‘Are you unwell?’ He’d like to think ill-health would explain matters.
‘No, just tired. I’d like to read for a bit.’
‘Very well.’ He looks businesslike. ‘I’ve a good deal of work to do. I’ll come up at six and see how you are.’
‘Thank you, Robert.’ I try to kiss him on his cheek. But he wants my lips. The dark bristles of his whiskers are rough against my skin as he presses against me. I tighten every muscle in my body and endure him as best I can. Then I pull away. ‘Not now; everybody will see.’
‘And what does it matter if they do? You are my wife, after all; it’s not such a great scandal. And I hope you will truly be my wife before long. Otherwise I shall think you don’t love me.’ He gives a little laugh, and I laugh too. Reassuringly.
Once in the bedroom, I unhook my bodice with relief and release the journal. I don’t bother to refasten my dress, but sit by the window and open the pages straight away. I’m greedy for the words now. The whole of my forgotten life seems to be opening out again.
Friday 27th June
Mr Jameson came to dinner tonight which was most exciting. We had Mock Turtle Soup, Fried Whiting and Jam Roly-poly. Papa and Mama had some pale-coloured wine they called Hock and so did Mr Jameson, although he would only have half a glass and kept filling it up with water. Hannah brought in the soup as usual, but when it was time for the fish, Cook came in herself with a big oblong dish and banged it down in front of Papa and seemed very cross about something although she didn’t say a word, just wiped her hands on her apron and stalked out! Hannah had her lips folded very tight when she brought the plates and vegetables, and later we could hear a lot of clashing coming from the kitchen which we all pretended not to hear.
Mr Jameson was quiet during the meal even though Papa was trying to make him talk to Christiana, saying things like, Have you ever tried archery, John? Which he hadn’t, although he said he didn’t mind a game of croquet now and again in spite of being in general against Blood Sports. Mama said croquet wasn’t a Blood Sport but Mr Jameson said it had been whenever he’d seen it played. Everyone laughed at that including my sisters who are very good at croquet and are not above hitting you on the ankles with the mallets.
Then everyone started to talk about poetry. Mama is very fond of poetry. Papa told us Mr Jameson wrote poetry himself but Mr Jameson said no it wasn’t poetry, not like Wordsworth or Tennyson, it was just verse and he’d never put himself in the same catagory as those Great Men. Mama said she’d like to read his verse all the same or perhaps he could recite some for us after dinner? Mr Jameson said he didn’t ever recite in public because of his speech impedament but he would send her some if she really wished but it was just light stuff, nonsense really. And Mama said she’d like that but surely he wasn’t too shy to speak among friends and she hoped that he regarded us as friends and how did he manage to give his lectures if he didn’t speak in public? He said he had to steel himself to it because he had to earn his crust, but he hoped that at such an agreeable dinner party he would not be expected to put himself through such agonies. I noticed that while all this was going on that his stammer had got worse and worse and it was difficult to listen to him because of the long pauses when I wanted so much to put in the word for him but thought it not quite polite. Christiana didn’t look very sympathetic though, and she and Sarah did try to finish his words from time to time, muttering them under their breath as he asked for things on the table: j-jam roly-poly and c-c-c-custard. I felt very sorry for him as he is such a kind man and sometimes my sisters can be horrid.
I’d forgotten how Mr Jameson was willing and even eager to suffer the humiliation of a family meal when he could have eaten in college among men who ignored his shortcomings. But I do remember how much I’d looked forward to the event. It was the first time we’d had a guest to dinner since I’d been allowed to dine with my parents, and I was anxious to show off my grown-up etiquette. I had no proper idea then of quite how much pleasure Mr Jameson took in my company, but I was sufficiently aware of myself to want to look my best, and I’d combed my hair again and again, almost weeping that Nettie was not there to help me. Mr Jameson, I knew, liked little girls to look pretty. But even as I’d struggled in front of the looking-glass it didn’t occur to me that his fondness for me was anything out of the ordinary, or that there was any impropriety in returning that fondness. My mother and father seemed glad to promote his attention towards me; and the previous day, when I had hung back, hesitant to embrace him, Hannah had positively pushed me into his arms. I’d been surprised by the pleasant nature of his kiss. I usually disliked kissing grown-up men; they were invariably covered in whiskers, and smelled strongly of tobacco, especially Mama’s Uncle Bertie who always took hold of me very tight and had a very wet mouth. He would breathe very heavily, as if he was intent on passing all the breath from his mouth into mine, and stale old rum-smelling breath it was too. I always had to go into a corner and cough it out afterwards. Even kissing my father was not altogether pleasant, and thinking about it now makes me give an odd kind of shudder. But Mr Jameson had skin like a woman and smelled only of soap. He’d also kissed me very delicately and respectfully, so I didn’t at all mind the prospect of doing it again.
