After Such Kindness

by Gaynor Arnold

  ‘Indeed, you might as well say that no one should ever do anything at all, in case their motives are misinterpreted,’ I said.

  Mrs Baxter ignored me. ‘I am sure there are many in the parish who will see me as remiss. But the servants did not keep me informed of what was happening. If I had been here, I could perhaps have prevented this – exhaustion.’ She wrung her hands. ‘I should have come back four weeks ago; I should have left my son in Herefordshire and returned immediately. But Daniel’s letters were always so encouraging. He urged me to stay, to give my aged father the benefit of my company for another week or two. He said that Daisy was recovering, and that he was managing admirably with Hannah helping in the sickroom and Mr Morton taking the services. But it seems he was keeping the true situation from me. And now he is paying the price . . .’ Her voice trailed away and I could see she was almost in tears. I was quite surprised to see her affected like this, and for a moment my heart went out to her. But I kept my counsel.

  ‘I am sure you are not to blame, dear lady,’ said Warner, gallantly. ‘But it seemed from what Bertram – my prospective son-in-law – said, that Mr Baxter might need quite a little time away from the helm of the ship, so to speak. When the captain is stricken, it’s a case of “all hands on deck”. Hence, we are at your disposal.’

  ‘Oh, I am quite sure his indisposition is temporary,’ said Mrs Baxter, still steadfastly refusing to look at me. ‘There was no need for you to interrupt your holiday, Mr Warner. Nor you, Mr Jameson; your presence is quite superfluous.’

  Even Warner must have detected the barb beneath her words, and he glanced at me in surprise, but I affected not to notice. ‘I am glad to hear it, Mrs Baxter,’ I said, thinking of how, not so many weeks before, we were laughing together over a parlour game in this same room, and flirting lightly as our names were coupled in a comical way. There was nothing of the flirt about her now, but I was certain that her coolness to me and the cryptic content of her letters arose entirely from her concern for Daniel, and not from any revelation regarding myself. I tried to be emollient. ‘I hope the rest of the family at least are well and that Daisy has recovered from her fever.’

  ‘Thank you. Daisy is quite well. She has a lot to thank her father for.’ She said this in such a way that implied Daisy was somehow to blame for being ill. I regarded this as very unfair, but people in extreme agitation are liable to see blame where there is none.

  ‘May I see her?’ I said. ‘I sent her so many letters from Ilfracombe, and would very much like to know if she received them. I never had a reply, you see. Maybe she was too weak. I know Daisy is too well brought up not to have replied without good reason.’

  I watched Mrs Baxter seek for some excuse as to why I should not see the child, but under the watchful eye of Mr Warner, she failed to find one. She went to the mantelpiece and rang for Hannah, who came looking ruffled, and departed again in a quest for Daisy. I could not but help noticing that the house seemed more than usually hushed, but I put that down to the absence of the infant Benjamin.

  ‘Are you sure I cannot be of assistance?’ asked Warner, clearly weighing the apparent normality of the household against the lurid reports of his son-in-law, and no doubt thinking his departure from the seaside had been a little hasty. Of course, he could not mention the alleged mumbling and raving, and nor could I. And Mrs Baxter would clearly have us believe that no such thing had ever taken place.

  ‘Charles – Mr Morton – will continue to take the services for the time being,’ she said. ‘But you may wish to consult with Mr Attwood or Mrs Carmichael about other matters. I’m afraid I am not fully apprised of parish affairs.’ As she spoke, I could see why the ever-busy Mrs Warner had found her distant and poetic. ‘But I am sure,’ she said, ‘that you need have no concerns. My husband will soon be back at the helm.’

  Warner again attempted to offer his help, and she again declined it, but I found myself paying only scant attention to them, as my anticipation of seeing Daisy again began to mount. Indeed, my ears were taking a walk into the hallway for any sound of her approach. But when she came through the door I was taken aback. She was like a different child. Her illness had left her extremely thin, and without that delicate softness of outline that characterizes the supreme beauty of childhood. And her eyes had an odd kind of sadness – a blankness almost – as if she was now privy to a more grown-up world than when we had last met. She seemed taller too, and more sedate. I knew then that she had already begun the journey to womanhood, and that she was fading from me even as I looked at her – like one of my ruined photographs, numinous and overexposed.

