After Such Kindness Part 5

My dear Child, This is a short letter, but 'short is sweet'. At least I hope you will think so. I am very fond of going to the theatre, and there is a play at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London, which I think you will like. It is called Sylvie's Wish and is a kind of fairy story and has no horrid moral to it, but is all fun and lightness. If you are willing to come with me, we will take the half past twelve train from Oxford next Thursday and see a matinee (which is the French word for morning, as I am sure you know, but in this instance it has perversely decided to mean the afternoon), then I will take you for tea in a nearby hotel. After that we will return in the train and you will be tucked up in bed by nine o'clock. Does that sound nice? I hope you think so. I am already getting my opera hat ready and hope you will wear your prettiest dress so that everybody will be ridiculously jealous of us.

Your good friend, John Jameson.

P.S. I have already spoken to your papa and mama and they have no objection provided you are back before midnight and don't turn into a pumpkin.

I was so excited I had to read the letter over and over to make sure I was not mistaken. I could not believe that Mr Jameson wanted to take me to the theatre, in London and (although it is horrid to say so) I was pleased when Christiana and Sarah both looked at me as if they simply could not believe it either! Mama asked if I would like to go, and I said it would be the most exciting thing ever as I have never even been to London, let alone to a theatre there. Christiana caught hold of the letter as if she still did not believe what I'd said and then when she saw it was true, looked at Mama saying how was it that I should be the first to go to a London theatre considering I was only eleven, and shouldn't Mr Jameson have asked them first? Mama said it was because I had spent time with Mr Jameson and he was fond of me, and the play was a children's play anyway. Then Sarah said if it was a children's play, then why was Mr Jameson going? And Papa said that Mr Jameson knew one of the actresses in it, and anyway it was his business what he did and where he went. Then he folded his newspaper and looked at Christiana and Sarah very crossly and said they had both had an opportunity to be nice to Mr Jameson and had chosen to be proud and unkind instead, and G.o.d does not let these things pa.s.s unpunished. 'Go and eat the bread of mortification,' he said, 'and see how you like the taste.' Then he got up and went to his study to write his sermon and my sisters became very quiet. Mama said I should write back immediately and I could use her notepaper if I liked. So I went with her into the morning room and she got out a sheet of lavender-scented paper and the inkstand and asked if Miss Prentiss had taught me how to write a formal reply. I felt Mr Jameson was not the sort of person who wanted a formal reply but as Mama was being so nice I didn't like to say so.

I wrote: 'Miss Daisy Baxter thanks Mr John Jameson for his kind invitation to the theatre next week, and has great pleasure in accepting.' Then I put the date and sealed it with sealing wax and Mama gave me a penny stamp to affix to the outside, above the address. 'You may take it to the postbox yourself, if you like,' she said. 'I know how exciting it is to begin one's first grown-up correspondence.' And she smiled at me as if she really understood how I felt and I was so happy!!!

It remains with me now the excitement of putting on my coat and hat, walking the fifty yards to the postbox at the corner, and letting the lavender-scented letter slide slowly inside. I held onto it until the last possible moment, then let it fall: down into the dark. I stood back, imagining the postman collecting it and Mr Jameson in due course receiving it in his college rooms with Benson presiding over the tea table and Dinah sitting on his lap with that funny half-smile she always seemed to have. And Mr Jameson opening it and saying to Benson: 'She can come!' And his pale, quiet face lighting up with pleasure. And part of my pleasure, I recall, was to be so favoured by Mama. She not only helped me with the letter, but also planned what I should wear; and on the day of the outing, she came to my bedroom and dressed me herself, saying I had to do her justice when I appeared in public at Drury Lane. She was not as good as Nettie in tying tapes and putting on petticoats, but to feel her slender fingers pat and stroke my body and to smell the delicate scent of lavender-water arising from her neck as she stooped and tied my sash, was complete bliss. I felt that almost everything that was happening to me then was new and exciting, and it was Mr Jameson who was making it all possible. I was beginning to see him as a kind of hero and, in my childish way, to fall a little in love with him.

7.

DANIEL BAXTER.

