Green Dolphin Street

by Elizabeth Goudge

  Drinking tea with the girls in the schoolroom had been much better because Octavius had not been there, but Sophie had been there, all the time, and her fair beauty and dignity had reminded him of Mamma; and thinking all the time of how Mamma would have had him speak, eat, and move had made him a dull dog. And Marianne’s hungry black eyes had been fixed upon him all the time, and had made him feel most uncomfortable. They had seemed to be begging him for something, and to be mutely reproaching him for not being or doing what she wanted; and he hadn’t known what it was that she wanted.

  But little Marguerite had been the silver lining in the black cloud of both entertainments. He adored Marguerite. At dinner he had sat opposite to her, and her merry blue eyes twinkling at him, her hearty appetite, the suspicion of a sympathetic wink that she tipped him when he spilled some gravy and blushed crimson with shame, and the irrepressible giggle that popped out when a wasp settled on her father’s head, had made him her slave forever. And at the little tea party she had been even more adorable, dimpling and fat and friendly in the sort of utterly un-self-conscious way that put one at one’s ease, and enjoying everything so much, even the boring game of spillikins, that at last his natural powers of enjoyment had been restored to him and he had gone home happy, and had been busy for days carving a little wooden mouse for her, with pink sticking plaster for ears and string for a tail. This act of service had given him some outlet for his love; but prowl about the garden door of Le Paradis as he might, he had as yet found no opportunity of presenting her with this touching token of his affectionate esteem.

  And now it was Marianne up there at the bedroom window, not Marguerite, and he cursed his luck. Yet after the first pang of disappointment he found himself looking attentively at Marianne. She had not seen him. She was looking, as he had looked, at the swaying branch of the magnolia tree from which the silver raindrops were still falling, at the gleaming sea and the sky. Her small face, framed in the white frills of the nightcap tied so demurely beneath her chin, looked pure and lovely, transfigured, shining with the joy that had answered his like a touch, or a voice speaking. She, too, loved this place where for generations the men and women of her blood had lived and died. She too had had a moment of ecstasy when she had opened her window and seen it refreshed and shining after the storm; still there after the darkness of the night, still safe, still hers. Then she looked down and saw him, and they smiled at each other.

  “Come out with me, Marianne,” he called. “Come down to the sea. It’ll be grand down there after the storm.”

  She nodded happily, and then suddenly the lovely light went from her face and she blushed with shame, conscious of her nightcap and her nightgown. She withdrew quickly and closed the window. William also withdrew, very cross, for he knew why she had blushed, and her silliness exasperated him, for surely she was dressed up enough in all those starched white frills. Girls were silly. Then he corrected himself. Only some girls. . . . Little Marguerite wouldn’t have blushed. . . . And now he had committed himself to an early morning’s outing with Marianne. Damn. Well, anyhow, she’d be ages dressing. He had time to go downstairs and light the fire and put the breakfast ready in case his father should come in cold and tired while he was still out, for Madame Métivier, who “did” for them, would not arrive until ten o’clock.

  But he had done no more than lay the fire, and get soot all over his face, and start fumbling with the cups and saucers in the cupboard in the little dining parlor at the back of the house, when Marianne arrived. Her moment of embarrassment had disappeared as completely as her moment of luminous joy, and she looked trim and competent and self-possessed.

  “Here, my goodness, give them to me!” she ejaculated, skillfully taking from William the top layer of the pyramid of crockery he was endeavoring to remove from the cupboard all at one blow, holding the apex against his chest with his chin. “Put the others down and go and wash your face. You’re filthy.”

