After Such Kindness (22 page)

With my father and husband in league with each other for the first time in our marriage, and with the threat to separate me from my children, I knew that I could no longer hold out. For the first time, I felt a sense of estrangement from my husband. Daniel had always been my other soul, and shared with me everything he thought and did. But now he’d shown me that he could be secretive and separate, and could, if it were in his interests, treat me as if I had no more power to decide matters than a child. And, in a matter of weeks, I was aghast to find that he had, again without my knowledge, used my father’s influence to procure the parish of St Cyprian in Oxford.

‘I thought you believed in preferment through
merit
,’ I said angrily, when he announced the news. ‘You said you’d never accept a Living on the whim of a rich man.’ And he laughed and said, ‘Who has merited such a parish if not us? We have toiled in the vineyard and it is time to enjoy the grapes.’ It was indeed the kind of opportunity he had longed for: a thriving, active parish, although with a congregation much divided between an enthusiasm for the ancient traditions, and a fear of popery that ran very deep. He thought that God was calling him to blaze a trail through the dissent, to reform and reconcile from within. ‘I will be in the thick of things,’ he cried. ‘At the very centre of God’s work!’

Daniel may have been enthusiastic for the change, but I felt wretched at leaving the women who had become, in spite of the differences in our stations, my friends and companions. And they were sad to see me go, which I found affecting in the extreme. Some of them made me a small sampler with the embroidery stitches I had taught them, saying I could hang it on the wall in my new home and think of them. I wished I could have written to them afterwards to show they were still in my heart – but they could hardly read, even after many efforts on my part to teach them their letters. They could decipher ‘Keep Out’ and ‘Private Property’ and ‘No Trespassers’, and they could tell the difference between ‘laudanum’ and ‘poison’ on the chemists’ bottles, but they could barely decipher the clear print of the prayer book, let alone the cursive scrawl of a quill. So when our belongings were loaded onto the wagon and I stood embracing them on the vicarage steps, I doubted I would exchange words with them ever again. The new incumbent had no wife to step into my shoes, and I felt I was leaving my little flock to their own devices – or, possibly, to the tender mercies of the Dissenters and the Temperance Societies, a prospect I did not relish. I have to admit that, in spite of our best efforts to keep them in the Church of England, some of the women – drawn by the vociferous hymn-singing and condemnation of liquor – had been tempted into the dreary little brick chapels with not an altar flower in sight, to be preached at until they were roused to fury. Such preaching was too full of hellfire and damnation for my taste. It was certainly anathema to Daniel.
There are those who would bend the Bible to their own ends
, he’d raged in yet another pamphlet.
They spout a testament of death and destruction and fly in the face of our Lord and Saviour, to whom LOVE was All.

So, as I sat there, holding Daisy’s hand and praying so hard that sickness should not come to our house, the thought of those not-so-distant days – when every week I helped to lay out little corpses – filled me with panic, not to say despair. If Benjamin were already infected, removing him to Herefordshire would make no difference. Perhaps, after all, I should show my faith and submit to the will of God by staying in Oxford. If God spared my son, it should strengthen my faith and increase my love for Him. But then I thought of the parable of the talents: I had to use what resources God had given me. I did not need to let my son sicken. It would be wrong of me not to take him away to safety.

Daisy was looking at me now with such pathetic earnestness that I felt I was the worst of mothers even to think of deserting her. But she was older and more robust than Benjy. Indeed, it was undoubtedly owing to her relentless gallivanting with John Jameson that the illness had come to her. Goodness knows where he had taken her – the slums of Jericho itself, perhaps, with sickness in every door and window, in every foetid puddle and stagnant gutter.

Daisy stirred. ‘I wish Nettie were here.’

‘So do I, my dear.’

‘Could you not – send for her?’ She licked her dry lips.

‘Unfortunately, we don’t know where she went.’ I’d supplied her with her reference the day she left and I hadn’t heard from her since. I could hardly blame her.

‘I expect she’s with that London family.’

‘What London family?’ It was the first I had heard of such.

‘The ones where – the ones where she wouldn’t be able to – have time – to come and see me.’

The child seemed incoherent. My heart beat even faster. I knew it was the fever. I could see her skin darkening and flushing red as I watched her. I had seen it before in the slums. I had seen it far too often. ‘I’m sure she thinks of you, wherever she is, and prays for you too. Now do your best to sleep.’

‘Yes, Mama.’ She closed her eyes. And I sank onto my knees and prayed as hard as I could.

I met Daniel at the door on his return from Evensong, and imparted the news. He turned quite ashen. ‘What?’ he said. ‘A fever? My darling Daisy?’

