After Such Kindness (28 page)

‘
Un
dangerous? That’s not a word!’ Annie laughed.

‘You’ve heard of undignified? And undamaged? So why not undangerous?’

‘You may as well say ungood, or unbad,’ she added.

‘You may as well say unspeak and hold your tongue,’ I countered.

She looked abashed. Then, as was always the way with Annie, all was forgotten and she laughed. At which point Mr and Mrs Warner came round the corner with the rest of the family, and introductions were effected all round. And thus I achieved my entry into the Warner household. They were a rather boisterous family, who did not stand on ceremony in the slightest. Indeed, Mr Warner always said, when anyone came into the room, ‘Don’t stand on Ceremony –
sit
on Him,’ before erupting into guffaws. Mrs Warner was also very good-natured and so very much on the portly side that I was unsure if she was or was not in an interesting condition. She had very dainty hands, like many a well-built person, and employed herself in crocheting every spare minute of the day. Her particular speciality was ladies’ mittens and she must have netted dozens of them while I was there. The children consisted of two older sisters – Bella, shortly to be married and continually preoccupied with wedding arrangements, and Eliza, who was studying at the Royal Academy of Music and forever practising on the pianoforte. Then there was a fourteen-year-old brother of rather plain features, who was destined for a life at sea (and spent all his time looking moodily at it; sitting on the shore like a young Raleigh). Then, after Annie, were two younger children – Louisa, aged six and a boy aged four – who were under the supervision of Deedee.

The family had rented a house just beyond Hele, and I was given an open invitation to join them whenever I wished. I also received permission to take photographs of the children, which I availed myself of instantly. I took the whole family grouped in the drawing room, with the light coming from the left, and Annie and Lou with their little dog in a kind of bower in the garden – very pretty, I thought, and with quite an original composition. I also accompanied the three younger children to the seashore and drew sketches of them in their bathing dress, pottering among the pools or digging holes in the shingle of the quiet beach. They would bring me empty shells by the dozen, and any live creature they could find – spotted gobies and grazing snails, tube worms and periwinkles. We clambered on the rocks and I showed them three varieties of anemones and several small sponges, and was able to point out the solitary cup coral that Gosse had identified just seven years before. When the tide came in, we collected the backbones of cuttlefish and the light pieces of pumice that floated on the waves – and the small pieces of coal that came from the steamships that were forever crossing on the horizon: white-coloured pleasure ships from further up the coast, and black and red coal ships from South Wales. And the children took long pieces of seaweed – bladder-wrack and kelp – and adorned themselves with it, and tried to adorn me too. They piled on so much that I began to look like Jack in the Hedge, and I thought happily of my childhood, and Mary running in to tell us the mummers were come – ‘and a whole hedge walking with them!’ Usually Deedee was with us, but sometimes we were alone, and I couldn’t have been happier. One day I paid a woman to let us ride her donkeys along the beach, and Annie was the first to be hoisted up. I felt her firm, stocky body under my hands, and could not help wishing it was Daisy’s sylphlike form.

I hadn’t forgotten my little flower, of course. I wrote to her as often as I could, hoping she was better, and enclosing a picture or two of Ilfracombe and the little cove at Hele.

I wish you were here with me, my dear, to be enjoying the sea air and all the delights of the resort. Do you know there is an anemone here on the beach that is called a ‘daisy anemone’? When I saw it, my thoughts immediately flew over the rooftops and all the way to Oxford, landing I hope, in your very own bed in your very own room where you were waiting to catch them. But your friend Annie is here, keeping me company, and she will have to do in your place. She can never really fill your place, of course – but I daresay by mentioning that we have been on Donkey Rides the whole morning, I hope I can make you furiously jealous, so that you will be even more glad to see me when I return. You know you should really not have got scarlet fever at such an inconvenient time and I suggest you speak sternly to yourself on account of it. In fact, I suggest that you line up in front of yourself and put your hands on your head in penance, promising most faithfully never to do it again.

Please pass on my regards to your parents, and tell them I would be glad for a line from your father, even though I know he must be very busy.

To my surprise, and in spite of sending several more letters, I received neither a reply from Daisy nor any word from Daniel. I went so far as to go to the post office and enquire whether anything had been sent there by mistake, but the postmaster assured me that, provided the address of my hotel had been ‘put down correct’, any letter would have been delivered. I began to wonder then whether I
had
for some reason put the name down wrongly, or forgotten it altogether – and almost persuaded myself that I had done so – before remembering that I had used the headed notepaper thoughtfully provided by the hotel.

