Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [18]
She said, ‘After this we go down then up again. Then we are there.’
Next time she spoke she said, ‘The earth is red here, do you notice?’
‘It’s red in parts of England too.’
‘Oh England, England,’ she called back mockingly, and the sound went on and on like a warning I did not choose to hear.
Soon the road was cobblestoned and we stopped at a flight of stone steps. There was a large screw pine to the left and to the right what looked like an imitation of an English summer house – four wooden posts and a thatched roof. She dismounted and ran up the steps. At the top a badly cut, coarse-grained lawn and at the end of the lawn a shabby white house. ‘Now you are at Granbois.’ I looked at the mountains purple against a very blue sky.
Perched up on wooden stilts the house seemed to shrink from the forest behind it and crane eagerly out to the distant sea. It was more awkward that ugly, a little sad as if it knew it could not last. A group of negroes were standing at the foot of the veranda steps. Antoinette ran across the lawn and as a followed her I collided with a boy coming in the opposite direction. He rolled his eyes, looking alarmed and went on towards the horses without a word of apology. A man’s voice said, ‘Double up now double up. Look sharp.’ There were four of them. A woman, a girl and a tall, dignified man were together. Antoinette was standing with her arms round another woman. ‘That was Bertrand who nearly knocked you down. That is Rose and Hilda. This is Baptiste.’
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.