After Such Kindness

by Gaynor Arnold

  I raise my eyes. Minnie’s standing just inside the room, wiping her hands on her apron, her eyes wide. She holds up a little brown bottle. ‘I’ve got some salts, if you want.’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m not faint.’

  ‘Then what on earth are you doing on the floor?’ My husband surveys the untidy mess of skirts and petticoats as I slump in front of him, my back against the wall, my hair, as always, finding its way out of its pins and coiling around my neck.

  ‘I must have fallen. Off the chair. In my sleep.’ I’ve never fallen off a chair in my life. And it’s not my habit to sleep in one. But I’ve no other explanation for how I find myself in this position.

  ‘But it’s only ten thirty in the morning! And what about all this paper?’ He indicates what I now see are the scattered leaves from Daisy’s journal. The book has been pulled apart. Yet it was intact when I last saw it, when I was last reading it. Was it today – or yesterday? It must have been today; I remember catching sight of myself in the looking-glass wearing this same velveteen gown. I was reading Daisy’s journal – but something made me stop. There was something that upset me, something that took me back to an unhappy time. A photograph, I think – one of those long-lost photographs, one of those little Daisies in the flimsiest of costumes. Maybe that was it. But it doesn’t seem quite right; there is something uncomfortable about the photographs, but they didn’t frighten me. Then the word ‘fever’ comes into my head and this time I feel the flush and the slight prickling of perspiration. I remember now – not the details, but the horror of it. How I had scarlet fever, and Papa looked after me. And how he was especially kind to me, especially loving, especially close. Those were the pictures that came into my head unbidden; that plunged me down into that dark well with such sickening sensation. The pictures that I wanted to get rid of for ever.

  I stare at the scattered pages, the mangled covers. I’m surprised that I had the strength to dismember it so thoroughly. ‘I suppose I must have done it.’ I shrug, hoping my admission will end the matter.

  ‘Well, yes. There is no other culprit that I can detect, hiding behind the wardrobe or under the carpet. But I cannot for the life of me see what possessed you.’ I see that my husband is embarrassed at my behaviour, and most of all he’s embarrassed that Minnie is witness to it. He turns to her with a smile. ‘Well, it seems that, contrary to appearances, Mrs Constantine has not been attacked by wolves. Smelling salts are not required, nor any liniment for broken bones. You may go back to your work, now. I’m sorry you’ve been disturbed.’

  Minnie hesitates, as if she is not any more convinced by my explanation than he is. And even though my heart is beating fit to burst and my head is still full of dreadful pictures, I can’t help wondering if she always keeps the bottle in her pocket, ready to attend to fainting ladies. Or perhaps she is prone to fainting herself. She does not seem the sort, though, with her wiry little frame. ‘If you’re sure you don’t need me, Mrs Constantine,’ she says, her eyes fixed on mine.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, though in truth I’m not so sure. I am even less sure that I want to be left alone with my husband and his soft, enquiring eyes. But she backs out of the room and shuts the door. I lean my head against the wall; I have no strength to raise myself. Robert, to my surprise, doesn’t help me up, but eases himself down beside me on the floor. I smell the faint scent of camphor that permeates all his clothing.

  ‘Now,’ he says, with a patient air I recognize as his habitual manner with me, ‘what is this really all about?’

  He knows there is something. But I shake my head. I can’t tell him about my dreadful, sinful thoughts. He would think me the worst kind of liar, if not completely deranged.

  ‘Try, dearest,’ he says, pulling me close. For a moment, I am tempted. It would be nice to sink into his arms as if he were Nettie and I were a child again. But my body won’t yield; it is ramrod stiff. I feel the roughness of his serge waistcoat against my cheek as I lie against him, and the ridge of his watch chain pressing into my flesh. I can hear his watch, now. It’s ticking against my right ear, just like Papa’s did – that same tick-tick-tick-tick that seemed to go on all afternoon. A wave of nausea comes over me and I struggle away from him. But he holds me tight. ‘Now, Margaret dear, I have a feeling that you are letting all that dreadful trouble with your father prey on your mind.’

