After Such Kindness (24 page)

But I’m not abandoned. Dr Lawrence comes, and he and Papa stand over the bed. Dr Lawrence touches my neck. I can hardly swallow, and my skin feels hot and itchy and I can’t hear what they’re saying and they seem far off and peculiar. The walls and the ceiling are moving around and now Hannah is in the sickroom, cleaning the floor. And now she is holding me up to spoon liquid into my mouth. And Papa – can it be Papa? – helping me to drink. Combing my hair too, and wiping my face with a cloth.

Yes, it
is
Papa. I can see his eyes. Large and brown and sad, gazing intently into mine. Now he has his arm around me, now he is on his knees at the bedside, now he is praying aloud. Now I am on his lap and there is a cool breeze coming in from the open window. I watch the muslin curtains billowing out, then falling back, the sky beyond them pale and blue, the sun a hazy golden ball. I can’t keep my eyes open. My throat is so sore, my head aches so much. I feel Papa kissing me. It’s a very nice kiss, soft and tender, and I drift into sleep, comforted.

Someone is stroking me. I can feel hands on my face, my neck. It’s dark, except for a little nightlight a long way off, so I can’t see who it is. My heart leaps up for a moment when I think it might be Nettie – but it’s not her hands. I know her hands – they have rough skin around the fingertips. From sewing, she says. And being in and out of water all day. The hands stroking me now are different. Mama perhaps, come back from Herefordshire? My heart rises again, but Mama always smells of lavender, and this smell is different. I can hear the sound of breathing, as if a wild creature is close at hand, hovering near me in the darkness. I think it’s a lion; I can feel his mane, his thick, curly mane and the soft pelt of his skin. But the lion goes away, and suddenly I’m at the bottom of a huge and roaring waterfall. My ears ache, and my throat aches, and my head aches. I seem to be caught up in long, tangling weeds and I flail my arms and legs about. I scream but I can’t make myself heard. I’m going to drown and no one is coming to rescue me. My body is sprouting with sweat as I shriek soundlessly against the noise. Then I’m carried out to sea, and I have forgotten how to swim: I think back to my lessons on the beach at Brighton – Papa holding me around the waist and making my limbs move back and forward like a frog. Suddenly there are all sorts of creatures swimming alongside me, rising and falling with the motion of the waves. They are making strange wailing noises and they bump against me, jostling me hard. ‘So very sorry,’ says a walrus with a huge moustache, before he changes into a crocodile. The crocodile opens his jaws very wide and I am inside his great red mouth with his white teeth gleaming on all sides. I know I am going to die, and I call for Papa to help me, but the jaws snap shut and all is dark. But there is sobbing somewhere. It’s not me. There must be someone else beside me. The sobbing is very loud. It’s right in my ear. I think it must be the crocodile, weeping crocodile tears. Now I think I am being sick. Now Hannah is taking off my nightgown: ‘I’ll put this in the wash.’ And more weeping. Weeping, weeping, weeping. Papa’s voice: ‘Let her live, Lord. Let her live.’

Now I’m awake again. The bedroom seems paler and barer than usual. The blue of the walls is cool. It’s like the sky, and I want to fly up and be an angel. I’m calling out for Nettie, but it’s Hannah that comes. She’s washing me all over with a sponge. The cool water trickles down my body and drips onto the sheets. Hannah says, ‘Never mind, miss, it’ll dry.’ She’s got a towel, now. She wipes between my legs as Nettie used to do when I was little. There’s a crisp sheet over me now, lying lightly over my skin. My skin is itching, but I don’t have the strength to scratch. I feel sick and have a pain in my stomach. The lamp is lit now, and Papa is reading something by its light. Now he’s down on his knees again, murmuring something. Now it’s daytime again and he’s walking around the room. I hear Cook’s voice, and Matthews. They are moving some furniture. Cook says, ‘She’s past the worst.’ And I sleep again.

Now I’m feeling cooler, and my head is lighter. There’s a pale, early morning light creeping through the curtains. Everything in the room looks normal and the walls don’t fly around any more. There’s a little truckle bed next to mine, and Papa is lying on it in his nightshirt, his dressing-gown half open. He’s asleep. I can’t help noticing his bare feet, his rather large toes, and I find myself wondering whether I have ever seen his toes before. Even at the seaside he wears swimming shoes. And his face seems different too. He is asleep, of course, and I don’t think I have ever seen him asleep either – except for a light doze in the garden on a fine day with his straw hat tipped over his face – and he strikes me as looking ragged and wild. ‘Papa?’ I whisper. My voice is so faint, I have to repeat myself. ‘Papa?’

