After Such Kindness Part 9

This was a name he had given one of the nut-brown girls. She was not a gypsy at all, but it suited Frank to romanticize her a little. 'I think she's rather dirty,' I said.

'But beautiful, don't you think?'

I'd never really looked at her. To tell the truth, I'd never dared to. I'd just been aware of her bold eyes making me drop my gaze to her filthy, unshod feet. 'I don't know. Nice enough, I daresay. To other gypsies.'

Frank put his face close to mine. 'I dare you to kiss her.'

'Dare not accepted. And if we don't get this speech of Scipio Africa.n.u.s translated in half an hour, we'll be in trouble with the Croc.'

'You're too scared to do it!' He did a little dance of joy.

'Not at all. It's just not polite to go around kissing young ladies without asking them.'

'But supposing you did ask, and she said yes?'

'Too many hypotheticals.' And I closed my mind to the topic and went back to my Latin.

But Frank was not a boy to be thwarted. Our next half-holiday, we went walking down towards the river. I could tell he was on the lookout for Gypsy Susan, living as she did in one of the hovels where the people burned sticks for charcoal and did a bit of fis.h.i.+ng. There were always old women sitting on broken chairs outside their doorways, waiting for the children to bring back what they had scavenged. The old women nodded at us as they puffed away at their clay pipes, and the children rushed up holding out their muddy hands in begging welcome, but Gypsy Susan was nowhere to be seen. I was greatly relieved. But as we headed back along the woodland path, suddenly there she was, standing in a patch of dry earth under a chestnut tree, kicking a small stone about with her bare feet. I attempted to keep walking, head down, but Frank pulled me by the arm. 'Here's your chance!'

'No!' I said, wresting my arm away. She went on playing with the stone, ignoring us grandly. She was wearing some sort of dark red skirt, short enough to show her calves.

'Good afternoon, miss,' Frank said smoothly, pulling off his hat.

She went on kicking the stone, then sent it skidding into the undergrowth with one deft movement. I watched her graceful limbs and the toss of her black hair as if in a trance. 'Leave her alone, Frank,' I said, my voice choked.

'Would you like to earn sixpence?' he said to her then. His words were like a shard of gla.s.s through my heart as I antic.i.p.ated his strategy.

She looked up warily. 'Wha' fer?' she said. Her voice was rough and cracked.

'For being so pretty.'

She laughed. She had bad teeth behind the rosy lips. 'An' whar' else?' She stood firm, legs set apart, eyes narrowed.

'Just a kiss. We've walked all the way hoping to see you. It's two miles, you know, from the school. Two miles for a kiss. Thruppence each one. Is that a bargain?' He gave her his most winning smile.

'Let's see yer monay, furst.' Her speech had a strong local burr.

Frank drew out a sixpenny piece from his waistcoat pocket. She looked at it hungrily. 'Just two kisses, mind?' she said. Then, looking at me, 'Your friend doan't seem too keen.'

I was stunned. 'You can't p-pay her, Frank!' I said. 'That's wrong!'

'No it ain't,' she said, turning on me. 'You don't need to poake yer nose in, beanpole.'

'Well, I'm having nothing to do with it.' I walked away, shocked at Frank's behaviour, my head reeling from the look of her taunting eyes, her maddeningly graceful limbs. Once out of sight I leaned up against a tree, my blood racing. All was quiet. Seconds later, Frank appeared, looking rather white and shaken. I thought perhaps she had stolen his money without completing the bargain. 'You shouldn't have done that,' I whispered. 'P-Paying her it's making her a harlot. Kisses should be given freely.'

'She kissed in a very funny way.' He licked his lips, doubtingly.

Before I'd had time to ask him what he meant, she came prancing back along the path, her dark ma.s.s of hair swinging back and forth. She stopped when she saw us both looking so nonplussed. Then, before I had time to avoid her, she pushed me back against the tree trunk. Her hands were hard, her whole body was hard: bone and sinew rather than soft flesh. I smelled her overpowering sweat, felt her lips up against me, salty and dirty. I closed my eyes, half of me yielding, half resisting. Then I felt her tongue, lithe like a serpent. To my amazement, she tried to push it into my mouth. I gagged and thrust her away in horror. The she laughed again and let me go, and walked off. 'There y'are, lads two fer a tanner,' she called out over her shoulder. 'I doan't cheat.'

I spat on the floor, trying to rid myself of her sour smell and fishy taste. I rubbed my mouth and my nose and my cheeks with my handkerchief. I felt I wanted to wash myself, cleanse myself, douse myself for ever in the stream of Living Water, purify myself of this horrid deed.

Frank seemed amused at my antics. 'What's the matter?' he asked. 'Anyone would think you'd swallowed a frog.'

'I feel I have.' I couldn't help shuddering. 'Ugh, ugh, ugh!'

'Her mouth was a bit wet,' he said. 'Not at all like Jane Freeman's. But still.' He smiled. 'It was well worth thruppence.'

I looked at him aghast. 'So you enjoyed it?'

He looked at me. 'Yes, of course I did. And she has her sixpence. You're the only one making a fuss.'

I could not tell him how loathsome I thought him, how I felt betrayed by him, how immoral the whole procedure had been. I could not understand how any decent person could indulge in such grossness, and I determined I would never again put myself in such a position. Kissing, for me, would always be confined to my mother and sisters. Let Frank look forward to the marriage bed; I had no such ambitions.

