The Other Side of the Sun Page 7

  Belle pressed my hand quickly. “Good night, Mrs. Renier. My friend.” Then she whispered, “Mrs. Renier, ma’am, be careful of the idiots. They won’t harm you, but—”

  Willy and Harry picked themselves up out of the sand, and Belle, with a quick glance at me, turned and went swiftly up the dune.

  “Not nice to call us idiots,” Willy said.

  “Naughty lady. Naughty, naughty.” Harry shook his finger at the disappearing figure. “Naughty lady going to be ashes, ashes,” he chanted, “fall down, fall down.”

  “Ashes, ashes.” Willy shook his head. “Zenumins. Bad. Bad.”

  “All Zenumins?” I asked.

  Willy puckered up his little face, shaking his head. “Not all. Some good.”

  “Good night, my dears,” I said. “I must go back to Illyria.”

  “Good night,” Willy said. “Good night. Good night.”

  “Honoria and Clive,” Harry reminded me anxiously. “You promised. Pretty lady promised.”

  “I won’t forget. I don’t want Honoria or Clive to go anywhere, either. But I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Will you be all right?”

  “Boys all right,” Willy assured me.

  “Good boys all right,” Harry added. They held up their nut-like faces for my good-night kiss.

  Very aware that I had been away from Illyria too long, I began to run down the beach. The damp sand felt glorious against my feet, and I concentrated on this physical pleasure in order to hush the wholly irrational fear the old Granddam had roused in me.

  I was carrying Terry’s baby? Surely that ought to make me happy. Had I been a praying person, it would have been my prayer. As it was, it was my wish and my desire.

  The lightship swept its secure and comforting finger across the sea.

  Ahead of me on the beach, coming towards me, were two figures, and one of them started to run, leaving the other behind. The runner was Ron, Dr. Ron James, and he was furious.

  “Mrs. Renier, you have upset everybody! The great-aunts are hysterical. Where have you been all this time?”

  “I’m a grown woman. I needed to be alone,” I said.

  “For an hour and a half? The aunts are worried about you, and quite naturally.”

  “What’s natural about it? Or is there something I don’t know that I ought to know?”

  Ron’s voice was cold, controlled: a doctor’s voice. “Perhaps we aren’t as civilized around Illyria as you are in Oxford.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “There are some—rough characters—in San Feliz. Not that there’s any real danger, yet, but we didn’t expect you to be gone for so long and we were afraid you might have been frightened.”

  “By what?”

  “Buzzards,” he said bitterly. “My grandfather has gone back to calm everybody down.”

  “I’ve lost my shoes,” I said.

  He looked down at my feet. “Your skirts are long enough. I doubt if anyone will notice. Where did you leave your shoes? I’ll go get them.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember when I dropped them. Somewhere on the beach, I suppose.” I did not tell him about meeting his mother and going with her to the old crone: I was too angry, too guilty, too confused.

  “I’ll go look for them.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll find them in the morning.”

  “I’m walking up the beach anyhow. Go on back to Illyria now, please, Mrs. Renier. Good night.” He bowed.

  I returned the bow, equally cool. “Good night.”

  Illyria loomed above me on the dunes, like a house in a dream. Not only the house: the whole walk on the beach had had the quality of a dream: completely logical and realistic while it is being dreamed, and yet incredible—and foolish or frightening, as the case may be—when one wakes up. But the splintery wood of the ramp of Illyria was not a dream, nor the insects as I turned in from the ocean. Does one ever get stung by mosquitoes in dreams?

  Uncle Hoadley was on the veranda, waiting for me.

  “Uncle Hoadley, I’m terribly sorry. I walked farther than I realized. And dark did come more quickly than I’d expected. I’m sorry Ron and Clive had to come looking for me.”

  Unlike Dr. Ron James, Uncle Hoadley was gentle with me. “I ought to scold you, but I think I understand. All of this—all of us—must be overwhelming to you.” In the moonlight he looked at me sharply. “Are you all right, child?”

  To be called child that way again: I felt a wave of grief for my father. And I wanted to tell Uncle Hoadley all about the horrible old Granddam who had frightened me so, but something—perhaps pride—prevented me. But I could ask him about the little men.

  “Oh, the twins. I hope they didn’t frighten you.”