He wakes up and looks at me. Tears start from his eyes and run down his cheeks. He takes my hands in his and kisses them so fervently that, even in my weakened state, I’m taken aback. He doesn’t seem like Papa any more, and not just because he’s undressed and dishevelled. He seems different in a way I can’t describe.

‘The Lord be praised,’ he says, his voice quivering. ‘Oh, my dear, I have saved you. I have been cast down into the pit of iniquity, my sins heavy upon me, but the Lord is merciful and kind. We must praise Him, Daisy. We must praise the name of the Lord.’ And he draws me to him, to the warmth of his chest, bare beneath his shirt. I can feel his heart beating, and smell his breath on my face. His smell is the smell of the lion. And I am afraid of him.

I am sitting at my favourite window here at The Garth. The Black Hills undulate in a dark mass against the skyline and the grey clouds above them hint at rain, but I drink in the fresh, sweet air as if it is tonic wine. Now I can breathe again, free of the exhaustion that has weighed me down since Daniel was first afflicted. Now I can I relive our happier times as I take up my books again, and rediscover the country walks that we both loved so much. But guilt still knocks at my door because I know that I estranged myself when he most needed me, and I allowed petty jealousies and unworthy thoughts to come between us. If Daniel had not lived so long, I might have found it in myself to be more patient and faithful. But no one who has not endured it can understand how dreadful it is to have undergone the same loss twice: not merely the death of the body, but the death-in-life that preceded it. And, in between – such horrors.

It is an irony to think that when I first married Daniel, I was grateful that he was such a strong and vigorous man. When we lived in Poplar, he seemed almost immune to the ravages of dirt and disease. He once carried a half-drowned man all the way from the river, setting him lightly on the kitchen table as if he weighed no more than a loaf of bread, and he’d often dig graves alongside the sexton, matching him spade for spade, yet come home as fresh as if he had just risen from his bed. I was glad then to think that our children would have a healthy father to care for them if I were to depart this life, weak and worn out as I was. But now – and God knows it is dreadful to say so – I would ten times have preferred that he had dropped dead in front of me in the full vigour of his life, than to be delivered into the hell that we were later to endure. If he had died when our love was still new and full of hope, I would have torn my garments and kneeled in the mud at his graveside, imploring him to come out like Lazarus and not leave me alone in the empty world. But in the end I would have been consoled. I would have laid flowers on his grave, knowing that he lived the serene life of the Redeemed. But Daniel’s vigour was our undoing. He lived on to torment me with changes that I could hardly have imagined.

At first, there was no end of people whom I blamed for Daniel’s affliction. If only Nettie had supervised Benjy properly, I thought, none of this would have happened: she would not have been dismissed, and John Jameson would not have placed us under such an obligation by stepping into the breach. And if John Jameson had not taken an interest in Daisy and escorted her to the most unsuitable places, she might never have contracted scarlet fever. And there again, if Mrs McQueen had been a better nurse, I would have been able to entrust Benjy to her care and look after Daisy myself. And Daniel – well, if Daniel had not been so passionate and angry, sweeping aside all offers of help from the parish, blaming me for being a cold and unloving mother – maybe he would have been less prone to the dreadful brain fever that ensued. And if Christiana had not distracted me with her infatuation with Leonard Gardiner, perhaps I would have been more alert to what was happening to my youngest daughter, the one whom I thought safe and reliable, who, until then, had never given me a moment’s anxiety.

But I knew that there was one blame that I could not apportion to others. It was I alone who was to blame for leaving Daisy when she was ill. A mother’s place should always be with her sick child. Yet God knows I was in a torment of indecision until the very moment of my departure, when, fearful that I might never see her again, I even unpacked my valise and determined not to go. But Daniel discovered me with my clothes all strewn around, and made me pack them up again. ‘You’ve made your decision and everything is arranged,’ he said, rather stiffly. ‘Once Benjamin is settled in Herefordshire, that will be the time to return and take up your nursing duties.’

‘But I can’t forget what you said to me, Daniel. How you chastised me for not loving Daisy – or not loving her enough. I can’t let you think that I don’t care about her.’

He patted my arm. ‘I think I may have spoken hastily last night. I was in a state of alarm. But Dr Lawrence is hopeful. He says she is healthy and well-nourished and will fight the fever well.’

