After Such Kindness (27 page)

I heard last week that Daisy Baxter is married, and that she has moved into St Aidan’s Rectory. I can hardly believe that my little flower now manages an entire household, and warrants being addressed as ‘Mrs Constantine’ every day of her life. At the same time, I feel sick at heart to think that her childhood is now so irrevocably past, and that I am the only one to mourn it as it should be mourned. I have many other child-friends now, a fact not unconnected with my small fame as an author; and I can pick and choose among the cream of those whom I meet or who write to me in their hundreds. I can even delight in the companionship of girls as old as fourteen or fifteen, provided they keep the freshness of childhood in their hearts. But once a young girl marries, she generally loses all capacity for enchantment. Still, it is the way of the world, and I hope Daisy is happy in her new life.

I think of her, of course, and imagine how delightful it would have been to take a photograph of her on her wedding day – a flower still in its perfect bloom. I would have had her look directly at me, her dark hair framed in its veil of white; orange blossoms massing in her hair; and that ineffable combination of purity and eagerness in her grey eyes. But this is mere foolishness. Far from taking any photographs of the bride, I did not even attend the ceremony. Mrs Baxter has not spoken to me for years and fails to acknowledge me in the street – and my relationship with Daisy was forfeit long ago. I have seen her at a distance, as I have seen them all; Oxford is a small place and we have been obliged to rub up against one another from time to time – at concerts or in the public parks, and occasionally at the cathedral – the eldest girls very tall and fine, and never looking in my direction, and the little boy Benjamin giving his arm to his mother with great ceremony, as if he were the paterfamilias. We never speak, but Daisy has always contrived to give me a shy smile before being hustled away in a flurry of petticoats. Naturally, I cannot help but hear the gossip that swells in their wake – the whispers, the commiserations, the questions. The family has had to put on a brave face since Baxter’s downfall. That was a very bad business. A very bad business indeed.

I was as shocked as everybody else by his sudden descent into insanity, but having had a good deal of time to consider the matter, I confess there were some early signs that his mind was overwrought. He was ever a man of extremes and, since those first debates in college, he had struggled with doubts about the validity of his position in the Anglican Church. I could myself never warrant becoming heated over
Anglican Attitudes
, or even the famous
Tracts.
I did not entirely lack sympathy with Baxter, but while I had long come to the conclusion that logic has to be thrown to the winds where matters of faith are concerned, poor Daniel was incapable of taking such a pragmatic approach. He could not (like the rest of us) put his doubts in a separate and hermetic container, and trudge on with familiar habits of belief simply because they
were
familiar. He needed absolute certainty. I rather think he expected personal guidance from God Himself. And although I might be regarded as but a poor substitute for the Almighty, he would nevertheless catch me in the hallway when I went to collect Daisy, and, like the Ancient Mariner, draw me into his study and make me listen as he reviewed the whole basis of his faith. ‘Suppose I have chosen the wrong path?’ he would say. ‘Suppose I am leading
others
down the wrong path? Perhaps Newman is right. Maybe a return to the traditional rites and beliefs is what we need. But I don’t
know
, Jameson. I don’t
know
.’

I always attempted to reassure him. ‘Your parish does more good in Oxford than anyone has the right to expect. Think how many souls you have brought to salvation; how your church creaks at the seams on Sunday with eager worshippers who want to hear you preach. It’s the Devil that makes you doubt, Daniel.’

I wish, in retrospect, that I had not mentioned the Devil. That fiery entity had been preying on Daniel’s mind rather too much. He had allowed himself to dwell excessively on the question of Eternal Damnation and no explanation could satisfy him. But that was the other characteristic about Daniel: he could not hold his uncertainty quiet within him; he had to take up a Position. I urged caution, time to reflect, but for him there were no half-measures. And because I refused to become agitated in the matter, to – as it were – stand on the street corner with a tract in my hand, he accused me of
Laodicean lukewarmness
:
neither hot nor cold.
It was typical of him to have been poring over Revelations – a Book I am not fond of, I must say. And it was typical of him to find such a text.

