After Such Kindness

by Gaynor Arnold

  Then he asked me if I had written much in my journal and I said I had, and he asked if I would show it to him which frightened me and I said it was private and I shouldn’t like anyone else to see it. He said he couldn’t imagine that I had written anything very terrible, but then he smiled and said he understood my reluctance as there were thoughts he had committed to paper which were meant for his own eyes alone. ‘Sometimes we work things out by writing them down,’ he said. ‘We don’t always mean what we say.’

  I must be even more careful to keep my diary hidden. DEB

  I feel a cold wave ripple through me as I recall those lessons with Father, and how I’d been anxious about studying the prayer book alone with him. All through my life I’d half believed that beneath Papa’s white surplice God Himself was lurking, with His eye on everything I said and thought and His hand ready to smite me if I did wrong. It was hard to forget the idea. Yet the more time I spent with him, the less frightening he seemed. Indeed, he behaved as if everything I said and did was delightful to him; as if he could not have enough of me. ‘Is Daisy with Papa again?’ I’d hear Sarah whisper outside the study door. ‘She really must have a tremendous lot to learn.’

  And I did have. He’d sit me on his lap and bring his cheek right next to mine as we read together, and I remember feeling almost rapturous that I had at last found such a place in his heart. And he seemed to share my rapture. Whatever we discussed, he would always come back to the same thing – Love. ‘Love is the keystone, Daisy,’ he would say. ‘I love you and you love me, and Christ loves all of us. Love, in my experience, can never be wrong.’

  But all the same, there is a deep uneasiness in my mind when I think of that study, with its brown books and its brown oar, and Papa with his thick brown hair and his watch chain with its sixteen links, and the whiskers that he let me comb if I especially asked. And the Bible open on the table, and his hand on top of mine as we read the verses together.

  ‌13

  ‌ JOHN JAMESON

  I cannot tolerate the notion that anyone should think ill of me for my friendship with one of God’s most innocent creatures. That it should be Baxter and his wife who have imagined something amiss in my dealings with Daisy fills me with horror. On reflection, I am sure that it is not Baxter himself who has jumped to this conclusion; he understands me better than that. But he is a married man, and is obliged to take his wife’s views into account – and I have no doubt that it is Mrs Baxter who has misconstrued the nature of Daisy’s headstrong action with the scissors, and my (imagined) part in it. Like many women, she is overconcerned with her reputation in society, and fearful that she will be blamed for not exercising sufficient supervision over her child, and by inference, not doing her utmost to keep her safe. But safe from what, I ask? From someone who can share with her that most precious of childhood gifts – the power of the imagination? From someone who allows her the freedom to pass the time as she wishes without fearing that her leisure time is but a dull extension of the lessons of Sunday School? From someone who takes such delight in the beauty of her presence that he would wear his shoes to tatters in walking with her to the ends of the earth? From someone who can instruct her about all that is marvellous in the myriad creations of the world? And, most of all, from someone who makes her laugh?

  In my mind, there is no case to answer. My conscience is clear. And, if one examines it dispassionately, what is a few inches of hair in a child of Daisy’s age? They are making far too much of it. But, of course, I am not so naïf as to believe that it is only the hair-cutting that lies behind Mrs Baxter’s unease with me. No doubt she thinks that it is odd for a man of my mature years and undoubted intellect to choose to spend such a large proportion of his spare time with a child of eleven. Well, if I am odd, I am odd. But oddness is not the same as wickedness, and it grieves me to think that there is no Broad Church of love, where many kinds of attachment can be welcomed.

  Of course, I recognize that in finding children more beautiful and appealing than their fully grown counterparts, I am in a minority. But being in a minority is not in itself wrong. So, while I am not planning to evangelize the world on behalf of my particular predilections, I feel I should not be censured for harbouring them. Or, indeed, for acting in accordance with those feelings, provided, of course, that no harm is done thereby. And what harm could be done? After all, compared with the fornicators and adulterers of this world – even the married men who keep their wives in thrall to their passions and lust – my gentle way of loving does no harm. So why should I be to blame for turning my back on fleshly sensuality and preferring what is simple, loving and good? Friendship with children is, for me, as great a sacrament as marriage.

