From Mark to Juliet
Oh for God’s sake. Do you want me to drive you down to Weymouth?
Mark
From Juliet to Mark
Will you promise not to lecture me?
Juliet
From Mark to Juliet
No lectures. However, all other forms of persuasion will be employed.
Mark
From Juliet to Mark
Can’t scare me. What can you possibly do while driving?
Juliet
From Mark to Juliet
You’d be surprised. See you tomorrow.
M
PART TWO
From Juliet to Sidney
22nd May, 1946
Dear Sidney,
There’s so much to tell you. I’ve been in Guernsey only twenty hours, but each one has been so full of new faces and ideas that I’ve reams to write. You see how conducive to working island life is? Look at Victor Hugo—I may grow prolific if I stay here for any length of time.
The voyage from Weymouth was ghastly, with the mail boat groaning and creaking and threatening to break to pieces in the waves. I almost wished it would, to put me out of my misery, except I wanted to see Guernsey before I died. And as soon as we came in sight of the island, I gave up the notion altogether because the sun broke beneath the clouds and set the cliffs shimmering into silver.
As the mail boat lurched into the harbor, I saw St. Peter Port rising up from the sea on terraces, with a church on the top like a cake decoration, and I realized that my heart was galloping. As much as I tried to persuade myself it was the thrill of the scenery, I knew better. All those people I’ve come to know and even love a little, waiting to see—me. And I, without any paper to hide behind. Sidney, in these past two or three years, I have become better at writing than living—and think what you do to my writing. On the page, I’m perfectly charming, but that’s just a trick I learned. It has nothing to do with me. At least, that’s what I was thinking as the mail boat came toward the pier. I had a cowardly impulse to throw my red cape overboard and pretend I was someone else.
When we drew right alongside the pier, I could see the faces of the people waiting—and then there was no going back. I knew them by their letters. There was Isola in a mad hat and a purple shawl pinned with a glittering brooch. She was smiling fixedly in the wrong direction and I loved her instantly. Next to her stood a man with a lined face, and at his side, a boy, all height and angles. Eben and his grandson, Eli. I waved to Eli and he smiled like a beam of light and nudged his grandfather—and then I got shy and lost myself in the crowd that was pushing down the gangplank.
Isola reached me first by leaping over a crate of lobsters and grabbed me up in a fierce hug that swung me off my feet. “Ah, lovey!” she cried while I dangled.
Wasn’t that dear? All my nervousness was squeezed right out of me along with my breath. The others came toward me more quietly, but with no less warmth. Eben shook my hand and smiled. You can tell he was broad and hardy once, but he is too thin now. He somehow looks both grave and friendly at the same time. How does he manage to do that? I found myself wanting to impress him.
Eli swung Kit up on his shoulders, and they came forward together. Kit has chubby little legs and a stern face—dark curls, big grey eyes—and she did not take to me one bit. Eli’s jersey was speckled in wood shavings, and he had a present for me in his pocket—an adorable little mouse with crooked whiskers, carved from walnut. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and survived Kit’s malevolent glare. She has a very forbidding way about her for a four-year-old.
Then Dawsey held out his hands. I had been expecting him to look like Charles Lamb, and he does, a little—he has the same even gaze. He presented me with a bouquet of carnations from Booker, who couldn’t be present; he had concussed himself during a rehearsal and was in hospital overnight for observation. Dawsey is dark and wiry, and his face has a quiet, watchful look about it—until he smiles. Saving a certain sister of yours, he has the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen, and I remembered Amelia writing that he has a rare gift for persuasion—I can believe it. Like Eben—like everyone here—he is too thin, though you can tell he was more substantial once. His hair is going grey, and he has deep-set brown eyes, so dark they look black. The lines around his eyes make him seem to be starting a smile even when he’s not, but I don’t think he’s over forty. He is only a little taller than I am and limps slightly, but he’s strong—he hefted all my luggage, me, Amelia, and Kit into his wagon with no trouble.