He threw his hat onto the hallstand and, still holding his prayer book, prepared to mount the stairs. I restrained him only with difficulty. ‘She is asleep,’ I said. ‘Hannah is with her and will tell us the moment she wakes. But I must take Benjy away. Dr Lawrence says it is imperative. And Christiana and Sarah must come too. I cannot leave them unchaperoned. We’ll go to Herefordshire. I have already telegraphed The Garth.’

‘You’ll leave Daisy here?’ He looked horrified.

I felt guilt rise in me all over again. ‘What else can I do?’

‘Who will nurse her? I won’t have that McQueen woman.’

‘Mrs McQueen will come with me to look after Benjy. Hannah will stay with you and Daisy.’

‘
Hannah?
You’d leave our dear little girl to be nursed by an inexperienced servant who has no aptitude for children?’

I flushed at his criticism. ‘You were the one who was so warm for Nettie to be sent away.’

He glared at me. ‘So you would have preferred Benjamin to be cared for by the person who nearly let him drown?’

‘It was her only mistake in twelve years, Daniel.’

‘It was rather a serious one.’ He glared at me again. ‘I thought we were at one on this matter, Evelina. I am surprised that you now take a different view.’

‘I was upset at the time – and angry. Looking back, I think that you – I mean we – were too precipitate.’ I put my hand on his arm to calm him. ‘But why are we arguing, Daniel? That is all past, now. Nettie is gone and there is no help for it. But I’ve spoken to Hannah, and we have come to an agreement. She’s prepared to tend the sickroom for an extra five shillings a week and no waiting at table, which I’m sure you won’t mind as Cook has agreed to serve you herself. And,’ I added, ‘I daresay that once your plight is known, half the ladies of the parish will be inviting you to dinner.’

‘You think I will go out to
dine
with my precious child at death’s door?’ He gave me that same uncomprehending look. ‘Are you so cold as to think me capable of that?’

I reddened. It seemed everything I said only incriminated me further. ‘Well, then, Daniel, perhaps
you
will go to Herefordshire with Mrs McQueen and the children? In that case
I
will stay and look after Daisy.’

‘You know that is not possible. I have too many duties here.’

‘Then what I have suggested is the only solution. Unless we get in a fever nurse from the hospital.’

‘I will not have a stranger caring for our child,’ said Daniel.

‘She would be a trained nurse,’ I argued. ‘Dr Lawrence would be sure to recommend a good one.’

‘What can a fever nurse do that a loving parent cannot, and a thousand times more carefully at that? Don’t you remember when Sarah was so ill? How both of watched at the bedside all night until the fever broke? How neither of us could sleep, or would have done, until we knew she was past danger? How would you give less loving care to Daisy?’

His words stung me with their truth, but I was angry that he could not see my dilemma. ‘What is the point of John Jameson having saved Benjy from drowning if we expose him to scarlet fever instead? Daisy is eleven, and with God’s grace will survive it. But Benjy is young. Dr Lawrence himself urged me to take him away. The risk is too great.’

He turned to me, and for a moment there was something like hatred in his eyes. ‘You’ve never loved Daisy, have you? I was blind to it until now.’

I was appalled. ‘Daniel! How can you say that?’

‘Because it is true. I see it now as clear as day. I think you blame her for separating us in the flesh. But she shall have one parent at least who will do his duty. I will nurse Daisy myself. She shall lack for nothing while I am here. And now I will go and see her.’ And he sprang up the stairs and I heard him go into the sickroom and shut the door.

I hardly had the desire to pack our belongings after that, and Christiana, Sarah and Mrs McQueen were left to their own devices as I lay down on the sofa in the dark, and tried to fathom Daniel’s meaning. Did I really blame Daisy for putting an end to the happiest part of our married life? It’s true that I’d suffered dreadful pain when she was born, and in the weeks that followed, it was hard for me to look on her with love, when all I wanted to do was to die. She was so small and thin, and yet she seemed to suck the life out of me. So when Daniel told me that we must have no more children, I think at first I was glad. And later, if anyone blamed Daisy for our straitened love-making, it was surely Daniel. It was he who found celibacy almost beyond endurance. It was he who tried to exhaust himself with more parish duties than ever clergyman attempted, as well as lengthy night-time Bible readings and long vigils of prayer. He also doused himself in cold water, and mortified his flesh with cords, but these chastisements seemed only to add to his excitement. And that dreadful night of Benjy’s conception – I cannot say he forced me – that is too strong a word – but he tempted me beyond my will to resist. Afterwards, when we lay naked on the dishevelled sheets, he looked at me and quite broke down: ‘Oh, Evelina, I am a wicked, wicked man! I have risked what I love most in the world and I deserve to be punished. I cannot undo what I have done, but if God sees my true repentance, He might have mercy on me!’ And he made me take the cords and scourge him there and then. And when he was satisfied, we both kneeled quietly and prayed.

