After Such Kindness Read online

  ‘Will you dress me one last time?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She seemed relieved to have something to do for me, and I was dressed in no time, Nettie’s practised hands doing up buttons and tying tapes as she had done hundreds of times before. Outwardly I was calm, turning obediently and holding out my arms for my sleeves and standing patiently as Nettie combed my hair. But I was seething inwardly at the injustice of it all.

  ‘There, you look really pretty. That’s how I shall think of you in the future.’

  ‘Will you think of me, Nettie?’ I asked, a horrible pang of grief filling my throat.

  ‘Course I will. You and Benjy both, and all the happy times we’ve had together.’

  A dreadful thought occurred. ‘Will you still be here when we come back from church?’

  She hesitated. ‘I don’t know, Miss Daisy. It depends.’ But she avoided my eye. And when I returned from church two hours later, she was, as I expected, gone. Her wardrobe was empty, her bed stripped and bare.

  I have to confess that at that point I threw all my birthday presents around the room in a wild fury, including the parasol and journal and especially the India-rubber ball that Nettie had given me, which no longer seemed so pretty. I hated her then; I hated her for going and leaving me. And I hated the world for making the rules that meant she had to.

  Monday 9th June

  Yesterday was the unhappiest day of my life! My dear Nettie was sent away and I’ll never see her again! Mama says I mustn’t mope, but I don’t see why not. Everything is different – and horrid! Mama has made Hannah sleep in the nursery for the time being but she doesn’t like looking after Benjy and keeps asking me what she should do to stop him crying. I told her I didn’t care and everything was Benjy’s fault anyway. I was sorry afterwards and said I didn’t mean it and Hannah said the sooner we had a new nursemaid the better it would be for all concerned as she couldn’t be in two places at once and she was supposed to be a parlourmaid after all and had three ladies to look after as it was. I shall be glad when she’s gone. She’s very ill-tempered and doesn’t do my hair at all nicely.

  Everyone at Miss Prentiss’s knew about Benjy nearly drowning and Mr Jameson saving his life and everyone crowded around me and asked lots of questions, even girls I didn’t know and who had never spoken to me before, which made me feel quite important. I told them Mama and Papa had been very cross and Nettie had cried all night and then she had packed her bags and gone off to London with a month’s wages, saying she would never forget me. DEB

  Oh how I remember the excitement of having a near-drowning in the family! I felt rather notorious and played up to the drama of the situation, quite putting aside all my sympathy for Nettie, and enjoying the feelings of importance that her misfortunes aroused. ‘Serve her right,’ said one older girl. ‘Some servants are so lazy; they need to be kept in check.’ That brought me up short; I knew Nettie was never lazy and she certainly didn’t deserve her punishment. None of us had thought Benjy could have crawled so fast, and we’d all merrily left Nettie to get on with the packing while we went off to enjoy ourselves. And then I began to wonder why Mama hadn’t watched over Benjy herself. After all, she was his mother and was always saying what a jewel he was. Yet she did surprisingly little for him. She rarely fed him or played with him or put him to bed. In fact, she rarely put me to bed either. Indeed she only spoke to me when I went down to the drawing room in the afternoons, or when we were out visiting or going to church. Nettie had done everything else, yet she had been dismissed on the instant.

  The more I tried to make sense of it all, the more nonsensical it seemed. The rules of life seemed arbitrary and cruel. It seemed that Mama and Papa had to be obeyed and honoured whatever they said or did, just as God had to be obeyed and honoured even when He allowed bad things to happen. I could not help feeling that it was a topsy-turvy arrangement, and that if I had charge of the world, I would make sure children would be listened to, and people like Nettie treated as they deserved. But of course I did not have charge of the world. I hardly had charge of myself.

