Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge

  Her exhilaration had been partly personal, partly the reflection of the exhilaration of money-making that had gripped everyone . . . except William. The boom years, with the demand for raw materials apparently insatiable, the mining of gold, the development of steam, the building of more and more roads and railways, the laying of the deep-sea cable to Australia, the whole wonderful business helped on by the lavish spending of borrowed money, had kept the whole community awhirl with excitement, and Marianne had drunk of that excitement as though it were wine. William had not. He had moved ponderously and obediently through the days, working like a titan to give his wife all she wanted, eating hugely, drinking just a little more than was good for him to get the needed spurt for yet more endeavor, genial, patient, kind, beloved by all who knew him and appearing to the unobservant eye to be enjoying himself. . . . But not deceived. . . . “It won’t last,” he had said over and over again to Marianne. “My dear, it won’t last. I think we ought to go slow. Not entertain quite so much. Put by a little more.” This remark of his had always irritated her profoundly. “Nonsense!” she had snapped, invariably ignoring that bit about putting by a little more. “Why shouldn’t it last? We are living in the age of progress, William. Mankind is progressing.” To which remark William had always replied with the irritating question, “What to?”

  In their small corner of the world it had been to a slump. Their mad pursuit of wealth had been a flame of desire that had burned too fast; in other words, the alluvial surface gold had been mined too fiercely and was worked out. Gold, now, could only be procured by dredging and quartz-mining, methods that were vastly expensive. And there had been an even sharper fall in the price of wool caused by the competition from the newly opened plains of North America and Russia.

  William and Marianne were hard hit. The carriage must go and they must move into a smaller house. The pressure of events, history, had dared to push Marianne Ozanne down from the high place that was hers after a lifetime of effort, hers by right because it had been won by courage and determination and not by luck alone.

  No! She took a sudden decision. She was not going to move into that smaller house. She was not going to yield first place once again to Mrs. Anderson, to find herself the object of pitying glances from all those ladies of Dunedin whom she had hitherto patronized, merely because her husband had been improvident and had not saved sufficiently. No! Old though she was, she was once more going to strike out afresh in an entirely new way, an entirely new place. . . . Where, she did not know yet, but time would show. . . . She was not old. She was only sixty-eight, and had completely recaptured the vigor that had deserted her a little in the Country of the Green Pastures.

  Yet she looked more than sixty-eight as she sat there in her fine carriage, rolling along through the autumn dusk. The stoutness that had come upon her in her fifties had unaccountably receded of late years in spite of all the good dinners she ate, and her figure was once more tiny, taut, resolute, proud, and upright as a ramrod, and this very littleness gave her somehow a look of age, as though time had worn her down to the mere essentials of her being. Her hair was still iron-grey and plentiful, her eyes bright, the corners of her mouth still under control, but her skin had the color of parchment and was as wrinkled as though she were eighty. Her dainty little hands, sparkling with jewels, were wrinkled too. Her skin betrayed her badly as a woman who had faced rough weather and much hard labor in her time, and accorded a little incongruously with the exquisite, close-fitting coat of purple velvet that she wore, her sables, her small plumed velvet hat, and the diamonds in her ears. . . . She never wore the greenstone earrings now, for they were too homely, and the servants would have laughed to see her wearing Maori adornments. . . . Delightful though it was to have a large staff of servants, it was in some ways a little hampering to one’s freedom.

  Freedom! There came to her a sudden little vision of a bright stretch of shining sand and three children racing across it. She so seldom thought of the Island nowadays that the memory surprised her. . . . The wind was off the sea today, and though it was calm and still, with a beautiful afterglow in the sky, William had said this morning that he thought there was bad weather on the way.

