After Such Kindness (14 page)

‘Goodnight, Robert.’

He’s forgotten all about the journal. But I can feel it against my thigh, an insistent presence, and now (maybe) my salvation. Memories are emerging in small and elusive flashes. Robert won’t come back tonight, so I can read as much as I want. I draw it out and open it again, skimming over my innocent prattlings about teatimes and theatre visits, finding where I left off. There is a storm to come, I feel sure.

Yesterday I cut my hair short and now everyone is cross with me, except Mr Jameson, who said it made me look prettier than ever. (I know I shouldn’t write down compliments, but he
did
say it.) I am very pleased with the result, which was mainly thanks to Mr Jameson in the end. Mama looked really cross and said, ‘Really, Mr Jameson, you should have stopped her,’ but I told her Mr J didn’t know I’d done it – so she didn’t say any more. My sisters are being spiteful as usual. Sarah said it wouldn’t grow back for ages, so I said I didn’t want it to, as I wanted it short for ever. Christiana said she thought fringes were very common and it made me look as if I had lice and she’d be ashamed to go out with me now – not that she often does. Papa said he didn’t mind what hairstyle I wore except that there was deceit involved and he was disappointed in me and that I would need to ask forgiveness and learn suitable verses from the Bible. I thought this was a quite lenient punishment for Papa, but I’m not sure that I can ask for forgiveness as I am still pleased that I did it. I hope this will not affect my outings with Mr Jameson. It was truly not his fault, although I did it in his rooms. I hadn’t intended to do it, it just happened on the spur of the moment after we had come back from the Botanical Gardens, which was very interesting as I saw the monkeys again and fed them on bits of fruit. Mr Jameson pointed at one and said, ‘How would you like it if you had that fellow for your great-great-grandfather?’ And I said I wouldn’t like it at all. And he said some people thought we had monkeys for our ancesters but of course that was foolish talk because the Bible says we are all descended from Adam and Eve, and that was far more logical, wasn’t it – at least Bishop Wilberforce thought so. And I said I thought the bishop was right, and Mr Jameson said that was sensible of me, as bishops were always supposed to be right.

Then we went back to his rooms to have tea, and he said he’d like to take some more photographs of me if I didn’t mind. Then he said, ‘How would you like to dress up as a gypsy girl?’ And I said I would like it very much but I didn’t have the costume. And he said Aha, and opened his bedroom door and there it was already waiting for me, laid out on his bed. He said he had had it sent post-haste from Nathan’s, and he hoped it would fit, as he’d had to guess my size. I don’t know what we would have done if it
hadn’t
fitted, as Hannah wasn’t there to help and I am not very good at sewing except for plain seams and cross-stitch.

However, the dress was
just
right
and was very pretty although the top of the sleeves kept falling down over my shoulder, but Mr Jameson said that bare shoulders looked right for a gypsy girl, and went with my bare feet. He said the way my hair was untidy was right too. That was when I told him that I hated my hair and wanted to cut it short like Miss Garfield had said, but I was afraid Mama would not allow it. I said I wished Miss Garfield had had some scissors with her because it was very difficult to cut your own hair especially with embroidary scissors. Then Mr Jameson said, ‘Have you been trying to do that?’ And I said I had snipped a bit off but I was afraid I’d make a mess of it so I’d stopped. And he came and stood behind me and lifted my hair in front of the looking-glass and asked how short I wanted it, bringing his hand higher and higher until it was up to my chin. And I said yes, and as well as that I wanted to have a fringe like Enid and Emma, so that my hair didn’t fall over my face and make me hot. It is so horrid to be hot all the time and I just want to be cool and free. And he stood there holding my hair in his hands and looking at us both in the glass as if we were a photograph in a frame. I asked him if he would be so kind as to cut it for me but he shook his head and said it was Quite Impossible, and I was a bit cross and said it was not impossible at all, and anyway he always said it was important to think the impossible. Then he laughed and said, ‘Don’t you know that a thing can be possible and impossible at the same time?’ And I said that was silly, it had to be one or the other. And he said no it didn’t and that cutting my hair was
possible
because he knew how to use a pair of scissors – but
impossible
because it would be wrong. I said it wasn’t wrong as Nettie always used to cut an inch off every month, but Mr Jameson said that was different as Nettie was my nursemaid, but he was a batcheler don and as such he came under the Eye of Society. I wasn’t sure why the Eye of Society was interested in who cut my hair but Mr J said Society was interested in a lot of things it had no business to be, including kindnesses that might pass between a little girl and a gentleman who was not related to her (meaning him of course). Mainly he was afraid that my mother would disapprove and stop me visiting him – which would make him miserable. Well, of course, I didn’t want that to happen but I thought all the same that he was giving in too easily. Surely Mama would not be cross with him as he was a grown-up person and had saved Benjy from drowning? But he said mamas could be very particular about some things and this was one of them.