I look at my face in the shaving-mirror the handsome nose, the fine whiskers, the sleek brown hair and realize that I hate myself. I've hated myself for a long time, but it's easy to keep unwanted thoughts at bay if you keep hand, brain and eye busy. And I've kept very busy. I'm a veritable whirlwind of surplice and ca.s.sock. I throw myself with abandon into the matters of the moment, the daily concerns of the physical world that is, and always will be, too much with us. I'm a wonderful man when it comes to action: the committees, the vestry duties, the morning services, the evening services, the Sunday sermons, the visiting of the sick, the celebration of funerals, weddings, baptisms the whole panoply of rituals that can be so satisfying when you do them well and are duly praised for it. People look at me and think I'm a fine man, a G.o.d-fearing man. They grasp my hand with fervour, or murmur a blessing under their breath, and I lap up their good opinion. Truly, the sin of pride rides high with me. But underneath it all, I'm a Doubter.

Looking at myself now pallid, hollow-eyed I can deny it no longer. Piece by piece, my faith has fallen away. I'm a hypocrite; standing in the pulpit every Sunday and urging my congregation to live their lives well in the hope of eternal bliss, and yet having no belief myself that such bliss will be forthcoming. I claw pathetically at the idea of Heaven, of which I was once so certain; that I saw reflected in human love and in the wonders of nature. But is there such a place? And was that Jesus of Nazareth, to whom I have dedicated my life, in truth divinely inspired? And is there beyond Him a divine watchmaker who has articulated all the parts of the universe according to a most wonderful plan? Or is everything a product of pure chance, of a rolling evolution that takes care of itself and owes nothing to a Supreme Maker? Is it all chaos, meaninglessness, absurdity? And am I, Daniel Baxter, absurd to believe in it? Or am I destined to burn for my disbelief, to add forever to the burden of mankind's sins that Christ died for in agony? I do not know. I do not know. I fear I will go mad in my confusion. And I cannot openly speak of it to anyone.

I have tried several times to confide in John Jameson. I'd once hoped for some comfort from a man who is both honest and clever; but I sense increasingly that he shies away from such discussions. He's happy enough to talk about points of principle, but I don't feel that he has ever had to endure desperate feelings such as mine. I suspect he is a cold fish under all the cleverness and whimsy. Indeed, he looks uncomfortable when I express doubt about the smallest point of faith, and becomes quite petulant if I persist in more rigorous questioning, saying I am enthusiastic enough in my torments to be a Methodist. At other times he has come close to suggesting that, like Newman, I'm tempted to go over to Rome. Perhaps that reflects the confusion of my own thoughts. Once I took a pride in the sensible pragmatism of the Anglican Church, but now it seems a nothingness, a compromised middle way that has nothing in it of true belief. Perhaps I would do better to strike out and nail my true colours to the mast but which colours? And what mast?

And John is strangely elusive these days. We no longer meet every week in the old, intimate pattern that was such a comfort to me. He's become so much a friend of the family now that our private discussions have become more superficial and ad hoc. In fact, I sometimes think he spends more time with Daisy than with me. Even Evelina has been forced to entertain him on the many afternoons when I am out on parish business. But when opportunity arises, I still bring my questions to him in the hope that I might find illumination, if not comfort. Only yesterday, as I was struggling with my sermon and John was picking about in my bookcase for a particular ill.u.s.tration of a tropical bird, I found a great heat rise in my breast as I attempted, without success, to find a justification for the concept of Eternal Punishment. I suppose I am unduly sensitive to the concept of d.a.m.nation, being perhaps so much in danger of it myself. But how could G.o.d condemn me to perpetual pain for an honest struggle with my conscience? How could He, who is perfectly good and merciful, deal out a punishment which I myself regard as abhorrent, and would not confer on the worst of my enemies? The more I thought about it, the more wretched I became. 'How can there be such a thing as Eternal d.a.m.nation?' I cried. 'Suffering with no hope of reprieve? That is an act of savagery, not of a wise and loving Father. I cannot believe in it. I simply cannot.'

John looked up from his book. 'In that case, Daniel, you will be denying the sacred truth of the Bible.'