I shook hands with him (I can’t remember if he said anything) and then he stepped aside for Amelia. She’s one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty (oh, how I hope someone says that about me someday!). Small, thin-faced, lovely smile, with grey hair in coronet braids, she gripped my hand tightly and said, “Juliet, I am glad you are here at last. Let’s get your things and go home.” It sounded wonderful, as though it really were my home.
As we stood there on the pier, some glint of light kept flashing in my eyes, and then around the dock. Isola snorted and said it was Adelaide Addison, at her window with opera glasses, tracking every move we made. Isola waved vigorously at the gleam and it stopped.
While we were laughing about that, Dawsey was seeing to my bags and making sure that Kit didn’t fall off the pier and generally making himself useful. I began to see that this is what he does—and that everyone depends upon him to do it.
The four of us—Amelia, Kit, Dawsey, and I—rode to Amelia’s farm in Dawsey’s cart, while everyone else walked. It wasn’t far except in terms of landscape, for we moved from St. Peter Port out into the countryside. There are rolling pasturelands, but they end suddenly at cliffs, and all around is the moist salt smell of the sea. As we drove, the sun set and the mist rose. You know how sounds become magnified in the fog? Well, it was like that—every bird’s chirp was weighty and symbolic. Clouds boiled up over the cliff-sides, and the fields were swathed in grey by the time we reached the manor house, but I saw ghostly shapes that I think were the cement bunkers built by the Todt workers.
Kit sat beside me in the wagon and sent me many sideways glances. I was not so foolish as to try to talk to her, but I played my severed-thumb trick—you know, the one that makes your thumb look like it has been sliced apart.
I did it over and over, casually, not looking at her, while she watched me like a baby hawk. She was intent and fascinated but not gullible enough to break into giggles. She just said at last, “Show me how you do that.”
She sat across from me at supper and turned down her spinach with a thrust-out arm, hand straight up like a policeman. “Not for me,” she said, and I, for one, would not care to disobey her. She pulled her chair close to Dawsey’s and ate with one elbow planted firmly on his arm, pinning him in his place. He didn’t appear to mind, even if it did make cutting his chicken difficult, and when supper was over, she immediately climbed into his lap. It is obviously her rightful throne, and though Dawsey seemed to be attending to the conversation, I spied him poking out a napkin-rabbit while we talked of food-shortages during the Occupation. Did you know that the Islanders ground bird-seed for flour until they ran out of it?
I must have passed some test I didn’t know I was being given, because Kit asked me to tuck her into bed. She wanted to hear a story about a ferret. She liked vermin, did I? Would I kiss a rat on the lips? I said “Never” and that apparently won her favor—I was plainly a coward, but not a hypocrite. I told her a story and she presented her cheek an infinitesimal quarter of an inch to be kissed.
What a long letter—and it only contains the first four hours of the twenty. You’ll have to wait for the other sixteen.
Love,
Juliet
From Juliet to Sophie
24th May, 1946
Dearest Sophie,
Yes, I’m here. Mark did his best to stop me, but I resisted him mulishly, right to the bitter end. I’ve always considered doggedness one of
my least appealing characteristics, but it was valuable last week.
It was only as the boat pulled away, and I saw him standing on the pier, tall and scowling—and somehow wanting to marry me—that I began to think maybe he was right. Maybe I am a complete idiot. I know of three women who are mad for him—he’ll be snapped up in a trice, and I’ll spend my declining years in a grimy bed-sit, with my teeth falling out one by one. Oh, I can see it all now: No one will buy my books, and I’ll ply Sidney with tattered, illegible manuscripts, which he’ll pretend to publish out of pity. Doddering and muttering, I’ll wander the streets carrying my pathetic turnips in a string bag, with newspaper tucked into my shoes. You’ll send me affectionate cards at Christmas (won’t you?) and I’ll brag to strangers that I was once nearly engaged to Markham Reynolds, the publishing tycoon. They’ll shake their heads—The poor old thing’s crazy as a bedbug, of course, but harmless.
Oh God. This way lies insanity.
