her fate loo
king back at her from the water, either the face of her husband or, if she is fated to die unmarried, a grinning death’s head.
Sophie hurried up through the streets of St. Pierre and along the country roads towards the water-lane. Her legs were trembling with terror and her heart thumped and knocked like a threshing machine. This tampering with fairy magic on Christmas Eve was, she knew, dangerous, and looked upon with disfavour by the priests. There are so many angels about at Christmas time that the fairies and demons, jealous and vindictive, and ready to go to any lengths to show their power, are best left alone. Sophie, as she hurried along, glancing apprehensively at every dark bush and every moon-thrown shadow, was remembering all the stories of Christmas Eve disaster that she had ever heard. There was the man who, returning home late on one of the eight nights before Christmas, was led astray by the “faeu Bellengier” and instead of going to his own farm went to the edge of the cliff and fell over it to his death. Then there were those other men who found themselves followed or preceded by large black dogs which no threats could scare away and no blows could touch. And then, again, others who had found themselves beset by demons in the shape of white rabbits who went hopping along under their feet, tripping them up at every turn. Then there was the girl who, with mortal sin unconfessed upon her, went to the very well where Sophie was hurrying now and saw six skeletons grouped round it, gazing into the water. She had screamed and dropped dead as a door nail. At the thought of this last story Sophie stopped and pressed her hand against her stays on the left hand side. Her heart was thumping so with terror that she could not go another step. Then she glanced down at her best electric blue coat and skirt, the colour of shimmering water in the moonlight, and courage stole back to her. The sight of it made her feel herself to be a beautiful creature, as lovely as the deep velvety shadows under the trees and the frost stars glittering on the road, bound with them into a community of beauty by the encircling moonlight. This sense of comradeship buoyed her up and she went on again. She rounded the corner where the foxgloves grew in summer and entered the little round tunnel of the lane. It was inky black to-day, and plunged downhill as though it led to the nether regions. From far away below came the murmur of the sea against the rocks, sounding to Sophie’s excited fancy like the moaning of souls in torment. It struck her that if she were to drop dead as a door nail at the fairy well—as might very well happen to her, meddling with magic on Christmas Eve as she was—her soul would join their number. She shivered, but her anxiety to know her fate drove her on. She could not wait for time to disclose it to her, she must do the forbidden thing and force the curtains apart from the future’s face. A break in the close-knit branches of the trees over the well let through a moonbeam that lit up the smooth mirror of the water as though a lamp were hung over it. The ferns and grasses held it up to Sophie in delicate fingers. She knelt down and laid a silver piece in the grass—an offering to the fairy of the well. All around her, so it seemed, Things were passing backwards and forwards, following the tinkling stream down to the sea, coming up from the sea to the waters of the earth. Very populous the lane was to-night, full of the murmuring of unheard voices and the footfall of feet that left no print behind them. Sophie felt cold and clammy with terror, and there seemed a mist before her eyes so that though she was bending with her face over the water she could see nothing. Then the mist cleared and she saw the surface of the water, clear and smooth as polished ebony and reflecting a myriad of stars in its depths. It seemed to Sophie that the whole sky was there in miniature. All the scattered points of light seemed to have been picked out and gathered together in the well, it was a little tiny heaven of atom width lying under the immensity of sky, so small that she could span it with her arms yet holding eternity. Nearer and nearer she leaned, gazing at that depth of darkness and those crystal points of light, so fascinated by the beauty of it that she forgot all about Jacquemin Gossilin and the grinning death’s head. The night breathed around her and the noiseless Things continued their passing and repassing behind and around her, and still she gazed and gazed, sinking as it were lower and lower into that mirrored heaven, her identity lost and submerged and drowning in it, so that time stopped and only eternity circled and wheeled round her. A little breeze, travelling up from the sea, ruffled the surface of the well. Little ripples broke across it and the stars were drowned. The Things, disturbed in their passing by that healthful current of air, seemed to have blown away into the shadows. Sophie was once more Sophie, sitting in the cold frosty grass in the water-lane gazing at a pool, with the night around her and the bare interlaced fingers of the trees patterning the sky over her head. She got up and, stumbling down the dark water-lane, turned to the right into the steep, waterless one. Here, away from the mysterious influences of the water, she came to herself. She felt very stiff and cold and extraordinarily silly. She supposed she had been mesmerized by gazing so long at the water—they said if you looked too long at anything bright it went to your head. Then a pang of disappointment went through her. She had not seen Jacquemin Gossilin in the water. But then neither had she seen the death’s head. What had she seen? A heaven that she could span with her arms and infinity so presented to her that she could comprehend it. Was that her future? Well, it was a future that every soul could have for the taking and the only one that may be foretold with certainty. She felt disappointed, and yet at the same time amazingly reassured as she went up the lane and out into the road of stunted oaks that led to Bon Repos.
Island Magic Page 20