I remained a full four weeks at Ilfracombe, and during this time I heard nothing at all from any member of the Baxter family. I began to feel anxious and apprehensive and even contemplated cutting my holiday short, when a lavender-scented letter arrived, which I knew immediately was from Mrs Baxter. Why was she of all people writing to me? I opened it with some trepidation. It was very short.

Dear Mr Jameson,

Circumstances compel me to request that you do not correspond with either my husband or my daughter for the foreseeable future. Please honour this request as I shall have otherwise to return your letters unopened.

Yours sincerely,

Evelina Baxter.

Naturally, I was taken aback. In fact, I found my hands and fingers trembling as I held the note, my heart beating wildly as to the possibilities. The tone was so stern and uncompromising – yet there was no explanation. And why should I not write to Daniel? It was hardly Mrs Baxter’s role or privilege to forbid such a thing. And why was Daniel not writing himself? If any offence or breach of etiquette had occurred, it should have been Daniel who admonished me. Once more it seemed to me that Mrs Baxter was using her influence against me as she stood as guardian to the domestic portals of Westwood Gardens, determined that I should be kept out. But what new thing had occurred to bring about such a sudden and drastic fracture of our relationship? Terrible fears consumed me as I thought of Daisy and the photographs, and what scandal might do to a bachelor such as myself. It did not, however, explain Daniel’s silence.

‘Has anyone heard from Mr Baxter?’ I asked, the moment I got out to Hele. I’d hoped Mr Warner, as a churchwarden and treasurer of the Indigent Widows Committee, the Sunday School Fund and the Working Men’s Educational Union might have had some information to enlighten me. He had not, he said. He regarded a holiday as a holiday, and did not favour mixing it with parish business of any kind.

But as it happened, the eldest girl’s fiancé arrived from Oxford within the hour and he was full of news. The vicar, he said, had been taken ill. In spite of having been spared his clerical duties to nurse Daisy, he had come unexpectedly into the church the previous day and had interrupted Mr Morton during Matins, mumbling and raving and trying to mount the pulpit although Mr Morton was already in it. ‘I gather he had to be helped home by members of the vestry committee. The congregation, thank goodness, was very small on a weekday morning – but you know how bad news spreads.’

‘Baxter mumbling and raving?’ said Mr Warner. ‘What do you mean, Bertram?’

‘Exactly that, sir. Talking about the need for baptism and the benefits of cold water. And in a state of undress, too – Miss Bessemer was very frightened of him, by all accounts. I’m glad
you
were not there to see it, Bella.’ And he took his fiancée’s arm and pulled her towards him protectively.

I could hardly believe what I was hearing – although at the same time, in the light of Daniel’s passionate recklessness, it seemed almost too possible. It would certainly explain Mrs Baxter’s letter. And we had our old friend Cold Water again. My agitation doubled and then trebled.

Mr Warner was aghast. ‘Good heavens, I can hardly credit it. Baxter of all people! Are you sure?’

The young man said he was absolutely sure. He had got it from Mr Attwood himself. ‘He was going to write to you, sir, but as I was coming down in person, he thought it more discreet for me to break the news.’

Mr Warner shook his head. ‘And dreadful news it is! We must all pray that he will be recovered soon.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the eldest girl with a look of consternation. ‘I hope he will be recovered by our wedding day. I’d hate Mr Morton to take the service. He has such a very apologetic appearance and speaks so very faint.’

Mr Warner looked sternly at her. ‘I think your wedding arrangements will be the least of our concerns, Bella. I must go back to Oxford, see what I can do to assist. The parish will be in chaos without him; he is so much the
fons et origo
of every undertaking.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ I added quickly, anxious to be on the spot if rumours of any kind were circulating. And so it was that Mr Warner and I found ourselves together in the first-class smoking carriage en route for Oxford.

‘Known Baxter a long time?’ asked Mr Warner, puffing meditatively at his pipe.

‘Only eight months or so,’ I responded, wishing he would put the wretched thing out, and wondering if I might open the window.

‘Sound chap, would you think?’

‘Very.’

‘So what do you make of this behaviour of his?’ He puffed again.

‘Daniel is very conscientious in both his faith and his works. I do not need to tell you that. He works harder than any man. And as you know, his daughter –’

‘Ah, yes, Daisy. We have had her to tea. A dear little thing, very sedate. Clara says she is one of those children who watches everything and misses nothing.’

‘Well,’ I said, bridling at this description of my darling. ‘Be that as it may, she has had the scarlet fever, as I’m sure you know. Baxter himself has been nursing her night and day, with only a servant to help him. I expect it is no more than a form of nervous exhaustion.’