  ‌3

  ‌ JOHN JAMESON

  I feel that events are conspiring distinctly to my advantage. I am persona very definitely grata in the Baxter household since my adventure in the watery mud of the Cherwell. In fact, I can do no wrong. Even the supercilious Mrs Baxter cannot thank me enough. Not only did she send a note (rather over-scented with lavender) in her own hand to express her lifelong gratitude, but she also sent a gold propelling pencil engraved with my initials, and a brace of wood pigeon, which was deposited at the lodge with the porter and conveyed thence to the college kitchens to be prepared for a small supper in my rooms. It would have been bliss to share the repast with Daisy, and to see her delicate little face and grey eyes looking at me from across the table; but that is a bridge too far. Instead I sent an invitation to Smith-Jephcott (who occupies the rooms below me), and we passed a pleasant enough evening picking at the bones. After dinner, I showed him my new photographs and he was very complimentary. He said he particularly liked the one of Mrs Baxter reclining on the ground, and remarked that she seemed to be something of a sweet little pigeon herself – a comment which sickened me. I hardly felt inclined to show him the study of Daisy and her friends after that, but I was so proud of it I could not resist. He glanced at it rather carelessly, then passed over it without a word, giving his attention to the family group instead, and showing especial interest in Daisy’s sisters. ‘This may be your chance, Jameson,’ he said. ‘In a few years the eldest will be seriously marriageable.’ The man is an idiot, and a crass one. If it had been in my power, I would have turned him upside-down and shaken every scrap of pigeon out of him before kicking him downstairs.

  But even Smith-Jephcott’s coarseness cannot damp my good humour. I know it is not right to exult at the near-drowning of a little child, but I cannot help feeling it is Fate that I was on the spot when the nursemaid’s vigilance failed, and that my quick actions have endeared myself to the family in a way I could not otherwise have brought about. In addition, I find my dear child much more at liberty than formerly. The nursemaid has been sent away and no other has as yet replaced her, so the Baxters are only too grateful to me for entertaining her when I visit, which I now do every day. Daisy is still reserved with me, which is to be expected, but I know that I can win her round, and that it will not be too long before I see again that immediate and natural delight which flashed across her face when she unwrapped the parasol. That was an exquisite moment for me; a proof that I understood the things that made her happy. Which is more than her parents seem to do. I cannot help wondering what on earth possessed the Baxters to give their daughter such a dull and worthy present for her birthday. Daisy is far too young to be cultivating the heavy art of introspection by committing her daily doings to paper. She has only just ceased to be ten; she has no need of the discipline of self-examination. She needs to be free, to play and wander at will, and to read and listen to amusing stories – ones that will take her into the realms of the magical and absurd. And if I have my way, she will do so. She will travel with me along the golden pathways of the imagination.

  And yesterday I took a small step towards this goal. When I made my way to the vicarage as usual in the mid-afternoon, I was carrying under my arm a fine leather album in which I had carefully mounted all the photographs I had taken at the picnic. I had spent three days finding an album that satisfied me; and the assistants in five separate stationery shops in the Cornmarket and the High had given voice to their impatience as I rejected one after another of their showy volumes. (I really cannot see why they were so incapable of supplying what I needed: I described exactly what I required in terms of size and shape: linen-jointed, four photographs per page, fifty pages altogether – but they seemed to have no idea of proportion, or indeed, of taste.) I did eventually find a decent enough one, with deep brown pages eight inches by five, of a nice stiff quality with a double golden line running three eighths of an
inch in; and, I have to say, the photographs looked very well on them.

  Mrs Baxter summoned everyone to the drawing room to look, and all were delighted at what they saw. Mrs Baxter ran her elegant fingers over the pages as if they were velvet, and the once-disdainful Christiana and Sarah exclaimed over their likenesses with evident approval. Thus emboldened, I asked the Baxters if it would be possible to make some additional studies. I said I was particularly pleased with how the composition with the younger children had turned out and would like to take my amateur practice a stage further by setting up the photographs in more steady surroundings.

  ‘The bright sunshine of the riverbank is all very well,’ I said. ‘But when I am indoors I can arrange the light for the pictures to suit myself. I have a special place in college where my equipment is kept and I have some fancy costumes that the little girls would no doubt like to dress in. Do you think their mamas would agree to such an arrangement? Chaperoned, of course,’ I added.