Daniel was very extreme in other ways too. He told me he took a cold shower every day, rubbing and scrubbing until his flesh was raw: ‘To keep the Devil away, John. To keep the Devil away!’ And such ablutions were not just a prophylactic against sin; he took actual
pleasure
in the icy water, and expressed surprise that I myself took no similar daily refresher. I said I did not feel the need to mortify my body further; it was a poor enough thing as it was. But to be perfectly frank, as well as having a reluctance to engage with the unreliable workings of the college plumbing, I am rather like a cat, and hate to be cold or wet for any length of time. I like to go about my toilette in a quiet, methodical way and nothing invigorates me afterwards so much as the prospect of a big fire in my room, and Benson coming in with a plate of toasted muffins. And as for the Devil – well, we have had our tussles, he and I, and continue to do so; but I don’t feel cold water is much of an impediment to his temptations. So, in my lukewarm way, I took all these manifestations of my friend’s excitable state of mind very much in my stride. I thought them not only native to him, but necessary to his equilibrium, in that they allowed him to let off steam. In that I was apparently both right and wrong.

I did not, in fact, witness the first signs of his breakdown, as I had decided to move to the seaside for the remainder of the summer vacation. The decision had been somewhat forced on me when I found all my hopes of attending on Daisy dashed. I’d called at the Baxters’ house regularly throughout her illness, and once I had good news of her improvement, I hoped I would soon be reading a story at her bedside and encouraging her once more to take an interest in the world. I’d already sent numerous gifts of fruit and sugar biscuits, as well as a draft of a fairy story which I thought would amuse her. But each time I presented myself, I found the vicarage closed to me, and Daniel himself incommunicado. The servant Hannah would always answer the door, take the gifts, and give me reports on Daisy’s progress; but she always added that Mr Baxter thought she was not yet well enough for visitors: ‘Not for some weeks, sir, he says.’ It was quite a blow; and I feared that I was being kept away as a punishment for not taking proper care of her.

Indeed, I blamed myself to some extent, recalling all too late an incident that had occurred and which had fallen from my mind with all the anxiety and hullaballoo. Just days before she fell ill, Daisy (who had a pronounced fondness for babes in arms which nothing could subdue) had enthusiastically embraced the infant of a somewhat uncouth family who had been waiting at the boating station alongside us. The child was rather dirty and wore a sticky residue around his mouth, and had coughed all over Daisy’s face as she tenderly bent over him. Now, it is hardly to be credited that a sensible family would take a child with scarlet fever on a boating trip; but there again, some families are not just un-sensible, but insensible – and now I feared that this encounter may have given rise to Daisy’s illness. But, with my guardianship of Daisy already under criticism, I felt discretion was advisable, and communicated nothing to Baxter of my post hoc suspicions. I might have written, I suppose, but Hannah, the servant, persistently stated that her master was exhausted by his duties in watching over Daisy night and day, ‘and wasn’t his usual self’, so I felt such news would be an additional burden. With hindsight, I believe that he had already become caught up in his derangement.

Being, therefore, with time on my hands, I determined to make an exit from Oxford. I am used to decamping, as I generally take a holiday in July or August at one of the popular watering places, somewhere where there are plenty of little children to observe, and – if I am lucky – to talk to for a while. While trying to decide between the joys of Brighton and Bournemouth, I recalled that Daisy’s friend, little Annie Warner, had mentioned that she was going to Ilfracombe for the summer, and it occurred to me that I might go too. I had never been to Ilfracombe, but had heard it had a bracing climate and picturesque cliffs and rocky coves, so I decided to take my camera and equipment and see what opportunities presented themselves. Benson had become a dab hand at packing my equipment and could do it in nine minutes flat. I have an excellent folding chest of a patent design, and I was able to fit myself, my clothes and my camera into the cab without the slightest problem, and thence onto the train. As we puffed out of the station, I breathed Daisy a sad farewell and turned my attention to the future, as a man must do when he is disappointed in love.