And I have not changed my mind. Even Daniel's blissful marriage does not tempt me. Even the prospect of begetting children of my own does not shake my resolve. It seems to me that I am supremely suited to be an uncle and a friend; to share a particular part of my life with others, but no more. I should, for example, utterly dislike to give up my life as a scholar, in which I have no one to be responsible for, save myself (and Dinah, of course). When you really love the subject which is your livelihood, no effort is too much. But I would hate to have dealings with a wife, as Daniel does, on the subject of What Shall We Have for Dinner? or Should the Cook be Given Notice? Or Can We Afford a Carriage? It is much more pleasant to know nothing of domestic matters except that I will find a four-course meal waiting for me at seven o'clock each evening, of which I may eat as little or as much as I please, and converse with my curmudgeonly fellow dons in like degrees. I may drink a little brandy without censure, and I may retire to bed as early as suits me. I may wake in the night and thrash around in the bedclothes without disturbance to a living soul except myself. If I have a mind to attend to algebraic geometry at two in the morning, I can do it. This is selfish, I own it. Whereas, in most people's minds, there is a sofa marked 'Kindness' to welcome all comers, in mine there is but one chair, marked 'Selfishness', and other people can't come into it to bother me, because there is nowhere for them to sit. And where most people have a little stool called 'Humility', in mine there is a great one called 'Conceit', and it is so high that, were you to sit on it, your head would knock hard against the ceiling. Fellows like Smith-Jephcott like to think that is all I am about; that work and self-importance are what I am entirely made of. He is wrong. I have a heart, of course, ticking away like a pocket watch. But I am only tempted to open my heart to children.

12.

MARGARET CONSTANTINE.

I'd forgotten that I'd taken my drawers off for Mr Jameson. It seems very peculiar, now as I look back how I'd dared to do it, and what a strange request it had been. I know Mama would have been scandalized, but it seemed natural enough at the time and I wasn't in any way embarra.s.sed. I always felt safe with Mr Jameson. Yet all the same, I know he's connected with the dark events that have slipped so completely from my mind. Perhaps Daisy will shed some light on them soon.

I turn the page, and to my surprise, there she is, smiling up at me Daisy Baxter with her gypsy dress and shorn locks. The photograph is worn and battered, but I smile back, thinking how very young she is. It's rather foolish of me to imagine such a child will have the answer to a problem like mine. I begin to think I'd do better to put my faith in the Harley Street man.

I close the book. But as I stretch forward to put it down, I catch my reflection in the looking-gla.s.s on my dressing table and, not for the first time, I'm shocked to see how different I look from what I expect to see. I'm well-dressed and my hair is elaborately curled, but I'm deathly pale and there are dark patches under my eyes. I've hardly slept since my wedding day. And I've become so thin that my rings slip off every time I wash my hands. I can't go on living like this. If only I could remember what happened in those four years between the ages of eleven and fifteen that are such a mystery to me!

I've never dared speak of this queer hiatus to anyone, afraid I would be ridiculed, or worse. But the fact remains that I awoke, one summer afternoon to find, quite suddenly, that I had become someone else. At first, I was only aware that my heart was beating rather fast and I seemed to have recollections of some unpleasant encounter. So it was a relief to see the gra.s.s and the flower beds and realize I was, after all, sitting safely on the lawn in the vicarage garden. But at the same time it seemed as though the bushes were unaccountably bus.h.i.+er, and the trees taller. And my body felt strange as if it had suddenly become a great deal heavier. I looked down, and to my surprise, there in my lap was a pair of gloved hands clasping an ivory fan. But the hands weren't mine they had elegant, long fingers and were altogether far too grown-up to belong to me. Yet they responded when I tried to move them and wiggled delicately inside their net gloves gloves of the sort I'd coveted for a long time but had never been allowed to have. And I could see that my body was clothed in a very grown-up silk dress, and had, of all things, a bosom. It swelled out in a confident curve as I looked down, and it alarmed me in no small measure to think how if it were mine it could have grown so decidedly large while I was asleep. Then, as I tried to get up, I found my legs were enc.u.mbered by layers of long petticoats, and my waist was constricted painfully by something hard and rigid undoubtedly a corset. It was the most curious thing ever, as if I had sloughed my old skin and suddenly become a different creature.

I looked about myself rather wildly, expecting to see my astonishment mirrored in the faces of others. But although there were over half a dozen people in the garden, n.o.body took the slightest notice of me, and everyone went on talking and handing around sandwiches and lemonade as coolly as if my metamorphosis were perfectly unremarkable.

Sitting next to me on the lawn was a slight young man, with a dark, serious face and glossy, straight, black hair. He was dressed in clerical black, but was wearing a straw hat with a green ribbon. 'You've been asleep, Margaret,' he said in a pleasant voice, tickling my neck with a blade of gra.s.s. 'Have you been dreaming? You don't seem quite yourself.'

He was smiling at me in a familiar way, as if we were in the habit of sharing confidences, but I had no idea who he was or why he was calling me 'Margaret'. Perhaps I had strayed into Margaret's body? If so, I wanted to be out of it as soon as I could. I didn't feel at all right in her silk dress and net gloves. I certainly didn't feel right with her curving bosom and languid limbs. I wanted to be myself again. But who, exactly, was I? I started to panic. I'd thought I was a child called Daisy; in fact, I'd been certain of it. But now, every time I thought of her, the fainter she became in my mind. She seemed to be rapidly disappearing down a long dark tunnel, leaving this grown-up person in her place.