  But I recognize the precariousness of my position. The Mrs Grundys – for whom human conduct consists merely of a set of rules by which we step left and right or back and forth as if we were all participants in a universal game of chess – would undoubtedly choose to misunderstand the nature of my actions. All I have done is attempt, however unsatisfactorily, to fix on paper the transitory beauty of childhood; yet I cannot be as open about it as I would wish, and my unclothed studies have to be accomplished in conditions of secrecy, which imply a degree of guilt on the part of both the artist and his subject. This angers and distresses me. After all, I may walk through any museum or gallery in the land – indeed, in every civilized land – and view at my leisure representations of the naked human form. No blame is laid at my feet for that. Indeed, I have seen paintings in London and Rome depicting violent rapes and bestial couplings, which, because they have a classical provenance, are viewed approvingly by respectable matrons and unmarried ladies who examine the shocking details with interest. Yet, owing to the prejudiced views of the self-same respectable females, I cannot display, much less admit to making, a picture of a real, unclothed English child.

  However, the crisis has been averted: Baxter has seen sense, and Daisy and I are able to continue our afternoons of leisure. I say ‘afternoons’, but I have been a little incommoded by Baxter’s new-found determination to bring on Daisy’s Christian education at this particular favoured time of ours, so that often when I call at the house, I find her ensconced in his study, inky-fingered and by no means ready to set forth at the time I have planned. Baxter has even gone so far as to ask if I would let him know in advance when I intend to visit, with the result that my free-and-easy ways as a privileged visitor to the home are somewhat curtailed. I have also formed the impression that Mrs Baxter is avoiding me, which confirms that she was the prime mover in the attempt to exclude me from Daisy’s company. She is rarely at home when I call, although in mitigation Baxter says she is preoccupied with some matter to do with the older girls that necessitates her absence. We once met on the front garden path (I was arriving at the very instant that she and the girls were departing), and I sensed a faint froideur as I took her hand, although she was, as always, impeccably polite and gracious. She is certainly a very beautiful woman and I hope we will not be enemies, although it is doubtful that she will invite me to dinner again or send me any more presents.

  Baxter himself seems to have some weighty matter on his mind, which makes him less genial company than usual. He talks in fits and starts and walks about pulling at his hair – or slumps in his chair with his hand in front of his eyes as if unaware of my presence. Several times when I have been in his study, waiting for Daisy to tidy herself for our outing, the pert maid has come in with an urgent message from some parishioner or committee member, and he has waved her away crossly, saying, ‘Yes, yes, I’ll attend to it later,’ without even bothering to read the note. This is unlike Baxter. When I first made his acquaintance he would fly off to vestry meetings and parish committees the instant he was called, as if he were a fireman on constant watch for a fire which only he could put out. In fact, I would often tease him about his alacrity, saying he was travelling at such unconceivable speed that he was likely to return before he set out. But now he seems listless, and almost loa
th to leave the house. The only thing that seems to brighten him is the presence of Daisy. Sometimes I feel awkward about taking her away from him.

  She is, of course, the same dear child, in spite of her shorn locks – in fact, even prettier on account of them – and I thank God I am able to have her company for at least a little while longer. Indeed, knowing that at any moment our outings may be brought to a close, sharpens my appreciation of each precious second we have together. And what delights we have had! Over the past weeks I have taken Daisy all over the city – by the Thames, admiring the college barges moored against the riverbank where I have taken her on board to sit under the awnings and watch the oarsmen go past, then up through the meadow, and along the water-walks of the Cherwell, enjoying the wonderful hot weather that seems to go on day after day. Daisy has brought her parasol each time, and it gives me no end of pleasure to watch her twirl it back and forth in her artless way as we walk along. And, as we walk, I have taken the opportunity of making up stories about everything we see – fish, rabbits, frogs, flowers and small dogs – and many things we don’t see, like fairies and talking sheep. It is easy to find subjects for my tales as Daisy asks so many clever questions, and each question seems to prompt so many foolish ideas in me, that my thoughts flow on and on through all the golden afternoon. Daisy, in spite of being critical of fact and tenacious with detail, is always very satisfied with my flights of fancy and says she will tell the stories to Benjy when he gets older. ‘I don’t believe anyone tells better stories than you, Mr Jameson. I shall remember them always.’

