After Such Kindness

by Gaynor Arnold

  ‘He is the master here,’ I said, astonished at her presumption. ‘He can come and go as he pleases. Why would you take it upon yourself to prevent him?’

  ‘I’m sure I was only acting for the best, Mrs Baxter. I just didn’t want no harm to come to him.’ She hesitated. ‘Nor any shame.’

  ‘Shame?’

  ‘Well –’ She shifted, embarrassed. ‘He’s not always properly dressed. He forgets his coat and doesn’t always put on his shoes. And he doesn’t really talk sense – just seems to say what comes into his mind. I had an aunt like that – she’d suddenly start talking about Old Sugary Perkins, and no one knew who he was.’

  I stared at her. ‘Are you suggesting Mr Baxter has lost his mind, Hannah?’

  ‘I’m only the maid, Mrs Baxter. You’d have to ask a doctor about that.’

  I felt she was bordering on insubordination, but Hannah was always pert, and I couldn’t afford to cross her now. I felt absurdly reliant on this nineteen-year-old girl. ‘I think I know my husband,’ I said. ‘And I’m sure it’s nothing serious.’

  ‘I expect he’ll come round now you’re back,’ she said, but not with a great deal of conviction.

  ‘Yes. I’m sure he will. Thank you for your efforts with him in the meantime. And with Daisy too.’

  ‘She’s a good little girl when all’s said and done. And Mr Baxter knows it. He’s always quiet when she’s around. He listens to her reading for hours.’ She paused. ‘It was him that saved her, you know.’

  ‘Saved her?’

  ‘By praying all the time and always keeping awake so that the Devil wouldn’t take her.’

  That sounded rather like medieval superstition to me, but no doubt Hannah had imperfectly understood the nature of Daniel’s vigil and the substance of his prayers. But I was touched at this evidence – if I needed it – of his devotion to Daisy. No wonder he was tired, and drained of all his customary vigour. No wonder he had hardly recognized me and had been fearful that I was about to take Daisy from him after nursing her night and day. I had to admit that I had had no idea that Daniel would have shown his devotion by so continual a presence by her side. I had rather thought the burden of the bedside watch would have fallen on Hannah. But he had set himself a test, just as he said. And Daniel had never failed a test.

  ‘I think I had better call Dr Lawrence all the same,’ I said.

  ‘He’s away in Brighton, ma’am. And Mr Baxter didn’t want any other doctor to see her.’

  ‘I was thinking of Mr Baxter’s own health. Some sleeping draught, perhaps. Or a tonic.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s hard to get him to eat or drink anything. Cook’s at her wits’ end.’

  ‘Well, lack of food will have weakened him, without doubt. Get Matthews to run and see if old Dr Peacock can come instead.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Baxter.’ She turned to go. ‘I did right, though, didn’t I? By sending the letter, I mean.’

  ‘To some extent,’ I said, curiously reluctant to give her credit for her unconventional action. ‘But why did you not speak to someone in authority in the church? Mr Morton, for example?’

  ‘Nobody from the church come near us. Mr Baxter was very strict in that: no visitors, he said. Even Mr Jameson had to wait on the doorstep. And I in’t been out of the house for three weeks. Anyway, I don’t know where Mr Morton lives.’

  ‘You could have found out, though. You’re not short of initiative, it seems.’

  ‘I thought it weren’t the thing to have the world and his wife involved, especially busybodies like Mrs Carmichael – begging your pardon. But maybe I was wrong.’

  ‘No, you were right,’ I said, thinking the girl had her wits about her after all. The last thing I wanted was for Daniel’s plight to become the talk of the neighbourhood.

  Daniel didn’t wake all that evening. He lay on the counterpane, his boots off but his clothes still half on. Dr Peacock came, put his head round the bedroom door and said he should be left to sleep. ‘He’s a strong man,’ he said. ‘I daresay this tiredness of his will be over in a trice.’ He gave me some purifying mixture to clear his system. ‘Sometimes tired blood slows the workings of the brain.’

  I didn’t dare sleep in my usual place at Daniel’s side. Instead I lay down in the room that belonged to Christiana and Sarah, leaving open the door to Daisy’s room in case she needed me. But I could not sleep. I was too apprehensive about what I would find in the morning when Daniel awoke. Would he be his normal self or would he be this peculiar person I did not know?

