After Such Kindness (13 page)

‘Oh, yes, Miss Chauncey!’ I squeezed her hands in return. ‘But I need you to help me. I cannot do it alone.’

‘I’m only a girl,’ she said. ‘And not yet sixteen. There must be better people than me to guide you.’

‘God has sent you to me. I am sure of that. He will guide us both.’

‘Yes,’ she said, her bright eyes fixed on mine. ‘That will be my mission; I understand it now. I cannot be a minister myself, but I can, through my prayers, draw you back to the ministry.’

I knew then that I would do everything to save her from a life of chastity. She would be my wife; I was determined on it. ‘Yes,’ I declared. ‘Yes, Miss Chauncey! Do with me as you will.’ As the wind whipped round us, and the fields and rivers were laid out below in a myriad of colours like a shimmering marriage bed, I kissed her hand fervently. And we walked on up the hill with our eyes shining.

All that week we were inseparable. I was so willing to be reformed that I would have sat at her feet every day for a month. As it was, I hardly spent any time with my gun, and left poor Wilfrid to the dubious companionship of the local farmers. I touched not a drop of wine and enjoyed a clear head for the first time in years. When the time came to part, I thought I might go mad to be, even for a moment, without her. But I was saved by her promise to write every day.

Once home, I presented myself to my father with a sincere wish to follow my vocation, and, once back at Oxford, my life changed in every way: I was punctual, hard-working, sober and chaste; and yet life was not dull. Evelina sent me her spiritual thoughts and quotations from her favourite poets; I sent her back details of my philosophical reading. I took up rowing, and was down on the river every morning at dawn, feeling the rush of pleasure as my oar sliced through the water and my muscles strained against the pull of the blade, knowing that every stroke made me stronger and more worthy of her.

Even now I cannot think of our courtship without feeling again those heady raptures of heart and lung and, looking at John Jameson, with his meaningless words and pernickety interpretations, I cannot imagine that he would ever understand what it is to be wrapped in the sublime embrace of the holiest and most intense sensations that it is given human beings to know.

Of course, I was wary at first of expressing my love in case I set Evelina’s delicate sensibilities to flight – and even more wary lest my letters should fall into the hands of her father. But I could not keep my joy to myself. As I wrote to her, my blood roared in my ears, my limbs tingled, my whole body burned.
Meeting you, knowing you, and loving you has put me under a heavy debt to God
.
And how can I pay this better than by devoting myself to the religion I once scorned, making of the debauchee a preacher of purity and holiness, and of the destroyer of systems a weak, though determined, upholder of the Only True System.

Evelina wrote back that she had never been so happy as to think she had been the humble means of bringing a sinner to repentance.
I think of you every day
, she wrote,
and I pray for you every night. Your face is with me as I lie on my pillow, and I only wish my heart was pressed against yours and you could feel its joyful beating.

Once I had read this, I knew that if marriages were made in Heaven, then surely mine with Evelina could not be too far postponed. I asked her to be mine, and she consented. I knew there would be difficulties: she was due to inherit a considerable fortune, whereas I had little money and no particular prospects. But the day after I went down from Oxford, I immediately rode to Herefordshire and asked for her hand. ‘She is all the world to me, and I will never cease to strive to be worthy of her,’ I said to her father, studying the carpet in his library and filling my lungs with the dusty powder of thousands of ancient books.

My request was politely declined. ‘The young are changeable,’ Mr Chauncey said, not unkindly. ‘One moment Evelina is committed to a celibate life, the next to matrimony with a man she hardly knows. I would have her wait at least two years before she is in a position to make such an important choice.’

It was a blow, but I wrested from him an agreement to our continued correspondence. That was my life blood and I could not do without it. ‘I am to be ordained this month,’ I told him. ‘I am determined to find a parish where there is good Christian work to be done. I will work as hard as any man can to bring the Gospel to the poor and ignorant, and to make myself worthy of offering my hand again. She is willing to wait for me, and I will wait for her. Permit us to correspond in the meantime. Evelina is extremely well-read, as you know,’ I said. ‘And she takes great pleasure in the study of so many things – poetry, nature, theology. Indeed, those are the things that have drawn us together. I can share with her all that I am learning in my new situation. She in her turn can guide me with her simplicity and faith. There will, I promise you, be no more talk of marriage for the next two years.’