‘Hmm. You may be right. I suppose every man has his limits. Even a man like Baxter. Still –
mumbling and raving
, Jameson. Does that not argue something more serious? Some form of – insanity?’

I shrugged my shoulders. I was beginning to think that pipe-smoking itself was a form of insanity, and privately wished I might oblige Warner to sit out on the roof until we arrived at Oxford. But I really could not think what might have occurred to my friend. If Daniel was mad – why, he was in good company. All the greatest men have been, in my view, a little mad. I think I am a little mad myself. And it is the reaching after the unknowable and believing the unreasonable that often puts churchmen and natural philosophers in the same boat – that is, mad, but only ‘north-north-west’, as Shakespeare has it. I wondered if Daniel had been contemplating Eternal Damnation again, and the paradoxes of it all had driven him to the edge.

My mind seethed with a mixture of tobacco smoke and apprehension as we chugged and whistled through the Devon and Somerset fields. By the time we reached the panorama of ‘dreaming spires’, I was feeling almost sick.

I sit with my eyes closed. The room is hot, the curtains are drawn and the lamplight is faint, casting shadows everywhere. The door is shut and the key is on the table. He’s bending over me, touching my cheek, smiling at me with that special smile, the one I like and don’t like at the same time. He pulls my head to him and I feel the rough hair of his chest rubbing against my cheeks. I don’t like being so very close to him. But he says it’s the holiest thing in the world and will save us both. He lifts his head and prays. I am always afraid when he prays. I shrink back and shut my eyes.

Now I am falling backwards: away from him, away from everything. Down I go, through the floor, through the room below, through the cellars, and into the deep, dark earth. Nothing stops me; everything melts away, and I pass through solid objects as if they are made of mist. I fall on and on, and it seems I might go on falling for ever, until I reach the centre of the earth. But Papa is falling with me. He grasps me tight and won’t let go. I try to shake him off, but he grasps me even tighter. He says we must stay together always. He says I am his salvation. He is so close I am almost suffocated. Now there are sheets of white paper floating around us. ‘They are the words of God,’ cries Papa. ‘Catch them if you wish to be saved!’ There are so many of them, it’s like a blizzard. I try to catch them, but however hard I try, they whirl out of my grasp. My legs and arms seem not to belong to me, and I feel giddy. Suddenly the ground rises up to meet me like a giant wave and I hit it with a jarring bump, so that all my breath is knocked out of me. My legs collapse, and my knees are suddenly somewhere under my chin. I’m folded so tight I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to open myself up again. Perhaps I’ll stay like this, small and folded up, so nobody will know where I am. I think that might be nice, to stay hidden, away from everyone. But I’m out of breath and panting very loud; Papa will surely hear me. Perhaps he can see me, too. I open my eyes carefully and jump with fright: there’s a man’s face right in front of me.

But it’s not Papa. Relief seeps into me like warm water. But I don’t know this man. And I don’t know where I am. It’s a bedroom, I think, because beyond the man I can see a dressing-table and a wardrobe. But it’s not
my
bedroom. My bedroom is blue, while these walls have dark green wallpaper, and there are heavy brocade curtains at the window. The bedspread is brocade, too. It doesn’t quite reach the floor, and from my crouched position I can glimpse a flowered chamber-pot beneath the bed. The bed is high and broad and has a big bolster and lacy pillows. It’s a bedroom for married people, for a man and a wife. I can’t think what I am doing in it.

Now the man speaks. He has a nice voice. I think I may know him, after all, with his soft brown eyes and sleek black hair. ‘Margaret,’ he says. ‘Can you hear me? Can you speak?’

Suddenly I remember. I am not Daisy any more; I am Margaret. And the dark-eyed man who is leaning over me with such an anxious look is my husband, Robert Constantine. And the servant I can see over his shoulder is a girl called Minnie, who admires my hair. I try to move, but I’m wedged tight into a corner, as if I’ve been playing a game of hide-and-seek. There is loose paper all around me, the remains of some notebook. My husband kneels on the torn pages as he comes forward to grasp my shoulders. He shakes me gently, as if he is trying to wake me, although he must see that I am already awake. His face seems to grow larger, then recedes, like the tide. I close my eyes – then open them again quickly, frightened of what I might see: the heavy door; the key in the lock; the hands and fingers.

‘For heaven’s sake, what is it?’ He looks distraught – and I know this expression all too well. I see an expanse of white bedlinen, and hear the sound of sobbing. I have made him unhappy, I think. And perhaps myself, too.

‘Do I need to call a doctor?’ he says, and I shake my head vehemently. I don’t like doctors and there’s a Harley Street man I am particularly anxious to avoid. ‘Are you sure?’ He rubs my hand briskly as if to warm life back into it.