  ‘Daisy, my dear,’ I said, holding out my hands. ‘It is so good to see you. You have been in my thoughts so very much.’

  She curtseyed, like any well-brought-up young lady in front of a stranger, her once-bright eyes cast down. Not at all like Daisy with her eager enthusiasm – not at all like my dear Daisy of yore. ‘I’m obliged to you,’ she said.

  Obliged! When had she started to use such an expression? And where had this new stiffness come from? I tried to steady my voice. ‘I am glad you are recovered, my dear. Did you receive my letters from Ilfracombe? I took considerable trouble over them.’

  She looked at me, startled out of her composure. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even know you’d been to Ilfracombe. Isn’t that where Annie goes in the summer?’ Then she seemed to notice Mr Warner for the first time, and dropped another curtsey. ‘How do you do, Mr Warner?’

  ‘Very well, my dear. But you are quite right. We holiday in Ilfracombe every year. But this year we have had the extra pleasure of Mr Jameson’s company. He is out all day with my children – donkey rides and beach-combing and sketching trips and all manner of entertainment. Mrs Warner and I have hardly seen our youngest three since he turned up. I think I shall strive to engage him for all our future holidays, as I have been able to read my newspaper without interruption and Mrs Warner has netted at least double the amount of mittens she normally manages in three weeks.’

  Daisy turned accusing eyes at me. ‘You have been at the seaside?’ she said. ‘With Annie?’

  Of course, when I looked at it through Daisy’s eyes, I could see that she might conceive it as a betrayal – my entertaining Annie and her siblings in riotous assemblage while she herself lay in a fever hundreds of miles away. And yet there would have been no logic to my remaining in Oxford when I had done all I could to speed her recovery. If she were not allowed to have visitors, it wouldn’t have mattered if I had been at Land’s End or John O’Groats, or even on the moon. And, though I was far away, I had persistently enquired after her, and written to her at great length and with many illustrations. But people do not always look at things logically, and it is a fallacy that a lover should show his nobility by pounding the city streets where his beloved lives, even though she has no notion of his presence and is happily playing cards with her best friend in a drawing room five miles away. What a waste of time and energy. But I was still anxious that Daisy should think well of me. ‘I have simply been taking a short holiday from the demands of trigonometry,’ I said. ‘For fear my head will grow to an uncommon size and no hatter would be able to accommodate it. Besides, Benson always likes a week or so off during the summer and I think it would be unfair not to release him, don’t you? He is so very good with the bread-and-butter for the remaining eleven months of the year.’

  ‘But who looks after Dinah if you are both away?’ she said. For a fleeting moment she was like her old self – quick and curious.

  ‘Mr Bunch, who is a scout on the next staircase, sees to her. In fact, she is so fat after a fortnight or so in his care that I am convinced that he spoils her with mouse cutlets and buttered bats. There are many bats, you know, in our college – a whole belfry full of them – and we are enjoined to deplete the numbers whenever we can.’

  ‘Do cats eat bats?’ she said, half laughing like she used to. ‘I never heard that!’

  ‘Did you ever hear they didn�
��t?’ I replied, getting into my stride.

  But Mrs Baxter was not about to allow us to have any fun. ‘Mr Jameson wishes to know if you received his letters,’ she said curtly. ‘As it seems you did not reply.’

  ‘What letters?’ she asked warily, and not very grammatically.

  ‘Mr Jameson claims he wrote to you from Ilfracombe.’

  I interrupted. ‘It is not a claim, Mrs Baxter; it is a fact. That I wrote them is indisputable. That they were received is what is open to doubt.’

  ‘Perhaps Papa has them,’ suggested Daisy, a little uneasily.

  I thought this more than likely. He had probably put them aside for her convalescence and had not had time to give them to her before his own indisposition came upon him. ‘But did you read the story I wrote for you?’

  ‘A story? For me?’ She put her hands together – but, in her new grown-up way she stopped short of clapping them, and merely held them to her chest.

  ‘Not only for you, but about you,’ I said, smiling at her delight. ‘I gave it directly to your papa.’