I knew he was simply trying to reassure me. No doctor can tell who will live and who will die, and even princes fall to typhoid. But I was grateful that Daniel was making my decision easier. ‘Do you promise to telegraph if she worsens?’ I asked. ‘Please, Daniel, promise me that. I can be on the train in an hour, and back in Oxford in two or three more.’

‘I promise. But I am sure there will be no need. Now, make haste and give my regards to your father when you arrive.’

‘Should we perhaps hire a nurse after all?’ I queried, now lacking in confidence that any of my plans made sense. ‘It is too much for you to do, and not a man’s task – and Hannah may be unreliable at the sickbed. I could ask Mrs Carmichael if she could recommend someone.’ But then I thought that Mrs Carmichael might recommend herself, and I selfishly did not want her spending even more time with my husband than she already contrived to do.

‘Mrs Carmichael, good soul as she is, has already called and offered her services. But I feel that it’s
my
duty to attend to Daisy. Don’t forget Our Lord himself ministered to the sick, and humbled himself with mundane tasks. I can do no less. It is a test for me, Evelina, and I shall not fail in it.’

Daniel seemed so determined, and was so persuasive that I felt I could do no more than agree. My head had been aching all night and I began to feel I would be no use to anyone in that state. And Daniel was always so very good at everything he did, I was sure he would care for Daisy in the same way. So I pressed my lips to Daisy’s moist brow and made my farewells, trying to imprint her face on my memory in case the worst should befall. All the way to Herefordshire, I kept wondering if I had done the right thing, and as soon as we arrived at my father’s house I almost galloped up the front steps to enquire whether a telegram had come for me. Thankfully there was nothing, and I allowed myself to feel that I had, after all, made the right decision. My father thought there was no doubt of it: he felt my first duty was to my son. Ever since Benjamin had been born, he had been delighted at having an heir, and used to lift him up and point out the fields and farms that he would one day inherit. His main anxiety that day was that he had not brought the fever with him. ‘Keep an eye on him, Evelina. I will call Dr Jenkins the moment there is any sign.’ But there was none.

And so that day passed, and the next, and no urgent telegram from Daniel. And no symptoms of scarlet fever in Benjy, either. It was a relief, of course. Yet it was perplexing after two days to have only the most cursory of notes from my husband.
She holds steady
, he wrote,
and sleeps most of the time. There is no need to hurry back; she would hardly know it if you were in the room.
And Hannah has proved herself a most efficient nurse.
The news reassured me, naturally, and I thanked God for it. But at the same time I was somewhat mortified that they were all managing so well without me. I kept reading the phrase ‘would not know it if you were in the room’, and wondering what lay beneath it. Perhaps Daisy was indifferent to my absence; but then I thought how tightly she’d held my hand that night, and how sad she had seemed when I said I’d have to leave her.

I replied in haste, saying I planned to return within the next two days, but Daniel wrote back immediately, saying that Daisy was not in danger and there was nothing more to be done by ‘an extra person crowding at the bedside’. He urged me to enjoy my time with my father, in the countryside I loved so much. If he had been Satan himself, he could not have made a more tempting suggestion. There is no house quite like the one where you have been brought up, and The Garth has always held a special place in my heart. I loved to walk up Baycastle Crag, just as I do now, and I would gaze around from the summit, seeing the view just as it was when Daniel and I first made the climb, the day he had dedicated himself to God and to me. The magnificence of the scenery brought a sense of peace to me, and I realized how much I had missed it. Oxford always seemed to me so flat and enclosed. So I delayed my return, assuaging my guilt by sending little notes to Daisy every day and enclosing pressed wild flowers for her to look at.
I think of you every day, and will come back soon
, I wrote. More days went past and I continued to live in a fool’s paradise. Although I was a little surprised that Daniel wrote so rarely, I assumed he was too busy to do more and Daisy, I assumed, was too weak to pick up her pen.

The first clear knowledge I had that something was amiss came when a letter arrived for me, addressed in an awkward, unschooled hand and directed like a signpost
To The Rev Mrs E. Baxter.
I smiled at the oddness of the direction, thinking one of the people from the village had written to me. Then I saw that it was postmarked from Oxford. A sense of foreboding came over me and I opened it quickly. To my astonishment, the writer was Hannah.