  To entertain her further I introduced her to two of my practical inventions. On Wednesday, when we were resting on a bench near the cricket field, having admired the moorhens wading about in the pond near by, I showed her the little folding mirror and the collapsible cup I have now perfected. She held up the mirror in front of her face and looked at herself very solemnly saying she knew she had been very naughty to do it but she was so glad she was rid of all her horrid long hair. ‘I should be so very hot now with it all around my neck,’ she said, putting her hand up to her bare skin under the edge of her short bob and making me long to do the same, as I recalled how my hand had grazed her neck so lightly as I wielded the scissors that fateful day.

  ‘No doubt,’ I replied. ‘If you still possessed your full head of hair, I daresay you would be quite melting away by now, and I should have had to catch you in my collapsible tumbler and take you home to your papa and mama with a label saying: Daisy Baxter in Liquid Form. I daresay they would have been terribly incommoded to have their child contained in a cup. They would have had to put you high up on the mantelpiece so as not to let any dog or cat lap you up in mistake for a drink of water.’

  ‘But wouldn’t I have become a solid girl again when I grew colder?’ she asked in that earnest way of hers.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘The laws of nature dictate you should; but sometimes the laws of nature surprise us by doing something perfectly contradictory, so they are not, on the whole, to be trusted.’

  Then I asked her if she would like a cold drink and she said, ‘Oh, yes please!’ and I poured her some of Benson’s homemade ginger ale from my double-insulated flask and she drank it out of the telescopic tumbler as if it were the greatest nectar in the world. ‘I hope,’ she said, looking soberly into the empty cup, ‘that this was not the liquid form of any other living creature, Mr Jameson.’ I said only if she thought that buttered crumpets and cherry jam were to be considered creatures, as that was what the drink was made of. She said she didn’t believe me. And I asked her to have another taste, and poured her some more. And she drank it up and said perhaps I was right, as it was extremely nice and she thought she could taste a hint of cherry jam after all.

  Yesterday it was so hot that we went to the museum to seek some shade. We looked at the remains of the poor dodo in his case, as well as no end of stuffed mammals, birds and insects. Daisy pressed her nose to the glass case and looked at everything with care. When we came to the beetles I explained that there were more of these than any other type of creature in the world. ‘Over two hundred thousand, I believe. Can you imagine why that should be the case?’

  She shook her head. ‘Is it because they are so small and don’t take up much room?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘Or perhaps God simply has a fondness for beetles. Having created a stag beetle, He felt He had to go one better with a tiger beetle. And having created that, He was curiously inclined to ring the changes with the soldier beetle, and then the ladybird, and then the cockchafer and then the sexton beetle. Perhaps beetle-creating is a kind of hobby of His.’

  ‘God doesn’t have hobbies!’ She looked scandalized and amused in equal measure.

  ‘Why not? We have hobbies and we are made in His image. Perhaps when He rested on the seventh day, He wasn’t resting at all but was secretly adding to His beetle collection and setting up a whole lot of bother for Noah a little later on. Can you imagine it – all that rain coming down and having to find two of each from all two hundred thousand species?’

  ‘But wouldn’t they have just flown around the ark?’ she asked. ‘And got mixed up with the flies and birds and maybe got eaten?’