'Then either the Bible is wrong, or G.o.d is wrong, or there is something badly wrong with my conscience,' I snapped, heedless of the enormity of what I was saying.

John closed his book, put it back on the shelf and considered. 'I admit it is a problem,' he said at last. 'But all religions rely on interpretation, and where a variety of languages are involved, interpretation is at its most unreliable. Perhaps "eternal" is not quite what we think it is. Perhaps in the original Hebrew the word does not mean "for ever" at all.'

If true, I thought, what a solution that would be for so many of the problems that have exercised all our minds for years! 'But how do we know if the word has been misinterpreted?' I said.

He shrugged. 'All other answers are contradictions and our religion cannot be a contradiction, can it?'

A great sense of disappointment came over me. I had hoped that he would bring me genuine enlightenment, stop up the hole in the sand into which the grains of doubt were pouring so fast. 'But everything we believe depends on words, John and if we can juggle with them at will, how can we know the true meaning of anything? We could each gloss our own version of the Bible entirely to suit ourselves! Words must mean what they say they mean they must be immutable and fixed otherwise we are lost.'

'Are we?' He smiled. 'A reader may have a partial or incorrect understanding of the words, but that is not the Bible's fault. It is certainly not G.o.d's.'

I was exasperated. 'You might as well contend that the Bible means what it says because it well says what it means.'

'For some people it is the same.' He looked quietly pleased with himself, but I felt cheated. I've always hated that kind of hair-splitting theology. It is pa.s.sionless and dry; and I want nothing to do with it. I need explanations that are strong and simple that move the soul. They are what brought me to G.o.d in the first place, and they are the only things that will bring me back to Him.

And so every day I long to feel again that first careless rapture when Heaven and Love and Pa.s.sion and Desire were all overwhelmingly present in my heart; when I woke each day with such a sense of freshness and purpose, my limbs firm, my eyes bright, and my whole body ready to be active in the work of the Lord and when my love for Christ was entwined and reflected so gloriously in my love for Evelina. Not just because of her beauty, but because she seemed to offer in her piety, her sweet smile, and the soft movement of her limbs a way to a better future; a future in which I could be as G.o.d intended, and carry out His work.

I'd been a lost soul before I'd met her. I'd gone up to Oxford intending to follow in my father's footsteps and become a country parson; but it was not my vocation, and certainly far from my choice. Even at school, I had been uncertain of my suitability for a life of probity and restraint, but once at the university, I fell in with dubious companions and proceeded, in my own quiet way, to go to the dogs. I drank too much and I gambled at cards. I did as little work as I could and very often I woke with my head in such a hazy state that I would attempt to clear it by smiting my forehead on the bedpost until the blood ran. The mark would remain with me all day, a fearful reminder of my excess; but if, when night fell, there was nothing to distract me, I would drink again, seeking out the most disreputable places in which to hide myself. And when I was drunk, my pa.s.sions had full reign. I would fall out of the public houses and into the muddy streets, and thence into the clutches of the nice girls who fleeced me of my money and gave me little satisfaction in return, although I yearned after the sight of their pale, naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the secret dusky places beneath their petticoats. I always repented most sincerely when I woke, and chastised myself once more with the wretched bedpost, but it would not be many days before I got more soddenly drunk, fell deeper into debt, and made myself more shameful in the very houses of shame themselves.

Of all my diversions, only nature was capable of holding me steady. I'd leave my studies behind and walk along the river, or across the fields, sometimes twelve or twenty miles at a stretch, the wind in my face and the firm earth at my feet. Only then would I feel myself cleansed and close to G.o.d. Yet, once back in the world of paper and pen, I would immediately suffer from pains in my head and sickness in my stomach. I'd creep wearily between the dreariness of my college room, the dreariness of the lecture hall, and the dreariness of chapel, utterly despising myself and my whole life.