  ‘Well, no doubt, that is the answer,’ Mrs Baxter said with some relief. ‘Mr Baxter has undoubtedly put all your correspondence away safely. I will get Hannah to search for it later. You will appreciate, Mr Jameson, that things are very much out of joint in our household at the moment. I cannot be spending time looking for lost letters, particularly if they contain only humorous trivialities. Now, if you do not mind, I must ask you both to take your leave. My husband needs my full attention.’

  ‘Of course. But I am ready to help in any way,’ replied Mr Warner, pushing up from the big winged chair. ‘I shall speak to the other churchwardens and see what needs to be done. Please do not hesitate to call on me. I shall remain at home for the next few days and you may send your servant at any time of the night or day.’

  ‘You are very kind, Mr Warner, but I am sure that will not be necessary.’ And with that she began to usher us out.

  I knew that Mrs Baxter, having forbidden me to write to Daisy, would not easily allow me to see her again, and I could not rely on Daniel, in his current state of health, to overrule her. I did not wish the child to think I had abandoned her without a word, or to be told by some ill-intentioned person that I no longer cared about her, so I took the opportunity to fall behind Mr Warner and Mrs Baxter and clasp Daisy’s hand. ‘Goodbye, my dear. I’ll never forget you,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget me, either, will you?’

  ‘Why? Won’t I see you again?’ she said, with something of a stricken look.

  I could hardly answer her. ‘I c-can’t say. I think our time may be over. You are growing up now. Too old for my sort of nonsense.’ I could feel the lump at my throat.

  ‘I’m not! I’m not too old at all!’ She clutched at my coat sleeve.

  ‘You are getting older by the minute, Daisy,’ I said, patting her shorn head. ‘Time is rushing on for you. But Time has a wretched habit of staying still for me, lazing around and doing nothing in particular. I rather think we are fated to go our separate ways.’

  ‘No, Mr Jameson, please don’t say that! I still want to go walking with you and see Dinah and Benson and have my pho–’

  I interrupted her quickly. ‘Please, my dear – remember the Eye of Society. Young ladies cannot skip about with old bachelors for ever. They have to learn how to put on long dresses and sit sedately and make polite conversation with young gentlemen. It’s the way of the world, my dear. Even though we may not want it.’

  Mrs Baxter heard my words and turned, almost gracious now. ‘Mr Jameson is right, Daisy. You’ll have different matters to occupy you from now on. We all will. Now, say a nice farewell to him as he asks.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand why he has to go, why everyone has to go.’ Then, rather desperately, ‘I want to tell him something.’

  Mrs Baxter looked me in the eye for the first time. ‘Daisy is anxious about her father, that is all.’ Then, taking Daisy by the shoulders, she said, ‘There is nothing that you need to tell Mr Jameson, my dear. Family matters are to be kept to ourselves.’

  I could see Daisy’s lip trembling and I so much wanted to comfort her. But it was all too dreadfully late. I held out my hand. ‘It’s been the greatest honour to know you, Daisy. But your mama says I must go, so go I must.’ I shook her hand. ‘Goodbye, dear child,’ I said.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Jameson,’ she said at last, her grey eyes fixed on me. I thought I saw despair in them, and for a moment I hesitated to abandon her to the Scylla and Charybdis of her vicarage life – her clever, cold mama and her wild, distracted father. It could not be a happy situation for a child. But I could not force my way into the house, and I could not force Daisy out of it. I had no power at all. I was just a single man whom nobody listened to; as dead and flat and unimportant as a breakfast bloater.

  ‘Perhaps we will meet again,’ I said, kissing her little hand. And then, unable to stop myself, I put my arms around her, feeling the tightness of her chest as she tried to prevent the tears coming. Then I stumbled out through the grand front door and into the breezy afternoon. Mr Warner made as if to speak to me, but I put on my hat and walked quickly down the hill, unable to look behind me.

  Sad to say, Daniel never recovered his wits and, apart from fleeting glimpses around town, I didn’t see Daisy again, although she has lived with me this long time in the pages of my book, and of course in the pages of my heart. I never saw Daniel again either, although in the early days of his affliction I frequently haunted the environs of the vicarage, knowing that Mrs Baxter’s writ did not extend to the pavements of the public streets. But he was kept close inside, guarded it would seem, by the servants, and I saw not so much as a glimpse of him. I retired to my usual day-to-day work, and in the evenings I consoled myself with the delightful occupation of writing Daisy’s Daydream, hoping against hope that my old friend would soon be restored to health and a new regime instituted at Westwood Gardens. But news of his insanity began to leak out bit by bit.

