After Such Kindness (11 page)

Oh, yes, the dreadful Mrs McQueen. What a bane and blight she was. Poor Benjy was kept to such a strict routine, and pressed so hard against her stiff, black frontage that he was eventually cowed into submission. In just a few days he’d become a wretched, grizzling creature, and he seemed frightened of everyone – even of me. Mrs McQueen would never let me hold him or even feed him, and said what was important in raising children was getting the Upper Hand. ‘Children know when they meet a soft-willed person,’ she said. ‘They cry deliberately, just to annoy and tease. They must be put in their place.’ And she’d poke me with her finger to bring her point home. She poked very hard, and I often had a bruise on my shoulder or in the middle of my back.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing he was so upset. So I knocked on the nursery door because Mrs McQueen said I must, although I never did it when I slept there, but she says it’s not my room now and I can’t go marching in as if I own it. She didn’t open the door but her voice came out in a kind of hiss asking who it was. When I said it was ‘me’, she asked what ‘me’ wanted at this hour, and when I said I had only come to say goodnight to my brother, she said it was a pity I’d decided to do it so late as she was just calming him down and didn’t want me exciting him all over again. But he was already excited, or at least he was still making a noise, so she let me in. But Benjy didn’t seem to want to know me, just bent his back in a big arch so that I thought he was going to fall out of Mrs McQueen’s arms and when I tried to whisper soothing things to him he hit me in the face (without meaning to, I’m sure) and gave me a scratch on my nose which stung very hard. I told her Benjy had never been so grizzly before but Mrs McQueen said he’d been spoiled before and now she was making sure she got the Upper Hand and that of course Benjy didn’t like it. I could see he was simply overtired as Nettie always said but when I said this, Mrs McQueen said Don’t contradict me, child! So I had to leave him.

He’s still crying, now. I really don’t know what to do about it. I fear Mama won’t listen and I daren’t speak to Papa unless he speaks to me first, which of course he won’t as he doesn’t know about it. I wonder whether Mr Jameson would know what to do. He is not a married man but he likes children very much and I am sure he would not want any child to suffer. He is also very clever. DEB

I recall now, how I lay in bed that night and many others, wondering why people chose to look after children when they didn’t seem to like them very much, and why ladies like Mama didn’t look after their babies themselves, but paid someone else to do it on their behalf. I knew, of course, that Mama was not strong. I knew that giving birth to me had weakened her dreadfully, and having Benjy had nearly killed her; so she always needed to be careful not to overstrain herself. I was used to her spending a good deal of time lying on the sofa, reading a book or sleeping. Sometimes she used to say to Papa that she regretted not helping him more with his parishioners, and all these committees and associations and groups that he was involved in at St Cyprian’s.

‘I have fallen away from all the good habits I had in Poplar,’ she would say from time to time. ‘I should really go out and visit the poor. I will do so tomorrow, Daniel. I have decided.’ But Father used to laugh and say there was not a single unvisited pauper in his entire parish and, if one were to be found, Mrs Carmichael would be there before her, making cabbage soup or washing babies at a great rate of knots. And if Mrs Carmichael didn’t do it, there were at least half a dozen other ladies eager to enter the fray as a change from arranging the altar flowers and supervising Sunday School. ‘Yes, I am sure there are many ladies eager to please you, Daniel dear,’ she’d say. ‘But I feel as if I am not doing God’s work as I should.’

Papa would press her hand to his heart and say, ‘We are all called in our different ways. Remember:
They also serve who only stand and wait.
’

That was a favourite saying of my father’s and at the time I wasn’t sure how anyone could serve God simply by standing (or sitting) around doing nothing, especially when I was being constantly told that Satan found mischief for idle hands. When Sarah had once taken my father at his word and declined to help with the Christmas blanket-sewing on the grounds that she had decided to serve God by prayer instead, she was given short shrift by my father, who made her stand on a footstool in the middle of the parlour for an entire afternoon, saying she was setting a bad example of Christian life. Sarah wept for hours afterwards. ‘It’s so unfair,’ she said. Indeed, it seemed as if there were different rules for us and for Mama. She was curiously detached from our lives, and our time in the drawing room was always strictly limited in case it tired her. But the more remote she was, the more I longed to be close to her, and the more I was a prey to any perceived preferences she gave my siblings. Envy, I knew, was a mortal sin, and one I prayed to be delivered from every night, but I still resented Christiana and Sarah for being older and more beautiful than me, and enjoying a greater measure of Mama’s attention. I would have given anything for her to spend even a few minutes combing my hair or reading the English compositions that Miss Prentiss had sent home with an ‘Excellent’ at the bottom, but she simply gave them a glance and smiled: ‘Well done.’ Occasionally she took it into her head to walk along the river at Binsey and all three of us would traipse behind as she strolled languidly along, gathering wild flowers, telling us their Latin names. We’d press them afterwards between sheets of blotting paper, and we’d copy out the names with pride when we put the specimens into the book.

