Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [19]
The servants grinned shyly as she named them.
‘And here is Christophine who was my da, my nurse long ago.’
Baptiste said that it was a happy day and that we’d brought fine weather with us. He spoke good English, but in the middle of his address of welcome Hilda began to giggle. She was a young girl of about twelve or fourteen, wearing a sleeveless white dress which just reached her knees. The dress was spotless but her uncovered hair, though it was oiled and braided into many small plaits, gave her a savage appearance. Baptiste frowned at her and she giggled more loudly, then put her hand over her mouth and went up the wooden steps into the house. I could hear her bare feet running along the veranda.
‘Doudou, ché cocotte,’ the elderly woman said to Antoinette. I looked at her sharply but she seemed insignificant. She was blacker than most and her clothes, even the handkerchief round her head, were subdued in colour. She looked at me steadily, not with approval, I though. We stared at each other for quite a minute. I looked away first and she smiled to herself, gave Antoinette a little push forward and disappeared into the shadows at the back of the house. The other servant had gone.
Standing on the veranda I breathed the sweetness of the air. Cloves I could smell and cinnamon, roses and orange blossom. And an intoxicating freshness as if all this had never been breathed before. When Antoinette said ‘Come, I will show you the house’ I went with her unwillingly for the rest of the place seemed neglected and deserted. She led me into a large unpainted room. There was a small shabby sofa, a mahogany table in the middle, some straight-backed chairs and an old oak chest with brass feet like lion’s claws.
Holding my hand she went up to the sideboard where two glasses of rum punch were waiting for us. She handed me one and said, ‘To happiness.’
‘To happiness,’ I answered.
The room beyond was larger and empty. There were two doors, one leading to the veranda, the other very slightly open into a small room. A big bed, a round table by its side, two chairs, a surprising dressing-table with a marble top and a large looking glass. Two wreaths of frangipani lay on the bed.
‘Am I expected to wear one of these? And when?’
I crowned myself with one of the wreaths and made a face in the glass. ‘I hardly think it suits my handsome face, do you?’
‘You look like a king, an emperor.’
‘God forbid,’ I said and took the wreath off. It fell on the floor and as I went towards the window I stepped on it. The room was full of the scent of crushed flowers. I saw her reflection in the glass fanning herself with a small palm-leaf fan coloured blue and red at the edges. I felt sweat on my forehead and sat down, she knelt near me and wiped my face with her handkerchief.
‘Don’t you like here? This is my place and everything is on our side. Once,’ she said, ‘I used to sleep wit a piece of wood by my side so that I could defend myself if I were attacked. That’s how afraid I was.’
‘Afraid of what?’
She shook her head. ‘Of nothing, of everything.’
Someone knocked and she said, ‘It’s only Christophine.’
‘The old woman who was your nurse? Are you afraid of her?’
‘No, how could I be?’
‘If she were taller,’ I said, ‘one of these strapping women dressed up to the nines, I might be afraid of her.’
She laughed. ‘That door leads into your dressing-room.’
I shut it gently after me.
It seemed crowded after the emptiness of the rest of the house. There was a carpet, the only one I had seen, a press made of some beautiful wood I did not recognize. Under the open window a small writing-desk with paper, pens, and ink. ‘A refuge’ I was thinking when someone said, ‘This was Mr Mason’s room, sir, but he did not come here often. He did not like the place.’ Baptiste, standing in the doorway