  All through the night I could hear Daisy’s bed creaking as she turned over in her sleep. Then she started to mutter, so I got up and went to her. I had left a lamp burning low by the bedside and could see that she was moist with perspiration. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘What is it that you don’t like, Daisy dear?’

  She woke up with a start at the sound of my voice, even though I had merely whispered. ‘Papa?’ she murmured, squinting up at me.

  ‘No, it’s Mama,’ I said. ‘I’m back now. There’s nothing to fear.’

  Her eyes looked very dark in the low light, her face a mere shadow. I put my hand on her cheek, but she shrank away from me as if my touch was a branding-iron.

  ‘Daisy, what’s the matter? Have you had a bad dream?’

  This time she seemed to recognize me. ‘Mama! Are you really back?’

  ‘Yes, Daisy, I really am. I know it was wrong to leave you for so long, but I will make up for it now.’

  There was a long silence. Then, ‘Will you tell Papa to stop?’

  ‘Stop what, dearest?

  ‘Those – horrid things he does. I don’t like it. I want everything to be as it was before.’

  ‘Oh, my poor Daisy!’ I said, taking her hand. To have seen her father rushing half-clothed into the street and babbling such nonsense as Hannah had described must have sorely frightened the child. I wanted so much to reassure her that Daniel would soon recover and that our happy family life would be restored – but I doubted that Dr Peacock’s blood remedy would be enough to bring him back to us, and I couldn’t give her false hope. ‘I don't like it either,’ I said. ‘And I only wish I could make it stop. But some things are beyond my power. The best thing is to hope it will soon pass. Now, dearest, go to sleep. I’ll wait here a while and say a prayer for you. And one for Papa too.’

  She lay on the pillow, still staring at me. ‘But can’t you –?’ Her voice died away, and it seemed that she was still half-asleep.

  ‘Can’t I what?’ I bent over her to hear the words. I could feel her breath on my cheek like the palpitations of a little bird.

  ‘I don’t know. Never mind.’ And she turned away from me so I could no longer see her face.

  I slept badly that night, torn between worry for Daniel’s state of mind and concerns for Daisy’s anxious state. But the next day, when I peeped into our bedroom, Daniel was awake, and seemed almost his old self. He kissed me and stroked my hair and let me help him dress. ‘I am so glad you are back,’ he said. And I said I was glad he was back, too.

  But my hopes were short-lived. I quickly found that for every good day when he was in possession of himself, there were two or three where he was quite the opposite. ‘You don’t seem to realize,’ he would say, shaking off my restraining arm, and pacing about the house. ‘I must work every minute to make sure we are all Saved.’ He refused the medicine Dr Peacock had left, saying I was trying to poison him and accused me of keeping Daisy away from him (which, in the light of our bedside conversation, I’d felt it best to do). But, now it seemed that the weeks of nursing her had created a bond between them that he could not bear to be broken, and he became agitated without her, begging me to let her sit with him in the afternoons. ‘She is my angel,’ he said. ‘She alone will save me.’ I was reluctant at first, knowing how Daisy was unnerved by the changes in her father, but I sat her down and explained to her that her company would help him to get better. She nodded and said,
‘I know.’

  So it was arranged, and for a couple of hours each day, there was peace in the household. He’d read her stories and, in return, she would read to him from the Bible. He would always choose Corinthians: Love suffereth long and is kind. He could never hear it enough. I attempted to keep them company, to enjoy some of Daniel’s calmer moments; but very often when I went into the room, he’d become agitated and even enraged. Once he threw the Bible at me, and when I remonstrated that he should not treat the Holy Book in that way, he looked at me very intently and asked if I had been baptized.

  ‘Of course I have, Daniel,’ I replied.

  But he said I was wrong: ‘You have a sin inside you that I can see clearly. I must wash it away.’ And he took the jug from the washstand and poured the water all over me so that my hair and gown were utterly soaked.

  Daisy looked at me with dismay, but I thought I detected in her face a touch of amusement at my plight. I think now that I was mistaken in this, but my mind was in such disarray that I was ready to jump to any conclusion. And I own that I was rather jealous that my husband should so insistently prefer my daughter’s company to my own, and that they should enjoy things that excluded me. ‘Don’t laugh at me, child,’ I snapped, as the cold water seeped into me. ‘Hand me a towel. Can’t you see I’m drenched?’