  William did as he was told, retreating to the kitchen that opened from the dining parlor, and rubbing his face vigorously with the towel that hung behind the door and that always had a conveniently soggy patch on it that was as good as a sponge. Through the open door he surveyed Marianne. Her morning dress of striped dark green bombazine had plain collar and cuffs of white lawn upon it and was severely belted at her tiny waist. Her shawl was green too, with a green silk fringe, and her green bonnet had ribbons like smooth seaweed tied beneath her chin. Her hair, newly released from curling papers, framed her face in a mass of dark ringlets that cast strange shadows on her sallow, determined little face. For a moment she looked like some sort of a green fairy person who did not belong to his country, a changeling creature quite alien to his warm humanity, and William felt for a moment a little scared. Then, as she set out the cups and saucers, lit the fire with ease, and put the untidy room to rights before one could say Jack Robinson, he felt a sense of rest in her efficiency. He strolled back into the dining parlor, curled up in his father’s chair and watched her with lazy pleasure. He was feeling a lord of creation now. It was nice to have a woman working for one. It gave one a good sort of feeling.

  “I like watching you work, Marguerite,” he said.

  Marianne paused and looked at him, sitting there in his brilliant emerald green coat, the flames lighting up his fair curls, his tawny eyes, and handsome smiling face.

  “William, you’re lazy,” she chided sharply. “And I’m not Marguerite, I’m Marianne. Can’t you even be bothered to remember my name properly?”

  “I never remember names properly,” said William. “Nor does Papa. It’s in the family not to remember names. And I’m not lazy, Marianne. I’d have done the fire and everything for Papa if you hadn’t come. I like doing things for people.”

  There was a note of childish pathos in his voice, and Marianne’s face softened. She came to him and stood looking intently down at him. He was an indolent, untidy young rascal, but she guessed there was nothing he would not do for his father. Or for anyone else for that matter. She was not like that, and she knew it. Her conscious self had already given her a high opinion of Marianne Le Patourel, born of her subconscious, unacknowledged knowledge that she would never be an attractive woman, and she was not of a mind to squander this valuable self upon all and sundry. For William only was she willing to give to the utmost. But William would always squander himself, giving back easily the affection and liking so easily given to him. “You’re good, William,” she cried impulsively. And for just one flashing moment, deep in her heart, she acknowledged his superiority. Then she pushed away the knowledge, thrust it away far down, not to be unearthed again until the end of her life. She was Marianne Le Patourel, the most important person in her world, and she had given to this beautiful young creature William Ozanne the inestimable treasure of her love. He was hers. She would make him. He was untidy, lazy, grubby, ill-brought-up, with a dangerous streak of weakness in him. But she would alter all that. She would make of him such a man as the world had never seen. And he would love her as she loved him; it was not possible that he should not when she loved him so terribly. He would die with her name on his lips.

  “Take a little peppermint for wind!” cried Old Nick suddenly with great exasperation from beneath the red tablecloth that covered him by night. “Heave ho, my hearties, heave ho!”

  “William, take the cloth off that horrid bird and come along down to the sea!” commanded Marianne, and there were tears of temper in her eyes. There was no one like a parrot for making one feel a perfect fool.

  Chuckling, William obeyed her and followed her out into the gleaming, glancing sunshine of Green Dolphin Street.

  2

  Almost at the bottom of the hill Green Dolphin Street was intersected by Fish Street running diagonally across it, and after this interruption it ceased to be Green Dolphin Street and became Pipet Lane. Fish Street was very respectable and led by way of the Fish Market to the main shopping street of St.
Pierre, and then on to the harbor. Pipet Lane was not respectable and led straight into the sea through an archway in the harbor wall.

  It was a filthy, noisy, smelly, beautiful, exciting place, very steep and very narrow, with the oldest and poorest and most tumbledown houses of St. Pierre towering up to a great height on each side of it, and only kept from falling into it by the fact that their overhanging gables practically met overhead and propped each other up. Once, wealthy people had lived in these houses. Through battered wide-open doorways with beautiful three-cornered carvings over their lintels one could see oak staircases, carved balustrades that had been torn away in places for firewood, and lovely molded plaster ornamentation on damp-stained ceilings. In quiet moments it did not take much imagination to re-people Pipet Lane with lovely ladies in sedan chairs swinging along over the cobbles, or watching tearfully from the windows while gentlemen in cocked hats and powdered wigs came gaily out from the beautiful doorways, waved to them, and went whistling down the lane to climb into the little rowing boats that waited beneath the archway. One did not need very quick ears to hear the click of the oars in the rowlocks as the little boats carried the adventurers to the sailing ships in the harbor that would bear them away to war upon the high seas or to trade with the new lands of the west. And one could fancy, at a quiet hour in Pipet Lane, that one heard the music of the harpsichord sounding from the old rooms, and women’s voices singing, and the swish of silk skirts in the minuet.