I stared at the young man. It was clear that he knew me well. And it was clear that the people sitting around us knew him, as they left us to our own devices and murmured away in their own conversations. My sisters were looking more than ever like twins in matching dresses, with large sun hats tied fetchingly under their chins. They were grown-up women now, and were paying attention in a very ladylike manner to two young clergymen who lounged on the lawn beside them. One of them I recognized as Papa's curate, Mr Morton. He was very intimate with Christiana, laughing and smiling with her, and she was returning his smiles in quite a kind way instead of being haughty and sarcastic, as she usually was. Sarah was reading a poem aloud and I knew for sure it was in German, although I had no recollection of learning the language. And there was Mama, sitting on a folding chair, dispensing tea in her familiar way, but looking more anxious than I remembered her, with grey strands threading through her hair. And there in the distance was (surely) Benjy, nearly three foot tall, already breeched and running around in a sailor suit and throwing up the very same rubber ball which Nettie had given me. Running after him and calling out his name was a servant I didn't recognize at all. But there was no Papa. And Mr Jameson was absent too.

I thought about making a declaration of my strange situation to the a.s.sembled company, but I felt too too ridiculous. What could I have said? And what would they have thought of me? I would undoubtedly be taken for a mad girl, or perhaps they would say like this pleasant young man that I was dreaming.

Indeed, the only explanation for all the strangeness around me was that I was still dreaming, and sooner or later, I'd wake up. To hasten the event, I closed my eyes tight and counted to ten. But when I opened them, everything was exactly as it had been before. In fact, it seemed even more real. I could hear the crickets in the gra.s.s and smell the roses in the rose beds, and see the long shadow of the cypress tree across the lawn. I could even see the intricate braiding on my sisters' dresses as they rose to play croquet, and I could hear them laughing delightedly as they swept their great skirts around and clicked their mallets elegantly against the ball. 'Good stroke!' someone called out, and 'Well done!' Surely I was not imagining that? Then I felt a great thump as Benjy climbed onto my lap, his hot and heavy body crus.h.i.+ng my frock and making moist stains on the silk as he wriggled about before leaping up again to chase a tabby cat I'd never seen before. Benjy was real too, smelling of sun and sweat and sugar. Even the pages of the novel lying next to me smelled of warm paper as they turned in the breeze and I stopped them with my unfamiliar hand in its unfamiliar net glove. All the time I was aware of the dark young man as he lay on the gra.s.s alongside me, attempting to draw me into conversation. As he spoke, he made a little garland of b.u.t.tercups which he placed on my head. 'Made with the best b.u.t.ter,' he said with a laugh.

Hours and hours seemed to go by during which I said as little as possible. I smiled at the young man and drank the tea he offered, holding the china cup with my new, slender hands and daintily eating the sandwiches that were brought around, thinking believing hoping that at any moment I would wake up and my everyday memories would return and rescue me. My whole head ached with the effort.

Then Mr Morton rose and said he had to get ready for Evensong, and the tea-party broke up. At which point, the young man with the straw hat took my hand very earnestly and said, 'I've hardly had a word from you today, Margaret. Have I done something to offend?' I hastened to rea.s.sure him, saying (in a grown-up voice that seemed quite foreign to me) that I'd foolishly given myself a headache through sleeping in the sun. 'Take care not to do it again, then,' he said. 'Or perhaps use a parasol.'

Soon it was time for church, and I put on Margaret's elegant hat, which was handed me by the new maid, and I walked across to St Cyprian's with my mother and sisters, feeling strangely tall. I sat in the front pew where I had always sat, with Margaret's silk dress taking up a great deal more room than I was accustomed to. And I listened, not to Papa's thrilling tones, but to Mr Morton's mumbled ones. And then I came home again. But Papa was still not there. And Mr Morton stayed to supper, sitting in Papa's chair at the head of the table. And no one seemed to feel it at all out of the ordinary. After supper he read to us from the gospels, but didn't explain why my father was not there to read to us himself. 'Goodnight, Margaret dear,' he mumbled, pressing my hands in blessing as I went up to bed.

The stairs were the same as I trod the thick patterned carpet to the first floor, and my room was the same, with its blue curtains and bedspread. But the person I saw in the looking-gla.s.s, with her grown-up hair and grown-up frock, was not at all the same; in fact, it shocked me to see that she bore a marked resemblance to my mother. And when I carefully took off her fine frock and her rather complicated underclothes, I found that the contours of her body were more like Nettie's than mine. It was all so very perplexing and upsetting. But, for the moment, there was nothing to be done except put on the lace-trimmed nightgown that was folded on the bed, and attempt to go to sleep. Maybe in the morning, I thought, things would be different. I closed my eyes and prayed that G.o.d would have mercy and restore me to myself. Yet when I woke the next morning and looked at my shape under the bedclothes, I could see I still had Margaret's long limbs and her fine bosom. What had happened to me was real and I would have to make the best of it. There seemed one course of action open to me.