The best times of all were when she read us stories –
The Little Mermaid
or
Uncle Tom’s Cabin –
when we would sit around her armchair like ordinary children. I cherished these precious times of intimacy, and afterwards I’d return to Nettie in a state of high excitement, saying ‘Mama this’ and ‘Mama that’, and wondering why Nettie had such a sad expression in her eyes. But these glorious times were few. Mama always seemed less interested in us and more interested in things that were not-us – my father mainly and, to a certain extent, the Christian life; but also music and poetry. She often used to recite poetry as she lay on the sofa or walked about the drawing room, smiling at us as if she were on one of Wordsworth’s mountaintops amid the wild grandeur and sublimity of nature, and we were dull toilers down in the valley, of only peripheral interest.

However, since Nettie had gone
,
I’d had more opportunity to observe my mother
.
I couldn’t help noticing how very solicitous my father was for her welfare, especially if he was going out on parish business late at night (which he did a great deal), or when he had a summons in the middle of a meal to attend the sick or dying. Hannah would come in with a note and Papa would read it and say, ‘I must go, my dear. Old Mrs So-and-So is at her last breath. Will you be all right?’ And I’d wonder why she shouldn’t be all right, as she was at home, surrounded by servants and family and quite as comfortable as she had been a minute before. And he’d kiss her and pat her hair and fuss over her to an excessive extent before putting on his coat and picking up the Bible and prayer book he always kept ready in a bag on the hall table – a bag that had been embroidered by Mrs Carmichael for his special use.

I knew she had been brought up to a life of ease. I also knew that she and my father had fallen in love when she was very young – fifteen when they had first met, as they enjoyed telling us – and how he’d had to wait for almost two years before declaring his intentions, and another two before Grandpapa would agree to the marriage. Then there had been some strife after the wedding because my father had his curacy in the East End, which Grandfather did not consider a suitable environment for a lady of my mother’s sensibilities, but she had defied him and gone to be with Papa, supervising the Sunday School and teaching sewing and cooking to the women of Poplar. ‘I don’t think they could believe such an angel had come amongst them,’ my father was fond of saying. I always imagined her in white clothes, standing out like a vision among the poor people in their dirty rags. But, according to my father, Mama had turned up her sleeves, donned an apron, and set to with a will, scrubbing and polishing and setting the best example of Christian work. It was hard for me to believe that; she was so ethereal and fragile by then. Even Christiana, who was born there, hardly remembered the time in that poor London parish. And by the time I was born, everything had changed. We were in Oxford, and there was a wide circle of helpers – especially female helpers – and my father could attend to his parish duties without my mother’s help. But he hated being apart from her, even for an afternoon. Nettie said you could tell they were still in love and I thought perhaps this was the reason they had less time for us children. I certainly often felt excluded from their mutual bliss.

But even if Mama didn’t choose to spend time with
me
, I couldn’t understand her callousness over Benjy – Benjy who had been her pride and joy, the longed-for son, the unexpected gift from God. I remembered her desperation when she thought he might have drowned, how she had held him so tight and cried over him so loudly. How, then, could she leave him to the devices of such a person as Mrs McQueen? It seemed another instance of the ways of the adult world, which no one except Mr Jameson seemed to find at all odd.

Saturday 28th June

It is so exciting! I have received a proper grown-up letter from Mr Jameson! It was in an envelope with my name on but no stamp. He hadn’t put it in the post but left it with Mama last night. She gave it to me at breakfast after I had finished my milk and toast. When she put it in front of me, I recognized Mr Jameson’s handwriting straight away. I asked her what it was about, and she said I’d have to open it as that was the usual way to find out what was in letters. It was very neatly written and had some little drawings around the edge – Mr Jameson as a Tired Old Bird and me as a Daisy Flower.