  Those great days were gone now and only the riffraff of St. Pierre lived in the stately old houses, and only the cows went down under the archway into the water, to have the mud washed off them before they went on to the market, or slatternly women with pails of refuse, or fishermen off for a night’s fishing. And the only music nowadays was a drunken chorus roared out at midnight, or the twang of a banjo. Yet gaiety had not left Pipet Lane. To the casual glance everyone, drunk or sober, always seemed to be enjoying himself there. The ragged, barefoot children were always laughing, and the slatternly women were stout and full of raucous conversation, and gay of a Sunday in their soiled scarlet petticoats, and the men in their striped jerseys had flashing dark eyes in their tanned faces, and gold rings in their ears, and were full of strange oaths and merry yarns. William simply adored the place. Marianne had never been allowed to go there.

  Nor had she wanted to go there, for her fastidiousness hated noise and dirt and smells. “No, William!” she cried, as instead of turning to the left down Fish Street William bounded across to the entrance to Pipet Lane. “William! William!”

  But William ignored the sharp admonition in her voice and pranced on, and she had perforce to follow him, or lose him altogether.

  “It’s all right,” he said, when she had caught up with him. “It’s quiet now, for they’re all in bed still. It’s too early to be rowdy. I wouldn’t bring you here if it was rowdy, Marianne.”

  Marianne, holding up her bombazine skirts upon each side and picking her way cautiously over the cobbles, saw with relief that Pipet Lane was still asleep and quite empty of human life. The sun gilded the steep, tumbled roofs and flashed in the windowpanes and drew a thousand soft colors from the worn stone, and it was high tide with the sea flooding into the harbor, so that the old grand days were alive again in Pipet Lane, the days when men had stepped to adventure from those high old doorways and the women had waved to them from the windows above.

  Quite suddenly Marianne began to thrill and tingle with excitement. The keen air and the sparkling sunshine, the scarcely comprehended influence of things past, yet alive forever, and above all the being alone with William in an hour so fresh and enchanted that it might have been that first hour of the world that was without memory or foreknowledge of evil, were like a draught of heady wine. She felt as light as air and mad as a hatter. These moods came upon her sometimes; some thought of adventure or memory of valor lit up suddenly like a flame in her mind, and the whole of her exploded with excitement; and if she was in the house, stitching at her crewelwork under her mother’s eye or bound upon her backboard without hope of release, she nearly went crazy trying to keep her body still and her thoughts and emotions within some sort of sane control. But there was no need to keep still now. Her tiny feet danced over the cobbles and her dark eyes sparkled. William looked at her over his shoulder, caught the infection of her mood, turned back and took her hand, and together they raced pell-mell down the rest of the lane, and stood with the dazzling water lapping at their feet, looking through the archway at the most perfect ship that either of them had ever seen.

  “By gad!” ejaculated William. “Holy Moses!”

  Marianne said nothing, but she neglected to reprove William for his language. Indeed, she hadn’t heard it. She was utterly enslaved by this lovely ship.

  She had seen many ships in the harbor of St. Pierre, apart from the mail packets and the fishing smacks; cutters, sloops, brigantines, coasters, frigates; but never before had she seen that culmination of the sailing ship, that glorious creature the clipper. This one must have been driven out of her course by the storm and taken refuge in the harbor lest worse befall, otherwise she would never have so honored St. Pierre with her stately presence.

  “What is she?” whispered William excitedly. He was a London boy, and this world of ships and the sea was new to him; yet it was in his blood, and his whole immature being unfolded at sight of that ship like a flower at the touch of the sun.

