Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [20]
I remember little of the actual ceremony. Marble memorial tablets on the walls commemorating the virtues of the last generation of planters. All benevolent. All slave-owners. All resting in peace. When we came out of the church I took her hand. It was cold as ice in the hot sun.
Then I was at a long table in a crowded room. Palm leaf fans, a mob of servants, the women’s head handkerchiefs striped red and yellow, the men’s dark faces. The strong taste of punch, the cleaner taste of champagne, my bride in white but I hardly remember what she looked like. Then in another room women dressed in black. Cousin Julia, Cousin Ada, Aunt Lina. Thin or fat they all looked alike. Gold ear-rings in pierced ears. Silver bracelets jangling on their wrists. I said to one of them, ‘We are leaving Jamaica tonight,’ and she answered after a pause, ‘Of course, Antoinette does not like Spanish Town. Nor did her mother.’ Peering at me. (Do their eyes get smaller as they grow older? Smaller, beadier, more inquisitive?) After that I thought I saw the same expression on all their faces. Curiosity? Pity? Ridicule? But why should they pity me. I who have done so well for myself?
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