So I got up and dressed in Margaret's clothes and pinned up Margaret's hair and went downstairs to live Margaret's life. And I found that she was such a quiet figure in the household that her curious ignorance of what had happened the day before (or even at any time in the recent past) was unremarked upon; if, indeed, it was noticed. I discovered that she could play the piano almost as well as her sisters, and could draw and embroider and do all manner of things that Daisy had never attempted; but that above all she was renowned for always having her nose in a book. I learned from the servants that the dark man with the straw hat was called Robert Constantine and that he was a friend of Mr Morton's, destined to take Holy Orders himself; that Hannah had left two years before to be married to the haberdasher on the High, and now turned up at church in the very latest fas.h.i.+on, to the disgust of both my sisters; that Mrs McQueen had long ago given notice, which n.o.body regretted and that pink-faced Jess had come instead. I learned that Christiana, now much graver and more subdued, was engaged to Mr Morton, who now seemed to be doing all Father's work in the parish, and occupying his study. However, there was still no sign of Father himself, and I had such strange feelings when I thought of him that I even feared he might have died. But no one in the house wore mourning and there was no black drapery to be seen on any picture or looking-gla.s.s. So I kept my counsel, and waited, thinking he must soon return from whatever business had taken him away. I thought maybe the bishop had appointed him to an important committee to do with the conditions of the poor, and that he was away in London or even Manchester. But, all the time, I could not shake off the notion that he had been unwell and was convalescing somewhere. I was surer of this when Mama once or twice let slip a reference to 'your poor papa', and when I realized that Mr Morton prayed for father's health and well-being at every service. But although there would be a murmur of sympathetic approval when his name was mentioned, no one asked directly after him. Even Mrs Carmichael was silent. I thought this strange, but I could not say that I wished to hasten his return. The household seemed calmer without him.

The real truth came out bit by bit. One day, when I was in the drawing room quietly enjoying that fact that I could now understand quite difficult books in French and German, Jess brought Mama a letter. She looked at it. 'From the superintendent,' she said, shortly. And suddenly I had a brief picture of white walls and wooden doors and a general sense of distress and clamour before the image disappeared just as quickly as it had come. I watched as Mama opened the letter, and read it to herself. 'No better,' she said, shaking her head. Then she began to sob. 'Dear G.o.d, will it never end?'

Christiana went to her, and put her arm around her, but Sarah rose and ran from the room saying that it 'wasn't fair' and 'my life is blighted'. I could do nothing but sit like a stone, trying to make sense of it. If Papa was under the care of a superintendent, he must surely be in a hospital of some kind. A sanatorium, I reasoned. Somewhere a distance from Oxford maybe near the sea. But why did we not visit him? For some reason it came into my head that he might be in isolation, like a leper, although I'd never heard of anyone having leprosy in England. All the same, notions of illness and fever now seemed to attach themselves more distinctly to my memories of him. I could picture bowls and jugs and towels and the spooning of medicine. Had I nursed him? Brought him food and drink? Even it seemed unlikely washed him? But when I tried to recall it more clearly, all that would come into my head was the fateful picnic, and Nettie's dismissal, and the seemingly endless summer jaunts with John Jameson. If I thought of Papa's face, I could only see that big brown oar in his study, and feel his warm breath as I sat with my cheek next to his.

I must have seemed the most unfeeling of girls as I affected an air of calm to hide the depths of my despair and ignorance. I desperately wanted to remember what had gone before, but I had no means of doing so. I couldn't refer to Daisy's journal to jog my memory, as I had no idea where she'd hidden it. All I could do was let each day help me to the next, as I pieced my life together and built up a picture of myself as the Margaret that everyone knew. I found that I enjoyed the many talks that I had with Robert Constantine, who came to the house nearly every day and was very attentive to me, although in his presence I felt stupidly childlike and naive. I warmed to him the more because I felt strangely separate from my mother and sisters, as if I'd done something to upset them. And when it finally became clear to me that Papa was not in a sanatorium at all, but an insane asylum, I could not get it out of my head that it was somehow my fault.

And now, as I sit here in my comfortable new house, I know that I'll need courage if I am to go back to those forgotten years. But Papa always said I had courage. Brave little Daisy, he called me, his hand on my shoulder. I feel his hand now, heavy and comforting. Don't be frightened, he's saying. Just remember that I love you, and Love driveth out Fear.

I close my eyes and concentrate hard. It makes me think of those seances when people sit in the dark and call up the dead. My heart is beating fast to think I may be doing what is forbidden. But I don't want to raise spirits, only memories surely that cannot be evil. Nothing comes at first; I am too aware of being in this heavily draped room, with its oak furniture and patterned carpet, with the sounds of the birds in the garden outside, the faint clash of dishes in the kitchen below. Then suddenly it begins to come back my blue bedroom, my father's study, Mr Jameson's camera, the buzzing of a fly against a window, white silk stockings, prayers by a bedside, tangled sheets, a low candle; lessons in a book-lined room; the sound of weeping. I feel my heart beating double time. But before I can make sense of it all, the pictures flicker and disappear, like candles going out, one after the other. I try again, emptying my mind of all mundane thoughts, but this time nothing happens. I feel ready to cry.

I grasp the journal roughly in a kind of desperation and almost tear it open. Even a child's words are better than nothing, I think. Daisy must have written something that will help me. I see that the handwriting is more hectic now, the letters less well-formed. Perhaps she knows she is hurtling towards some awful fate.

