“You must taste all our Island dishes,” she said to Ranulph, who had tasted them all before she was born. Then she paused, her purse in her hand, and meditated.
Peronelle went white. Horror of horrors. Mother was going to buy a crab!
Those who fancied crab bought him in the market still alive and kicking, carried him home in a basket with the library books on top to keep him in, and plunged him into boiling water still alive and kicking. . . . When the heat penetrated the chinks of his armour his claws seemed to clutch at the air in torment for a few moments, and then, except for an occasional twitch, were still. . . . To Peronelle this seemed a piece of hideous cruelty hard to beat. She could not understand how her family could perpetrate the horror, and above all how they could eat the poor crab after he was dead. Father, in particular, dear tender-hearted father, was devoted to crab and would sit poking the last remnants of tender flesh out of a dismembered claw with every appearance of enjoyment. . . . It very nearly made Peronelle sick. . . . Crab days were to her days of torment. Luckily they did not occur very often for crab was rather expensive.
Only one crab day did she remember with pleasure. They had brought the crab home, feebly waving his claws, placed him on the kitchen table for Sophie to deal with and gone to take off their hats. . . . But Sophie was attending to something else. . . . Coming downstairs again Peronelle beheld the crab walking across the hall. . . . Very feeble he was, only just able to drag his poor body over the hard stone floor, but he knew that somewhere, beyond this hideous parching land, was the sea. . . . Peronelle picked him up and ran. . . . Across the garden she went, across the cliff, down the path that led to the rocks below and there she stood and flung the crab back into the sea. Colin, in this situation, would have concocted a long and wonderful story to account for the disappearance of the crab. Not so Peronelle. She returned home, stood in the middle of the hall and shouted at the top of her voice, “I’ve put the crab back in the sea. Now there’s nothing for supper. . . . Thank God.”
But this was a long time ago and Rachell, if she remembered the incident, remembered it as one of Peronelle’s outlandish escapades and not as an object lesson to herself. . . . She bought a crab. . . . He was placed in Jacqueline’s basket. . . . Peronelle saw a claw raised once in protest before he was lost to view beneath a shower of apples poured on top of him to keep him down.
The fish with the green bones was given to Peronelle to carry, but she did not mind him. He was as dead as dead, and, anyway, a person who was eccentric enough to have green bones deserved to be eaten.
Rachell considered her lengthy shopping list and Colin slipped his hand into Ranulph’s.
“I want to show you somewhere. Mother’ll be ages.”
Ranulph approached Rachell. “May we go off together? I’ll see he gets home safely.”
Rachell smiled and nodded. . . . She completely trusted Ranulph with the children.
IV
Colin dragged Ranulph out of the market into the arcaded main street of St. Pierre and down the hill towards the Town Church.
“There’s a place where I go,” he said, “it’s lovely. You feel free there. All the sailors go there too. . . . You hear them talking. And there’s a lady I’m fond of. . . . Mother doesn’t know I go there. You won’t tell her, will you?”
This was awkward for Ranulph, but he shook his head. . . . Colin had trusted him with his secret and he felt strangely elated. . . . Absurd!
“What’s the name of the lady?” he asked lightly.
“Mère Tangrouille,” said Colin.
Ranulph started very slightly. There had been a girl called Blanche Tangrouille, a wild black-eyed creature living in La Rue Clubin, whom he had known very well in his crazy young manhood. One of his most vivid memories was of walking up La Rue Clubin and of seeing the twisted chimneys of the house where she lodged black against a starlit sky. Then of stumbling up the two broken steps, pushing open the door with the creaking hinges, coming into the hot stuffy little room and looking with a sensuous pleasure at the tallow candles burning one on each side of the red geraniums on the windowsill. . . . Those geraniums had not been redder than Blanche Tangrouille’s painted lips. Her hair had been dark as the night sky outside, her eyes wild as a trapped panther’s, and her bosom warm with comfort. . . . Her presence had given him a sense of licence that was balm after his father’s loveless discipline. . . . When his arms had been round her he had felt that he lived at last, and through her window he had been able to see the sea and the ships that sailed out into freedom . . . sailed as he longed to sail and could not.