Guernsey is beautiful and my new friends have welcomed me so generously, so warmly, that I haven’t doubted I’ve done right to come here—until just a moment ago, when I started thinking about my teeth. I’m going to stop thinking about them. I’m going to step into the meadow of wildflowers right outside my door and run to the cliff as fast as I can. Then I’m going to fall down and look at the sky, which is shimmering like a pearl this afternoon, and breathe in the warm scent of grass and pretend that Markham V. Reynolds doesn’t exist.
I’ve just come back indoors. It’s hours later—the setting sun has rimmed the clouds in blazing gold and the sea is moaning at the bottom of the cliffs. Mark Reynolds? Who’s he?
Love always,
Juliet
From Juliet to Sidney
27th May, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Elizabeth’s cottage was plainly built for an exalted guest to stay in, because it’s quite spacious. There is a big sitting room, a bathroom, a larder, and a huge kitchen downstairs. There are three bedrooms and a bath upstairs. And best of all, there are windows everywhere, so the sea air can sweep into every room.
I’ve shoved a writing table by the biggest window in my sitting room. The only flaw in this arrangement is the constant temptation to go outside and walk over to the cliff ’s edge. The sea and the clouds don’t stay the same for five minutes running and I’m scared I’ll miss something if I stay inside. When I got up this morning, the sea was full of sun pennies—and now it all seems to be covered in lemon scrim. Writers ought to live far inland or next to the city dump, if they are ever to get any work done. Or perhaps they need to be stronger-minded than I am.
If I needed any encouragement to be fascinated by Elizabeth, which I don’t, her possessions would do it for me. The Germans arrived to take over Sir Ambrose’s house and gave her only six hours to remove her belongings to the cottage. Isola said Elizabeth brought only a few pots and pans, some cutlery and kitchen china (the Germans kept the good silver, crystal, china, and wine for themselves), her art supplies, an old wind-up phonograph, some records, and the rest were armloads of books.
So many books, Sidney, that I haven’t had time to really look at them—they fill the living-room shelves and overflow into the kitchen hutch. She even set a stack at the end of the sofa to use for a table—wasn’t that brilliant?
In every nook, I find little things that tell me about her. She was a noticer, Sidney, like me, for all the shelves are lined with shells, bird feathers, dried sea grasses, pebbles, eggshells, and the skeleton of something that might be a bat. They’re just bits that were lying on the ground, that anyone else would step over or on, but she saw they were beautiful and brought them home. I wonder if she used them for still-lifes? I wonder if her sketch-books are here somewhere? There’s prowling to be done. Work first, but the anticipation is like Christmas Eve seven days a week.
Elizabeth also carried down one of Sir Ambrose’s paintings. It is a portrait of her, painted I imagine when she was about eight years old. She is sitting on a swing, all ready to pump up and away—but having to sit still for Sir Ambrose to paint. You can tell by her eyebrows that she doesn’t like it. Glares must be inheritable, because she and Kit have identical ones.
My cottage is right inside the gates (honest three-barred farm gates). The meadow surrounding the cottage is full of scattered wildflowers until you get to the cliff ’s edge where rough grass and gorse take over.
The Big House (for want of a better name) is the one that Elizabeth came to close up for Ambrose. It is just up the drive from the cottage and is a wonderful house. Two-storied, L-shaped, and made of beautiful blue-grey stone. It’s slate-roofed with dormer windows and a terrace stretching from the crook of the L down its length. The top of the crooked end has a windowed turret and faces the sea. Most of the huge old trees had to be cut down for firewood, but Mr. Dilwyn has asked Eben and Eli to plant new trees—chestnuts and oaks. He is also going to have peach trees espaliered next to the brick garden walls—as soon as they are rebuilt too.
The house is beautifully proportioned with wide tall windows that open straight out onto the stone terrace. The lawn is growing green and lush again, covering up the wheel ruts of German cars and trucks.
