Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [42]
‘A very graceful dress,’ I said and she showed me the many ways it could be worn, trailing on the floor, lifted to show a lace petticoat, or hitched up far above the knee.
I told her that I was leaving the island soon but that before I left I wanted to give her a present. It was a large present but she took it with no thanks and no expression on her face. When I asked her what she meant to do she said, ‘It’s long time I know what I want to do and I know I don’t get it here.’
‘You are beautiful enough to get anything you want,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she agreed simply. ‘But not here.’
She wanted, it seemed to join her sister who was a dressmaker in Demerara, but she would not stay in Demerara, she said. She wanted to go to Rio. There were rich men in Rio.
‘And when will you start all this?’ I said, amused.
‘A start now.’ She would catch one of the fishing boats at Massacre and get into town.
I laughed and teased her. She was running away from the old woman Christophine, I said.
She was unsmiling when she answered, ‘I have malice to no one but I don’t stay her.’
I asked her how she would get to Massacre. ‘I don’t want no horse or mule,’ she said. ‘My legs strong enough to carry me.’
As she was going I could not resist saying, half longing, half triumphant, ‘Well, Amélie, are you still sorry for me?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am sorry for you. But I find it in my heart to be sorry for her too.’
She shut the door gently. I lay and listened for the sound I knew I should hear, the horse’s hoofs as my wife left the house.
I turned over and slept till Baptiste woke me with coffee. His face was gloomy.
‘The cook is leaving,’ he announced.
‘Why?’
He shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands open.
I got up, looked out of the window and saw her stride out of the kitchen, a strapping woman. She couldn’t speak English, or said she couldn’t. I forgot this when I said, ‘I must talk to her. What is the huge bundle on her head?’
Her mattress,’ said Baptiste. ‘She will come back for the rest. No good to talk to her. She won’t stay in this house.’
I laughed.
‘Are you leaving too?’
‘No,’ said Baptiste. ‘I am overseer here.’
I noticed that he did not call me ‘sir’ or ‘master’.
‘And the little girl, Hilda?’
‘Hilda will do as I tell her. Hilda will stay.’
‘Capital,’ I said. ‘Then why are you looking so anxious? Your mistress will be back soon.’
He shrugged again and muttered, but whether he was talking about morals or the extra work he would have to do I couldn’t tell, for he muttered in patois.
I told him to sling on of the veranda hammocks under the cedar trees and there I spent the rest of that day.
Baptiste provided meals, but he seldom smiled and never spoke except to answer a question. My wife did not return. Yet I was not lonely or unhappy. Sun, sleep and the cool water of the river were enough. I wrote a cautious latter to Mr Fraser on the third day.
I told him that I was considering a book about obeah and had remembered his story of the case he had come across. Had he any idea of the whereabouts of the woman now? Was she still in Jamaica?
This letter was sent down by the twice weekly messenger and he must have answered at once for I had his reply in a few days:
I have often thought of your wife and yourself. And was on the point of writing to you. Indeed I have not forgotten the case. The woman in question was called Josephine or Christophine Dubois, some such name and she had been one of the Cosway servants. After she came out of jail she disappeared, but it was common knowledge that old Mr Mason befriended her. I heard that she owned or was given a small house and a piece of land near Granbois. She is intelligent in her way and can express herself well, but I did not like the look of her at all, and consider her a most dangerous person. My wife insisted that she had gone back to Martinique her native island, and was very upset that I had mentioned the matter even in such a roundabout fashion. I happen to know now that she has not returned to Martinique, so I have written very discreetly to Hill, the white inspector of police in your town. If she lives near you and gets up to any of her nonsense let him know at once. He