He came back to the present to find Colin solemnly explaining Mère Tangrouille to him.
“She’s large,” said Colin, “very large, and when she’s been drinking she doesn’t talk very nicely. But you see she has to drink because it takes her mind off the spasms. She’s very kind to me. I like her, but I don’t think mother would, so I don’t tell mother about her. . . . I don’t tell mother I go to La Rue Clubin. . . . If one does things people wouldn’t like I think it’s best not to say anything about it, don’t you?”
Loyalty to Rachell drove Ranulph, albeit stumblingly, along the path of the heavy uncle.
“I think,” he said, “that you should never do anything of which your father and mother might disapprove,” and he smiled sardonically into his beard.
“Oh, but I must,” said Colin, “I must go off by myself—if I don’t it hurts—here—as though there were a bird in me—”
Unable to express himself he clutched at the dark blue jersey that covered his thin chest. His face was alight with a sudden and extraordinary passion. Ranulph glanced at him, entirely comprehending. So that bug had bitten him! That longing for freedom, like beating imprisoned wings. . . . The boy might have been his son.
They turned up La Rue Clubin. . . . So Colin, too, so early, had found La Rue Clubin and Blanche Tangrouille. . . . Would it be the same Blanche? Ranulph felt—he didn’t know what he felt. But the boy must be coped with. He was heading wrong. True, he had what Ranulph had never had, love and understanding behind him, but even so he was heading wrong. . . . What in the world to do with him? . . . Ranulph thanked his stars he had never had sons—a nephew was quite enough.
La Rue Clubin had not yet emerged into its Saturday afternoon wonder and glory, it was still in that state of confusion which precedes and follows glory. The stalls were being placed in position by cursing men continually getting entangled in the dogs and children that swarmed between their legs. The street was littered with baskets of crabs, boxes of gaudy underclothes, cats, refuse, and idle sailors with nothing to do, chewing tobacco and getting in the way. Everyone was swearing at everyone else, and the din was appalling.
Colin’s eyes shone and he picked his way jauntily up the street.
“Isn’t it jolly, Uncle Ranulph?” he said over his shoulder.
Ranulph, righting himself after stumbling over a cat, remembered that once he had thought that it was.
Mère Tangrouille had not yet begun to get her stall ready, but her front door was ajar and from inside the house her voice could be heard giving her candid opinion of her next-door neighbour. . . . Mère Tangrouille was nothing if not outspoken.
Colin hopped up the two broken steps, pushed open the creaking door and entered. . . . Ranulph followed as though in a dream. . . . The little room was hot and stuffy. . . . On the windowsill was a blaze of red geraniums. . . . Through it one could see the sea and the passing ships.
But Blanche Tangrouille? Ranulph, who for years had been as unresponsive to events as a block of wood, had quite lately, to his intense annoyance, re-developed a capacity for feeling. He felt now a sudden burning pain. This shapeless, hideous mass of humanity with its bloated, toothless face and shoulders bent as though with the last endurable ounce of weariness and self-loathing. . . . It was a sight so horrible to him that he receded a little. . . .
Only her eyes were the same. . . . The eyes, dark, bold, and yet pathetic, with a bewildered, seeking look, were the eyes of Blanche Tangrouille whom he had once intensely loved. She had once been to him the symbol of what he wanted in life, the escape from martyrdom, now it seemed to him that she was the symbol of what he had found.
They came in. Ranulph was introduced. They sat down. Mère Tangrouille embraced Colin with passionate love. Ranulph noticed how gallantly, for the sake of his affection, Colin endured the embrace.
The room was scrupulously clean. In spite of age, drink, and spasms, Mère Tangrouille always managed somehow to keep herself and her room clean. If her neighbours commented upon this peculiarity she replied with pride that in her youth she had had to do with gentlemen, and gentlemen liked things just-so. To-day she was in one of her good moods and heaved about beaming with hospitality. She produced gin and glasses and she and Ranulph drank together. Colin was sternly forbidden by Ranulph to have any, but he did not mind very much. . . . It was all so exciting. . . . He was seeing life.