Dear Mrs Baxter,

I hope you dont mind my writing to you like this as Cook sais it is not my place to do so but as you put me in charge of Miss Daisy a long side of the Master I thought it right to let you know and I hope you wont hold it against me as it is only done for your sake and the families, to cut a long story short I feel there is some thing wrong with Mr Baxter and I hope you will come back as soon as is conveinant.

Hoping this finds you all well including Master Benjy and with kind regards and good wishes,

Ever your Servant

Hannah Potter.

Something
wrong
with Daniel
?
What on earth did the wretched girl mean? Why had she not explained herself more fully? And surely such a summons should have come from Mr Morton or one of the churchwardens – or even Mrs Carmichael? To be summoned by one’s housemaid was rather demeaning. I felt a curious mixture of impatience with the girl and anxiety about my husband. But it was clear I had to return home. By then I was content to leave Benjy with Mrs McQueen. She was somewhat in awe of my father, who took the greatest interest in his grandson.

I took the first train I could, and arrived in Oxford late in the evening. I’d had no time to telegraph, so there was no one to meet me, and I took a cab to Westwood Gardens. The house looked just the same, but it was Cook who greeted me at the door. ‘Hannah’s busy upstairs,’ she said.

‘And where is my husband?’

‘Upstairs too,’ she said, with a strange look in her eyes. For a moment, I had a picture of my husband and my servant in an adulterous embrace. I started up the stairs immediately, Daisy quite gone from my mind.

Cook put out her arm. ‘I should just warn you –’

‘What?’ My breath was coming in sharp bursts, my imagination seeing a froth of white petticoats, two figures rolling on the bed.

‘Mr Baxter is not quite himself.’

‘What do you mean?’
Not himself. Something wrong with him –
the words went round in my head, confused with under-linen and stolen kisses.

Cook hesitated. ‘I don’t know how to put it, Mrs Baxter. You’d better see for yourself. Miss Daisy’s much better, though.’

‘Is she upstairs too?’ I tried to cover the shame I felt for not enquiring about her the moment I set foot in the house.

‘They’re all in Miss Daisy’s bedroom I believe.’

And indeed they were. Daniel was sitting in the little blue armchair, with Daisy on his lap, and Hannah was sitting on the edge of the bed, with Daisy’s nightgown in her hands, stitching. The whole room smelled of chloride of lime.

All three looked up the instant I opened the door. Hannah rose with a look of relief and Daisy scrambled off Daniel’s lap and stumbled eagerly towards me. I had forgotten that she had cut her hair, and was shocked to see it so short, although I suspected Hannah may have shortened it more on account of the fever. But it gave her a new, unfamiliar look – as if she had grown up a great deal since I’d been away. ‘Oh, Mama!’ she cried, embracing me around my waist and pushing her face into my bodice. ‘I’m so glad you are back!’

‘And I’m glad too, Daisy dear. And even more glad to see you so recovered. You look so well. I think Papa and Hannah must have been spoiling you.’

I glanced up at Daniel, who had not moved or made any gesture of welcome. In fact, he was frowning at me. ‘So, you have seen the error of your ways?’ he said at last.

‘What do you mean, Daniel?’ I replied, trying to smile, to cover my disquiet at his words and his abrupt tone. ‘I would have come earlier had you not begged me to take my time.’

‘Then why ask me what I mean?’ he said, narrowing his eyes. ‘Don’t try to confuse me.’

I was dismayed. Not only were his words so brusque and odd, but he seemed not at all glad to see me. Generally, after we had spent time apart, even a day or two, he could not wait to take me in his arms, and would quickly contrive a reason for us to be alone together. But now he was looking at me as coldly as if I were his enemy. ‘I’m not trying to confuse you, Daniel,’ I said. ‘If I have done something to offend you, let us talk about it later. Don’t spoil my delight in seeing Daisy again.’ I embraced her tightly, but could not help noticing Hannah’s expression, her eyebrows raised as if to say:
See what I mean!

All at once, Daniel clapped his hands to his head and cried out: ‘Evelina, it’s you! Forgive me, I didn’t know you in that perked-up bonnet! I only know you with your hair all loose. They told me you had gone away. But I said you’d come back.’ He crossed the room at great speed and embraced us both. ‘I knew you’d come back. I said so, isn’t that right, Daisy?’

I felt Daisy nodding her head against my corseted waist. ‘Yes, Papa, that’s right.’

‘Well,’ I said, trying not to show my horror at the incoherence of his words, ‘now I
am
back, Daniel, you are released from your duties. I will see to Daisy myself from now on.’