Monday 7th July I cannot believe how kind Papa has been to me! I thought I was in the most terrible trouble and no one would ever trust me again. Hannah said, You're in for it this time, miss, and Sarah said I'd probably never be allowed to see Mr Jameson again if that was what I got up to in the afternoons. I was so miserable because it was not Mr Jameson's fault at all, and I cried all night very quietly so as not to make Christiana come running in and I had to bathe my eyes with cold water three times before prayers this morning and could hardly eat my breakfast with Papa and Mama both sitting there in silence. Then Papa got up and said, Daisy come with me, and I thought he was going to tell me how wicked and vain I was, and I could hardly speak for the tears stuck in my throat. Whenever Papa is cross with me, I can never say what I mean and I start to cry instead. Papa says it's not the words that matter as Vain Repet.i.tion is Heathen but you have to be really sorry from your heart if you have done wrong and that you must show your repentance in everything you do and I thought perhaps I would kneel on the hearthrug to beg for forgiveness. But the worst thing was that I was still glad that I had done it, and I couldn't repent. I stood very still trying not to look at him but peeping up through my lashes, and he sat there staring at me and then he smiled and said he liked my hair short and would speak to Mama about it, which made me so releaved and happy but he said he still had to give me a penance for being disobediant and not caring about Mama's feelings and other people's but it was only to write out Ephesians 6:3 which took me less than half an hour although it went over six sheets of paper. He looked at me so kindly that I knew he truly loved me in spite of my wickedness, and I am now determined to love him properly in return.

Mama is still cross, though. I've hardly spoken to her since yesterday. Even in church she wouldn't look at me and when we walked home I had to walk next to Hannah who said Mama is of the opinion that I look like a ragam.u.f.fin. I said Mr J told me I looked more like a gypsy and that he had taken a photograph of me in gypsy costume and Hannah said, Did you undress all by yourself? And I said of course I did as I was quite good at it since Nettie had gone and she didn't say anything more. She wasn't in a very good mood because Mama has stopped her going with my sisters to their archery lessons. I wouldn't have known this except Christiana and Sarah came into my room yesterday evening, pretending to tidy my dressing-table as a favour and check my handkerchief drawer to make sure I had none of theirs. Christiana looked at my bookshelf and said, 'The child has enough story books to open a public library!' And I said Mr Jameson had given me some and Miss Prentiss had lent me two for the summer holiday. And Christiana said, 'But where's your diary, Daisy? Are you still keeping it? Do let us look!' And they both started to poke about looking for it and I was so dreadfully afraid they'd look behind the fire screen and all would be discovered, but that very moment Hannah came in to brush their hair, so they stopped. They said what a bore it was that Hannah wasn't accompanying them to Archery any more and Hannah pulled a face and said didn't she know it, and that she'd rather be Out and About in the afternoons than stuck in the house dusting ornaments and labelling sheets especially with Cook's bad temper in the bas.e.m.e.nt and Mrs Mac's vile temper in the attic and not a pleasant soul in between. And we all laughed because sometimes Hannah is funny. Then Christiana said it was very demeaning of Mama to watch over her as if she were a child, but Sarah said: 'Oh, it's because you aren't a child that Mama is doing it! She wouldn't have bothered if it had been Daisy that Mr Gardiner had taken a fancy to.' Then she laughed in that funny way that makes her sound like a horse and twisted my hair around her finger to see if it would still go into ringlets which it still will, a bit. 'Daisy leads quite a charmed life, don't you, dear?' she said. 'Mr Jameson is allowed to take you everywhere and cut your hair and do all sorts of peculiar things.' I said Mr Jameson had absolutely not cut my hair, I had done it on my own (which was mainly true). I think they are both jealous and it's their fault anyhow that Mr J doesn't give them tea or take them nice places. They kept asking, 'What on earth do you do at Mr Jameson's?' And when I told them about the games and puzzles, Sarah said it was the most boring thing she'd ever heard. 'Has he taken any more photographs?' she said, and I didn't want to tell her about it because of the way Hannah had looked at me before and because I remembered about the Eye of Society and knew Mr Jameson didn't like me to talk about our time together.

I've been very worried in case Papa would stop me going to see Mr Jameson especially when he said that Mama thinks Mr J is too lenient with me. But Mr J says he isn't lenient because he has a lot of sisters and is used to them and Papa said then that it was all right and I could go whenever I wanted and I was so pleased I hugged Mr J on the spot. However, Papa says I must start my preparation for Confirmation too, and he will undertake this himself. He said he thought he had neglected my Spiritual Welfare which was why I had been disobediant, and to that extent it was his fault. I think it's not his fault at all but my own wilfulness and I ask G.o.d to forgive me every time I think of it during the day and every night at bedtime three times at least. However, I was very glad and releaved that I may still go on my adventures with Mr J. However I couldn't go with him today because Benjy wasn't well and Papa said I might stay with him until Dr Lawrence came, which Mrs McQueen didn't like but I didn't care what she liked as she is so horrid. Dr Lawrence said there was nothing wrong with Benjy and that he was probably only teething and to give him some Overdale's Syrup when he fretted, and Mrs McQueen was very pleased because it looked like she was right after all. But Papa said if it was only teething he didn't know why Benjy cried so much when he was with Mrs McQueen and was so much quieter when he was with me and she gave him a very cross look and said something about never having had any complaints before and hoping he'd let her know if he wasn't satisfied as she didn't wish to remain where she wasn't wanted.

