After Such Kindness (3 page)

‘How do you do, sir?’ she said politely, holding out her hand.

‘I do very well as it happens. How do
you
do?’

‘Very well, too.’ But she looked somewhat disconcerted, and quickly pulled back the hand I was holding so reverently in mine. I was afraid that she did not like me. Many people don’t at first acquaintance. I could see that I would need to develop a repertoire of suitable distractions if I was to overcome this antipathy: I would need to practise words and actions that would appeal to a child’s mind. Puzzles, perhaps, or jokes – or some of my little inventions. I opened my mouth to say more to her, but she was gone, whisked away by the nursemaid. I gathered she would not be joining us for tea.

The rest of the afternoon was very much an anti-climax. The older girls were duly brought in and presented to me, but I could see they were the sort that would have no time for a plain and awkward fellow such as myself, and, frankly, I returned the compliment. They were handsome, certainly, but they were rather haughty and somewhat pleased with their new-found womanly charms, and in their presence I blushed and found that my stammer redoubled. They clearly thought this circumstance amusing, and exchanged several smiles and even sniggers when their parents were not attending. ‘Some j-jam, Mr J-Jameson?’ one even whispered as she brought me a plate of bread-and-butter. I am usually unprepared to sanction rudeness in young people, and have a selection of withering replies for any undergraduate who steps even slightly out of line, but I did not feel that insulting his older daughters would be the best way to insert myself into Baxter’s intimate household. So I nodded and looked meek. I felt the Baxter ladies all regarded me with a kind of condescending pity, and from that day onward I did nothing to counter that judgement.

I’ve been married now for exactly seven weeks and two days. But life is not at all how I imagined it would be.

I’ve been busy, of course, doing all the things a new wife should do. I’ve inspected every room in the rectory, including the broom cupboard and the wash-house; I’ve counted every jar of preserve and pickle in the larder and made a note of the quantity in the household book Robert has given me; I’ve checked every silver knife, spoon and fork in the pantry, and made a note of them too; I’ve counted the sheets and pillow-slips a dozen times, and then the tablecloths, tray-cloths, napkins and towels, noting as I go; I’ve made little lavender bags to hang in the closets to keep away moths, and I’ve embroidered initials on all my husband’s handkerchiefs; I’ve spoken to Cook in the mornings and arranged the day’s menus in minute detail; and every day, whether it’s fine or not, I’ve walked in the garden, inspecting the fruit and the vegetables.

In addition, I’ve spent two whole days unpacking the wedding presents. I’ve set out the new ornaments on the mantelpiece and the piano, and moved them around until I am satisfied. And then, not being satisfied at all, I’ve moved them again. I’ve carefully mounted the photographs we had taken for our wedding in the album Robert has bought for the purpose, and I’ve shown them to him after supper when we’ve sat in the drawing room together. I’ve written long letters of thanks to all who kindly sent us presents, and I’ve answered all the congratulatory notes that have welcomed me to my new home. I’ve noted who has left visiting cards and, on selected afternoons, I’ve chosen fashionable new outfits from my trousseau and taken the carriage to leave my own card in return. I’ve written every other day to my mother and sisters, and once a week to my brother Benjamin, who is still at school. I’ve written as often as is reasonable to my dear friends, Annie, Enid and Emma. And when I’ve completely exhausted every possibility of duty and entertainment, and my husband is still busy in his study with his sermons, I’ve sat at the window-seat in the upstairs drawing room, looking over the yew trees in the churchyard, reading the latest novel about love.

In spite of all this housewifely activity, I can’t help feeling that the house belongs more to my husband than to me. In my more rational moments I know this is not Robert’s fault. After all, he has been established here at St Aidan’s for almost a year, and he has his ways and patterns already in place. He’s all ease and familiarity as he walks around, and has a purpose in all he does; whereas I feel awkward and unsure, and have no one with whom to confide my uncertainties. I can’t confide in Robert; I feel too foolish. Besides, there are other, more difficult, matters that occupy the ground between us. But I’m embarrassed to find that the servants seem to know my husband’s preferences better than I do: when he likes to be convivial and when he likes to be quiet; his dislike of fuss, and his desire, on the whole, to be left alone during the day, a period that has seemed longer and longer when I have only myself for company. Robert has been generous: he has given me carte blanche to make whatever changes I wish. Anything, he says, that will make me happy. He wants me to be happy – he wants both of us to be happy. He holds my hands and kisses me to show how much he wants it. And of course I want it too.