It was in that state that Evelina took pity on me. It's still a source of astonishment and delight to me that she did so. I have no idea what I would have made of my life otherwise; to what depths I would have fallen if she had not been there to encourage and inspire me. And yet such is the mysteriousness of G.o.d's ways it was one of my disreputable companions who proved the means of bringing us together. Wilfrid Chauncey was by no means the worst of my cronies, more of a sportsman than a drinker, running hares along the Oxfordshire hedges and keeping hounds in his college rooms. One night, after extolling the virtues of his uncle's estate which had 'acres of shooting and no one to take advantage of it', he invited me to spend the week before Christmas at the house. His uncle spent most of his time in the library, he said, and was happy for his guests to drink and play cards as much as they wished. It was a very Liberty Hall provided one did not encounter Wilfrid's cousin Evelina, who was something of a prig.

I'd accepted with alacrity, having little else to do at the end of term and not relishing a sermon from my father about my dissipated ways. I'd hoped not to encounter the priggish cousin. Well-brought-up ladies didn't interest me; I thought them vapid to say the least. But I'd scarcely arrived and was still in my travelling clothes, grimy and dishevelled when I opened the door to the drawing room, and there she was standing at the window, gazing out at the distant mountains, her dark hair coiling down her back and a volume of poetry in her hand. She looked like any other modest and pious young lady, and I began to introduce myself with the kind of nonchalant swagger that had become habitual with me. But when she turned to look at me, the careless words died on my lips. Her eyes in that moment seemed not to be the eyes of a young girl at all, but of an angel. An angel who could see through me and read my mind.

Wilfrid strolled in behind me. 'h.e.l.lo, Evelina. You're back from Caerwen, then? Let me introduce Daniel Baxter, the best fellow in Oxford and the best shot too.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said the angel. 'Such proficiency usually means a man has spent more time with his gun than with his books.'

Wilfrid gave me a sly grin. 'You see, sporting prowess doesn't impress Evelina. She only cares for reading. And don't think of making love to her, Dan, because it's a hopeless cause. She's destined to join the Misses Venables and be lost to the world for ever.'

His words pierced me like a sword. This beautiful young creature lost to the world? But Evelina smiled patiently. 'You do exaggerate, Wilfrid. It's not as though I'll be locked up all day like a nun.'

'You might as well be,' he grumbled.

She shook her head in mock despair and turned to me. 'I need to explain, Mr Baxter. Caerwen is nothing terrible or medieval just the Misses Venables and their friends trying to lead a good life. I plan to join them as soon as I am old enough. But in the meantime I'd be obliged if you would talk to me as if I'm an ordinary human being. Young men are often so put out when they know my intentions that I'm obliged to take my walks on my own.'

'You will not walk alone while I am in this house,' I replied, amazed at the boldness of my words as they came tumbling out with no apparent composition on my part. Suddenly for the first time in my life I realized that I was in love, and that it was Heaven. I felt I'd been raised a good six inches above the ground and harmonious music was playing in my ears. All at once, the thought of spending a whole day shooting and a whole night playing cards was anathema to me. I wanted to spend all my time with this divine creature amidst billowing clouds and everlasting sunshine. 'I'm a great walker,' I added breathlessly. 'And to walk with you, Miss Chauncey, would be an honour.'

'I will keep you to that, Mr Baxter,' she said with a smile of such pure limpidity that I nearly fell down dead. 'Tomorrow I shall walk up to Baycastle Crag immediately after breakfast. If you accompany me, I fear you will have to forgo the morning's shooting. We will know then where your loyalties lie.'

'I'll be there,' I said, not caring about Wilfrid's chagrin or the loss of sport as long as Evelina's grey eyes were fixed on mine.

The next day, as we mounted the steep path to the Crag, our talk was all of religion, a topic I had long found tedious, but she infused it with such emotion and longing that I wanted to break away from my wretched, sinful body, to cleave to her side, to draw breath with her, to see with her pure eyes, to taste with her tender mouth. I wanted so much to be at one with her that I could not bear the idea of keeping even the smallest thing back. I felt instead obliged to confess all my sins in a headlong jumble of self-abnegation.

She was not shocked. In fact, she seemed animated, and full of an eager kind of pa.s.sion. 'Do you really intend to mend your ways?' she said, clasping my hands and sending a thrill through my veins. 'Will you turn back to G.o.d this very day?'

'Oh, yes, Miss Chauncey!' I squeezed her hands in return. 'But I need you to help me. I cannot do it alone.'