I was just glad to be with Benjy again. It was almost like it used to be except Nettie wasn't there. Benjy still managed to pull my hair even though it was short. I sang to him 'Tom the Piper's Son', and 'Lavender's Blue' and 'Little Nutmeg' and all our favourites and Papa stayed to listen, which Mrs McQueen didn't like at all. I knew she was just itching for him to go so she could have the nursery to herself. But the funny thing was that Papa didn't seem to want to go. He kept looking around at the furnature saying he remembered this and that and he remembered when Nettie was here and how cheerful everything was. He asked Mrs McQueen if she'd moved things around and she said only the other small bed that had gone downstairs for me, and he said, 'Strange.' After a while she said she'd like a drop of tea and a bit of bread-and-b.u.t.ter and should she make some for him and for me, and he said he'd be obliged. Her tea was quite horrid and strong and she spread the b.u.t.ter too thick on the bread. But it was nice to be sitting down in the nursery having tea and not to be shooed away all the time. Papa said it would be a good thing if I could come and play with Benjy whenever I liked. 'Don't ever discourage her,' he said to Mrs McQueen. 'You know what the Bible says Suffer the little Children' and Mrs M said, Yes of course, although I could see she was seething underneath. I asked Papa why Jesus said little children had to suffer as it seemed unkind to say that, and Papa said 'suffer' in the Bible meant 'allow' or 'let', and that Jesus wanted the crowds to let the children pa.s.s so he could bless them. He said sometimes the words used in the olden days didn't mean the same as they mean in these modern days and we must be very careful as everything is open to interpretation, and Mrs McQueen sniffed so loud I thought her head would come off.

Then Papa said that Luke 16:18 would be the exact text to write out for my punishment tomorrow. He said we would discuss it tomorrow afternoon. I said, What about Mr Jameson? And he said, What about him? He will not come if he thinks there is sickness in the house and I think, don't you, that you could spare one afternoon for your poor papa after all? And I said of course I would and I was so glad that I kissed him and he smiled very much and said, 'And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,' which is actually my new text. DEB

Tuesday 8th July.

I had my first lesson with Papa today. It was really strange being in his study but not being in trouble of any sort. He put a chair for me with a cus.h.i.+on on it so I could reach his desk on the other side, and he put his prayer book on top. It is quite old and battered and he said Mama had given it to him before they were married so it is very precious. He looked at my penance first and said it was very well written and he thought we had both learned our lesson now. He was nicer to me than he has ever been even at Christmas and on my birthday and it was easy to learn all the promises I have to make in front of the bishop. When we had been through it all, Papa asked me if I thought G.o.d would punish us if we broke a promise to Him and I said doesn't G.o.d forgive us all as long as we are sorry? And Papa nodded and said I was right and I saw with the eyes of a child which is the right way to see things. But it seems to me that children are always being told how naughty they are, which is a bit contradictery. Mr Jameson says Life itself is very contradictery and he wouldn't be surprised to see a pig flying backwards or a cat unwas.h.i.+ng itself!

Then Papa asked me if I liked Mr Jameson, and I said I liked him very much and Papa said 'More than me?' and I didn't know what to say as I should love Papa more but Mr Jameson is nicer to be with and very funny but Papa interrupted and said 'I see you do' and I said 'No I don't at least not all the time' and he laughed and said you are very honest, Daisy, considering it is a question I should never have asked. 'We all have to earn love, don't we?' he said. 'And I have not always done so.'

Then he asked me if I had written much in my journal and I said I had, and he asked if I would show it to him which frightened me and I said it was private and I shouldn't like anyone else to see it. He said he couldn't imagine that I had written anything very terrible, but then he smiled and said he understood my reluctance as there were thoughts he had committed to paper which were meant for his own eyes alone. 'Sometimes we work things out by writing them down,' he said. 'We don't always mean what we say.'

I must be even more careful to keep my diary hidden. DEB I feel a cold wave ripple through me as I recall those lessons with Father, and how I'd been anxious about studying the prayer book alone with him. All through my life I'd half believed that beneath Papa's white surplice G.o.d Himself was lurking, with His eye on everything I said and thought and His hand ready to smite me if I did wrong. It was hard to forget the idea. Yet the more time I spent with him, the less frightening he seemed. Indeed, he behaved as if everything I said and did was delightful to him; as if he could not have enough of me. 'Is Daisy with Papa again?' I'd hear Sarah whisper outside the study door. 'She really must have a tremendous lot to learn.'

And I did have. He'd sit me on his lap and bring his cheek right next to mine as we read together, and I remember feeling almost rapturous that I had at last found such a place in his heart. And he seemed to share my rapture. Whatever we discussed, he would always come back to the same thing Love. 'Love is the keystone, Daisy,' he would say. 'I love you and you love me, and Christ loves all of us. Love, in my experience, can never be wrong.'

But all the same, there is a deep uneasiness in my mind when I think of that study, with its brown books and its brown oar, and Papa with his thick brown hair and his watch chain with its sixteen links, and the whiskers that he let me comb if I especially asked. And the Bible open on the table, and his hand on top of mine as we read the verses together.

13.

JOHN JAMESON.