And so I entered into a most blissful phase of my life, in which anticipation was more glorious than consummation, in which Evelina and I shared our thoughts and feelings so completely it seemed that we were already One. Every day I would go about my business as curate at St Barnabas-in-the-East, sitting at the bedsides of the sick, baptizing newborn infants in their brief sojourn between birth and death, giving comfort to the living, and burying the dead – and every night I would retire, exhausted, to my small bare room and write to my love. I was almost in a delirium, then. I seemed to be able to envisage her completely naked, to see her lovely white body before me – although, in truth, I had seen nothing more than the whiteness of her neck and wrists. But my imagination went ahead of me and, when I wrote, I could no more refrain from talking of the ways of love than I could willingly condemn myself to death.

With each letter I became bolder, using every lovely biblical phrase I knew.
When you go to bed tonight
, I urged her,
forget that you ever wore a garment, and open your lips for my kisses and spread out each limb that I might lie between your breasts all night.
And she replied:
O, My Dove that art in the cleft of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice.
Sometimes I would have to take hold of the water jug and pour its contents over my yearning body. Sometimes I would sleep on the floor and rise at three o’clock to pray. Once I walked into the woods and lay naked upon thorns all night and came back with my body torn. Such bliss, such reckless bliss!

But night-time bliss was balanced by the gruelling demands of the day, and it was becoming daily clearer to me that my efforts at spreading the Word of God would falter unless society itself was changed. Many of us working in poor parishes throughout London had joined together to demand clean drinking water for all, fair wages for the working man, and schools for their children. Our motto was
Hard Work and Clean Water –
demands so self-evident that no Christian person could deny them. But we were laughed at by those who should have known better, and basely accused of neglecting the spiritual (which was apparently our business) for the physical (which apparently was not). Such accusations enraged me; I have never been able to see why the two things were set in opposition. In my anger I wrote a pamphlet denouncing the government’s inaction, which was reproduced all over London, to general acclaim. I sent a copy of it to Evelina and she wrote back to say how much she admired it – but that her father had remarked that I sounded ‘too radical’.

Soon after that (and maybe consequent upon it), Evelina was sent to Germany and then to France to complete her education and to let her ‘see the world’. But at ten o’clock each night, she and I, according to our arrangement, would turn our thoughts to the other and imagine that we were together in body as much as in mind. We would both undress, then kneel and pray, knowing our thoughts were ascending together to Heaven like twinned spirals of smoke.

What will give us more perfect delight
, I wrote,
than when we lie naked in one another’s arms, clasped together, toying with each other’s limbs, buried in each other’s bodies, struggling, panting, dying for a moment? Shall we not feel, even then, that there is more in store for us; that those thrilling writhings are but a dim shadow of a union that shall be perfect?
Even then I was sure that the union of the marriage bed was a foretaste of the delights of Heaven, that chastity is at best an insipid virtue and at worst a cause of unnatural vice.

At last her father permitted our engagement. Evelina had told him that if she could not have me as a husband, she would have no one else, and would retire to Caerwen House as she had first intended. So Mr Chauncey gave in. I was the lesser of two evils; and at least I gave him hope of a grandson. From then on, Evelina and I spent as many hours together as we could. I had little opportunity to travel, and no money to do so. But Evelina’s father allowed her to visit me and, to my astonishment, we often found ourselves alone and private. What delights then, as we explored that which we had only imagined before! Whenever she left me, be it day or night, I knew my hands were perfumed with her delicious limbs and I could not (and did not wish to) wash off the scent. And as I lay apart from her, the thought of those mysterious recesses of beauty, where my hands had so recently been wandering, caused my soul almost to faint.

So why cannot I confess to her now? To the woman who is the darling of my heart? Why cannot I lay before her, as I once did on that high hill, what is now so heavy upon my conscience? She is no less lovely and good than she was, but much has passed between us since – times of great trial – and I fear that we have in some ways grown apart; that the ardent couplings which were once so vital to us have ended, and left us less than we were. And, if I am honest (as I now try to be), I am afraid that she will not pardon me quite so readily this time. The doubts of a dissolute young man of twenty are one thing; the doubts of a practising clergyman of mature years with the care of hundreds of souls are another. Evelina has always believed in me. Her belief is at the heart of our marriage. In fact, I feel sometimes that she came to love me precisely because she had saved me. And now to tell her that her act of salvation was incomplete, and that all her efforts were for nought would be like smiting her in the face. I cannot disappoint her. I cannot destroy the only sure and certain love I have left on this earth. I will have to go on as I am, tormented and wretched and, at times, I think, half mad.