  All that dreadful trouble? My heart beats so fast that I feel I will vomit. He must know. Yet how can Robert know something that’s so confused in my own mind? But perhaps all men know such things. Perhaps all men do such things. Maybe it’s no great secret, after all, and I am making a dreadful fuss about nothing. I touch the chain of Robert’s watch. It’s heavy and smooth, just like Papa’s. ‘What do you mean?’ I say, as calmly as I can. ‘What do you mean by “all that trouble”?’

  He strokes my hair. He seems awkward, at a loss as to how to begin. ‘Well, Margaret, I don’t have to tell you that there were things that you shouldn’t have witnessed. Not at your age. Not at any age, in fact. But you need to put it from your mind. And you can, now, Margaret. Now your father is finally at peace.’

  Yes, I think, he’s dead, but he doesn’t leave me alone. He’s always with me; always at the edges of my mind, ready to move in and take up all the space with his brown hair and tickling whiskers and hot, dry skin. ‘What things should I not have witnessed?’ I say. The lump in my throat feels as large as a plum-stone now.

  ‘Come now, Margaret. I think you know.’ He gives me an encouraging squeeze, grateful, I think, that I cannot move away from him, trapped as we are in the corner of the room.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Everyone thinks I know, but truthfully, I can’t remember.’

  He sighs. ‘Then you are fortunate, Margaret. Be thankful for it, and don’t seek to know what can only give you pain. Your father was a great man; it dishonours him to dwell on the period when he was – well, when he was least himself.’

  ‘But supposing – not meaning to – he did something wrong when he was “least himself”?’

  Robert rubs his chin with his forefinger, up and down, on the same spot. He does that, I realize, when he is uncertain, when he is trying to be fair. He has done that a lot recently. ‘We can all do wrong,’ he says after a while. ‘But your father was the best of men.’

  ‘But just supposing . . .’

  He frowns, displeased with my line of questioning. ‘What is the point of this, Margaret?’

  ‘Please, Robert. It would help me – collect my thoughts.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, considering. ‘Admittedly, at the end, your father could be very eccentric, very difficult to manage, very strange, even –’

  ‘Strange?’ I can hardly say the word.

  ‘You know what I mean.’ Robert allows himself almost a smile. ‘When he was pouring water everywhere and running about in his nightshirt.’

  His words bring it all back – all the noise and confusion, with Cook running around after him and Mama trying to hold him back and Robert and Charles and Mr Warner marching him back to his study and closing the door. And yet it isn’t all that pandemonium which frightens me. It’s the closed door and the key and the ticking watch. And the rough feel of his nightshirt.

  Robert goes on. ‘But, of course, you were the only one who knew how to calm him. Surely you remember that?’

  I can see the Bible on the table in front of us. I can hear a fly buzzing against the window. My stockings are lying on the sofa, the coals in the fireplace falling with a soft crash as the afternoon wears on. And I’m wondering why no one comes to rescue me.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, reminiscing a little now. ‘He loved to be with you. And he loved your little room, too – the one where he’d nursed you. He said it was like heaven with its blue walls and blue curtains. And that you were the angel inside it. He’d let you read to him for hours, you know.’

  I feel Papa’s large, firm hands on my nightgown, and the wetness of his tears on my skin. You’re my special a
ngel, the only one I can trust. Love is everything, isn’t it, Daisy? It doesn’t matter what you do if you do it for love.

  ‘I keep seeing him,’ I say, knowing these are not the right words, but feeling that at least they will make Robert give me his serious attention.

  ‘Seeing him?’ He frowns. ‘In dreams, you mean? Was that what frightened you just now?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a dream,’ I say. ‘It seemed almost real.’

  ‘Real? I fail to understand you.’

  ‘I hardly understand it myself – but I could see him and hear him as if he were alive – and I could smell and taste such rancid things. Yet all the time he was smiling and saying it would be all right. He always tells me that. He always says it will be all right. I want to believe him, yet I know it’s not true. Oh, Robert, did it happen, or am I making it up?’

  ‘You believe your father comes and talks to you?’ Robert looks aghast, clearly thinking that the family madness is coming out in me. Then his face clears. ‘But he smiles, you say. Perhaps he only intends to reassure you, Margaret. To tell you that he lives again in Glory and all is well.’