  “No, they were sweet.”

  “Tragic about the twins,” Uncle Hoadley said. “Their father was the captain of my father’s boat. We used to spend long holidays on it when we were young. The Captain’s poor little wife died when the babies were born, and he almost went out of his mind with grief. We’ve always assumed responsibility for them—their father served the family well and it seemed the least we could do. The twins aren’t a great deal older than I am, and I used to play with them sometimes when I was little. As a matter of fact, I loved nothing better than to be allowed to spend a day with the twins. They were more fun to be with than anyone else I knew—except Therro, of course. Your husband’s father, the one real friend I have ever had in my life.” I wanted to reach out and touch him in a gesture of comfort, but his voice lightened. “The twins play now exactly as they did when we were children. You’ll be seeing something of them, because they often come to Illyria to be fed, though they have their own little cottage we built for them. Ready for bed, my dear?”

  “Yes. Thank you. Very ready.” Around the house I could hear a wild cacophony of insects shrilling and chirring. I might have expected this in Africa or India: I hadn’t, in my husband’s home in the United States of America. I would have given a lot to be able to slap at my bare and itching ankles.

  The sky over the ocean was split by a blinding fork of lightning. I waited for thunder, counting the seconds as my father had taught me to do when I was a little girl, to see how many miles away the storm was. But there was no answering crash. The wild electrical power that had opened the sky was beyond the reach of sound.

  Uncle Hoadley held the screen door for me and we went into the living room. Aunt Olivia was seated at the piano, the old dog by her, his gaunt head on her knees. Aunt Irene and Aunt Mary Desborough were at a small table in front of the fireplace, playing backgammon. I made my apologies immediately, stopping their twittering before it really got started. Aunt Mary Desborough and Aunt Irene returned to their game. Aunt Olivia gave me a sharp look, started to say something, shook her head, smiled at me, and then held her hands out in front of her, working her arthritic fingers. “I used to play well. It’s terribly frustrating. Look: they’re nothing but talons.”

  Aunt Irene handed the dice cup, ebony, set with mother-of-pearl, to Aunt Mary Desborough. “Go on, Auntie. It’s your turn.”

  “Age.” Aunt Olivia fondled Finbarr’s ears. “I can’t wear my rings any more. They hurt. We turn back into animals when we grow old. Our beautiful human hands become claws. Our aristocratic noses turn to beaks or snouts. People shouldn’t be humiliated by getting old and doddering in this undignified manner. I’d rather have died young, like Therro. Your husband’s father, Stella. Oh, everybody thought it was a dreadful thing for him to be cut down so young. But he’s still and forever a young man, and handsome and joyous and talented, while I—while I—but you see, when I remember Therro, then I’m young, too. Or, rather, I’m not any age at all. I’m me. Olivia. Myself. Not an old woman. How old are you, Stella?”

  “Nineteen.” I looked away from Aunt Olivia to the Chinese vase filled with beach grasses which stood in the summer-empty fireplace. There was a musty smell to the house, and the woven grass rug was prickly under my shameful bare
feet. I hoped that Ron was right and that my skirts were long enough so that no one would notice.

  Aunt Irene and Uncle Hoadley, not looking in the direction of my feet at all, bade me a courteous good night, and Aunt Irene shook the dice cup. “My turn now, Auntie.”

  Then, out from under the sofa cushion, peered the kitten. He looked at Aunt Irene and Uncle Hoadley, at the old aunts, at Finbarr, at me, and then jumped, landing, claws extended, on my toes. I dug my fingernails into my palms, determined not to cry out and reveal my shame. I bent down and loosened the kitten from my skirts and picked him up. Attack successfully completed, he began to purr loudly, and patted my cheek with a sheathed paw, soft as velvet. Nobody, I thought, had seen.

  But Aunt Olivia put her hand up to her mouth to keep from laughing. “Oh, Stella, I’m so glad you’ve come! At last I’ve been granted a friend in my retreat.”

  “What’s that?” Aunt Mary Desborough looked up from the backgammon board. “I didn’t get it. Say it again. I can’t guess if you mumble.”

  “Maybe your ears aren’t as sharp as they once were.”

  “My hearing is perfectly good. Say it again, properly.”

  “But grant me still a friend in my retreat.