I cannot tolerate the notion that anyone should think ill of me for my friends.h.i.+p with one of G.o.d's most innocent creatures. That it should be Baxter and his wife who have imagined something amiss in my dealings with Daisy fills me with horror. On reflection, I am sure that it is not Baxter himself who has jumped to this conclusion; he understands me better than that. But he is a married man, and is obliged to take his wife's views into account and I have no doubt that it is Mrs Baxter who has misconstrued the nature of Daisy's headstrong action with the scissors, and my (imagined) part in it. Like many women, she is overconcerned with her reputation in society, and fearful that she will be blamed for not exercising sufficient supervision over her child, and by inference, not doing her utmost to keep her safe. But safe from what, I ask? From someone who can share with her that most precious of childhood gifts the power of the imagination? From someone who allows her the freedom to pa.s.s the time as she wishes without fearing that her leisure time is but a dull extension of the lessons of Sunday School? From someone who takes such delight in the beauty of her presence that he would wear his shoes to tatters in walking with her to the ends of the earth? From someone who can instruct her about all that is marvellous in the myriad creations of the world? And, most of all, from someone who makes her laugh?

In my mind, there is no case to answer. My conscience is clear. And, if one examines it dispa.s.sionately, what is a few inches of hair in a child of Daisy's age? They are making far too much of it. But, of course, I am not so naif as to believe that it is only the hair-cutting that lies behind Mrs Baxter's unease with me. No doubt she thinks that it is odd for a man of my mature years and undoubted intellect to choose to spend such a large proportion of his spare time with a child of eleven. Well, if I am odd, I am odd. But oddness is not the same as wickedness, and it grieves me to think that there is no Broad Church of love, where many kinds of attachment can be welcomed.

Of course, I recognize that in finding children more beautiful and appealing than their fully grown counterparts, I am in a minority. But being in a minority is not in itself wrong. So, while I am not planning to evangelize the world on behalf of my particular predilections, I feel I should not be censured for harbouring them. Or, indeed, for acting in accordance with those feelings, provided, of course, that no harm is done thereby. And what harm could be done? After all, compared with the fornicators and adulterers of this world even the married men who keep their wives in thrall to their pa.s.sions and l.u.s.t my gentle way of loving does no harm. So why should I be to blame for turning my back on fleshly sensuality and preferring what is simple, loving and good? Friends.h.i.+p with children is, for me, as great a sacrament as marriage.

But I recognize the precariousness of my position. The Mrs Grundys for whom human conduct consists merely of a set of rules by which we step left and right or back and forth as if we were all partic.i.p.ants in a universal game of chess would undoubtedly choose to misunderstand the nature of my actions. All I have done is attempt, however unsatisfactorily, to fix on paper the transitory beauty of childhood; yet I cannot be as open about it as I would wish, and my unclothed studies have to be accomplished in conditions of secrecy, which imply a degree of guilt on the part of both the artist and his subject. This angers and distresses me. After all, I may walk through any museum or gallery in the land indeed, in every civilized land and view at my leisure representations of the naked human form. No blame is laid at my feet for that. Indeed, I have seen paintings in London and Rome depicting violent rapes and b.e.s.t.i.a.l couplings, which, because they have a cla.s.sical provenance, are viewed approvingly by respectable matrons and unmarried ladies who examine the shocking details with interest. Yet, owing to the prejudiced views of the self-same respectable females, I cannot display, much less admit to making, a picture of a real, unclothed English child.

However, the crisis has been averted: Baxter has seen sense, and Daisy and I are able to continue our afternoons of leisure. I say 'afternoons', but I have been a little incommoded by Baxter's new-found determination to bring on Daisy's Christian education at this particular favoured time of ours, so that often when I call at the house, I find her ensconced in his study, inky-fingered and by no means ready to set forth at the time I have planned. Baxter has even gone so far as to ask if I would let him know in advance when I intend to visit, with the result that my free-and-easy ways as a privileged visitor to the home are somewhat curtailed. I have also formed the impression that Mrs Baxter is avoiding me, which confirms that she was the prime mover in the attempt to exclude me from Daisy's company. She is rarely at home when I call, although in mitigation Baxter says she is preoccupied with some matter to do with the older girls that necessitates her absence. We once met on the front garden path (I was arriving at the very instant that she and the girls were departing), and I sensed a faint froideur as I took her hand, although she was, as always, impeccably polite and gracious. She is certainly a very beautiful woman and I hope we will not be enemies, although it is doubtful that she will invite me to dinner again or send me any more presents.

Baxter himself seems to have some weighty matter on his mind, which makes him less genial company than usual. He talks in fits and starts and walks about pulling at his hair or slumps in his chair with his hand in front of his eyes as if unaware of my presence. Several times when I have been in his study, waiting for Daisy to tidy herself for our outing, the pert maid has come in with an urgent message from some paris.h.i.+oner or committee member, and he has waved her away crossly, saying, 'Yes, yes, I'll attend to it later,' without even bothering to read the note. This is unlike Baxter. When I first made his acquaintance he would fly off to vestry meetings and parish committees the instant he was called, as if he were a fireman on constant watch for a fire which only he could put out. In fact, I would often tease him about his alacrity, saying he was travelling at such unconceivable speed that he was likely to return before he set out. But now he seems listless, and almost loath to leave the house. The only thing that seems to brighten him is the presence of Daisy. Sometimes I feel awkward about taking her away from him.