  ‘Oh, Robert,’ I cry. ‘You don’t understand! The smiles are the worst. As if he is being kind and gentle, when all the time –’ My chest begins to constrict and I can hardly breathe as I think of it.

  Robert encircles my shoulder and brings me even closer. I endure the smell of camphor as best I can. Perhaps now, at last, he will understand.

  ‘Poor Margaret,’ he says. ‘I suspected that the burden would be too great for you. I said so to your mother at the time. Some days when I came to the house I thought you didn’t even recognize me. But then it seemed, once your father had gone away, that you were like a new person and I was confident that all those anxieties had quite disappeared. You should have told me that it was not the case; we could have prayed together. And we still can. You mustn’t mind it, Margaret; you mustn’t mind any of it. It will go away in due course.’

  ‘Will it?’ I want so much to believe him, to know that it is only time and a little prayer that is required to shake off these waking nightmares and melt away all my dreadful imaginings. I tell myself it is my fault for reading Daisy’s journal; it has inflamed my brain and allowed the Devil to do his work. I don’t like to think that I could have conjured such images out of nothing, but if I haven’t conjured them up, the prospect is far, far worse. I can’t control the shudder that runs through me.

  Robert feels it, squeezes my hands. ‘Peace will come to you, Margaret. Believe me.’

  ‘But supposing,’ I murmur. ‘Supposing I’m the one who is guilty of a sin? Maybe even a mortal sin? Supposing I’m the one who’s spun wicked thoughts and done wicked deeds – things you won’t forgive me for?’

  ‘You?’ He laughs. ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t dismiss me in that manner,’ I say. ‘It’s as if you think I’m incapable of judging my own faults.’

  He starts at the sharpness in my tone. ‘I did not mean to dismiss you, Margaret. I simply mean that I hold such a high opinion of you that I couldn’t imagine –’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t hold such an opinion, then. I’d rather you thought me a sinner. I’d rather you weren’t quite so patient with me all the time!’

  That has come out badly and he’s disconcerted. He loosens his hold on me. ‘You want me to be less patient? Forgive me, but it has been you who has asked – nay, begged – that I exercise that very virtue in respect of you. And now you blame me for it!’

  He’s right, of course. I am making no sense. ‘You are too saintly for me,’ I say in the end. ‘I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘Saintly? Oh, Margaret, I’m a man like any other, as vain and venal as it is possible to be. Look how I just now chastised you in front of Minnie. I didn’t intend to do it, but my pride was dented and I allowed it to overrule me.’

  ‘But that’s such a small thing, Robert. I wish a sharp word was all I had to confess. But I’m afraid there is something bad I’ve done as a child. I’ve been reading my old journal and –’

  ‘Your journal? So that’s what all this paper is!’ He laughs and picks up a page at random. ‘Good heavens, you must have been very young when you wrote this. Look, you still sign yourself “Daisy”.’

  ‘Even Daisy might have done wrong,’ I say.

  ‘In principle, no doubt.’ He smiles. ‘We are all born sinners, after all. But, in truth, what sins could you have committed when you were – what? Ten? Eleven? Cross words, perhaps? Little untruths, or failure to say your prayers? Well, I forgive you those, if you need forgiving.’

  It’s as if I am calling to him from a distant shore in a language he doesn’t understand. I have to persist, though. I take his hand in mine. ‘Robert, supposing – just for a moment – that I had committed sins that were much worse than you imagine? Sins that are preventing me being a proper wife to you?’

  ‘I’d forgive you, of course.’ It comes out so pat. ‘But you’ve lived in the bosom of a God-fearing family all your life. How could you have committed any real sins?’

  ‘But if I had – would it change your feelings for me?’

  ‘There is nothing that would change my feelings for you, Margaret.’ He gives me his most brilliant smile.

  ‘Nothing? Are you sure, Robert? Absolutely, completely sure?’

  His brilliant smile is somewhat fixed now. ‘Good heavens, what is this catechism of “just suppose” all about?’ he says. ‘Truly, my dear, it’s rather silly, and I think you should stop it straight away.’

  I see that he is uncomfortable with the notion that I have sins; they spoil his idea of me. But if we are to start afresh in our marriage, I must speak what is in my mind, truth or not. ‘Please, Robert, there are things I need to tell you. I’m not altogether sure about them. But you might wish you hadn’t married me when you know.’