After dinner, Mr Jameson stayed behind in the dining room with Papa and ‘we ladies’, as Mama now called us, returned to the drawing room. Christiana stood on tiptoes in front of the mantelpiece mirror and adjusted her hair saying Mr Jameson was such a dull man and why couldn’t we have someone more interesting to dinner? Mama asked her whom she thought was more interesting and she said someone like Mr Gardiner, the archery teacher, and Mama said, Nonsense, we couldn’t ask someone like that to dinner, and Christiana said why not? and Mama said she knew perfectly well why not, and if she didn’t by now, she’d better learn quickly. Christiana went very red and said was it because we paid him money? And Mama said that would do as an answer for the time being although it was a lot more complicated.
I keep thinking that grown-up life is extremely complicated and it doesn’t seem fair that you can’t invite someone you like to dinner because you give them money. But it seems that paying people is part of these silly Rules of England that meant Nettie couldn’t stay with us although she wanted to. Christiana went to the window then, and stared out at the garden in an annoyed way, and I wondered what sort of person Mr Gardiner was and why she liked him. And I wondered if he liked her in return in spite of her being so very contradictery.
Papa and Mr Jameson came in to join us quite quickly after that as Papa said John had no head for port and neither of them enjoyed a pipe. And Mama said what has happened to your thealogical arguments? And Papa said he was writing his sermon tomorrow and sufficient unto the day. Then Mama played the piano for us, and then Christiana played a duet with Sarah. Mr Jameson asked if I could play and I played Rondo which is the only thing I can do properly with both hands, and Mr Jameson clapped a great deal at the end although I did make some mistakes with my left hand. He then said ‘Why don’t we play Consequences?’ and Mama said ‘Why not?’ and Sarah got some pencils and paper and we started to play. Most of the Consequences were about famous people like Lord Palmerston and Queen Victoria, but when it came to my turn, I unfolded my paper and found I had The Rev. John Jameson meeting Mrs E. Baxter on a London omnibus. He said: Will you marry me, delight of my life? And she said: We need some more coal on the fire. And the consequence of this was: They both took a dozen lessons in Elementary Logic. (Mr Jameson did this last bit as I recognized his writing.) We all laughed, especially my sisters, and neither Mama nor Mr Jameson looked the slightest bit put out as of course it is only a game! I wanted to do another round but Mama said it was time for me to go to bed and so I had to say goodnight and leave them all. I kissed Mama and Papa and then Christiana and Sarah, and then Mr Jameson was looking so left out that I went up and kissed him on the cheek too. He said he’d take my kiss and put it in a box and take it home with him as it was the sweet
est thing he’d ever had. Christiana sniggered and Mama said, Oh, Mr Jameson, I thought I was the one you wanted to marry! And everybody laughed. Then Papa said ‘Goodnight, Daisy dear’ in a way I knew meant I had to go.
When I crossed the hall to go upstairs I could hear Cook and Hannah and Matthews all arguing down in the kitchen. I would have dearly liked to know what it was all about but didn’t dare try to listen. I hope Cook is not going to give in her notice as I could not bear more changes.
When I got to the landing I could hear Benjy crying and Mrs McQueen stamping back and forth across the nursery floor. I have maybe forgotten to mention that Mrs McQueen is a very strict person and I am glad that I don’t have to sleep in the nursery any more as nothing seems to please her and she is even worse than Hannah ever was. If I speak to her she always contradicts me and tells me to mind my manners although I think it is she who is rude, always making personal remarks and telling me my hair is untidy and that my apron needs a good wash! She is even a bit stern with Mama who always agrees with her suggestions and says she must do as she thinks fit and please not to bother her about every small thing. I think Mama is afraid she will leave us and Benjy will be without a nursemaid again. She also says she wants someone who will be sure never to let Benjy out of her sight like Nettie did and Mrs McQueen is very experianced and reliable. She certainly sticks to him like glue, rocking him so hard I think he must get a headache but Mama says that gives her peace of mind.
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 t
he 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.
After Such Kindness Page 10