I nod. I know I’m not ill, although there is something very wrong with the workings of my brain, and my heart is beating double-time.

‘Then what is it? Tell me, Margaret, please.’ Another kind smile.

I don’t know if I can even breathe properly, let alone speak. The blood is hammering loudly in my ears and all I can think about is falling through the blackness and Papa touching me in that terrible way. And although it was only a dream, it feels real. But it can’t be; it’s too unspeakable. So although this husband of mine is looking at me so expectantly, I cannot explain to him what it was. ‘A dream,’ I say, finally. ‘About Papa. Or rather – a nightmare.’

‘Indeed,’ he says. ‘I could hear all your commotion from downstairs. And Minnie, too – look, she’s come running all the way from the kitchen.’

I raise my eyes. Minnie’s standing just inside the room, wiping her hands on her apron, her eyes wide. She holds up a little brown bottle. ‘I’ve got some salts, if you want.’

I shake my head. ‘I’m not faint.’

‘Then what on earth are you doing on the floor?’ My husband surveys the untidy mess of skirts and petticoats as I slump in front of him, my back against the wall, my hair, as always, finding its way out of its pins and coiling around my neck.

‘I must have fallen. Off the chair. In my sleep.’ I’ve never fallen off a chair in my life. And it’s not my habit to sleep in one. But I’ve no other explanation for how I find myself in this position.

‘But it’s only ten thirty in the morning! And what about all this paper?’ He indicates what I now see are the scattered leaves from Daisy’s journal. The book has been pulled apart. Yet it was intact when I last saw it, when I was last reading it. Was it today – or yesterday? It must have been today; I remember catching sight of myself in the looking-glass wearing this same velveteen gown. I was reading Daisy’s journal – but something made me stop. There was something that upset me, something that took me back to an unhappy time. A photograph, I think – one of those long-lost photographs, one of those little Daisies in the flimsiest of costumes. Maybe that was it. But it doesn’t seem quite right; there is something uncomfortable about the photographs, but they didn’t frighten me. Then the word ‘fever’ comes into my head and this time I feel the flush and the slight prickling of perspiration. I remember now – not the details, but the horror of it. How I had scarlet fever, and Papa looked after me. And how he was especially kind to me, especially loving, especially close. Those were the pictures that came into my head unbidden; that plunged me down into that dark well with such sickening sensation. The pictures that I wanted to get rid of for ever.

I stare at the scattered pages, the mangled covers. I’m surprised that I had the strength to dismember it so thoroughly. ‘I suppose I must have done it.’ I shrug, hoping my admission will end the matter.

‘Well, yes. There is no other culprit that I can detect, hiding behind the wardrobe or under the carpet. But I cannot for the life of me see what possessed you.’ I see that my husband is embarrassed at my behaviour, and most of all he’s embarrassed that Minnie is witness to it. He turns to her with a smile. ‘Well, it seems that, contrary to appearances, Mrs Constantine has not been attacked by wolves. Smelling salts are not required, nor any liniment for broken bones. You may go back to your work, now. I’m sorry you’ve been disturbed.’

Minnie hesitates, as if she is not any more convinced by my explanation than he is. And even though my heart is beating fit to burst and my head is still full of dreadful pictures, I can’t help wondering if she always keeps the bottle in her pocket, ready to attend to fainting ladies. Or perhaps she is prone to fainting herself. She does not seem the sort, though, with her wiry little frame. ‘If you’re sure you don’t need me, Mrs Constantine,’ she says, her eyes fixed on mine.

‘Yes,’ I reply, though in truth I’m not so sure. I am even less sure that I want to be left alone with my husband and his soft, enquiring eyes. But she backs out of the room and shuts the door. I lean my head against the wall; I have no strength to raise myself. Robert, to my surprise, doesn’t help me up, but eases himself down beside me on the floor. I smell the faint scent of camphor that permeates all his clothing.

‘Now,’ he says, with a patient air I recognize as his habitual manner with me, ‘what is this
really
all about?’

He knows there is something. But I shake my head. I can’t tell him about my dreadful, sinful thoughts. He would think me the worst kind of liar, if not completely deranged.

‘Try, dearest,’ he says, pulling me close. For a moment, I am tempted. It would be nice to sink into his arms as if he were Nettie and I were a child again. But my body won’t yield; it is ramrod stiff. I feel the roughness of his serge waistcoat against my cheek as I lie against him, and the ridge of his watch chain pressing into my flesh. I can hear his watch, now. It’s ticking against my right ear, just like Papa’s did – that same
tick-tick-tick-tick
that seemed to go on all afternoon. A wave of nausea comes over me and I struggle away from him. But he holds me tight. ‘Now, Margaret dear, I have a feeling that you are letting all that dreadful trouble with your father prey on your mind.’