Presently, to his intense excitement, Guilbert Herode and Hélier Falliot came in, and there was delighted recognition. Hélier slapped Ranulph on the back and Ranulph slapped him on the back. . . . The one had saved the other from drowning and there was a bond between them. More drink was fetched from the pub down the street. More glasses were produced, and pipes were lit. To Colin’s great surprise Uncle Ranulph began to talk in patois. . . . Uncle Ranulph was clever. . . . Fancy learning patois in two months.
The talk turned on the sea and ships. Colin could not understand all of it, the patois surged so swiftly, but it was all burningly exciting. . . . Talk of far lands where brilliant blue seas lay day after day under skies of brass, and where marvellous coloured fish glimmered along like rainbows, swinging their tails this way and that in the still water. . . . Talk of terrible storms, more fearful than anything they knew in the Island waters, when for day after day the sky was black like ink and all but a very few were battened down below, and those few had to crawl about the deck lashed on with ropes so that the great seas that swept the decks should not wash them away. . . . Talk of ports where one anchored amongst all the wind-jammers of the world, and gazed up to snowcapped peaks above feathery palms. . . . And outside the window Colin could see the ships passing, sailing away as he wanted to sail, as he would sail. . . . There in the stuffy little room he set his mouth and clenched his hands together. He would be free—free—free—nothing and nobody should stop him.
The talk grew shriller and louder, the smoke denser, and the smell of the drink was rather overpowering. Hélier, unperceived, had given Colin a sip out of his glass. . . . Colin began to nod a little. . . . He thought he was sailing out of the window into the harbour in a boat. . . . It had white sails and the wind was rippling in them. . . . The sails were straining forwards like white horses. . . . They were carrying him away and away. . . . Galloping over the rim of the world. . . . Ranulph’s voice broke into his dream like a cracking whip.
“Colin, go home.”
Colin was furious. He didn’t know where he was or what he was doing exactly, but he did know that he was not going to be turned out of Paradise while Uncle Ranulph stayed behind surrounded by rainbow-coloured fish and white sails, and palm trees, and bottles of gin. He had a confused recollection of a lot of shouting and kicking, and himself biting Uncle Ranulph’s hand hard, and then he found himself outside in La Rue Clubin all by himself. . . . Uncle Ranulph had simply chucked him out in the gutter, gone in again and shut the door. . . . It was too much. . . . Colin picked himself up, kicked Mère Tangrouille’s door hard and, sobbing furiously, stumbled up the steps he had climbed so happily with Maximilian two months ago. . . . Where was Maximilian? . . . He stopped and glanced round miserably, and a wet nose was thrust against his bare knee. . . . Maximilian was here. He had followed them and waited patiently in La Rue Clubin all the time. Colin felt, not for the last time in his life, that dogs were vastly superior in all ways to human beings. He sat down, leant his aching head against the wall and gathered Maximilian into his arms. He was terribly unhappy. . . . Uncle Ranulph, he felt, had been cruel to him. . . . He had turned him out. . . . Why? . . . It wasn’t fair. . . . He sobbed worse than ever. . . . Maximilian, covered with dirt and smelling horribly, nestled very close and licked Colin all over his face and neck. His tail wagged very fast with a circular motion it adopted when it was used by Maximilian to express deep and undying love. . . . Colin kissed Maximilian and felt a little comforted.
Ranulph, left behind in all the noise and confusion of Mère Tangrouille’s parlour, had remained not because he was enjoying himself but because he had a debt to pay. Out of the past he owed this horrible woman courtesy and consideration. He stayed on, paying for the drinks, keeping her party alive for her amusement, telling her stories, treating her as other men would have treated a duchess. When Hélier and Guilbert had gone he lingered behind a moment to bow to her and wish her well. Mère Tangrouille rose swaying to her feet as he straightened himself. . . . All through the talk and the din she had been watching him, looking at his eyes, his hands, the shape of his head as she saw it outlined against the window, the way his hair grew—all those details about a man’s body that a woman who has loved him never forgets. She had not drunk as much as usual, she had been too busy watching. She had known many men and forgotten most of them but she had remembered one very distinctly—the only one who had ever bowed to her.