Then he stood back from the glass and said it was time to take the photograph and then he noticed that I was still wearing my pantalettes and he said that, if it was not too delicate a matter to mention, he feared I would need to remove them, as all the frills and ribbons were showing through the rags, which would not do at all. I asked him what real gypsies did when their drawers showed through their rags, and he said, ‘Oh, I think you’ll find they are very free and easy in such matters.’ He then went back into his sitting room and I took off my drawers and folded them up with my petticoats and dress. Then I saw there was a pair of very large scissors on the dressing-table that seemed to be asking to be picked up, so I did, wondering what Mr Jameson did with them. They were very heavy and had big black handles. They were so big that I knew they would cut my hair in no time and once it was done it wouldn’t matter what Society or anyone else said. I stood in front of the looking-glass and put them across my forehead and let the blades crunch through my hair. I couldn’t see what I was doing because my arm was in the way but I saw great long bits of hair fall onto my chest and when I put my arm down I saw my face looking quite different, and I felt quite airy and nice. Then I noticed that the fringe was very crooked so I tried to take a little bit more off one side, but the scissors were so heavy, I couldn’t hold them straight. I began to feel very hot and panicky and was afraid I might end up with no front hair at all like Enid’s sister who had allopeasha and couldn’t go out for a year. So I went back to Mr Jameson in the other room.

He was so astonished when he saw me that his eyebrows went right up. ‘Dear, dear,’ he said. ‘You
have
put the cat among the pigeons! But what a very disagreeable job you have made of it. I cannot take your photograph like that.’ I said that his scissors had been too big to do it properly. ‘Oh,
’
he said. ‘I daresay. They are Benson’s scissors as it happens. I asked him to take a couple of inches off my gown as the hem had come undone and I was treading on my tail. But you cannot go back to your mama like that. We’ll have to improve it somehow and you’ll need to stand very still while I do it.’ I was relieved that he was going to help me but I said, ‘What about the Eye of Society?’ And he said, ‘Well strictly speaking I’m not
cutting
your hair, just trimming it to make sure you’re not too much of a fright when your mama sees you, which is as different as a peach from a perambulator. Now you’d better stand on a chair while I do it.’ And he got a wooden chair and put it in front of the wardrobe mirror and picked up the scissors. I climbed on the chair and said that I was as tall as he was now and he smiled and said in this world it was easy to grow larger but very difficult to get smaller which was a pity as he would rather like to be as small as me sometimes. And I said I hated being small and wanted to have long legs like Christiana and Sarah, so I could wear long skirts and petticoats and swirl them around. And he said don’t wish for that, enjoy your childhood while you can. Then he lifted the scissors and started to make neat little snips to my fringe and I could feel his fingers against my forehead and they were so shaky I was worried that he would make things worse but in the end he cut it what he called a Perfect Horizontal at ninety degrees to the plum although I couldn’t see a plum anywhere. When he finished, he said I looked very pretty now and when I looked in the glass I thought I did too and I could imagine myself on the stage with all the other gypsy girls and everybody clapping. Then Mr Jameson brushed the little bits of hair off my cheeks and neck, and his fingers tickled me and I laughed and tucked in my chin and he said he could see I was ticklish which was a sign of a Sensative Nature, and he was rather ticklish himself and his sisters had had no mercy on him when he was a boy. And I asked him how many sisters he had had and he said
seven
(which meant a lot of tickling!). And then he said we must get on a little faster as Benson would soon be getting the tea ready and would be in a bad temper if we were still in the dark room when it was time to sit down. So we went into that little studio and he lit the lights and told me where to stand and how to turn my head. I was a bit cold without my drawers, but Mr Jameson said it was all in the cause of Art, and Art is
very important
. DEB.

I have goose-flesh now, just to think of it – me in my skimpy outfit against a painted background of sky and clouds, carrying a basket as if I’m selling nosegays, and standing on a make-believe rock with my hand on my hip. It’s very clear in my head, because I saw the photograph many times, as Mr Jameson kept it proudly on his mantelpiece in a silver frame. ‘I will always remember you like that,’ he said. ‘Even when you are grown up, you will always be a little gypsy girl to me.’