  ‘By no means. Noah was a carpenter, after all, and I daresay he fitted out the ark with hundreds of little drawers and put the insects carefully inside, two by two in cotton-wool beds to keep them comfy. I daresay they had a whole deck to themselves, drawer after drawer, with their names on the outside like the fittings in a haberdasher’s shop, with Ham, Shem and Japheth coming around and giving each of them a thimble-full of milk three times a day.’

  She laughed, then thought for a while. ‘Papa says the story of Noah’s ark isn’t really true. He says it is really a kind of parable, like the ones Jesus tells, and it shows us God’s grace towards those who try to lead a good life.’

  ‘No doubt your father is right in the matter of theology,’ I said. ‘But I prefer to think of Noah sailing the high seas with all those beetles.’

  ‘So do I,’ she said, slipping her hand confidentially in mine. I felt so happy to feel its warmth and softness, I could have stopped breathing there and then, and accounted my life well-spent.

  But Daisy was hungry, as I find small children often are, so we went back to my rooms and, while Benson made the tea and Dinah prowled about along the tops of the armchairs, we looked at a picture book I had just received from my London bookseller. There were coloured illustrations of many strange creatures, including sloths and anteaters and orang-utans. Daisy was particularly drawn to the flamingos on account of their colour, so I told her how that was caused by their terrible fondness for beetroot which they dug out of the lakes with their long beaks and swallowed whole in a manner too disgusting to relate. ‘That is how their feathers become quite stained with pink,’ I told her. ‘And high-born ladies send explorers to Darkest Africa to catch the creatures, which they do with some difficulty by holding them under their arms in a kind of half-Nelson. Then they bring them back and take off the plumes so the ladies can wear them in their hair when they go to grand balls in London.’

  Daisy looked up with a sharp expression and asked me if it were really true or just another story, and I had to confess it was just a story. ‘Although high-born ladies do wear tall feathers in their hair when they meet the Queen.’

  ‘How can you tell when things are true and when they aren’t?’ she said with something of a pout.

  ‘You can’t, always.’

  ‘Papa says you can.’

  ‘Then he is a most superior human being,’ I said, adding quickly, ‘which, of course, he is. That is generally acknowledged by town and gown alike. I hope you are making good use of his superior knowledge in your preparation lessons. We want you to astonish Bishop Wilberforce with your learning.’

  ‘I am doing my best,’ she said. ‘Although I don’t always understand why things have to be the way they are.’

  I thought she was still fretting for her old
nursemaid and the unfair ways of the world, and I was attempting to furnish an appropriate reply, but before I could do so, she surprised me by asking, ‘What is Heaven like, do you think?’

  It is a weakness of mine that I have always found the idea of Heaven difficult to imagine. I know how I should imagine it, of course: cherubim and seraphim bowing down; endless songs of praise; the community of saints; worship and glory illimitable: Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty. I say the phrases aloud every day of my life as I announce my credo in chapel and in my private prayers. But all the same, Heaven remains oddly unreal, and I have always felt the need to suppress a certain distaste at the monotony of it all. But seeing Daisy with her sweet little form standing in front of me, her clear eyes so trusting, her innocent soul so enticing, I found myself experiencing an epiphany. ‘Heaven is when you are united with those you love,’ I ventured. ‘When you are intertwined with them, almost as if you and they are one. As if nothing else matters.’

  ‘What about God and Jesus?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t that the main thing?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said hastily. ‘In Heaven, you will be in God’s arms. We all will. And before you ask if there is room for everyone, I will remind you, as the earnest Confirmation candidate that you are, that God’s arms are infinite. He is not confined to time or space. He is all around, past and present and future. He is here now. I can feel His Presence at this moment.’ I smiled at her. ‘Especially at this moment.’

  She glanced around surreptitiously as if the Deity might be hovering near the tea table, but it was only Benson setting out the bread-and-butter, so she looked at me again, frowning. ‘But if God is all around us, and Heaven is everywhere that God is, that makes Heaven and earth exactly the same.’