Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [7]
‘He does not look hurt,’ I argued. ‘Great mistake to go by looks.’ she said, ‘one way or the other.’
I went into Pierre’s room which was next to mine, the last one in the house. The bamboos were outside his window. You could almost touch them. He still had a crib and he slept more and more, nearly all the time. He was so thin that I could lift him easily. Mr Mason had promised to take him to England later on, there he would be cured, made like other people. ‘And how will you like that’ I thought, as I kissed him. ‘How will you like being made exactly like other people?’ He looked happy asleep. But that will be later on. Later on. Sleep now. It was then I heard the bamboos creak again and a sound like a whispering. I forced myself to look out of the window. There was a full moon but I saw nobody, nothing but shadows.
I left a light on the chair by my bed and waited for Christophine, for I like to see her last thing. But she did not come, and as the candle burned down, the safe peaceful feeling left me. I wished I had a big Cuban dog to lie by my bed and protect me, I wish I had not heard a noise by the bamboo clump, or that I were very young again, for then I believe in my stick. It was not a stick, but a long narrow piece of wood, with two nails sticking out at the end, a shingle, perhaps. I picked it up soon after they killed our horse and I thought I can fight with this, if the worse comes to the worst I can fight to the end though the best ones fall and that is another song. Christophine knocked the nails out, but she let me keep the shingle and I grew very fond of it, I believed that no one could harm me when it was near me, to lose it would be a great misfortune. All this was long ago, when I was still babyish and sure that everything was alive, not only the river or the rain, but chairs, looking-glasses, cups, saucers, everything.
I woke up and it was still night and my mother was there. She said, ‘Get up and dress yourself, and come downstairs quickly.’ She was dressed, but she had not put up her hair and one of her plaits was loose. ‘Quickly,’ she said again, then she went into Pierre’s room, next door. I heard her speak to Myra and I heard Myra answer her. I lay there, half asleep, looking at the lighted candle on the chest of drawers, till I heard a noise as though a chair had fallen over in the little room, then I got up and dressed.
The house was on different levels. There were three steps down from my bedroom and Pierre’s to the dining-room and then three steps from the dining-room to the rest of the house, which we called ‘downstairs’. The folding doors of the dining-room were not shut and I could see that the big drawing-room was full of people. Mr Mason, my mother, Christophine and Mannie and Sass. Aunt Cora was sitting on the blue sofa in the corner now, wearing a black silk dress, her ringlets were carefully arranged. She looked very haughty, I thought. But Godfrey was not there, or Myra, or the cook, or any of the others.
‘There is no reason to be alarmed,’ my stepfather was saying as I came in. ‘A handful of drunken negroes.’ He opened the door leading to the glacis and walked out. ‘What is all this,’ he shouted. ‘What do you want?’ A horrible noise swelled up, like animals howling, but worse. We heard stones falling on to the glacis. He was pale when he came in again, but he tried to smile as he shut and bolted the door. ‘More of them than