“Jean du Frocq,” she said hoarsely.
Ranulph started as though he had been shot.
“My name is Ranulph Mabier,” he said coldly.
“Ah,” she said, “I’ll remember. You can trust Blanche.”
To his horror he saw that the tears were running down her cheeks. . . . They made her look more hideous than ever. He stood, loathing the very sight of her, uncertain what to do. She took a few steps towards him and he, who had once thrilled to have her in his arms, felt his flesh shiver and contract with horror at her nearness.
“You’ll come and see me sometimes, monsieur? To talk over old times?” she asked. She had come very near him and her aroma of gin and peppermint was in his nostrils. . . . He backed a little.
“Yes, Blanche, I will,” he said, and bowed once more before he opened the door and fled.
Outside in the street he found himself staggering. The gin had been strong and he had had to drink a lot to please her. He wiped his forehead and gulped in the sweet cool October air, cool as spring water after the fetid stuffy atmosphere of Blanche’s room. Here was another of them! Another tie binding him to the Island. . . . He felt trapped. . . . He would never escape from the Island alive. . . . Never. . . . A great longing for the rolling spaces of the desert came over him—those wind-ribbed sands that were born when Allah laughed. . . . He could not go back to Bon Repos just now. He turned down towards the harbour. Here at least one could feast one’s eyes upon limitless distance. Here one could lash one’s soul to a sea-going mast-top and watch her sail out and away.
V
Colin and Maximilian arrived home for dinner very late, very dirty, and very happy. Colin had quite recovered from his recent unhappiness. He loved Uncle Ranulph too deeply to feel resentment against him for very long. Moreover he was a sensible child and knew that grown-ups frequently had the best of motives for their incomprehensible and idiotic behaviour.
“Where have you been, Colin?” asked André.
“Uncle Ranulph and I,” said Colin sweetly, “have been for a walk along the harbour wall. After that we went and said our prayers at St. Raphael’s. Uncle Ranulph is still there.”
“You’d better go and wash, Colin,” said Rachell abruptly. Colin’s account of his morning seemed to her extremely unlikely and not quite so inventive as usual, as though his mind was engrossed with something else and had no energy to spare for fabrication.
Colin washed and then devoted himself to hurriedly
catching up with the others over the first course so that he should have a fair look in when it came to treacle tart. He never removed his eyes from his plate until, panting slightly, he swallowed his last mouthful of cold beef neck and neck with Peronelle. Then, still panting, he announced, “I’m going to be a sailor.”
André and the girls received this announcement calmly, attaching no importance to it, but Rachell looked up sharply. There was a quiet steely note in Colin’s voice that frightened her. . . . He meant it.
“No, Colin,” she said.
“Why not?” demanded Colin sharply.
“Because it’s a dangerous life and you are my only son.”
Colin said no more but devoted himself to treacle tart in silence.
After dinner Rachell went up to her bedroom. She always went away by herself for a little at this time and woe betide anyone who dared to disturb her. She guarded this little oasis of peace in her busy day fiercely and jealously. At other times of the day work and servants and children were claiming her, and at night she was her husband’s. This was the only time when she belonged to herself alone. . . . Sometimes she felt that these few moments kept her sane. Her family thought that she lay down on her bed and rested but she did not always do this. Sometimes she prayed, sometimes she read a little, but more often she sat quite still with her hands lying in her lap and her eyes closed. Sometimes she would murmur to herself as she sat, “Underneath you are the everlasting arms,” and then she would feel her spirit sinking down and down through depths of tranquil light, that grew cooler and sweeter the further she sank, until she felt herself resting serenely against something, drawing in strength and peace through every fibre of her being. This lovely experience did not come to her always. It had come to her first one day when she had been in great physical pain that had almost wrenched her body and soul apart. . . . She had been frightened that first time and thought she had been dying. “It was as though my soul had come loose,” she said to André afterwards. It came to her now whenever her life was very rigorously disciplined. At the slightest hint of self-indulgence, even in thought, it took wings and fled from her. Only ceaseless struggle could keep it with her, but she struggled; life without it was like a desert without wells.