All that
dreadful trouble
? My heart beats so fast that I feel I will vomit. He must know. Yet how can Robert know something that’s so confused in my own mind? But perhaps all men know such things. Perhaps all men
do
such things. Maybe it’s no great secret, after all, and I am making a dreadful fuss about nothing. I touch the chain of Robert’s watch. It’s heavy and smooth, just like Papa’s. ‘What do you mean?’ I say, as calmly as I can. ‘What do you mean by “all that trouble”?’

He strokes my hair. He seems awkward, at a loss as to how to begin. ‘Well, Margaret, I don’t have to tell you that there were things that you shouldn’t have witnessed. Not at your age. Not at any age, in fact. But you need to put it from your mind. And you can, now, Margaret. Now your father is finally at peace.’

Yes, I think, he’s dead, but he doesn’t leave me alone. He’s always with me; always at the edges of my mind, ready to move in and take up all the space with his brown hair and tickling whiskers and hot, dry skin. ‘What things should I not have witnessed?’ I say. The lump in my throat feels as large as a plum-stone now.

‘Come now, Margaret. I think you know.’ He gives me an encouraging squeeze, grateful, I think, that I cannot move away from him, trapped as we are in the corner of the room.

‘I
don’t
know,’ I say. ‘Everyone thinks I know, but truthfully, I can’t remember.’

He sighs. ‘Then you are fortunate, Margaret. Be thankful for it, and don’t seek to know what can only give you pain. Your father was a great man; it dishonours him to dwell on the period when he was – well, when he was least himself.’

‘But supposing – not meaning to – he did something wrong when he was “least himself”?’

Robert rubs his chin with his forefinger, up and down, on the same spot. He does that, I realize, when he is uncertain, when he is trying to be fair. He has done that a lot recently. ‘We can all do wrong,’ he says after a while. ‘But your father was the best of men.’

‘But just supposing
. . .
’

He frowns, displeased with my line of questioning. ‘What is the point of this, Margaret?’

‘Please, Robert. It would help me – collect my thoughts.’

‘Well,’ he says, considering. ‘Admittedly, at the end, your father could be very eccentric, very difficult to manage, very strange, even –’

‘Strange?’ I can hardly say the word.

‘You know what I mean.’ Robert allows himself almost a smile. ‘When he was pouring water everywhere and running about in his nightshirt.’

His words bring it all back – all the noise and confusion, with Cook running around after him and Mama trying to hold him back and Robert and Charles and Mr Warner marching him back to his study and closing the door. And yet it isn’t all that pandemonium which frightens me. It’s the closed door and the key and the ticking watch. And the rough feel of his nightshirt.

Robert goes on. ‘But, of course, you were the only one who knew how to calm him. Surely you remember that?’

I can see the Bible on the table in front of us. I can hear a fly buzzing against the window. My stockings are lying on the sofa, the coals in the fireplace falling with a soft crash as the afternoon wears on. And I’m wondering why no one comes to rescue me.

‘Yes,’ he says, reminiscing a little now. ‘He loved to be with you. And he loved your little room, too – the one where he’d nursed you. He said it was like heaven with its blue walls and blue curtains. And that you were the angel inside it. He’d let you read to him for hours, you know.’

I feel Papa’s large, firm hands on my nightgown, and the wetness of his tears on my skin.
You’re my special angel, the only one I can trust. Love is everything, isn’t it, Daisy? It doesn’t matter what you do if you do it for love
.

‘I keep seeing him,’ I say, knowing these are not the right words, but feeling that at least they will make Robert give me his serious attention.

‘
Seeing him?
’ He frowns. ‘In dreams, you mean? Was that what frightened you just now?’

‘It wasn’t exactly a dream,’ I say. ‘It seemed almost real.’

‘Real? I fail to understand you.’

‘I hardly understand it myself – but I could see him and hear him as if he were alive – and I could smell and taste such rancid things. Yet all the time he was smiling and saying it would be all right. He always tells me that. He always says it will be all right. I want to believe him, yet I know it’s not true. Oh, Robert, did it happen, or am I making it up?’

‘You believe your father comes and
talks
to you?’ Robert looks aghast, clearly thinking that the family madness is coming out in me. Then his face clears. ‘But he smiles, you say. Perhaps he only intends to reassure you, Margaret. To tell you that he lives again in Glory and all is well.’