  Whom I may whisper—solitude is sweet.”

  “I know it, I know it,” Aunt Mary Desborough said. “Obviously not Shakespeare.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Oh, botheration, I give up. One of your obscure madmen, I suppose. Who is it?”

  “William Cowper.”

  “All right.” Aunt Mary Desborough clucked in annoyance. “Point for you, then. But I’m still ahead. However, Irene, I concede this game of backgammon.” She rose. “Good night, Livvy. Good night, Stella. Good night, dear Hoadley. And Irene. See you in the morning.”

  “One hopes,” Aunt Olivia whispered to me. “One hopes. Not that Irene will see us, but that we will see Irene. That we will see.”

  Aunt Mary Desborough paused at the stair landing, holding her candle aloft so that it made long, wavering shadows. “Go to bed, Livvy. I’m not playing any more this evening. Give up. I’ve won for the day.”

  “Daz it,” Aunt Olivia said, “I thought we were brought up that ladies do not gloat. Go on, Stella love. I’m unconscionably slow, and my room’s down here. I can’t manage stairs any more.”

  “Good night, then, Aunt Olivia.”

  “See you in the morning,” the old aunt said anxiously, as though it were a ritual.

  “See you in the morning.” I took my candle and went upstairs.

  6

  Honoria had turned down my bed and lowered the mosquito netting which was now tucked carefully all around the mattress. The lightweight blanket was folded down to the foot. On my bed table the lamp was lit, turned down low. A moth was fluttering against the glass chimney, trying to get to the flame. I turned up the lamp and blew out my candle. I did not want a moth burning his wings in the open flame.

  The windows to the balcony were now opened wide, and I stepped out. Was the breeze rising? I wiped the still sandy back of my hand across my mouth where perspiration beaded my upper lip. A mosquito shrilled past my ear and I swatted at it. The old wood of the balcony floor still held the heat of the sun. I hoped that Honoria had unpacked the trunk in which I had put my shoes.

  The lightning had now become a constant tremor in the sky. The sound of the waves seemed to increase, the slow, inexorable rolling of the surf, the waves breaking as they neared the shore, followed by the sucking sound of their return to the deep, dark water, pulling sand with them, and shells, grinding everything with dispassionate consistency. It seemed suddenly a cruel sound, and I would willingly have changed it for the bells of Oxford. Out over the ocean the lightship beam, brighter than the throbbing lightning, flashed out, swung round, disappeared. If moths were attracted by the tiny flame of lamp or candle, would they not also be drawn to the rhythmic beam of the lightship? And what about lightning? Would they fly into that violent flame in which they would instantly be incinerated? Why are those lovely, fluttering creatures so fascinated by the source of their destruction?

  I shivered, watched and waited for the more comforting beam of the lightship, which my husband had loved when he was a small boy staying in Illyria with Mado. He had sat in her lap on the veranda, and she had sung to him while he watched the slow turn of the light and drifted into sleep. I held the thought of him close to me, as his grandmother had held him, and waited for the light to swing past me again, and again. Then I looked about, up and down the beach: night, the quiver of lightning, the dark line of dune and scrub, the lighter stretch of beach curving around the horizon until it met the sea. I leaned my elbows on the balcony rail. The breeze was feverish against my cheeks; it did not have the cooling breath of the night air to which I was accustomed. It reminded me hotly that I was not in rational and reasonable Oxford but in Illyria, where all sorts of strange things seemed to be taken for granted. And I, the newest Mrs. Theron Renier, would have to get acclimated to them during these weeks until my husband’s mission was completed and we could begin our married life together.

  Down below my balcony, out of sight, came the sharply radiant song of a bird. A nightingale had sung in just this way the night Terry and I were married, sending us into laughter and joy; so I was comforted. But this was not a nightingale; it was a mockingbird.

  The mockingbirds, the redbirds, all the flora and fauna of Illyria, the ilex bushes, scrub oak, moonvine, persimmons, scuppernong grapes, ligustrum hedges, four-o’clocks with their sweet, heavy smell, cape jessamine with its shiny, dark leaves and easily bruised waxen petals—I remember them all as though I’d always known them. But when I first came to Illyria they were all foreign to me, and it was a long time before I became familiar with their names. And yet this took less time than accustoming myself to the inner atmosphere of Illyria, the heart of the conch shell.