The trip to the theatre is now so vivid in my mind. It was one of the most memorable days I ever had. And I see Daisy has recorded it in detail.

Friday 4th July

I have had the
most wonderful
day ever. I have been to London with Mr Jameson and we have seen a proper play! It was all about a gypsy prince who fell in love, and there was a chorus of girls in gypsy dresses and they looked so pretty that I really wanted to be one of them. There were forests that moved and real caravans, and coloured lights and music and ever such pretty costumes. And Prince Florizel was so handsome I wished I could marry him but Mr Jameson told me that it was his niece Miss Garfield and not a gentleman after all – which was very disappointing!! We went behind the scenes afterwards and I saw all the people pulling ropes and moving big pieces of scenery about, getting ready for the Second House when the play is done all over again (which must be
very
exhausting!). The big opening you look into from the audience is only part of the whole stage and there are bigger spaces at each side called the Wings and even bigger spaces up above called the Flies where all the curtains and canvases are kept hanging up like giant blinds. Mr Jameson said: ‘Now, Daisy, tell me – why is a theatre like a bird?’ And I couldn’t think of the answer and he said: ‘Because it has wings, and flies!’ which of course I should have guessed.

As we went up the little winding stairs to the dressing-rooms he said he hoped that it didn’t spoil the magic for me, seeing how it all worked. And I said no it was very exciting as all the girls looked so pretty still in their costumes with their faces powdered and roudged, and the boys with brownish stuff on their faces and felt hats and high boots. When we met Miss Garfield she had taken off her boots and leather jerkin and had on a very nice patterned frock and a very pretty straw hat with pink roses and a little veil. It was a bit disappointing in a way, as I thought she was so handsome as Florizel. But she was very nice and we went to have tea in a hotel near by, and everybody turned to look at her and she called all the waiters and waitresses by their first names, including a very important-looking gentleman in a tailcoat whom she called Henry, but they all called her Miss Garfield which I thought very respectful. She looked at me quite a long time while I was eating my scones and said I had exactly the right face for an anjenou. (I think this word is French but I don’t think the spelling is
at
all
right!) But she said that if I was ever to go on the stage I’d need to cut my hair shorter at the front so the audience could see my eyes properly.

How I cherished that remark of Miss Garfield’s, and the steady and approving way the famous actress looked at me as if I were more than just a small and not very interesting child, but someone who was capable of doing something out of the ordinary if I chose. That was when I first realized that cutting my hair was possible and I couldn’t imagine why I’d never thought of it before. With a few decisive snips across my forehead, I could be rid of the daily struggles to keep the wretched mane under control. It was a kind of liberation to my spirit – and from that time I began to think about how I could bring it about. Hannah, I knew, wouldn’t attempt it without my mother’s permission, and my mother didn’t care for short hair. She had very abundant hair herself, and I suspect she was secretly vain about it, even though it was put up in pins and kept very plain as appropriate for a vicar’s wife in a parish where there were many ladies ready to criticize. But I was determined that I would do the deed somehow. I regretted only that Miss Garfield hadn’t had any scissors about her to accomplish the task on the spot.

After tea, Miss Garfield had to go to get ready for the Second House and so Mr Jameson paid the bill with two half-crowns and we got a handsome cab to Paddington. In the train I fell asleep and had a very strange dream full of animals. Then Father came to meet us at Oxford station and took me home in another cab. I was very sleepy by then as it was nearly nine o’clock and so Mama came upstairs with me to listen to my prayers and put me to bed. She asked me if I had been good, and I said yes and she asked if Mr Jameson had looked after me well. And I said he did and that he was very funny and had bought a bag of chocolate limes which were my favourites. I told her how we had gone to the backstage afterwards and that he had introduced me to Miss Garfield who played Prince Florizel and we’d all had tea together in an adjoining hotel and I’d had fruit cake and scones as well as bread-and-butter and Miss Garfield had lifted up the teapot and said, Shall I be mother? And Mr Jameson said, I hope not for a good while, my dear. Mama said Hmm, and asked if she had been a ladylike person as actresses were not always ladies and I told her that Miss Garfield was not always a lady – because she was sometimes a gentleman! I thought that was a very good joke and will try to remember to tell it to Mr Jameson. I told Mama that Miss Garfield had said that I would look nice with shorter hair, and Mama said, Really, I hardly think it is up to her to decide, so I know Mama will probably not let me cut it. DEB.