Ilfracombe is a very pleasant place, though very hilly when one has to carry around a portmanteau of bottles and wet-plates, so I decided I would reconnoitre without my camera before I attempted to capture any views. I also hoped I might meet Annie as I strolled about. I put on a suitably maritime straw hat, selected a walking stick, and set forth in the direction of the harbour. There were a great many people enjoying the sunshine: men, women, children – and also a great variety of dogs. The whole promenade seemed full of white crinolines and sun bonnets. Most of the ladies had frilled parasols as well as large, brimmed hats, and many of them were pushing perambulators with more frilled children inside. I half expected to find the dogs had frills too, in the manner of Dog Toby, but there was no Punch and Judy to be seen. A brass band was playing in a bandstand just under the hill, and a group of little girls was dancing in time to the music, supervised by a nursemaid with a long, frilled cap. I smiled as I passed and one of the girls gaily waved her hand. ‘Do you know that gentleman?’ the nurse said – and, in response to something inaudible, she retorted, ‘Then don’t wave at strangers.’ How sad my heart was to hear those words, to know how the natural friendliness of children was being shaped and curbed to the demands of an ignorant society.

I decided to walk up Capstone Hill and see the view. There was a telescope near the summit, and I hoped to be able to pick out some children who might make good subjects for a picture. I could see a group out on the rocks with buckets and nets, the girls with their petticoats tucked up, and the boys barefoot and bareheaded. They bent and peered into the pools, and fished things out and examined them with concentration before placing them in a bucket. I thought it a charming scene and resolved to strike up a conversation with them, if I could, with a view to drawing them, or taking their photographs if I could obtain permission. I find mamas are so flattered at the thought of having a photograph of their children that they are willing to give me carte blanche as to composition and length of sittings, with the only proviso that I must give them a copy at the end. I have had the occasional mother who has insisted on sitting and watching throughout the whole process, and this is most disconcerting – but such parents are generally in the minority.

I set off down the hill again, lengthening my stride along the winding path, but I was nearly knocked down by a child who was rolling down the slope at forty-five degrees to my own direction of travel. I bent and caught the child by the arm to prevent her rolling further. The hill is fairly steep and the deep sea lay below us with not a great deal in between. ‘Good heavens, child,’ I said. ‘Have you no sense of danger?’

A face looked up at me from between the strands of delightfully disordered brown hair. A child of about six, her rosy cheeks even pinker from her exertions. At the same time I became aware of a buxom nursemaid and two other children racing down the path. To my surprise and considerable pleasure, the older of the two children was Annie Warner. She threw herself at me, embracing my waist. ‘It’s Mr Jameson!’ she cried, more enraptured than she had ever seemed when she had come to tea in Oxford.

The nursemaid swiftly picked up the child who had rolled into me. ‘What was you thinking of, Lou?’ she said. ‘You could of fallen into the sea, and we’d never of seen you again!’ Then she thanked me and, turning to Annie, she said, ‘Do you know this gentleman, then?’

‘Of course, Deedee. How else would I know his name?’ said Annie, with her usual spirit.

I touched my hat. ‘I am J-John Jameson, a tutor in mathematics at the University of Oxford,’ I explained.

‘Sir.’ The nursemaid gave a quick curtsey, while keeping one hand on Lou’s shoulder and the other around a boy of about four.

‘Annie is a little friend of mine,’ I went on. ‘She has come to tea at my college several times, with her mama’s permission, and I have taken her photograph.’

The nurse still looked wary, as if I might be about to doff my respectable suit of clothes and turn into a serpent, so I tried again. ‘I am also the friend of the Reverend Mr Baxter, of St Cyprian’s.’

‘Oh, Mr
Baxter
.’ Her face softened. ‘Oh, yes of course. We all know Mr Baxter. He gives a lovely sermon – the best in Oxford, Mr Warner says. Still, Lou’s got no right to go rampaging into you like that, friend or no friend. I don’t know what might have happened if you’d not been there to stop her.’

‘I was slowing down,’ said the child, crossly. ‘He just got in the way.’

‘Ah, young lady,’ I said, bending down to her. ‘What you don’t know is that other forces may have acted upon you – a sudden gust of wind, for example, or the unexpected eruption of a rabbit from a rabbit hole – which may have changed your trajectory and sent you over the edge. Fortunately, it is a calm day and I have seen no rabbits; and, therefore, on balance, I conclude that it was not dangerous. But, because of all the variables and unforeseen possibilities, it was not undangerous either.’