Escorted at different times by Eben, Eli, Dawsey, or Isola, I have quartered the island’s ten parishes in the past five days; Guernsey is very beautiful in all its variety—fields, woods, hedgerows, dells, manors, dolmens, wild cliffs, witches’ corners, Tudor barns, and Norman cottages of stone. I have been told stories of her history (very lawless) with almost every new site and building.
Guernsey pirates had superior taste—they built beautiful homes and impressive public buildings. These are sadly dilapidated and in need of repair, but their architectural beauty shows through anyway. Dawsey took me to a tiny church—every inch of which is a mosaic of broken china and smashed pottery. One priest did this all by himself—he must have made pastoral calls with a sledgehammer.
My guides are as various as the sights. Isola tells me about cursed pirate chests bound with bleached bones washing up on the beaches and what Mr. Hallette is hiding inside his barn (he says it’s a calf, but we know better). Eben describes how things used to look, before the war, and Eli disappears suddenly and then returns with peach juice and an angelic smile on his face. Dawsey says the least, but he takes me to see wonders—like the tiny church. Then he stands back and lets me enjoy them as long as I want. He’s the most un-hurrying person I’ve ever met. As we were walking along the road yesterday, I noticed that it cut very close to the cliffs and there was a trail leading down to the beach below. “Is this where you met Christian Hellman?” I asked. Dawsey looked startled and said yes, this was the spot. “What did he look like?” I asked, for I wanted to picture the scene. I expected it was a futile request, given that men cannot describe each other, but Dawsey knew how. “He looked like the German you imagine—tall, blond hair, blue eyes—except he could feel pain.”
With Amelia and Kit, I have walked to town several times for tea. Cee Cee was right in his raptures over sailing into St. Peter Port. The harbor, with the town traipsing straight up and steeply to the sky, must be one of the most beautiful in the world. Shop windows on High Street and the Pollet are sparkling clean and are beginning to fill up with new goods. St. Peter Port may be essentially drab right now—so many buildings need refurbishing—but it does not give off the dead-tired air poor London does. It must be because of the bright light that flows down on everything and the clean, clear air and flowers growing everywhere—in fields, on verges, in crannies, between paving stones.
You really have to be Kit’s height to see this world properly. She’s grand at pointing out certain things I would otherwise miss—butterflies, spiders, flowers growing tiny and low to the ground—they’re hard to see when you are faced with a blazing wall of fuchsias and bougainvillea. Yesterday, I came upon Kit and Dawsey crouched in the brush beside the gate, quiet as thieves. They weren’t stealing, though; they were watching a blackbird tug a worm o
ut of the ground. The worm put up a good fight, and the three of us sat there in silence until the blackbird finally got it down his gullet. I’d never really seen the entire process before. It’s revolting.
Kit carries a little box with her sometimes when we go to town—a cardboard box, tied up tight with cord and a red yarn handle. Even when we have tea, she holds it on her lap and is very protective of it. There are no air holes in the box, so it can’t be a ferret. Or, oh Lord, maybe it’s a dead ferret. I’d love to know what’s in it, but of course I can’t ask.
I do like it here, and I’m settled in well enough to start work now. I will, as soon as I come back from fishing with Eben and Eli this afternoon.
Love to you and Piers,
Juliet
From Juliet to Sidney
30th May, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Do you remember when you sat me down for fifteen sessions of the Sidney Stark School of Perfect Mnemonics? You said writers who sat scribbling notes during an interview were rude, lazy, and incompetent and you were going to make sure I never disgraced you. You were unbearably arrogant and I loathed you, but I learned your lessons well—and now you can see the fruits of your hard work:
I went to my first meeting of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society last night. It was held in Clovis and Nancy Fossey’s living room (with spill-over into the kitchen). The speaker of the evening was a new member, Jonas Skeeter, who was to talk about The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Mr. Skeeter strode to the front of the room, glared at us all, and announced he didn’t want to be there and had only read Marcus Aurelius’s silly book because his oldest, his dearest, and his former friend, Woodrow Cutter, had shamed him into it. Everyone turned to look at Woodrow, and Woodrow sat there, obviously shocked and his mouth agape.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Page 13