I have always loved the theatre. I have never believed, like many men of the cloth, that it is a place of impropriety. To me, a theatrical performance, when done properly – without oaths or coarseness, I mean – represents the best and truest spirit of fancy, and is the means of touching what is closest to our hearts. When I was a child, and even as a youth, there was nothing I enjoyed so much as joining with my sisters in performing anything from charades to melodramas – to the great amusement of our parents and all concerned – and it has remained my habit as an adult man to frequent the stage as often as I can. I will always make it my business to see a Shakespeare play, particularly if it is a comedy, and I am drawn by anything of a light, fanciful nature. I especially like dancing when it is done by young ladies or children. It is so natural and free.

I have to confess that one of my particular enjoyments is watching the faces of the children seated in the audience; and indeed at times I am guilty of watching them in preference to what unfolds on stage. How I love their round-eyed sense of wonder as the curtain rises and a magical scene is displayed: a wood, a fairy castle, a baronial hall or a rose-covered cottage – the colours so intense in the limelight. And here comes a princess in a floating white dress with spangles! And there is a monster with a head like a bear! And, ah, there is the young girl in a short tunic and pink tights, who pretends to be a boy and shows her shapely legs in all their beauty! How the little audience is transfixed! How it opens its mouth in astonishment at the moving scenery! How it hides its head in horror as the villain comes up from the depths, or fairies fly down from the sky! How it laughs at the antics of the clownish servants and their acrobatic tricks! I think I would not enjoy myself half so much if the little people were not there with their unreserved and spontaneous response.

So the prospect of taking my own little member of the audience with me has been exciting me for days. Daisy, bless her, wrote an extremely formal reply to my invitation, so I replied with equal formality:
My dear Miss Baxter, Thank you for your excellent reply. But you will be getting tired of my long letter, so I will bring it to an end and sign myself, Yours affct, John Jameson.
She said the letter had made her laugh. She also said her sisters were envious of her trip to London and when they had complained, her father had chastised them for not paying me more attention. Thank heavens they did not, or I would have been obliged to arrange an outing for the three of them, which would not have been half so delectable.

As it was, Daniel brought Daisy to meet me at Carfax. As he had business in St Ebbe’s, he took his leave of us there, and the two of us walked on to the station. It was raining lightly and I had to draw Daisy under my umbrella to protect her from the splashes. Her waist was so tiny, I could hardly believe it. She seemed like gossamer under my fingers, and to have her so close – bobbing along with her head just above my elbow, and the faint smell of her damp hair wafting up towards me – was supremely delightful. I imagined how it might have been were I her father; how proud I would have been of her, seeing old ladies and nursemaids giving us approving glances as we walked and chatted.

‘Is it a long way to London?’ she asked, clinging to me as she daintily avoided a puddle. ‘I have looked in my atlas, but it doesn’t say.’

‘It can be long or short. It depends where you start from,’ I replied.

‘Well,
here
of course,’ she said with a laugh.

‘Well, there’s no “of course” about it. If we were in Birmingham or Chester, we would have to start our journey
there
, and it would be a lot longer.’

‘But we’re not in Birmingham or Chester!’

‘How very to the point you are! Let me see, I reckon it will take us an hour and three-quarters provided it is not a very slow train. Some trains are dreadfully slow, you know. Some are so slow I think they might even go backwards, and you’ll end up in Newcastle the day before yesterday.’

She looked a little alarmed. ‘Can trains really go backwards?’

‘Well, some are pulled and some are pushed. The locomotives may go backwards, but, rest assured, the carriages will always go forwards – relatively speaking, that is.’

She wrinkled her forehead. ‘I think you are just making all this up! I shall take no notice of you.’

‘Quite right. I am a foolish old thing.’

She gave me a sharp look. ‘
Are
you old, Mr Jameson?’

‘Depends on what you mean by “old”, Miss Baxter. I’m younger than your pa. But age is as age does. I’m only eleven at heart.’

‘That’s
my
age.’

‘Yes. That’s why we are such good friends.’

‘And what will happen when I am twelve?’ She laughed. ‘Will you be twelve too?’

My heart sank. ‘Sadly, no. I am destined to be eleven for ever. You will grow away from me, my dear. Soon you won’t want to know me – just like Christiana and Sarah.’