'I'm only a girl,' she said. 'And not yet sixteen. There must be better people than me to guide you.'

'G.o.d has sent you to me. I am sure of that. He will guide us both.'

'Yes,' she said, her bright eyes fixed on mine. 'That will be my mission; I understand it now. I cannot be a minister myself, but I can, through my prayers, draw you back to the ministry.'

I knew then that I would do everything to save her from a life of chast.i.ty. She would be my wife; I was determined on it. 'Yes,' I declared. 'Yes, Miss Chauncey! Do with me as you will.' As the wind whipped round us, and the fields and rivers were laid out below in a myriad of colours like a shimmering marriage bed, I kissed her hand fervently. And we walked on up the hill with our eyes shining.

All that week we were inseparable. I was so willing to be reformed that I would have sat at her feet every day for a month. As it was, I hardly spent any time with my gun, and left poor Wilfrid to the dubious companionship of the local farmers. I touched not a drop of wine and enjoyed a clear head for the first time in years. When the time came to part, I thought I might go mad to be, even for a moment, without her. But I was saved by her promise to write every day.

Once home, I presented myself to my father with a sincere wish to follow my vocation, and, once back at Oxford, my life changed in every way: I was punctual, hard-working, sober and chaste; and yet life was not dull. Evelina sent me her spiritual thoughts and quotations from her favourite poets; I sent her back details of my philosophical reading. I took up rowing, and was down on the river every morning at dawn, feeling the rush of pleasure as my oar sliced through the water and my muscles strained against the pull of the blade, knowing that every stroke made me stronger and more worthy of her.

Even now I cannot think of our courtship without feeling again those heady raptures of heart and lung and, looking at John Jameson, with his meaningless words and pernickety interpretations, I cannot imagine that he would ever understand what it is to be wrapped in the sublime embrace of the holiest and most intense sensations that it is given human beings to know.

Of course, I was wary at first of expressing my love in case I set Evelina's delicate sensibilities to flight and even more wary lest my letters should fall into the hands of her father. But I could not keep my joy to myself. As I wrote to her, my blood roared in my ears, my limbs tingled, my whole body burned. Meeting you, knowing you, and loving you has put me under a heavy debt to G.o.d. And how can I pay this better than by devoting myself to the religion I once scorned, making of the debauchee a preacher of purity and holiness, and of the destroyer of systems a weak, though determined, upholder of the Only True System.

Evelina wrote back that she had never been so happy as to think she had been the humble means of bringing a sinner to repentance. I think of you every day, she wrote, and I pray for you every night. Your face is with me as I lie on my pillow, and I only wish my heart was pressed against yours and you could feel its joyful beating.

Once I had read this, I knew that if marriages were made in Heaven, then surely mine with Evelina could not be too far postponed. I asked her to be mine, and she consented. I knew there would be difficulties: she was due to inherit a considerable fortune, whereas I had little money and no particular prospects. But the day after I went down from Oxford, I immediately rode to Herefordshire and asked for her hand. 'She is all the world to me, and I will never cease to strive to be worthy of her,' I said to her father, studying the carpet in his library and filling my lungs with the dusty powder of thousands of ancient books.

My request was politely declined. 'The young are changeable,' Mr Chauncey said, not unkindly. 'One moment Evelina is committed to a celibate life, the next to matrimony with a man she hardly knows. I would have her wait at least two years before she is in a position to make such an important choice.'

It was a blow, but I wrested from him an agreement to our continued correspondence. That was my life blood and I could not do without it. 'I am to be ordained this month,' I told him. 'I am determined to find a parish where there is good Christian work to be done. I will work as hard as any man can to bring the Gospel to the poor and ignorant, and to make myself worthy of offering my hand again. She is willing to wait for me, and I will wait for her. Permit us to correspond in the meantime. Evelina is extremely well-read, as you know,' I said. 'And she takes great pleasure in the study of so many things poetry, nature, theology. Indeed, those are the things that have drawn us together. I can share with her all that I am learning in my new situation. She in her turn can guide me with her simplicity and faith. There will, I promise you, be no more talk of marriage for the next two years.'