It seemed at first as if God had decided to punish us. I did indeed conceive a child, and was wretchedly ill for the entire nine months. And when it came to my labour, my nightgown and bedsheets were saturated in scarlet, and the baby himself seemed swaddled in my very flesh as they pulled him from me. But God was gracious, and we both survived; and since then, Daniel and I have kept ourselves strictly apart. And yet Daniel seemingly believes that it is I who harbours resentment against poor Daisy for what was, after all, the outcome of his own lustful desire.

The family has gone, and I’m alone with Daisy. Hannah is here, of course, but she’s happier being sent out on errands or doing the cleaning, than sitting patiently by the bedside. That particular occupation is a labour of love, and one I keep jealously to myself. In Daisy’s presence, I feel my doubts being set aside, my soul-sickness assuaged. And although I am in agony that this fever may bear her away, I feel blessed that I am able to watch over her like this, touching her fine, pale skin, kissing her sweet eyelids. With every touch, I find myself praying more devoutly. The prayer comes up from nowhere, like a fresh mountain spring, and I am bathed in its healing powers. I pray as I lean over her in the fading dusk; I pray in my sleep as the candle gutters beside me; I pray on my knees by her bedside at dawn. But, even as I prostrate myself on the floor, I know it is not through these my own efforts that I will be heard. I am a base sinner. But Daisy’s grace and innocence may yet wash me clean.

She has the prayers of others, of course, and maybe the weight of their united voices will tip the balance of divine mercy. Mrs Carmichael arrived at the front door with a bottle of soothing medicine the minute she heard, and messages have poured in from people offering to undertake duties of every kind. The bishop has arranged that my curate should officiate at Divine Service during the week, and the churchwardens have given me temporary dispensation from my other duties. It’s not long since scarlet fever last swept through the city and everyone on the vestry committee knows of a child who was afflicted, or indeed, who perished. ‘We will pray daily for her, and for you,’ said Mr Attwood, the senior churchwarden, grasping both my hands, as the good fellow he is. ‘I know what it’s like, sir; Louisa and I have lost two of our dear ones. It really shakes you about.’ I tried to thank him, to appreciate his sincere fellow-feeling, but the thought of his children’s deaths did not console me and I fear I may have been abrupt. Mr Attwood makes me ashamed. He’s a simple ironmonger and has never stood in the pulpit sermonizing on the importance of the Apostolic Succession, but I have no doubt that of the two of us he is the morally superior man. And that awareness makes me quail. If a man of such exemplary life has not been spared the loss of a child – then surely I, with my sins so heavy on my head, will not escape punishment.

But as I look down now on Daisy’s flushed and fevered face, I wonder why, if there is indeed a Divine Being, He should, of all things, choose to punish me through a little child? Why should my sins mean that Daisy should be the one to suffer? She is the one who brought me love and hope when I was in despair. I stroke her lovely face and take her in my arms. ‘Please, God, let her live.’

At lunchtime, Hannah comes up with a letter from Evelina. I stare at it, blankly; it’s like a missive from another world. Once I would have torn open any letter from her, eager to devour every word. But a shadow has fallen across the open landscape of our love. It is my fault, I own it; but although it seems that God has forgiven me for my error, Evelina has not. She turns from me every night, and won’t listen to my entreaties that we might enjoy at least a chaste embrace. ‘I cannot trust myself,’ she says. But I know I am the one she cannot trust.

I read the letter. She writes that Benjamin has shown no sign of fever and that she intends to come back to Oxford very soon.

You do not write and I cannot sleep for worrying about Daisy. She is very dear to me, and I assure you that I have never held her responsible for any change in our married love. We must both acknowledge that God is now asking for a different sacrifice from us. We are not the same people we once were, and we cannot return to the heady days of our youth – but I hope I have never given you reason to think I am not a good wife and mother.

So, she is repenting, as well she might. But I don’t want her disturbing the calm and loving routine that Hannah and I have established here. I don’t want her fussing at the bedside with jugs and bowls and kettles and lists of linen and banishing me to the emptiness of my study like an Adam cast out from Eden. I don’t want Evelina to be the one to mop Daisy’s brow and comb her tangled hair, or kiss her sweet neck and soft eyelids. I want Daisy to myself, just the two of us in peace and quietness, in the heavenly blue of her own little room. I’m nursing her as gently as any woman; better, I believe. Daisy doesn’t need Evelina, I am sure of it. She only needs me.