  The carriage stopped before the flight of steps that led up to her front door with its imposing brass knocker and its beautiful fanlight through which the light was streaming. As soon as the carriage stopped, the front door opened as though automatically and her manservant came down the steps to open the carriage door for her, his smooth, high-nosed face impassive, his movements those of an oiled machine. There were no servants in Dunedin so well trained as Marianne’s, yet this afternoon this clockwork efficiency irritated her slightly, for she had a fancy to pause on the pavement and listen for the crying of the sea birds who often flew inland over the town when a storm was brewing, and it is impossible to stand still on a pavement listening for bird voices while a butler with the face of an Egyptian pharaoh is waiting to attend you up the steps. . . . One does not keep a pharaoh waiting. . . . Never mind, in her bedroom she would be alone and able to listen; and to watch that lovely shining in the sky.

  In the beautiful hall, warm and fragrant with its blazing fire in the grate and its banks of magnificent potted plants, she paused. “Mr. Ozanne in yet, Parker?”

  “No, Madam.”

  “Then tell cook to put dinner back half an hour.”

  “Very good, Madam.”

  Half an hour. That would give William time to get back from his board meeting and herself time to listen to bird voices in her bedroom before she dressed for dinner. Listen to birds! How absurd she was being! She had not bothered to listen to them for years and years—not, surely, since the North Island days, when she had worked in that little office at the harbor at Wellington.

  “Oh, my!” cried a mocking, raucous voice through the half-open parlor door. That parrot! But he was quite right. She was being most absurd.

  In her luxurious bedroom, to her intense annoyance, she found the crimson velvet curtains closely drawn, her fire burning, and her maid waiting for her. She opened her lips to chide Harriet sharply for drawing the curtains while it was still quite light, then shut them again, remembering that the curtains were drawn all over the house at dusk by her orders, no matter how lovely the afterglow, for she was not usually in the habit of worrying herself about such things. She did not know what had come over her that she was worrying about them now.

  “No need to wait, Harriet,” she said gently. “I will take off my things myself. I’ll ring when I want you.”

  In spite of the excellent training she had received Harriet’s face registered slight surprise. She had been with Marianne for six years, and throughout the whole of that period her mistress had remained quite incapable of removing her own hat or unfastening her own shoes. But with a murmured, “Certainly, Madam,” she withdrew soft-footed as a cat.

  Marianne was quite unable to explain to herself why at her maid’s exit she immediately locked her bedroom door. Some instinct for escape, for solitude, perhaps; her spirit was traveling quicker than her mind today, and she could not quite follow it. She flung off her sables as though they were stifling her, moved to the nearest window, pulled back the curtains, opened it, and leaned out. A lovely orange light suffused the sky, but it was a stormy light, and, yes, over the roofs of the city the sea birds were circling, and crying.

  She pulled up a chair to the window and sat down, her elbows on the sill. It was quite warm, and the scent of the sea was strongly in the air. Once again she remembered that little office at Wellington and how she had thought as she worked there, with the harbor sights and sounds all about her, that one day when she was an old woman she would like to go back to St. Pierre, sail into the harbor, and let down her anchor forever.