  ‘I’m not laughing, Mama,’ she said. And she fetched a towel from the washstand and began to dry my arms and hands in silence. I regretted my harsh words then, but was too angry to take them back. And she wouldn’t speak or look at me, but simply went on patting at my gown until I took the towel from her and left the room.

  After that, she became daily more and more mute. I know I should have reached out and asked her what was troubling her; but something held me back. We passed silently on the stairs, and I no longer went to her when she called out in her sleep. In fact, I kept the door between us shut so I could not hear her.

  Perhaps Daniel was right and I never loved her as I should. Perhaps there was something from that time of her infancy which made my heart less generous towards her. But in the days and weeks that followed, my excuse – if indeed I can allow myself one – was that Daniel took up all of my attention. He made demands every minute of the day, whereas Daisy made none, falling in, it seemed, with whatever I proposed, never complaining in any way. But always giving me that mute, hostile look, as if she were deaf and dumb entirely at my behest.

  When Dr Lawrence returned from holiday, he prescribed fresh air and activity, saying the Brighton air had invigorated his own mental capacities and would surely do the same for Daniel. As Oxford lacks sea air, Hannah and I began to take Daniel for short evening walks in the quieter byways of the neighbourhood. But it was very difficult to manage. We were always apprehensive about meeting any of the parishioners, and frequently had to escort Daniel down a back lane to avoid an embarrassing encounter. On one occasion he ran away from us completely, and had to be brought back by a constable. On another occasion, he managed to get out of his bedroom window before breakfast, and ran into the church, addressing the dozen or so gathered for Morning Prayers, clad only in his nightshirt. Charles Morton and Robert Constantine had luckily been witness to this incursion and had brought Daniel home before too much harm was done, but I understood that rumours had begun in the congregation as to the exact nature of Daniel’s ‘nervous exhaustion’.

  After several months of this hole-in-the-corner existence, I realized that I could not manage my husband with just the servants to assist me. We were all exhausted with the effort of trying to keep him occupied and fully clothed. So in the end I had no option but to confess all to the bishop. He was most perturbed: ‘Daniel is such a fine preacher; such a fine, God-fearing man. We must all pray for his recovery.’ He agreed that Charles should continue to take the services, with help from the curate at St John’s, until such time as Daniel’s state of mind had improved. ‘I hesitate to suggest it, Mrs Baxter, but there are excellent sanatoria for clergymen who are undergoing any trials of – er – a mental capacity.’

  ‘You mean an asylum?’ I said. ‘God forbid that ever Daniel should be committed to a place like that!’ I’d once visited a poor parishioner in Bethlem Hospital and I’d never forgotten it.

  ‘I leave the matter with you, of course, Mrs Baxter. But the Church is anxious that there be no scandal. I must have your assurance that Mr Baxter will be kept out of the public eye.’

  ‘Locked up, you mean?’

  He tilted his head. ‘Kept confined, I would prefer to say.’

  ‘We cannot keep him in. We are all women – apart from the gardener – and my husband is strong.’

  ‘Then I suggest you ask the churchwardens to assist you, or any member of the congregation that can be trusted.’

  So, I set out to discover whom I might trust to help me. Mr Warner, the churchwarden, had in fact come to offer his help not long after my return, but he’d turned up with, of all people, John Jameson, so I’d refused him. I’d been incensed at Jameson’s effrontery, having specifically written to him requesting him to cease all correspondence with both Daniel and Daisy, and yet he came in person asking to see Daisy, and making much fuss about a manuscript that he had left with Daniel. Maybe the purpose of his call was simply to retrieve it, as it formed the basis of that ridiculous fairy story, which later became so popular. However, much to my surprise, he used the occasion to end his role as Daisy’s friend and confidant. I cannot say how much that contributed to my peace of mind. Daisy was upset, but she said nothing, and I was sure she would soon recover.

  So I approached Mr Warner again, and, together with Mr Attwood, Mr Morton and Mr Constantine, we formed a kind of alliance to keep Daniel confined yet active; to distract him and to stop him accosting the general public with his revelations. We took it in turns to watch over him, and the men would bring new books to interest him and new subjects for him to write about, while Matthews taught him how to grow vegetables and clip the rose bushes. Sometimes he would be utterly absorbed in these occupations, but from time to time he would ask why he wasn’t being allowed to preach at church. ‘You are all preventing me from taking my message to the people,’ he would say. ‘You are of the Devil’s party.’

