Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [21]
The morning before the wedding Richard Mason burst into my room at the Frasers as I was finishing my first cup of coffee. ‘She won’t go through with it!’
‘Won’t go through with what?’
‘She won’t marry you.’
‘But why?’
‘She doesn’t say why.’
‘She must have some reason.’
‘She won’t give a reason. I’ve been arguing with the little fool for an hour.’
We stared at each other.
‘Everything arranged, the presents, the invitations. What shall I tell your father?’ He seemed on the verge of tears.
I said, ‘If she won’t, she won’t. She can’t be dragged to the altar. Let me get dressed. I must hear what she has to say.’
He went out meekly and while I dressed I thought that this would indeed make a fool of me. I did not relish going back to England in the role of rejected suitor jilted by this Creole girl. I must certainly know why.
She was sitting in a rocking chair with her head bent. Her hair was in two long plaits over her shoulders. From a little distance I spoke gently. ‘What is the matter, Antoinette? What have I done?’
She said nothing.
‘You don’t wish to marry me?’
‘No.’ She spoke in a very low voice.
‘But why?’
‘I’m afraid of what may happen.’
‘But don’t you remember last night I told you that when you are my wife there would not be any more reason to be afraid?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Then Richard came in and you laughed. I didn’t like the way you laughed.’
‘But I was laughing at myself, Antoinette.’
She looked at me and I took her in my arms and kissed her.
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ she said.
‘I’ll trust you if you’ll trust me. Is that a bargain? You will make me very unhappy if you send me away without telling me what I have done to displease you. I will go with a sad heart.’
‘Your sad heart,’ she said, and touched my face. I kissed her fervently, promising her peace, happiness, safety, but when I said, ‘Can I tell poor Richard that it was a mistake? He is sad too,’ she did not answer me. Only nodded.
******
Thinking of all this, of Richard’s angry face, her voice saying, ‘Can you give me peace?’, I must have slept.
I woke to the sound of voices in the next room, laughter and water being poured out. I listened, still drowsy. Antoinette said, ‘Don’t put any more scent on my hair. He doesn’t like.’ The other: ‘The man don’t like scent? I never hear that before.’ It was almost dark.
The dining-room was brilliantly lit. Candles on the table, a row on the sideboard, three-branch candlesticks on the old sea-chest. The two doors on to the veranda stood open but there was no wind. The flames burned straight. She was sitting on the sofa and I wondered why I had never realized how beautiful she was. Her hair was combed away from her face and fell smoothly far below her waist. I could see the red and gold lights in it. She seemed pleased when I complimented her on her dress and told me she had it made in St Pierre, Martinique. ‘They call this fashion à la Joséphine.’
‘You talk of St Pierre as though it were Paris,’ I said.
‘But it is the Paris of the West Indies.’
There were trailing pink flowers on the table and the name echoed pleasantly in my head. Coralita Coralita. The food, though too highly seasoned, was lighter and more appetizing than anything I had tasted in Jamaica. We drank champagne. A great many moths and beetles found their way into the room, flew into the candles and fell dead on the tablecloth. Amélie swept them up with a crumb brush. Uselessly. More moths and beetles came.
‘Is it true,’ she said, ‘that England is like a dream? Because one of my friends who married an Englishman wrote and told me so. She said this place London is like a cold dark dream sometimes. I want to wake up.’
‘Well,’ I answered annoyed, ‘that is precisely how your beautiful