  Suddenly she sat up straight, her hands clasped, her eyes shining like stars. Why not? That old trouble of William’s was so long ago that it would not be remembered now; and if
it were remembered, none of the Islanders would give them away, for Island folk are always loyal one to the other. They could go back to No. 3 Le Paradis, the lovely home of her girlhood, for it was not a large house, and they would surely be able to scrape up enough money to live there quite elegantly. It was still only let to Marguerite’s Order as an orphanage, for Marguerite, obeying her, had never sold it, and as far as she remembered, the present lease had nearly run out. She would write at once to Marguerite, still Mother Superior of Notre Dame du Castel, and tell her not to re-let, for they were coming home. Home! Yes, that was the solution. The fresh fields and pastures new should be the old pastures of her childhood. She remembered saying good-by to Europe on board the Green Dolphin. . . . Europe, old and lovely, good-by. Fairyland of childhood, good-by. I’ll not see you again till life comes round full circle and the gate that a child came out of will be the gate where an old woman enters in. . . . Yes, she had always meant to go back. With the passing of the years her mind had forgotten the old wish, but her spirit had remembered. Home with William! To sail, together, into the port of their own Green Dolphin morning, so that the harbor of promise should prove, at last, the anchorage of fulfillment. . . . Marguerite would have no part in him now; Marguerite was not a pretty girl any more but an old nun absorbed in her prayers. Mewed up in her convent as she was, they would probably see next to nothing of her, and what they did see would doubtless prove unprepossessing; for nuns, thought Marianne, the wish fathering the thought, age quickly; worn out by their hard life, they become incredibly ugly in just no time at all. . . . She was not worn out. . . . With her charm and brilliance and vigor she was likely to make a complete conquest of that homely little Island. She had made no conquest of New Zealand, and looking out into the gathering dusk she owned it. Upon her first sight of this country she had felt they would be a match for each other, and so they had been, but in the end New Zealand had won. She had set no stamp upon the kauri trees, nor upon the mountain pastures, and she was withdrawing beaten from the raw new city life. New Zealand was too vast. But on the Island it would be different. Even as a girl she had made a place for herself in its life, and now, with the garnered wisdom of a lifetime to aid her, she should experience no difficulty in stamping her personality upon it. And upon No. 3 Le Paradis too. No. 3 would be her very own house now. Not her mother’s—hers. . . . She let out a deep sigh of happiness. Yes, it was settled. She would tell William tonight.

  But at the thought of telling William a slight chill of foreboding invaded her joy. Would she have trouble with William? He had loved the little Island in his youth, but how would that love weigh against his love for his daughter? Would he be willing to leave Véronique? He saw little of her these days, but he did go and stay with her sometimes, on the rare occasions when business could spare him, and on even rarer occasions—for she was one of those infatuated wives who cannot bear to leave their husbands for a single moment—she would bring one or two of the children to stay with them, and Marianne knew that he lived for these visits. The fact was that he just about worshipped that daughter of his. Would he be willing to leave her? In these days of steamships, the separation between the new world and the old was not what it had been, and New Zealanders who could afford the journey frequently took holidays in Europe, so that Véronique and her children would be able to visit them. But even so—it would be a big separation.

  And it surprised Marianne considerably to find that she was herself willing to face it. . . . For just a moment it even shocked her. . . . Did she, then, love her beautiful child less than she had done? She refused to answer that question point-blank, temporizing with the thought that if she and Véronique had drawn apart of late years it was all William’s fault; he had separated Véronique from poor dear Frederick and thrown her into the arms of those dreadful Ogilvies. Marianne’s mouth set in a bitter line, drooping at the corners. The Ogilvies had always disliked her, she told herself, and after that fatal marriage they had deliberately alienated her child’s affection from her. Poor dear Frederick would never have done that, for he had loved and admired her, and if only Véronique had married him, she would have gained a son without losing a daughter. . . . And poor dear Frederick would not have disappointed his good uncle and aunt in the regrettable way he had. . . . William might say what he liked, but Marianne knew quite well that it was because he had lost Véronique that the path subsequently pursued by Frederick had not been altogether the path of honor. Married to Véronique, he would have been the soul of virtue and would have welded, not weakened, the bond between mother and child. The Ogilvies, of course, especially John, had made it their business to weaken it. It was only her father, who flattered them, whom they permitted Véronique to love now, not her mother who had borne her, and they had done their utmost, through Véronique, who was weak as water in their hands and gave credence to all the wicked things they said about her poor mother, to withdraw William’s love from the wife of his bosom and center it entirely upon his daughter and her children. Well, they had not succeeded yet, for William still loved her, and if she were to remove him right away to the other side of the world, they would never succeed. . . . No, never. . . . She got up quickly and went to the dressing table to fetch her eau de Cologne, for she was suddenly crying. It had been so cruel of them to take her child’s love from her, but the effort to take her husband’s love, too, had been not only cruel but wicked also. What wicked people there were in the world! Well, in this case their wickedness would not succeed. She would tackle William about the Island this very night. . . . Through the open window came the faint crying of the birds, and the breath of the sea touched her cheek like a caress. Her bitterness was eased, and she smiled a little. . . . On the beloved Island, William would be wholly hers.