I can recall how wonderful it seemed to me then that Mama was on the doorstep ready to welcome me back. And even more wonderful that she put me to bed with her own hands and engaged in such an intimate conversation with me. Even then, though, I sensed something wary in my mother’s demeanour, which I couldn’t fully comprehend, some slight sense of unease about the kind of world I had been exposed to. Was she perhaps concerned that she had let me go so far afield and to have such novel experiences without being there in person to watch over me? It was my first intimation that theatre people, even those as great and well-known as Miss Garfield, might not be thoroughly respectable. All the same, I assumed it couldn’t be a matter of great concern, otherwise Mama would not have allowed Mr Jameson to take me in the first place
. . .

‘Margaret?’ Robert has come in so quietly that I haven’t heard. I colour, close the journal quickly.

‘What’s that you’re reading with such rapt attention?’ He comes towards me, smiling, conciliatory.

‘Nothing of importance, Robert.’ I slide it down by my side, against the inner arm of the chair, and give him my most confident smile.

‘On the contrary, you were quite engrossed. More engrossed than I’ve seen you for a long time. I think I have the right to know what it is.’ He is holding out his hand, certain that I will surrender it to him. ‘Is it a romance?’ he teases. ‘Now, don’t be ashamed to admit it.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, equally playfully. ‘Or maybe not.’

He’s encouraged by the playfulness. He comes towards me, rests his hands on the back of my armchair and bends to kiss my neck. I feel the tiniest edge of his tongue as he does so, lapping at me, awakening – what? A thin tremor of desire? I’m not sure; I hardly dare think about it. He whispers in my ear: ‘Come, now, let me see what you’re hiding.’

‘No, Robert, it’s a secret.’

‘Is it indeed? Have you forgotten so soon – there should be no secrets between a husband and wife. We are one person – one flesh, in fact. Or will be soon, I hope.’

The word ‘flesh’ seems to excite him, and I can sense that he wants to kiss me, and hopes that this time I will kiss him in return. But I can hardly breathe. It takes me an effort to control my voice, to turn the conversation back to the mundane. I pull back from him, laughing gently: ‘It’s not really a
secret
, Robert. Just a book from the toy-box; hardly your sort of reading matter.’

‘Oh? And are you sure you know what my “sort of reading matter” is? I believe I have quite catholic tastes: adventure, comedy, ghost stories – even romance.’ He smiles knowingly. He explores down the inside of the chair, his fingers contriving to caress the contours of my hip before they tighten over the book. ‘Here it is! Now I’ll find out what your secret is!’

I trap his hand with a deft sideways movement. ‘Please, Robert,’ I say. ‘I’d rather you didn’t. As a favour to me. Please.’

‘Ah, my wife asks a favour, and I’m happy to grant it.’ He retracts his empty hand. ‘But what will she give me in return?’ I can see his long, dark face reflected in the looking-glass, hovering expectantly next to mine. His eyes drop to my breast, and now he can see my unfastened bodice, my loosened stays. I feel his breath quicken. ‘What’s this, Margaret?
En
déshabille
at six o’clock?’

I’m horrified that he will misinterpret this. ‘I was a little uncomfortable, that’s all. A little breathless after all that effort this afternoon.’

‘But you are recovered, now, it would seem,’ he says. ‘
Very much
recovered, if I am any judge. I don’t know what is in that book, but I would say it had made you quite
pink
and
rosy.
’ His voice has taken on a caressing quality, which makes me feel uneasy. I don’t like that silken tone of voice; it’s always a prelude to something unwelcome. And it is: his hand is stroking my exposed bosom.

I flinch, but he takes no notice. He may even think it’s a response of pleasure. He does. ‘Oh, Margaret,’ he murmurs. ‘May we try again tonight?’

Tonight?
The giddy feeling rolls and swells through my body. The wedding night flashes before me in all its horror – and I am tense from head to toe. ‘Please, Robert. Not quite yet. I’m not ready.’