  This regime continued for the best part of three years. In spite of some terrible lapses, we always imagined that we saw signs of improvement – the return of Daniel’s genial manner and more lucid conversation – and we continued to hope. Charles Morton carried out all Daniel’s duties and the bishop gave what support he could, finally bestowing on Charles the title of Perpetual Curate pro hac vice, to be revoked on Daniel’s return to health. The congregation prayed for him every day, and although his condition was formally attributed to overwork, most of them knew how badly his mind had been affected. Mrs Carmichael, calling to pay her respects, was distressed to find that Daniel did not know her before deciding she was the laundrywoman come to wash the shirt off his back, which he proceeded to remove. And he could be very insulting at times. He called me names that no woman should hear, and spoke harshly to Christiana and Sarah and made them cry. Dr Lawrence gave him copious doses of laudanum, which gave us respite – but, in the end, nothing helped. Even Daisy’s calming effect diminished. She became increasingly reluctant to read to him, although he was always asking for her. I didn’t exactly blame her; Daniel’s often-stated love for her was more than a little suffocating.

  And so, at last, I had to swallow my pride and consider a ‘place of asylum’. It was not a bad place as these places go – but when I first visited Daniel there, I was shocked at the number of afflicted clergymen who skipped about and ranted to the heavens. Daniel came to me immediately, which was gratifying, but within minutes he accused me of being the cause of his captivity and caught hold of my skirts and begged me to release him. ‘You are my wife, Daisy. They will listen to you.’

  ‘It’s Evelina,’ I said. ‘Not Daisy.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Evelina. I see that now. You have long skirts and
stars in your eyes. But where is Daisy? I’ve bartered my soul for her, you know. I have the right to see her.’

  His delusions were clearly as bad as ever, and I had no intention that any of our children should see their father in such a place. In addition, it took the best part of a day to make the journey there and back. But the Superintendent said it might help Daniel recover if he could see his daughters. I refused at first, wishing to spare them more distress. Daniel could rarely be prevailed upon to wear anything more than a nightshirt; and he would often remove that. If I remonstrated, he would begin to unbutton my bodice or lift up my petticoats or – horror – pull down my drawers, and seek to lie with me in full view of everyone. I, who had once been so intoxicated with his body, now shrank from him as if he were a savage. And, every time, he asked for Daisy, and cried when I told him she could not come.

  But, finally, my conscience got the better of me. None of the girls was anxious to go, but I insisted: ‘He is your father.’ Benjamin was left out of the expedition; Daniel seemed to have forgotten he had a son, and I did not remind him. But I was, surprised at how reluctant Daisy was, and how pale she looked when we set off. She was even paler when we arrived, and I thought she might faint as we waited in a little anteroom for him to appear. Daniel seemed to have grown much older in the course of a few months and I could see that the girls were taken aback. He was very scantily dressed and, as usual, seemed unaware of any impropriety. He pressed his half-naked body against us with expressions of great joy. Christiana and Sarah submitted graciously, but Daisy hung back, her stare fixed on the ground. In fact, she paid him little attention, and when he took her on his lap, giving her loving kisses and showing her special attention, she sat stock-still and glassy-eyed, and made no attempt to speak to him. At first, I felt it was somewhat unkind of her, given her father’s obvious joy in her company, and I was annoyed that she made so little effort. It was as if the sweet little Margaret who’d sat with him every day and been the apple of his eye had completely vanished, and a horrid, cold girl come in her place. But then I realized that it must have been a shock to her, as it had once been to me, seeing her beloved papa in even more reduced circumstances, no longer the adored shepherd of his flock, not even the titular head of the household – but simply one madman among many. It was a great deal for a child of fifteen to bear, and I spoke gently to her then, and tried to ease her away from Daniel’s smothering embrace. I knew that of my three girls, she’d been the one who had borne the brunt of the terrible changes in Daniel, and I could only suppose that after his departure, she’d comforted herself by putting all thoughts of him quite out of her mind. And now, this ill-advised visit had brought back memories she would rather have forgotten. I think I was right in my deduction: on the journey home she said nothing at all, and when I spoke of Daniel, she simply looked out of the carriage window. Indeed, I never heard her speak of him again. It was as if she had absolutely erased him from her mind.