  2

  William, meanwhile, was strolling homeward through the orange dusk in happy ignorance of the bombshell that Marianne was preparing for him at home. As he strolled he hummed a little tune to himself, for he was enjoying an hour of rare felicity. The board meeting had been a gloomy business, but it had been soon over, and since then he had been joyously employed in buying birthday presents for Jane Anne, Véronique’s eldest. She was just about to go into two figures, was Jane Anne, and in William’s mind the slump ranked just nowhere in comparison with this earth-shaking event. Merry little Jane Anne ten years old! Of his four adored grandchildren she was perhaps his favourite. . . . But yet he didn’t know. . . . William John with the five freckles on his snub nose and a grin like the Cheshire cat was an engaging young rascal, and little Lettice a creature of astonishing beauty, while the prowess of baby Robin had filled four sheets (crossed and recrossed) of his last letter from Véronique, reposing in his breast pocket over his heart at this moment. . . . But Jane Anne. . . .

  What William felt about Jane Anne was well expressed by the number of parcels that bulged from the pockets of his overcoat. With his cheery red face, the song upon his lips, and the parcels, he reminded passers-by that Christmas was on the way, and they smiled as he passed them. Though even without parcels William’s passage through the streets nowadays always gave pleasure. He had developed into something of a “character,” with a delightful Pickwickian flavor about him that made every heart feel lighter. He was the best-known and the most popular man in Dunedin. Unknown to Marianne, the bulk of the money that she had allowed him for his personal use had been devoted for years past to helping lame dogs over stiles. No one who came to William in trouble was ever sent away uncomforted, and with a lifetime of experience behind him he could succor wisely. During these last twelve years, with his left hand scarcely aware of what his right was up to, he had saved many souls. And he never saw a weeping child in the street without administering lollipops, or an old woman carrying a heavy burden but he did not turn aside to carry it for her. His huge kindness grew with the years, and his wealth, by giving him the means of gratifying it, had enlarged rather than shut up his heart. Though he had continued through all these years to detest the
pursuit of money, yet its possession had done much for him. Apart from the enlarging of his heart it had given back to him again the old lost elegance of his youth. That something of his mother in him, lost in the roughness of pioneer existence, had reappeared again in his old age, and as he strolled along the street humming his little tune he looked once more a fine gentleman.

  His round, red, rugged face was shaved to a velvety softness, his handsome grey whiskers perfectly groomed. He wore a flower in the buttonhole of his overcoat of fine dark blue cloth, his eyeglasses hung from a glossy black satin ribbon, and the grey top hat that hid his bald head was worn at a jaunty angle. But it was not only these outward things that gave William his present air of aristocracy. There was about him a certain air that Tai Haruru would have recognized, that poised dignity that is the corollary of an absence of fuss and strain, that look of peace that is born when a man accepts the burden of life, not with railing, but with reverence for the mystery behind.

  For it seemed to William that whatever else the mystery might do or not do, it did not cheat. All that he could do for his child he had done, withholding nothing, and he knew that life too, keeping its share of the bargain, had withheld from Véronique nothing that her spirit needed for salvation. During the last twelve years, as day by day he had lifted the difficult burden of the uncongenial days, he had known with absolute certainty that all was well with the child. She might suffer, she had suffered in toil and childbirth and the daily weariness of life in a fragile body, but she’d accepted that suffering, she’d paid it down willingly and gladly for husband and children, and whenever he saw her and looked deep into her calm and happy eyes, he knew that all was well, and that all would be well. Not only had she paid, but the three elements that make for happiness had met in her; not only divine love but human love as unselfish as love can be had been given her, and her own spirit had been strong enough to give love back in full measure. So she was safe forever. If she were to die tomorrow, all would still be well with her. William knew that and was at peace.