After Such Kindness (25 page)

A change came over his face. ‘Ah, so that’s it – you have come back to take her from me! You are subtle as a serpent, but I see through you, my lady, and I won’t let her go.’

I half laughed, thinking he was play-acting, although for what reason, I couldn’t think.

‘Don’t laugh at me, woman. Let me have her back.’ He tried to pull Daisy away from me, grasping her shoulders quite roughly. I felt Daisy shrink against me, and she raised her eyes in a pleading way, as if to ask for my protection. For the first time in my life I was frightened of Daniel’s superior strength, feeling we were in danger of a tug-of-war with our daughter being pulled asunder.

But Hannah put down her sewing and took his arm. ‘Now, sir, you know very well that Mrs Baxter in’t going to take Miss Daisy away from you. But she knows you’re tired and she’ll sit with Daisy while you takes some rest. You deserve it after all you’ve been through.’

He dropped his arms, as if suddenly distracted from his flare of anger. ‘Ah, yes, rest, sweet rest.
Come unto me all that travail and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest.
Yes, I am tired. Very tired. It’s all the sin weighing on me, you see.’ He rubbed his eyes, and I could see that they were ringed with deep shadows. ‘I will go and lie down. Upon the ground. Yes, upon the ground.’

‘You’d be better off in your bed, I think. Come, sir, I’ll go with you.’ Hannah steered him gently towards the door, as if he were aged and in need of assistance. The absurdity of my previous imaginings struck me with force, but I thought I might even have preferred him to be dallying with Hannah than to be dependent on her in this dreadful, altered way.

‘Well,’ I said to Daisy when they had gone. ‘Papa is in an odd mood, isn’t he?’ I tried to sound bright, not to let her see how hurt I was by his words. ‘Fancy not recognizing me! I expect he’s overtired. He’ll be his usual self once he’s had some proper sleep.’ I hoped most fervently that would be the case.

Daisy looked down. ‘I think it’s my fault. He sat with me all the time I was ill. And prayed ever so much.’

I held her close. ‘Oh, no, my dear, it’s
my
fault. I should never have let your father take on so much. But I’ll make amends now. Just let me take my hat and coat off and I’ll put you to bed and read you a story.’ I kissed her and sat her on the bed while I removed my outer clothes. Then I dressed her in a fresh nightgown. She was weak from days of bed-rest and leaned heavily against me as I pulled the sleeves over her arms and did up the tapes at the neck.

‘Mama,’ she said, as she lay down on the pillow. ‘Will everything go back to normal now?’

‘I hope so,’ I said. Already the severe, scrubbed room was beginning to be more familiar to me, and I was feeling more like the mistress of the house. I even imagined that Daniel’s strange words were not as strange as I had first thought. The effects of tiredness could be severe, I knew from my own experience, and Daniel had not expected me to arrive in the midst of things, unannounced, fresh and vigorous from my holiday walks. It had been a shock to him and he had become understandably confused.

I waited until Daisy was asleep, then I sat and watched her for a while, thanking God that I’d had the joy of seeing her face again. I pulled her poor, chopped hair away from her brow and gently stroked her eyelids. She was too deep even to stir. I wish we could have remained like that: I caring for her, and she in her turn trusting me. But it was the last time we enjoyed such closeness.

I eventually left the room in search of Daniel, only to find Hannah on the landing, sitting on a little wooden chair outside our bedroom.

‘Just making sure,’ she whispered as she got up. ‘But I think he’s asleep now.’

‘Why are you sitting outside like this?’ I asked, thinking she looked like a wardress at Bridewell.

She put her finger to her lips and walked me silently to the head of the stairs, as if we were conspirators. Then she stopped. ‘It’s all right. He can’t hear us now.’

‘Why shouldn’t he hear us? What has been going on?’ I demanded, feeling at a distinct disadvantage in my own home. ‘This is all very irregular. I should have been informed the moment Mr Baxter was unwell.’

‘I knew you’d say that. I told Cook you’d say that. I said, Mrs Baxter’ll blame me if I don’t tell her. But Cook said not to go behind the master’s back or there’d be ructions. I nearly posted that letter three or four times, but every time Mr Baxter seemed to get a bit better, more his old self, so I held off. But in the end I said to Cook, “We can’t take the responsibility.” I was afraid he’d try to go out of the house, you see.’

‘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.