  “A clipper,” said Marianne. “I’ve read about them and seen pictures of them. She’s one of the new clippers, the fastest kind of merchant ship. She’s built for speed. Look at the lovely lines of her. Look at the length of them; she’s five to six times the beam in length. She’s built to sail with the wind; look at her bows. Look at the height of her masts.”

  “The sails are furled,” mourned William. “What would she carry, when they’re all set?”

  Marianne considered, shading her eyes with her hand. “Fore-topmast, staysail, inner jib, outer or flying jib. Foresail and mainsail and mizzen, fitted with topsails, topgallant sails and royals. Then there’s the spanker, look, there at the stern. It’s her head and staysails and spanker that make her able to steal into the wind.”

  “How do you know all that, Marianne?” asked William in admiration.

  “I told you, I’ve read about them,” said Marianne. “I like to read about sailing ships and steam engines and adventure and discovery—and—and—things like that.”

  Her voice trailed off, breathlessly, for frustration had her by the throat.

  “I didn’t know girls ever did,” said William.

  “They don’t,” said Marianne, and the bitterness of her tone made William look at her in astonishment. He did not know what the trouble was, but he gripped her hand hard in sympathy.

  “Look at her brasswork winking in the sun,” he said, “and look, there’s a figurehead carved at her bows. And, Marianne, what’s that barrel thing up there at the masthead?”

  “That’s the crow’s nest,” said Marianne. “The lookout man sits there. He’s so high, he can see for miles and miles. He sees dolphins and flying fish, and whales and icebergs, and new worlds rising up out of the sea.”

  “What’s she got in her hold?” wondered William.

  “Tea, perhaps,” said Marianne, and then, dreamily, “or cedarwood from Lebanon, perhaps, and gold to make twelve gold lions to stand about King Solomon’s throne, and ivory and apes and peacocks.”

  William looked at her as though he thought she had gone mad.

  “But the merchant navy of Tarshish wasn’t any greater than ours,” said Marianne. “There’s never been a merchant navy like ours. William, if I were a man, I’d rather be in the Merchant Service than the Royal Navy. In the Navy you just sail about, fighting people, which you can do just as well on land, but merchantmen carry lovely things all over the world, and that’s grand. . . . And then the captains of merchant ships c
an take their wives to sea with them if they wish, and in the Navy they’re not allowed to.”

  “I shouldn’t want to take my wife to sea with me,” said William. “A wife would be fearfully in the way.”

  Marianne gritted her teeth. Oh, to be a man, and not to be dependent upon the whim of a man to live!

  “Look!” said William.

  Under the archway was a small rowing boat moored by its painter to an iron ring in the wall. So close together were they, on this morning that was to be in both their lives the signpost outside Eden, that they did not have to speak to each other of the purpose that flashed simultaneously into their two minds. In a moment William had pulled off his boots and rolled up his trousers, waded out, pulled the boat as far up the cobbles as he could, laid a plank against it and helped Marianne to get in, and in another moment she had pushed them skillfully off, taken one heavy oar herself and given the other to William.

  But how shamed now was William! His father had taught him to row a little on the river, but he had never yet struggled with one of the clumsy tubs of things they use on the sea, nor with an oar the size of this one. Their craft rocked with the violence of the crabs that William was catching.

  “Take your time from me,” said Marianne gently, with no hint of patronage. “Don’t look at your oar. Keep your eyes on my back. You’ll pick it up in a moment.”

  And in a moment William had picked it up, together with a respect for Marianne that surpassed anything he had ever felt for a woman before. Such a little bit of a thing she was, yet she seemed to have a man’s strength. She had thrown aside her green shawl, and under the striped green bombazine of her gown he could see the movement of her muscles as she bent to her oar. In and out went the blade, cleaving the ripples in perfect time, the wet drops showering off it with every skillful twist of her wrists. “One. Two. Three,” she said. “One. Two. Three. Well done, William.” And William glowed with pride. Now and then Marianne glanced over her shoulder, to see if they were keeping in the right direction, but William did not look. Like a child who will not open its Christmas stocking until the sun rises, he had made up his mind not to take even a peep until they were There.