  ‘I think that unlikely, unless – good heavens, you’re not by any chance married to someone else, are you?’ He pretends to think this very amusing.

  But I won’t be stopped. I warm to my theme now, the accumulated despair of seven weeks rushing to the surface. ‘But supposing there is a part of me you don’t know about – some secret I haven’t told you? Supposing I am not quite as I should be? Supposing that’s what’s stopping me from being your wife in more than name?’

  He laughs, uneasily this time. ‘Come now, Margaret.’

  ‘I won’t “come now”!’ My voice rises as the words spill out. ‘Supposing there is an impediment, Robert? An impediment that cannot be overcome? Perhaps that is the cause of all our difficulties. Maybe I will never be able to love you. Maybe you should cast me off. You can annul a marriage that’s not been consummated – there’ll be no disgrace to you. You can say I am mad – just like my father.’

  ‘Quiet, I beg you!’ He glances at the door. In a low voice he says, ‘Are you really telling me that you wish to end our marriage?’

  ‘No, Robert, I don’t wish to. But it may be for the best.’

  ‘I see. I suppose the truth of the matter is that you find me repellent.’ A flush creeps over his cheeks.

  I want to deny it, to spare him more misery; but I cannot separate him in my mind from Papa – Papa with his ticking watch; Papa with his hands around my waist; Papa in his nightshirt, pulling me onto his lap. And I know it was the sight of Robert in his nightshirt that so horrified me on our wedding night. Even before the glimpse of his naked skin and bushy hair. And I begin to shake even now to think of his dark and secret body beneath his respectable clergyman’s clothes; the waxy flesh under the thick layers of serge and linen. ‘No, Robert,’ I say, trying to find the words to console him. ‘It is not exactly that.’

  ‘Not exactly?’ He laughs a short and mirthless laugh. ‘Hardly an extravagant compliment. We men have our pride, you know. We like to think we are attractive to our wives.’

  ‘You are attractive, Robert. You are kind and good and –’ I cast about for what to say. �
�– And you are very nice-looking, too.’

  ‘Nice-looking! Well, Margaret, forgive me, but when a man’s had to watch his wife sheltering under the bed on her wedding night it’s hard to believe that she finds him “nice-looking”! When she refuses to kiss him or even to hold his hand, it is hard to believe she finds him appealing in any way!’

  My voice rises again. ‘Why won’t you understand? It’s Papa. He’s the one who’s coming between us. Oh, please make him go away, Robert! I don’t want him near me any more!’ I start to weep, noisily. The tears gush down my cheeks in torrents and run into my mouth as I gasp and sob, gasp and sob.

  He is alarmed now. ‘Please, Margaret, take a deep breath. You are near to being hysterical.’ He releases his hold on me and takes out his pocket-handkerchief. I watch him shake out the neat folds before he wipes my cheeks. ‘Now, listen to me. You have allowed your imagination to get the better of you and have started believing the most ridiculous things. The “difficulty” in our marriage has nothing to do with any sins you may have committed as a child – except in your mind. That is where you are at fault. That is where your thoughts are disarrayed. I do not blame you, and therefore there is no need to blame yourself. If misplaced blame has been holding you back from loving me, I’m sure our problem can be resolved in no time at all. There will be no need for doctors.’

  ‘It’s not misplaced blame, Robert.’ I sob, wishing he would listen before jumping to conclusions.

  ‘Well, maybe that is not the only reason. You are young and fragile and your fear of the conjugal act is understandable. But I am sure the Harley Street man will set your mind at rest on matters of – well, on any matter of concern. And I have been reading some books on the subject – books I should have consulted earlier – and I realize a woman must not be pressed. She must be allowed to ready herself for her wifely duties in her own time. Preparation is necessary: a light diet, loose clothes, meditation. One should not rush into things on the wedding night so soon after all the exhaustion of the preparations: the ceremony, the wedding breakfast and so forth. And one needs to ration one’s resources; abstinence should be practised even within marriage in order to protect the woman’s health. I have been too hasty, I see. I have only thought of myself. If it is anyone’s fault, it is mine.’