I write to my wife exhorting her to remain where she is. It is too early to return, I say. She needs to think first of our son, and her own aged father. I am caring for Daisy in every way she requires.

I’ve been watching over her for two days, now. Two days in which she has lain almost motionless on her pillow, her short hair damp and matted against her brow, her cheeks flushed, the skin around her mouth eerily pale. The rash is everywhere on her body, like sunburn, but it feels as rough as sandpaper to the touch. ‘The rash will last for six days,’ Dr Lawrence said. ‘But the fever is what I fear, and the closing of the throat. Keep her cool. Open the windows to freshen the air. Change her clothes as often as you can and wash everything in chloride of lime.’

Hannah has duly rendered the sickroom as spotless as a farmhouse dairy. With the utmost quietness and industry she has washed the walls and the windows, taken up the rug and scrubbed the floorboards. She has even rubbed a disinfectant cloth over Daisy’s books. ‘Dirt gets itself in everywhere,’ she said, and I nodded. I have always been very much against dirt and very much for the invigorating moral virtues of cold water, and I liked to see her so well-employed. She has a shapely form as she kneels and bends with her brush and pail.

Today she is bustling about again, wiping a carbolic rag around the grate. ‘Oh, my, what’s this doing here?’ she says, lifting up a red object from behind the fire screen. ‘Isn’t it Miss Daisy’s writing-book?’ It is indeed the journal which Evelina and I presented to her on her birthday. That day seems more like a century away, yet at the same time I can recall it in perfect clarity – everyone in their finery, Benjamin in Nettie’s arms, John in his dark suit, and Daisy in her white summer dress, eager to receive her gift, then disappointed with it, and bravely pretending all was well.

Like Hannah, I wonder what the journal is doing in the grate. Perhaps Daisy has abandoned it; after all, she’d been much more delighted with the parasol. But she isn’t a careless child. If it was behind the screen, she must have put it there deliberately. Perhaps she hasn’t written a word and wanted to conceal the fact from her prying papa. She seemed quite alarmed when I asked if I could read it.

‘Put it here,’ I say, indicating the small table by the bedside. I don’t wish to open the book in Hannah’s presence. In fact, I know I shouldn’t open it at all.

‘Oh, look, there’s things inside it,’ says Hannah, nearly letting slip a sheet of paper and what looks like a photograph or two, before pushing them back where they came from. ‘Be careful, Mr Baxter, it’s all a bit loose.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ I say, taking it from her. ‘Now, isn’t it time we changed Daisy’s sheets?’

That is something we do twice a day. Nothing can be too clean for Daisy. I carefully take the child’s limp weight in my arms and carry her to the open window where I sit with her on my lap so that the breeze is in our faces, while Hannah strips the bed and puts on the new, bleached linen. I can see the sheets billowing out from the corner of my eye as Hannah shakes them onto the bed, but my gaze never wavers from Daisy’s face. The summer daylight seems to make her skin almost transparent, and as pure as the holy wafer. I kiss her again and again, feeling I might almost consume her loveliness, just as I consume the body of Our Lord in the Eucharist. I hardly want the moment to end, to relinquish her soft limbs to the uncaring bedstead. But relinquish her I do, and lay her back on the mattress so that Hannah can wash her. She inches off Daisy’s nightgown, sponging her skin on her chest and belly, and then along the inside of her legs. She is flesh of my flesh; it is not wrong to gaze upon her. But she is so touchingly beautiful, even with the rash upon her, that I am conscious of a tremor that I cannot control.

Then, when Daisy is newly clothed and freshly covered with a clean sheet, Hannah departs with the bundled-up linen and I draw up my chair to the bedside once more. I take a comb and gently part her hair, drawing it back from her forehead and cheeks. She must have felt the touch of the comb, because she opens her eyes slightly, and murmurs, ‘Are you still cross with me about my hair?’

I’m overcome with shame that, even in her fever, she is preoccupied with such a trivial matter. ‘Oh, no, my dear one,’ I say. ‘Not cross at all. Never think that. Never, never, never.’ But she closes her eyes again and slips back into that feverish state when she can neither hear nor speak. And once more I fall to the prayers that I hardly believe in and yet dare not let lapse for a second, in case the Devil creeps in and confounds me.
Dear Lord, let her live. Dear God, let my little child live! Don’t let my sins lie upon her. Don’t visit my sins unto the next generation.
I pray, and pray again, opening my eyes only to make sure that Daisy is still breathing, watching the rise and fall of her chest, so slight that at times I am almost persuaded it has stopped, and I have to bend low against her to sense the tremulous flutter.

