Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [34]
‘You are trusting him with her life, not yours,’ she said.
He told her for God’s sake shut up you old fool and banged the door when he left. So angry that he did not notice me standing in the passage. She was sitting up in bed when I went into her room. ‘Half wit that the boy is, or pretends to be. I do not like what I have seen of this honourable gentleman. Stiff. Hard as a board and stupid as a foot, in my opinion, except where his own interests are concerned.’
She was very pale and shaking all over, so I gave her the smelling salts on the dressing-table. They were in a red glass bottle with a gilt top. She put the bottle to her nose but her hand dropped as though she were too tired to hold it steadily. Then she turned away from the window, the sky, the looking-glass, the pretty things on the dressing-table. The red and gilt bottle fell to the floor. She turned her face to the wall. ‘The Lord has forsaken us,’ she said, and shut her eyes. She did not speak again, and after a while I though she was asleep. She was too ill to come to my wedding and I went to say good-bye, I was excited and happy thinking now it is my honeymoon. I kissed her and she gave me a little silk bag. ‘My rings. Two are valuable. Don’t show it to him. Hide it away. Promise me.’
I promised, but when I opened it, one of the rings was plain gold. I thought I might sell another yesterday but who will buy what I have to sell here? …
Christophine was saying, ‘Your aunty too old and sick, and that Mason boy worthless. Have spunks and do battle for yourself. Speak to your husband calm and cool, tell him about your mother and all what happened at Coulibri and why she get sick and what they do to her. Don’t bawl at the man and don’t make crazy faces. Don’t cry either. Crying no good with him. Speak nice and make him understand.’
‘I have tried,’ I said, ‘but he does not believe me. It is too late for that now (it is always too late for truth, I thought). ‘I will try again if you will do what I ask. Oh Christophine, I am so afraid,’ I said, ‘I do not know why, but so afraid. All the time. Help me.’
She said something I did not hear. Then she took a sharp stick and drew lines and circles on the earth under the tree, then rubbed them out with her foot.
‘If you talk to him first I do what you ask me.’
‘Now.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Now look at me. Look in my eyes.’
I was giddy when I stood up, and she went into the house muttering and came out with a cup of coffee.
‘Good shot of white rum in that,’ she said. ‘Your face like dead woman and your eyes red like coucriant. Keep yourself quiet – look, Jo-jo coming, he talk to everybody about what he hear. Nothing but leaky calabash that boy.’
When I had drunk the coffee I began to laugh. ‘I have been so unhappy for nothing, nothing,’ I said.
Her son was carrying a large basket on his head. I watched his strong legs swinging along the path so easily. He seemed surprised and inquisitive when he saw me, but he asked politely in patois, was I well, was the master in good health?
‘Yes, Jo-jo, thank you, we are both well.’
Christophine helped him with the basket, then she brought out the bottle of white rum and poured out half a tumblerful. He swallowed it quickly. The she filled the glass with water and he drank that like they do.
She said in English, ‘The mistress is going, her horse at the back there. Saddle him up.’
I followed her into the house. There was a wooden table in the outer room, a bench and two broken-down chairs. Her bedroom was large and dark. She still had her bright patchwork counterpane, the palm leaf from Palm Sunday and the prayer for a happy death. But I after I noticed a heap of chicken feathers in one corner, I did not look round any more.
‘So already you frightened eh?’ And when I saw