The letter is attached, pinned to the journal. I recognize Mr Jameson’s neat hand and his very strange little drawings.

My dear Child,

This is a short letter, but ‘short is sweet’. At least I hope you will think so. I am very fond of going to the theatre, and there is a play at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London, which I think you will like. It is called
Sylvie’s Wish
and is a kind of fairy story and has no horrid moral to it, but is all fun and lightness. If you are willing to come with me, we will take the half past twelve train from Oxford next Thursday and see a matinée (which is the French word for morning, as I am sure you know, but in this instance it has perversely decided to mean the afternoon), then I will take you for tea in a nearby hotel. After that we will return in the train and you will be tucked up in bed by nine o’clock. Does that sound nice? I hope you think so. I am already getting my opera hat ready and hope you will wear your prettiest dress so that everybody will be ridiculously jealous of us.

Your good friend,

John Jameson.

P.S. I have already spoken to your papa and mama and they have no objection provided you are back before midnight and don’t turn into a pumpkin.

I was so excited I had to read the letter over and over to make sure I was not mistaken. I could not believe that Mr Jameson wanted to take me to the theatre, in
London
and (although it is horrid to say so) I was pleased when Christiana and Sarah both looked at me as if they simply could not believe it either! Mama asked if I would like to go, and I said it would be the most exciting thing ever as I have never even
been
to London, let alone to a theatre there. Christiana caught hold of the letter as if she still did not believe what I’d said and then when she saw it was true, looked at Mama saying how was it that I should be the first to go to a London theatre considering I was only eleven, and shouldn’t Mr Jameson have asked
them
first? Mama said it was because I had spent time with Mr Jameson and he was fond of me, and the play was a children’s play anyway. Then Sarah said if it was a children’s play, then why was Mr Jameson going? And Papa said that Mr Jameson knew one of the actresses in it, and anyway it was his business what he did and where he went. Then he folded his newspaper and looked at Christiana and Sarah very crossly and said they had both had an opportunity to be nice to Mr Jameson and had chosen to be proud and unkind instead, and God does not let these things pass unpunished. ‘Go and eat the bread of mortification,’ he said, ‘and see how you like the taste.’ Then he got up and went to his study to write his sermon and my sisters became
very quiet
. Mama said I should write back immediately and I could use her notepaper if I liked. So I went with her into the morning room and she got out a sheet of lavender-scented paper and the inkstand and asked if Miss Prentiss had taught me how to write a formal reply. I felt Mr Jameson was not the sort of person who wanted a formal reply but as Mama was being so nice I didn’t like to say so.

I wrote: ‘Miss Daisy Baxter thanks Mr John Jameson for his kind invitation to the theatre next week, and has great pleasure in accepting.’ Then I put the date and sealed it with sealing wax and Mama gave me a penny stamp to affix to the outside, above the address. ‘You may take it to the postbox yourself, if you like,’ she said. ‘I know how exciting it is to begin one’s first grown-up correspondence.’ And she smiled at me as if she really understood how I felt and I was
so happy
!!!

It remains with me now – the excitement of putting on my coat and hat, walking the fifty yards to the postbox at the corner, and letting the lavender-scented letter slide slowly inside. I held onto it until the last possible moment, then let it fall: down into the dark. I stood back, imagining the postman collecting it and Mr Jameson in due course receiving it in his college rooms with Benson presiding over the tea table and Dinah sitting on his lap with that funny half-smile she always seemed to have. And Mr Jameson opening it and saying to Benson: ‘She
can
come!’ And his pale, quiet face lighting up with pleasure. And part of
my
pleasure, I recall, was to be so favoured by Mama. She not only helped me with the letter, but also planned what I should wear; and on the day of the outing, she came to my bedroom and dressed me herself, saying I had to do her justice when I appeared in public at Drury Lane. She was not as good as Nettie in tying tapes and putting on petticoats, but to feel her slender fingers pat and stroke my body and to smell the delicate scent of lavender-water arising from her neck as she stooped and tied my sash, was complete bliss. I felt that almost everything that was happening to me then was new and exciting, and it was Mr Jameson who was making it all possible. I was beginning to see him as a kind of hero and, in my childish way, to fall a little in love with him.