‘I will! I’ll always want to know you!’ She grasped my arm again.

‘Bless you. You are a dear child.’ But my heart was heavy at the knowledge that she was so dreadfully wrong.

The journey passed quickly. Daisy was so interested in everything. She said she had been on a train many times to visit her grandfather in Herefordshire, and sometimes to go to the seaside at Aberystwyth. As a result, she knew not to lean out of the window for fear of getting a cinder in her eye. ‘I shall look at the cows and sheep instead,’ she said, pressing her face to the glass. But the cows and sheep lost their charm after about fifteen minutes, and she jumped up and kneeled on the brown plush of the seat opposite and began to examine the pictures below the luggage net. ‘Taunton sounds rather a cross place, doesn’t it? But Dawlish sounds nice – a bit like dawdling. And it looks nice, too.’

At Didcot we were joined by a lady with a Scotch terrier and a small boy who made appalling faces at us when his mother wasn’t looking. Daisy ignored him with an air of infinite superiority, choosing to talk only to the lady and the dog, but I assumed the most grotesque of faces behind cover of my newspaper and fixed my stare on the wretched child for as long as I could. The mother, looking up suddenly, caught her son with his tongue out, and slapped his hand sharply: ‘That’s rude, Tommy! Apologize to the gentleman at once!’ In vain did he burble that ‘The gentleman did it first!’ His mother gave him another slap and said lying would only make matters worse, and she was so sorry and hoped I wouldn’t be offended. ‘Why can’t you just behave?’ she told the boy. ‘Why can’t you be like this nice young girl and sit still and talk nicely?’

Daisy looked very smug, and spread her dress out around her and sat plumb in the middle of it with her back straight and her little hat tipped forward and her neat little feet crossed at the ankles, all as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. The boy looked daggers at her, and Daisy in way of response turned round and said pointedly, in a grown-up way, ‘Which theatre is it that we are going to, Mr Jameson?’

‘Theatre Royal, Drury Lane,’ I said. ‘That is the best one for spectacle and transformation scenes, I think. And always the best for fairies.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ said the mother. ‘How lucky you are to be going there, young lady. But then I expect you have deserved such a lovely outing. And your uncle –’

‘Sadly, I am but a family friend,’ I put in, anxious not to have the woman make any mistake in the matter, even though we were unlikely to meet again.

‘– Well, your nice friend, then. I’m sure he has arranged this treat knowing you would sit still and listen to what is being said – unlike
some people
I know.’ And she glowered so much that even
I
was compelled to feel sorry for the boy.

They got out at Reading, the dog yapping at their heels, and Daisy and I were alone again. ‘When we get to London, will we see the sights?’ she asked. ‘Or will we go straight to the theatre?’

I said that we would go to the theatre, as the performance began at half past three o’clock. ‘We’ll just have enough time to get across town from Paddington.’

‘What’s Paddington?’ she asked.

‘It’s the railway station in London where we get out.’

‘But why isn’t it called London Station?’

I smiled. ‘Ah, because London is so big that there is more than one station. We are coming in from the west, on the GWR. Some people say this stands for God’s Wonderful Railway – although if the Almighty had really designed it I don’t think the trains would be late, which, I have to say, they often are.’

‘Do you often come to Paddington, Mr Jameson?’

‘As often as I can and provided, of course, that I may. A college man is not a free agent. But generally I make it to London once or twice a term.’

‘Mama says London is very fine, but there is too much poverty in the streets. She says it breaks her heart.’ Daisy looked thoughtful. ‘Will we see much poverty in the streets today, Mr Jameson?’

What a question from the child! And how to answer? Frankly, I’m not well-acquainted with the city. My general plan is: arrive at the station; proceed to the Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall; visit the appropriate theatre on the Strand; then go back to the station. A round – or rather a triangular – trip of approximately sixteen and one-third miles that on most occasions I do not vary. Everything outside that acreage is unknown territory and there could be Red Indians engaged in open warfare in Hackney for all I know. I certainly had no intention of plumbing the depths of the East End with a small child in hand. ‘You will see nothing worse than you see in Oxford,’ I said finally.

‘Papa says I have to give away all my pocket money if I see a beggar,’ she went on. ‘Especially if it’s a child with no shoes on its feet.’

‘On the contrary, I suggest you go into a fruit shop,’ I said.

‘A fruit shop?’ She wrinkled her forehead. ‘What for?’