But this afternoon I’ve had an exciting diversion. I’ve come the six miles right into Oxford, to the house where I was brought up – and more particularly, to the attic nursery where I spent a large part of my childhood. It’s bare now, the furniture gone. But in the middle of the room is a large toy-chest. It was left behind when my family moved out a month ago, and now, by a kind of default, it has come to me. An inheritance, almost – although Mama doesn’t appear to have attached much value to it. Indeed, it was only last week that she even remembered to tell me of its existence – and then in a hasty postscript to a letter full of other matters to do with her settling back in Herefordshire.

I am very sorry, but the box was overlooked in the general frenzy and only discovered at the eleventh hour, covered in old carpets. I glanced inside, naturally, but it was so packed with childish rubbish that I found it impossible to do more than sift through what was on the top; and with the removal men gone and the carriage to take us to the station practically at the door, I decided not to have it sent on. Your brother is not interested in toys any more – and Christiana and Charles hardly wish to be reminded of the fact that they have no children. I had half a mind to let Mr Arbuthnot have it – after all, he has five offspring, and it would save the expense of moving it. But then I saw you had written your name on it – although it was almost too faint to see without my spectacles and your writing was never very clear – so I suppose it is yours. And as I hope you and Robert will enjoy the good fortune of having an infant of your own in the near future, it makes sense for you to see if there is anything to salvage. In my opinion, it is mostly jumble – things that should have been got rid of long ago. But then, if I remember rightly, you were a child who never threw anything away.

Mama manages as usual to sound disapproving towards me, as if the mere existence of the toy-box is my fault, and its late appearance in the removal schedule were deliberately engineered by me. But I thought it would prove a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, so here I am, up in the nursery at Westwood Gardens, with a meagre fire in the grate and two hours to sift through what remains of my childhood memories. My initial delight at the prospect of a diversion from my housewifely routine has faded a little. Even entering the house again has made me feel apprehensive. I stare at the box. It’s years since I’ve opened it and I don’t remember at all what’s inside.

Other memories are clear, though. This room, for example: I’m familiar with every inch of the sloping ceiling and the high view from the dormer window, right down to the garden below. And Nettie’s gentle face is clear, too. I see her in my mind’s eye, bending over me, putting on my petticoat and frock and patiently brushing my hair. Nettie is part of this room, part of the best time of my childhood. She loved me in a way that no one else did. And I know that I was happier in this room than I have ever been – even now, as a newly married wife, which everyone has told me is the pinnacle of a woman’s joy and aspiration.

I pull my shawl around my shoulders. The house feels damp. It’s been closed up for some weeks, of course. There was some difficulty about the appointment of my father’s successor, the circumstances of his life being somewhat unusual, but now it’s all settled. My brother-in-law has been relieved of his position and Mr Arbuthnot has sent his housemaid in advance to clean and air the property. Yesterday, passing the house en route for the draper’s shop on an errand for some new cushion material, I saw the upstairs sash windows had been opened wide and that a steady stream of smoke was coming from the kitchen chimney. So I sent a note and today the servant has let me in, saying she ‘supposed it was all right’, before grudgingly lighting the fire with three sticks and four small pieces of coal. I forbore to say that it was my mother’s coal she was being so frugal with. There seemed to be little point in making her even crosser.

I stand for a while, looking at the box. There’s my childhood name on the lid:
Daisy Baxter
, written in chalk
.
And then:
Private
. I can’t remember writing it. And the word ‘private’ brings an uncomfortable warmth to the back of my neck. What secrets could I have had in those days that I so much needed to protect? And is it right to uncover them now? But, all the same, I kneel down and unclasp the lid, letting it drop backwards on its hinges. The chest is full to the brim, just as Mama said. In fact, things start to fall out immediately. There are pieces of paper galore: old drawings, attempts at French and mathematics, exercises in syntax, dreadful poems by the dozen. I sit back and smile at my creations, examining them one by one before piling them up on the floor beside me. Under the schoolwork I find jigsaw puzzles and games and, below them, a large store of reading matter: children’s books, nursery rhymes and fairy stories, all very well-thumbed – some so much so that their binding is coming adrift. Everything is very tightly packed and it’s awkward to dislodge even a single object, but I persevere – tugging out each new thing, turning it over, and placing it on the rug beside me until I’m sitting in a sea of childhood reminiscence.