And so I entered into a most blissful phase of my life, in which antic.i.p.ation was more glorious than consummation, in which Evelina and I shared our thoughts and feelings so completely it seemed that we were already One. Every day I would go about my business as curate at St Barnabas-in-the-East, sitting at the bedsides of the sick, baptizing newborn infants in their brief sojourn between birth and death, giving comfort to the living, and burying the dead and every night I would retire, exhausted, to my small bare room and write to my love. I was almost in a delirium, then. I seemed to be able to envisage her completely naked, to see her lovely white body before me although, in truth, I had seen nothing more than the whiteness of her neck and wrists. But my imagination went ahead of me and, when I wrote, I could no more refrain from talking of the ways of love than I could willingly condemn myself to death.

With each letter I became bolder, using every lovely biblical phrase I knew. When you go to bed tonight, I urged her, forget that you ever wore a garment, and open your lips for my kisses and spread out each limb that I might lie between your b.r.e.a.s.t.s all night. And she replied: O, My Dove that art in the cleft of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice. Sometimes I would have to take hold of the water jug and pour its contents over my yearning body. Sometimes I would sleep on the floor and rise at three o'clock to pray. Once I walked into the woods and lay naked upon thorns all night and came back with my body torn. Such bliss, such reckless bliss!

But night-time bliss was balanced by the gruelling demands of the day, and it was becoming daily clearer to me that my efforts at spreading the Word of G.o.d would falter unless society itself was changed. Many of us working in poor parishes throughout London had joined together to demand clean drinking water for all, fair wages for the working man, and schools for their children. Our motto was Hard Work and Clean Water demands so self-evident that no Christian person could deny them. But we were laughed at by those who should have known better, and basely accused of neglecting the spiritual (which was apparently our business) for the physical (which apparently was not). Such accusations enraged me; I have never been able to see why the two things were set in opposition. In my anger I wrote a pamphlet denouncing the government's inaction, which was reproduced all over London, to general acclaim. I sent a copy of it to Evelina and she wrote back to say how much she admired it but that her father had remarked that I sounded 'too radical'.

Soon after that (and maybe consequent upon it), Evelina was sent to Germany and then to France to complete her education and to let her 'see the world'. But at ten o'clock each night, she and I, according to our arrangement, would turn our thoughts to the other and imagine that we were together in body as much as in mind. We would both undress, then kneel and pray, knowing our thoughts were ascending together to Heaven like twinned spirals of smoke.

What will give us more perfect delight, I wrote, than when we lie naked in one another's arms, clasped together, toying with each other's limbs, buried in each other's bodies, struggling, panting, dying for a moment? Shall we not feel, even then, that there is more in store for us; that those thrilling writhings are but a dim shadow of a union that shall be perfect? Even then I was sure that the union of the marriage bed was a foretaste of the delights of Heaven, that chast.i.ty is at best an insipid virtue and at worst a cause of unnatural vice.

At last her father permitted our engagement. Evelina had told him that if she could not have me as a husband, she would have no one else, and would retire to Caerwen House as she had first intended. So Mr Chauncey gave in. I was the lesser of two evils; and at least I gave him hope of a grandson. From then on, Evelina and I spent as many hours together as we could. I had little opportunity to travel, and no money to do so. But Evelina's father allowed her to visit me and, to my astonishment, we often found ourselves alone and private. What delights then, as we explored that which we had only imagined before! Whenever she left me, be it day or night, I knew my hands were perfumed with her delicious limbs and I could not (and did not wish to) wash off the scent. And as I lay apart from her, the thought of those mysterious recesses of beauty, where my hands had so recently been wandering, caused my soul almost to faint.