  The angle of my balcony was such that from it I could see the long walk which meandered about the house. Someone was pacing the walk, moving slowly, steadily, the small light of a cigar brightening, dimming, brightening as he moved.

  Uncle Hoadley.

  He moved quietly, but there was no peace in his pacing.

  Sometimes my father had paced like that. Once, after an evening with Terry, he had walked up and down half the night. I knew that Terry must have told my father something which he had not seen fit to tell me, something disturbing. This was a memory I had tried to put away, like a chest under a bed, or dust under the carpet.

  A small flame curved over the walk and went out in the sand. Another flame appeared, brighter, a match flaring as another cigar was lit; and the pacing began again.

  I turned from the balcony and went to my bed. Under the delicate and pure-white mosquito netting lay the kitten, curled up in a soft, striped ball on my pillow. I was comforted to see him. I undressed and got into bed, but did not blow out the lamp. I was too tired and confused, and—yes, let’s admit it, Stella—too full of presentiments and fears to be sleepy. A large moth clung to my netting, looking strangely fierce seen from its underside. Other insects brushed by, fluttered against my lamp. I heard the whine of a mosquito. I made a small opening in the netting and reached out towards my pile of books. There were several which had not been there earlier, notebooks covered with marbleized paper that had browned and spotted from age and damp, almost as though from burning. I picked one up and opened it carefully; if I did not touch the pages with extreme gentleness they would fall apart in my hands. But if the notebooks had been placed on my bed table, they must have been put there for me to read.

  On the flyleaf of the one I held was written in the same delicate penmanship I had seen in the Pascal, Marguerite Dominique de Valeur Renier. Charleston, South Carolina. I turned the pages tenderly. They were filled with the beautiful clear writing, still completely legible despite the brown fading. I began to read at random, grateful for Mademoiselle’s patience in overcoming my reluctance to learn French: “Croye
z-vous qu’il arrive jamais à un ange de se faire du souci parce qu’il n’est pas un archange? ou de penser que s’il travaille un peu plus dur pu se fait des amis, il pourra s’élever dans la hiérarchie céleste? C’est de la folie: mon ange gardien est l’égal, du point de vue de rang, de n’importe quel archange. C’est nous, les gens de la terre, qui ne voyons pas qu’il y a une différence d’essence et non pas de rang. Et de toute façon cela n’a pas d’importance, parce que mon ange gardien est complètement ce qu’il est, et remplit entièrement la fonction pour laquelle Dieu l’a créé. En ce moment, il veille sur moi. Après ma mort, on lui commandera peut-être de balayer de la poussière d’étoile du coin du ciel. Mais parce qu’il fait ce pour quoi il a été crée, lumineusement, joyeusement, quelles que soient les difficultés que je lui crée, je peux saisir une partie de sa joie. O, sans la joie de mon ange, où en serais-je?”

  (“Do you suppose it ever occurs to an angel to worry because he is not an archangel? or to think that if he works a little harder or makes the right angelic friends he’ll get elevated in the heavenly hierarchy? That’s nonsense. My guardian angel is equal, as far as rank goes, to any archangel. It’s we earthlings who’ve lost sight of the fact that it’s a difference in kind, not in degree. And anyhow it doesn’t matter, because my guardian angel is fully what he is, performing wholly the function for which God has created him. At the moment, this function is to watch over me. After I die, he might be assigned to sweeping stardust out of a corner of the sky. But because he is doing what he is created to do, radiantly, joyfully, no matter how difficult I make it for him, I can catch some of his joy. Without my angel’s joy, where would I be?”)

  Smiling, I lowered the book. Guardian angels were not part of my father’s cosmology, but they had belonged in the world in which my nanny moved, I caught myself hoping that my guardian angel had managed to cross the Atlantic with me, and come with me to Illyria.

  I turned to another notebook. This was evidently a later one, and was written in English. “There has been, of course, gossip and worse about our coming to Illyria. And sometimes I wonder if Honoria and I are right. Dare we try to redeem what Claudius Broadley built? At any rate, James completely agrees with me that Honoria must not give up the title to Illyria. It is the only title she has left, and nobody must take it from her.”