After a while, I notice that my hands feel dry and dirty, as if I’ve been digging in the ground, and my back is aching with the effort of bending forward. But I’m almost at the bottom and there has been little of consequence; certainly nothing to deserve the warning sign on the lid. I’m both relieved and disappointed. My mother was right; apart from my books, most of the contents can be left behind for the Arbuthnots. I peer in at the last few items: an album of pressed flowers (incomplete), an India-rubber ball that Nettie once gave me (which I will certainly keep) and something coyly nestling in the corner, something flat and rectangular, wrapped in an old linen bolster-case.

Seeing it makes me feel faintly sick, and my first instinct is to pretend it’s not there. Because I know exactly what’s inside. I’m aware that I am holding my breath and that my heart is thumping. Daisy buried it deep; she never wanted it discovered. ‘Private’, she said. And there is part of me that knows I should go no further; that I should let it alone; put it out of sight, let my mind dwell on happier things. But another part of me is horribly curious; it tells me to ignore that clutch at my stomach, that dry feeling in my throat. After all (it assures me in its most rational voice), what could there possibly be in an eleven-year-old’s diary for a woman of twenty to fear? It will be interesting, surely, to see what young Daisy has to say for herself. But my heart goes on pounding all the same and it’s some time before I have the courage to reach down and touch the thing – and, even more, lift it out. It feels unexpectedly heavy, just as it did all those years ago when I used to drag it on to my knees and write so carefully between the pale blue lines.

I unfold the linen wrapping still holding my breath – and there it is – with its red cover, just as I remember, and with bits of loose paper poking out from between the gilt-edged leaves. I look at it – I look a long time – but I don’t open it. My fingers tremble as they even touch it. A warning voice sounds in my head.
Best left alone,
it insists.
Best left alone.
I don’t know what to do. I sit with it in my lap for a long while, unable either to open it, or put it back, drawn by curiosity and held back by fear. Then some sound comes up from the landing below – the servant’s voice perhaps, or her broom knocking against the skirting board – and I wake from my daze. I must follow my instinct. There is something dangerous about this thing. It must go back where it belongs, where I won’t have to think about it ever again. I thrust it back into the chest, covering it in a kind of frenzy with whatever comes to hand: the backgammon board, the nursery rhymes, the box of chess pieces, the exercise books, the French grammar, the drawings of kittens and flowers. Finally, I slam down the lid.

But even as I do so, I know that this is not the answer. Far from being out of harm’s way, it’s simply biding its time, festering until it’s uncovered again. And it
will
be uncovered if I leave it here. Some Arbuthnot child will come across it, in an innocent quest for toys and games, and set free its secrets. Because I know there are secrets even though I can’t remember what they are. They are part of that hidden time, those dark years that I cannot account for. And while I remember writing in the book, I don’t remember hiding it, or indeed why I did so – except there is a horror attached to it all. Daisy did well, burying it here. My sisters were far too grown-up to go rooting around for toys, while my brother would have disdained to engage himself with such girlish items as books and board games. Time and neglect (and a covering of carpet) have done the rest. But now it has come into my hands again.

But what to do? The word ‘private’ won’t protect it now. It must be destroyed. And not just torn up, but burned to unknowable cinders. I delve back through the contents of the chest, pitching out everything that I have just replaced until I come to it again. I seize it and make for the grate. But the fire is paltry, a mere cage of powdery grey coals. I take the poker and try to ginger up a blaze, but I can only manage a small flame or two. And this book is too robust. The pages will only smoulder, leaving blackened words to be deciphered by the servant when she rakes the cinders or (worse) to be spotted by my husband when he comes to fetch me home. No, I need to take it to the scullery, shove it deep into the kitchen furnace, turn it to harmless ash in seconds. I should go now, immediately, down the back stairs, pell-mell, before I have time to think. My mind is ahead of me, already going down the staircase, sensing the familiar curve of the wall as it descends to the next floor. But my feet don’t move and the book seems to grow heavy in my hands, as if it, too, is resisting leaving the room. A new voice cajoles me.
Read me
, it seems to say
. Read me now
. I feel an absurd degree of panic at the thought. And yet, to cast such precious childhood writings unread into the fire seems suddenly too drastic, too irretrievable. Again that voice tempts me.
Don’t destroy me
, it says. Read a little at least.
You never know.
I may have the answer
.

I finger the cover. The scarlet leather is still soft, the gold-leaf decoration still bright. It seems hardly to have aged, like a saint found whole and incorrupt after years in the grave. But in the end, it’s only leather and paper bound together. And as for what’s inside – well, Daisy always had such an imagination – it ran away with her at times. There’ll be no great secrets here. In fact, I’ll probably smile when I see what foolish things she’s written.