  Mrs Baxter said she thought this an excellent idea and would ask the parents of Daisy’s friends if they would agree. ‘I will advocate most strongly for you, Mr Jameson. It is the least I can do in terms of the debt of gratitude we all owe. Once we have their answers I will set a time, and send Hannah along with them. She’ll like an outing, no doubt, and I’ll release her from her duties here. Tell me, how long will you need?’

  I said an hour or two would suffice on the first occasion (I was careful to plant the idea that more occasions would follow), but that I would be happy to give the little girls some tea and bread-and-butter once the picture-taking was over. I said that I would not wish to keep Hannah too long from her duties, and that I would be happy to entertain the children afterwards and walk them back to their respective homes. ‘That is, if you think they will agree to such a rogue and v-vagabond as I being in charge of their precious offspring.’

  Mrs Baxter laughed. ‘I cannot think of a more respectable and reliable person than yourself, Mr Jameson. If one cannot trust a clergyman, whom can one trust? And they are only children, after all.’

  I bowed. ‘Indeed. But the world is full of Mrs Grundys. I would wish everything to be kept utterly respectable – most of all for the little girls concerned. They are the most precious and innocent of beings.’

  ‘I will deal with it, Mr Jameson. Rest assured, there will be no difficulty of any sort.’

  And I am sure there will not be. I can see that Mrs Baxter has her own sort of vanity, which prides itself on its ability to assess character. And she is equally convinced of her capacity to charm away any kind of opposition.

  Daniel then having to go out on parish business, and the older girls to attend an archery lesson, I was treated to a whole hour alone in Daisy’s company. It was another lovely day, and Mrs Baxter sat in the shade of an acacia tree with a novel in her hand and the baby asleep on her lap, while Daisy and I walked around the vicarage’s extensive and well-kept garden. Daisy showed me the marigolds she had been trying to grow in a plot near the kitchen wall. ‘I’m afraid the caterpillars got to them,’ she said, bending down in that delightfully pliant way that children have, and stroking the few ragged leaves that remained.

  ‘What a shame,’ said I, squatting beside her, feeling how small she was and how large I was in comparison, and enjoying the protective feeling it gave rise to. ‘Although, without caterpillars, we would never have butterflies to delight us with their beauty, would we? We would think that a shame too.’

  She looked up at me then. It was the first time she had looked at me so directly, and she was so close to me that my insides nearly melted. ‘But why do the marigolds have to suffer?’ she asked. ‘Can’t things have their place in the world without eating others or being eaten themselves?’

  She is such a kind child, it was hard to disabuse her. ‘Nature is quite indifferent you know,’ I said gently. ‘Everything has to fight for its place.’

  She looked perplexed and rather upset. ‘Nature?’ she said. ‘But I thought God made everything the way it is.’

  In her innocent way, she had brought down the axe. ‘It’s a conundrum,’ I said.

  ‘What’s a conundrum?’

  ‘An enigma. A mystery. Something we don’t know the answer to.’

  ‘Don’t you know the answer, Mr Jameson?’

  ‘I less than any man. Maybe your father does. He’s a deep thinker.’

  She did not seem very satisfied with that answer. ‘Papa says you are the cleverest man he knows, so if you don’t know, he won’t either. He said you were a “Double First”.’ She looked up at me. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I have spent too much time with my nose in a book.’

  ‘So why are there still things you don’t know the answer to?’

  ‘I don’t know the answer to that. In fact, there are things to which I don’t even know that I don’t know the answer.’

  She laughed at that, and I felt again how wonderful it was to be the cause of laughter in a child. Bubbles of happiness welled up in me and I wanted the moment to go on for ever. But she straightened and brushed down her pinafore and started to walk further along the path, further away from her mama. I fell into step beside her as we skirted the shrubbery. ‘May I ask you a question?’ she said.

  ‘You certainly may. After all, a cat may look at a king. But I think it’s not the question that is at issue; it’s the answer. And, as you see, I cannot guarantee that I will have one.’