‘To buy the poor creature a pear.’

‘A pear? What good would that do?’

‘A great deal of good, if it were a
pair of shoes
.’

She laughed. I was glad to see her face clear, but I could see the prospect of ragged children holding out pitiful hands was still very much on her mind. This would not do; this was a joyful outing, after all. ‘But you may keep your pennies safe,’ I said, patting her hand through her cotton gloves. ‘I doubt there will be any shoeless beggars on the London Omnibus, and that is where we are bound. We’ll go from Paddington to the Strand for sixpence, with a half-fare for the little lady with the straw hat and nice smile, and no one will bother us.’

And once we’d arrived and were aboard the omnibus, there were indeed no beggars, but only soldiers and sailors and carpenters and clerks, and ladies with baskets, and nursemaids with children in their arms, all pushed up together willy-nilly on the wooden seats as if they were an illustration of the Day of Judgement when all souls will rise up in unison. I noticed that Daisy was paying special attention to the young nursemaid who was jigging a baby on her lap and talking to it in baby-talk. I could tell what she was thinking, and I was not wrong. ‘Do you think we might meet Nettie while we are in London?’ she whispered.

‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘For one thing, London, as you see, is very big. And for another, we have no idea of her address. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, and the odds against that are almost infinite. Now, come, my dear, this is meant to be a treat. You must put a brave face on and put your best foot forward and your shoulder to the wheel and, in spite of the contortions involved, simply
force
yourself to be happy this afternoon.’

And the dear thing laughed and said she was very sorry and would set about enjoying herself immediately. ‘I am really so very excited. What is
Sylvie’s Wish
about? And do you really know one of the actresses in it?’

‘Yes, it’s a young cousin of mine on my mother’s side. It was she who kindly arranged for Nathan’s to send me the fairy costumes. I will take you backstage to meet her after the play and we can all go to tea together.’

The Theatre Royal was full of children and mamas and nursemaids and not a few fathers and uncles. I had reserved a box, which almost seemed to hang out over the stage and commanded an equally good view of the auditorium. Daisy was quite overcome with all the cream and red, all the velvet and plush, all the gilt and the marble and the myriad sconces with gaslights flaring away in the half-dark. She loved our box, too, with its own set of velvet curtains tied back with swags, and its own two gilt chairs facing the proscenium. To complete her delight, I brought from my pocket a bag of chocolate limes which she viewed with relish: ‘Oh, my favourites. How did you know?’

‘I didn’t,’ I replied. ‘But they are my favourites as well. That’s why we are the best of friends.’

And with that, the curtain went up with a great swish, which sent a cold draught over our balcony as the bright stage was revealed in a wash of pink light. At the same time, the orchestra struck up a rousing tune and a dozen or so little girls in charming gypsy costumes began a scampering kind of dance in front of a canvas facsimile of a country glade. Daisy sat open-mouthed, clutching her gloves in her lap, and she never moved from that position for the rest of the first act, not even to partake of a chocolate lime. When the curtain went down, she turned to me, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, Mr Jameson. How wonderful this is! Thank you so much for bringing me!’

‘Not at all!’ I replied. ‘But will Sylvie run away to join the gypsies, do you think? They do seem to be such happy, carefree people – and her wicked Uncle Archibald is so very despicable!’

‘
I
would run away if it were me,’ she said.

‘But then you are a very exceptional child,’ I said, laughing, as I ushered her out for lemonade refreshment in the saloon.

As each act unfolded, Daisy was further entranced. She gasped at the changes of scenery: the
trompe l’oeil
painted backdrops, the bushes moving to reveal even deeper woodland scenes beyond, the translucent drapes hung with stars, and finally the working fountains at the Castle of Dreams. She cried aloud at the changes of light from bright day to sunset, and from red sunset to blue-green moonlight. And she was delighted even more with the character of Sylvie, escaping from the tedium of life with her uncle (which was all drudgery and punishment) to freedom with the dancing gypsies and the disguised Prince Florizel. Daisy even began to look a little like Sylvie, I thought, as her hair escaped its ribbons and fell in a higgledy-piggledy fashion all round her flushed and rosy face, and it was as much as I could do not to kiss her upon the spot. But, at the end, after we had clapped as hard as we knew how, she turned in her chair and gave me a kiss on the lips, entirely of her own accord. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘All my friends will be so envious. It is much better than the seaside. Better than my picnic too. In fact, it is the best thing that ever happened to me.’