  I heard from Smith-Jephcott that he was seen in the Gardens dressed only in his nightshirt – and, on one celebrated occasion, stark naked. Smith-Jephcott could not disguise his delight at being the bearer of such news. He has always had an irrational dislike of Muscular Christianity in general and Daniel in particular, so he kept me fully aware of his distressing decline, even though it was painful for me to hear it. He told me of Baxter’s attempts to sequester the communion wine, and his habit of sending petitions to the Archbishop of Canterbury by floating them on the breeze from an upstairs room. At the last it was he who gloatingly informed me that Dr Lawrence, after years of administering pills and lotions, hot poultices and cold compresses, soft words and harsh remedies – had been forced to resort to the straitjacket. ‘The women of the household can’t manage him – even with the curate and the churchwardens attending the house day and night. So he’s off to the asylum where he’ll have no option. The congregation is all at sixes and sevens; half of ’em believing their prayers will come true and holding out for Baxter’s return to the pulpit; the rest clamouring for a new vicar in his place. Some say that Baxter overreached himself; that he let his pride come before his duty – and this is his punishment. Morton can hardly hold the vestry committee together.’

  I was appalled and saddened to think it had come to this. I had always thought of myself as somewhat eccentric, and there were many Oxford dons who were, in my view, completely deranged – but we all managed to live in the world and not be too unkindly remarked upon. Daniel had unfortunately contrived to assault every social constraint by his naked ravings; and he could not be forgiven. I was grieved to think of him caged up in an institution, and once he had left the watchful eye of his wife, I several times wrote to him at the asylum, thinking maybe that a correspondence with an old friend would be good for him. But my letters were returned, unopened. Except for one, which came back with a scrawl over my name and written alongside, in an almost unrecognizable version of Daniel’s hand, th
e words ‘Corrupter of Innocence!’. I cannot say what a shock that gave me. It came to me that he must have seen the photographs and drawn the inevitable wrong conclusion. I wanted to see him, then, to explain that no corruption had taken place, that his darling Daisy was still as fresh as a flower. But, of course, he was mad, and there is no persuading a madman. I began to be angry, then. I could not think what the superintendent of the asylum had been thinking of – letting such a libel slip past, to be seen by the workers in the Post Office and by the porters at my college as they handled it and assigned it to my pigeonhole. I was minded to write a letter of complaint. Indeed, I composed one, so shaken was I by such public incompetence. But in the end I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and that it was best not to stir up matters that were long dead.

  As time has gone on, I am relieved that I distanced myself from him. It might have prevented other children being allowed to see me if it were known that the naked, ranting Daniel Baxter had once been my friend. The shame has fallen most heavily on his family, of course, but Mrs Baxter remained in the vicarage to the end, proving a good deal more resilient than she looked. And Daisy, bless her, has prospered. Smith-Jephcott, who is a mine of unsolicited information on all hatchings, matchings and dispatchings, informs me that young Robert Constantine fell in love with her the moment he saw her, and, casting aside all fears of hereditary taint, determined to make her his wife. He is now the fortunate incumbent of a well-established parish just beyond Oxford, and she his fortunate wife. I couldn’t have written a happier ending myself. Indeed, I find endings difficult; the need to point up a moral for everything goes against the grain; yet it is required and I have to twist my narratives to accommodate it.

  ‌21

  ‌ MARGARET CONSTANTINE

  Robert and I have been like strangers this last week. I don’t think I can continue in this way, and I doubt Robert can either. It’s far worse than before, when at least there was a glimmer of hope that we would find a resolution. Now, it seems, I’ve utterly broken his heart. I hear him in his dressing-room at night, tossing and turning for hours on end. I myself cannot sleep, and rise early every day. But whenever I go down to breakfast, he has always finished and already gone out on ‘urgent parish business’, not returning until late. And then he stays in his study until long after I’ve gone to bed.