  She pondered that for a bit, then she murmured in a low voice, ‘Things aren’t always fair in this world, are they?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by “fair”,’ I said. ‘What’s fair to one person isn’t fair to another. Is it fair that I am good at arithmetic, for example, but that your father is good at rowing?’

  She considered this gravely. ‘You and Papa are just different,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t think that matters. But why are some people poor and others rich? And why are some people allowed to tell others what to do and they have to do it whether they like it or not?’

  ‘A very good question. And one I have often asked myself – without, I have to say, getting much sense in return. But, on the second point, I suppose you could say that in general parents know more than children do, for example, and therefore they have the right and the duty to guide them in their actions. And this might entail forbidding them certain things, or telling them they must accomplish certain things. And, again, the rich have certain duties towards the poor; and those with knowledge have obligations to those who are ignorant. I am sure you have heard your father preach such things.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I mean why was Nettie told to go away and not be able to stand up for herself because she is a servant and has no money? Just because there is some sort of rule that says she mustn’t. And I mustn’t say anything about it, either, in case it makes things worse.’

  Suddenly I understood her sad demeanour. Daisy was pining for her nursemaid – her poor, wretched nursemaid who had given many years of loyal service night and day, but who had fallen prey to a moment’s inattention and had been summarily dismissed. ‘You must miss Nettie, naturally,’ I said, recalling how the servant had been so proud of Daisy’s recitation the day we first met, and how Daisy had smiled at her so warmly in return.

  It was as if I had uncorked a bottle of seltzer. Daisy began sobbing in the noisiest and most abandoned way. ‘Oh, yes, Mr Jameson,’ she sobbed. ‘I miss her all the time. I love her more than anything and now I’ll never see her again!’

  I was somewhat alarmed at this outburst, thinking Mrs Baxter might imagine I had said (or done) something untoward. But she was a long way off, and seemed to be asleep, and there were no other people in the garden to hear or see. ‘Please don’t cry,’ I said, wanting to put my arm around her, but afraid to do so.

  Daisy shook her head. ‘I know I shouldn’t say so,’ she declared through her tears. ‘And you mustn’t tell anyone, Mr Jameson. But I love Nettie better than Mama or Papa. I
love her more than anyone else in the whole world. Benjy loves her, too, and he doesn’t understand why she isn’t here any more. He keeps looking round for her and crying because she’s not there.’

  ‘Well, he’s not crying now,’ I ventured, casting my glance once more at Mrs Baxter in her shady spot. I couldn’t help thinking how enormous the baby seemed as he lay across her delicate lap. He had always struck me as a fat child, and was certainly a lead weight when I pulled him out of the water. But now he looked pink-faced as well – more like a young pig than a boy.

  ‘He’s asleep,’ said Daisy. ‘That’s the only time he’s quiet. It’s driving Hannah to distraction and she says she’ll give in her notice if things go on like this.’

  ‘I expect you will have a new nursemaid soon enough,’ I said. ‘And I daresay you will get used to her before you know it.’

  Her colour rose. ‘No, I wouldn’t! How could I? No one is as nice as Nettie. And, anyway, Mama says I am too old to be in the nursery now. I’m to move downstairs next to my sisters and start to be a grown-up girl. So Benjy will be on his own with the new nurse and I won’t even be there to comfort him. It’s all so horrid.’ She turned to me. ‘Oh, Mr Jameson, you are so kind. Couldn’t you speak to them? Ask them if we can have Nettie back so everything will be as it was before?’

  It was wonderful to be appealed to in this way and I was in half a mind to do what she asked. After all, such an intervention would inevitably bring us closer. But I knew that even in my current state of grace I would not be able to prevail against the Baxters on such a matter. And I knew Mrs Baxter would not take kindly to interference in her domestic sphere. ‘It’s not possible,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Why not?’ she said, giving me the most imploring look. ‘All they have to do is write to her and say she can come back.’

  ‘It’s possible in theory,’ I said. ‘But it’s impossible in fact.’