From time to time, my eyes fall upon the journal sitting on the bedside table, its bright red covers contrasting with the scrubbed bareness of the sickroom. It has been well used, that is clear. And, as Hannah noted, there are loose papers placed between the pages. Perhaps I should tidy it. Glance at it a little, maybe. But before I can lay a finger on it, I hear the door knocker and the sound of voices downstairs: Hannah and – yes – John Jameson. I get up as quietly as I can and go out onto the landing. John is standing in the porch, his hat in his hand. ‘I won’t intrude,’ he’s saying. ‘But I am desperate to know how she is.’

‘It’s the scarlet fever, sir,’ Hannah replies. ‘Dr Lawrence said it’s definite. All we can do is wait and hope for the best. Mr Baxter’s up there now.’

But John has spotted me. ‘T-Tell me I am not to blame, Daniel,’ he says in an agitated fashion, moving forward into the hall. ‘I am overcome with the fear I may have exposed her to some malign influence. There are infective p-particles you know, in the air and in the water. Goodness knows what harm they may do.’

What things the man thinks of. ‘I don’t know about particles,’ I say somewhat sharply as I come down the stairs. ‘But have you taken her near Jericho? Mrs Baxter says it is the only place where the disease is rife.’

‘Why would I go there?’ he asks with astonishment. ‘There is nothing in those streets except for poverty and the Iron Works. But we have been to other places where
hoi polloi
has been much in evidence and maybe I have not been as careful as I should. Picture galleries and museums can be very crowded. Bad air cannot be avoided. And there is always ordure in the streets no matter how careful one is.’

He looks so disconsolate that I feel obliged to say, ‘I don’t blame you, you know, John.’

‘And Mrs Baxter? I hear she has taken the others away.’

‘She has to protect Benjamin. And it was best for the older girls to go too.’

He raises his eyebrows. ‘So who is nursing Daisy?’

‘Who else but her father?’ I reply, conscious of some pride. ‘With some help, of course, from Hannah,’ I add, seeing the servant’s quick glance.

‘And there is no improvement?’ He looks upwards as if to see her through the ceiling.

‘Still in a fever. But, thank God, no worse.’

‘Would you give her this when she is well again – and I am sure she will be well again very soon. In fact, I am quite convinced of it.’ He hands me a sheaf of papers in his awkward way. ‘It is a story I have written. Something to amuse her and to remind her of me and to know I am thinking of her, although I am not with her. I have illustrated it, too, although it is not quite as good as I would like. But I felt I should not delay by making a second draft.’

I take it. I suppose it is his odd way of showing concern. He clearly doesn’t understand how weak she is, how incapable of listening to a story. ‘Now, if you’ll forgive me, Daisy must always have someone with her. She may wake, and need something. Or she may
. . .
well, she may suddenly
. . .
’ I cannot finish the words.

‘Of course.’ He looks very miserable.

‘If there is a God of Mercy, she will not die. Pray for her, won’t you, John?’

‘With all my heart.’ And he turns and walks despondently down the path.

I have been with Daisy ever since. She has moved a little, and opened her eyes, and has swallowed a mouthful or two of water, but is otherwise the same. My eye keeps being caught by the red covers of her journal. It’s almost full, if the amount of well-thumbed pages is anything to go by, and there is no small quantity of additional memoranda inside. I can’t help thinking what a conscientious and hard-working child she is, even in her leisure time, and I wonder what she has chosen to write about at such length. Her school friends? Her family? Nettie? Her outings with Mr Jameson? Even her father, perhaps? Or has she made up stories to amuse herself? I hope she has not felt constrained to keep an account of her good and bad behaviour as I suggested at the outset, sanctimonious fool that I am.

I am tempted to take a peek at it. I feel it might bring me closer to her, help me to understand her thoughts and feelings and what interests her in the wide world. But I know the journal is private, and I hesitate to intrude on her girlish thoughts and feelings, harmless though I am sure they are.

I lean over her as she sleeps on the bed. Her mouth has fallen open a little, and I can see her tongue is dry. ‘Daisy, my darling,’ I say in her ear. ‘You must drink some water.’

She opens her eyes. I lift her, cradling her shoulders as she sips from the tumbler. I can see it is agony for her to swallow. ‘Thank you,’ she murmurs, falling back on the pillow, as if exhausted by that one simple action.