So why cannot I confess to her now? To the woman who is the darling of my heart? Why cannot I lay before her, as I once did on that high hill, what is now so heavy upon my conscience? She is no less lovely and good than she was, but much has pa.s.sed between us since times of great trial and I fear that we have in some ways grown apart; that the ardent couplings which were once so vital to us have ended, and left us less than we were. And, if I am honest (as I now try to be), I am afraid that she will not pardon me quite so readily this time. The doubts of a dissolute young man of twenty are one thing; the doubts of a practising clergyman of mature years with the care of hundreds of souls are another. Evelina has always believed in me. Her belief is at the heart of our marriage. In fact, I feel sometimes that she came to love me precisely because she had saved me. And now to tell her that her act of salvation was incomplete, and that all her efforts were for nought would be like smiting her in the face. I cannot disappoint her. I cannot destroy the only sure and certain love I have left on this earth. I will have to go on as I am, tormented and wretched and, at times, I think, half mad.

8.

MARGARET CONSTANTINE.

The trip to the theatre is now so vivid in my mind. It was one of the most memorable days I ever had. And I see Daisy has recorded it in detail.

Friday 4th July I have had the most wonderful day ever. I have been to London with Mr Jameson and we have seen a proper play! It was all about a gypsy prince who fell in love, and there was a chorus of girls in gypsy dresses and they looked so pretty that I really wanted to be one of them. There were forests that moved and real caravans, and coloured lights and music and ever such pretty costumes. And Prince Florizel was so handsome I wished I could marry him but Mr Jameson told me that it was his niece Miss Garfield and not a gentleman after all which was very disappointing!! We went behind the scenes afterwards and I saw all the people pulling ropes and moving big pieces of scenery about, getting ready for the Second House when the play is done all over again (which must be very exhausting!). The big opening you look into from the audience is only part of the whole stage and there are bigger s.p.a.ces at each side called the Wings and even bigger s.p.a.ces up above called the Flies where all the curtains and canvases are kept hanging up like giant blinds. Mr Jameson said: 'Now, Daisy, tell me why is a theatre like a bird?' And I couldn't think of the answer and he said: 'Because it has wings, and flies!' which of course I should have guessed.

As we went up the little winding stairs to the dressing-rooms he said he hoped that it didn't spoil the magic for me, seeing how it all worked. And I said no it was very exciting as all the girls looked so pretty still in their costumes with their faces powdered and roudged, and the boys with brownish stuff on their faces and felt hats and high boots. When we met Miss Garfield she had taken off her boots and leather jerkin and had on a very nice patterned frock and a very pretty straw hat with pink roses and a little veil. It was a bit disappointing in a way, as I thought she was so handsome as Florizel. But she was very nice and we went to have tea in a hotel near by, and everybody turned to look at her and she called all the waiters and waitresses by their first names, including a very important-looking gentleman in a tailcoat whom she called Henry, but they all called her Miss Garfield which I thought very respectful. She looked at me quite a long time while I was eating my scones and said I had exactly the right face for an anjenou. (I think this word is French but I don't think the spelling is at all right!) But she said that if I was ever to go on the stage I'd need to cut my hair shorter at the front so the audience could see my eyes properly.

How I cherished that remark of Miss Garfield's, and the steady and approving way the famous actress looked at me as if I were more than just a small and not very interesting child, but someone who was capable of doing something out of the ordinary if I chose. That was when I first realized that cutting my hair was possible and I couldn't imagine why I'd never thought of it before. With a few decisive snips across my forehead, I could be rid of the daily struggles to keep the wretched mane under control. It was a kind of liberation to my spirit and from that time I began to think about how I could bring it about. Hannah, I knew, wouldn't attempt it without my mother's permission, and my mother didn't care for short hair. She had very abundant hair herself, and I suspect she was secretly vain about it, even though it was put up in pins and kept very plain as appropriate for a vicar's wife in a parish where there were many ladies ready to criticize. But I was determined that I would do the deed somehow. I regretted only that Miss Garfield hadn't had any scissors about her to accomplish the task on the spot.