I wonder, though, if I’ll ever be ready. If it’s not tonight, then it must be tomorrow, or the day after. And it must be done. It’s like a high hedge that has to be painfully scrambled over, but, surely, once on the other side there should be smooth pastures – happiness and affection and the beginnings of family life. Everything I want, in fact.

I glance at Robert. He is less nervous than on our wedding night, and I am calmer too. Maybe now is the time to abandon myself to his touch, here at six o’clock on an autumn evening in our own room with an hour to spare before dinner. I can let my eyes fix themselves on the watercolours of the Lake District, the pretty brocade curtains, the fading light through the window – anything so I don’t have to think about what he is doing with his hands and his lips – or the other, more appalling parts of his anatomy. I merely need to make the effort.

But even as logic is telling my mind to submit, my body is in a panic. Robert is breathing hard and doesn’t seem to notice my distress. He’s plucking open my chemise, murmuring things I can’t hear. I know that they are words of love and desire. I’m sure that they are meant to melt me, make my arms soft and my lips ready – but I’m a piece of wood beneath him. I feel the old nightmare returning; the dark shadows, the hot sense of guilt. I cannot,
cannot
do this; I rear up from the chair and push him off. My strength surprises me. It surprises him too – he falls heavily against the dressing-table, striking it with his elbow, and then slides to the floor, making my eau de Cologne bottle topple over with a crash. He looks up at me. His shirt is open, the buttons on his trousers partly undone. He’s lost all his dignity.

I feel instantly ashamed. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Dear Robert, I am
so sorry
.’

He shakes his head. He is perplexed and angry and sympathetic all at once. ‘I’m not a demon from the depths of Hell, you know. Just a man wishing to make love to his wife.’ He gets up, rebuttons his trousers and smoothes his sleek black hair.

I apologize again. ‘You must think me unloving – but it’s simply that I can’t
. . .
’ But I cannot explain. I’m shaking head to foot.

He takes my hand – tentatively this time, as if he fears I will hurl him to the ground once more. ‘I know you’re apprehensive. It is a natural thing in a modest and well-brought-up young woman. But you are perhaps taking such feelings to the extreme. There is nothing to fear – from me at any rate. We have known each other for eight years. Surely you trust me by now?’

His kind words hurt me more than harsh ones. All my attempts to pretend to myself that only time is needed, that I will habituate myself to the idea if I am left alone, now strike me as weak and self-deceiving. I squeeze his hand; notice how his sallow fingers contrast with my white ones, as if we are opposites never to be conjoined. ‘Oh, Robert, you are kind and admirable and everything a husband should be. But I have an irrational fear. I cannot describe it. I cannot understand it myself.’

‘You know I won’t hurt you – at least not more than I can help.’ He sounds as if he might break down in tears.

‘I know you won’t, Robert. And, anyway, I can bear pain.’ I know that for certain. I’ve tested myself over and over, just to make sure. I’ve held my fingers over candle flames, and jabbed darning needles into my palm six at a time.

‘Then I’m at a loss.’ He puts his face in his hands, hopeless. We are silent for a while. Then he raises his head. ‘Margaret, I hesitate to say this, but I feel maybe the time has come when we should consult a medical man. This antipathy of yours cannot be normal. It must be some sort of nervous condition.’

I need to offer him some hope. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Maybe you are right.’

He smiles like a man who has been given a new life. ‘I am glad you agree. I will ask Dr Lawrence to recommend a specialist. Someone in London – Harley Street perhaps. We will have this cleared up in no time.’ His face is flushed and joyous, and I feel guilty for encouraging him along what I am sure is the wrong path. ‘Now, will you come down for dinner – or shall I have something sent up?’

‘A little soup, perhaps?’ I am anxious to perpetuate the notion that I am in somewhat fragile health. I kiss his hand. My lips feel the little black hairs that cluster there and I have to suppress a shudder. ‘You are so kind, Robert.’

He looks gratified. ‘Nonsense,’ he says. ‘You are a dear girl and I love you. It’s simply that I wish to love you more
fully
. As is right for man and wife.’ He bends and kisses me on the forehead, a kiss of forgiveness and absolution. ‘I will sleep in the dressing-room tonight. Let you rest with no fear of – well, you know.’ He backs away to the door and gives me a parting smile. ‘Goodnight, dear.’