She is, of course, the same dear child, in spite of her shorn locks in fact, even prettier on account of them and I thank G.o.d I am able to have her company for at least a little while longer. Indeed, knowing that at any moment our outings may be brought to a close, sharpens my appreciation of each precious second we have together. And what delights we have had! Over the past weeks I have taken Daisy all over the city by the Thames, admiring the college barges moored against the riverbank where I have taken her on board to sit under the awnings and watch the oarsmen go past, then up through the meadow, and along the water-walks of the Cherwell, enjoying the wonderful hot weather that seems to go on day after day. Daisy has brought her parasol each time, and it gives me no end of pleasure to watch her twirl it back and forth in her artless way as we walk along. And, as we walk, I have taken the opportunity of making up stories about everything we see fish, rabbits, frogs, flowers and small dogs and many things we don't see, like fairies and talking sheep. It is easy to find subjects for my tales as Daisy asks so many clever questions, and each question seems to prompt so many foolish ideas in me, that my thoughts flow on and on through all the golden afternoon. Daisy, in spite of being critical of fact and tenacious with detail, is always very satisfied with my flights of fancy and says she will tell the stories to Benjy when he gets older. 'I don't believe anyone tells better stories than you, Mr Jameson. I shall remember them always.'

To entertain her further I introduced her to two of my practical inventions. On Wednesday, when we were resting on a bench near the cricket field, having admired the moorhens wading about in the pond near by, I showed her the little folding mirror and the collapsible cup I have now perfected. She held up the mirror in front of her face and looked at herself very solemnly saying she knew she had been very naughty to do it but she was so glad she was rid of all her horrid long hair. 'I should be so very hot now with it all around my neck,' she said, putting her hand up to her bare skin under the edge of her short bob and making me long to do the same, as I recalled how my hand had grazed her neck so lightly as I wielded the scissors that fateful day.

'No doubt,' I replied. 'If you still possessed your full head of hair, I daresay you would be quite melting away by now, and I should have had to catch you in my collapsible tumbler and take you home to your papa and mama with a label saying: Daisy Baxter in Liquid Form. I daresay they would have been terribly incommoded to have their child contained in a cup. They would have had to put you high up on the mantelpiece so as not to let any dog or cat lap you up in mistake for a drink of water.'

'But wouldn't I have become a solid girl again when I grew colder?' she asked in that earnest way of hers.

'Well,' I said. 'The laws of nature dictate you should; but sometimes the laws of nature surprise us by doing something perfectly contradictory, so they are not, on the whole, to be trusted.'

Then I asked her if she would like a cold drink and she said, 'Oh, yes please!' and I poured her some of Benson's homemade ginger ale from my double-insulated flask and she drank it out of the telescopic tumbler as if it were the greatest nectar in the world. 'I hope,' she said, looking soberly into the empty cup, 'that this was not the liquid form of any other living creature, Mr Jameson.' I said only if she thought that b.u.t.tered crumpets and cherry jam were to be considered creatures, as that was what the drink was made of. She said she didn't believe me. And I asked her to have another taste, and poured her some more. And she drank it up and said perhaps I was right, as it was extremely nice and she thought she could taste a hint of cherry jam after all.

Yesterday it was so hot that we went to the museum to seek some shade. We looked at the remains of the poor dodo in his case, as well as no end of stuffed mammals, birds and insects. Daisy pressed her nose to the gla.s.s case and looked at everything with care. When we came to the beetles I explained that there were more of these than any other type of creature in the world. 'Over two hundred thousand, I believe. Can you imagine why that should be the case?'

She shook her head. 'Is it because they are so small and don't take up much room?'

'Perhaps,' I said. 'Or perhaps G.o.d simply has a fondness for beetles. Having created a stag beetle, He felt He had to go one better with a tiger beetle. And having created that, He was curiously inclined to ring the changes with the soldier beetle, and then the ladybird, and then the c.o.c.kchafer and then the s.e.xton beetle. Perhaps beetle-creating is a kind of hobby of His.'

'G.o.d doesn't have hobbies!' She looked scandalized and amused in equal measure.

'Why not? We have hobbies and we are made in His image. Perhaps when He rested on the seventh day, He wasn't resting at all but was secretly adding to His beetle collection and setting up a whole lot of bother for Noah a little later on. Can you imagine it all that rain coming down and having to find two of each from all two hundred thousand species?'

'But wouldn't they have just flown around the ark?' she asked. 'And got mixed up with the flies and birds and maybe got eaten?'

'By no means. Noah was a carpenter, after all, and I daresay he fitted out the ark with hundreds of little drawers and put the insects carefully inside, two by two in cotton-wool beds to keep them comfy. I daresay they had a whole deck to themselves, drawer after drawer, with their names on the outside like the fittings in a haberdasher's shop, with Ham, Shem and j.a.pheth coming around and giving each of them a thimble-full of milk three times a day.'

She laughed, then thought for a while. 'Papa says the story of Noah's ark isn't really true. He says it is really a kind of parable, like the ones Jesus tells, and it shows us G.o.d's grace towards those who try to lead a good life.'

'No doubt your father is right in the matter of theology,' I said. 'But I prefer to think of Noah sailing the high seas with all those beetles.'