After tea, Miss Garfield had to go to get ready for the Second House and so Mr Jameson paid the bill with two half-crowns and we got a handsome cab to Paddington. In the train I fell asleep and had a very strange dream full of animals. Then Father came to meet us at Oxford station and took me home in another cab. I was very sleepy by then as it was nearly nine o'clock and so Mama came upstairs with me to listen to my prayers and put me to bed. She asked me if I had been good, and I said yes and she asked if Mr Jameson had looked after me well. And I said he did and that he was very funny and had bought a bag of chocolate limes which were my favourites. I told her how we had gone to the backstage afterwards and that he had introduced me to Miss Garfield who played Prince Florizel and we'd all had tea together in an adjoining hotel and I'd had fruit cake and scones as well as bread-and-b.u.t.ter and Miss Garfield had lifted up the teapot and said, Shall I be mother? And Mr Jameson said, I hope not for a good while, my dear. Mama said Hmm, and asked if she had been a ladylike person as actresses were not always ladies and I told her that Miss Garfield was not always a lady because she was sometimes a gentleman! I thought that was a very good joke and will try to remember to tell it to Mr Jameson. I told Mama that Miss Garfield had said that I would look nice with shorter hair, and Mama said, Really, I hardly think it is up to her to decide, so I know Mama will probably not let me cut it. DEB.

I can recall how wonderful it seemed to me then that Mama was on the doorstep ready to welcome me back. And even more wonderful that she put me to bed with her own hands and engaged in such an intimate conversation with me. Even then, though, I sensed something wary in my mother's demeanour, which I couldn't fully comprehend, some slight sense of unease about the kind of world I had been exposed to. Was she perhaps concerned that she had let me go so far afield and to have such novel experiences without being there in person to watch over me? It was my first intimation that theatre people, even those as great and well-known as Miss Garfield, might not be thoroughly respectable. All the same, I a.s.sumed it couldn't be a matter of great concern, otherwise Mama would not have allowed Mr Jameson to take me in the first place . . .

'Margaret?' Robert has come in so quietly that I haven't heard. I colour, close the journal quickly.

'What's that you're reading with such rapt attention?' He comes towards me, smiling, conciliatory.

'Nothing of importance, Robert.' I slide it down by my side, against the inner arm of the chair, and give him my most confident smile.

'On the contrary, you were quite engrossed. More engrossed than I've seen you for a long time. I think I have the right to know what it is.' He is holding out his hand, certain that I will surrender it to him. 'Is it a romance?' he teases. 'Now, don't be ashamed to admit it.'

'Maybe,' I say, equally playfully. 'Or maybe not.'

He's encouraged by the playfulness. He comes towards me, rests his hands on the back of my armchair and bends to kiss my neck. I feel the tiniest edge of his tongue as he does so, lapping at me, awakening what? A thin tremor of desire? I'm not sure; I hardly dare think about it. He whispers in my ear: 'Come, now, let me see what you're hiding.'

'No, Robert, it's a secret.'

'Is it indeed? Have you forgotten so soon there should be no secrets between a husband and wife. We are one person one flesh, in fact. Or will be soon, I hope.'

The word 'flesh' seems to excite him, and I can sense that he wants to kiss me, and hopes that this time I will kiss him in return. But I can hardly breathe. It takes me an effort to control my voice, to turn the conversation back to the mundane. I pull back from him, laughing gently: 'It's not really a secret, Robert. Just a book from the toy-box; hardly your sort of reading matter.'

'Oh? And are you sure you know what my "sort of reading matter" is? I believe I have quite catholic tastes: adventure, comedy, ghost stories even romance.' He smiles knowingly. He explores down the inside of the chair, his fingers contriving to caress the contours of my hip before they tighten over the book. 'Here it is! Now I'll find out what your secret is!'

I trap his hand with a deft sideways movement. 'Please, Robert,' I say. 'I'd rather you didn't. As a favour to me. Please.'

'Ah, my wife asks a favour, and I'm happy to grant it.' He retracts his empty hand. 'But what will she give me in return?' I can see his long, dark face reflected in the looking-gla.s.s, hovering expectantly next to mine. His eyes drop to my breast, and now he can see my unfastened bodice, my loosened stays. I feel his breath quicken. 'What's this, Margaret? En deshabille at six o'clock?'

I'm horrified that he will misinterpret this. 'I was a little uncomfortable, that's all. A little breathless after all that effort this afternoon.'

'But you are recovered, now, it would seem,' he says. 'Very much recovered, if I am any judge. I don't know what is in that book, but I would say it had made you quite pink and rosy.' His voice has taken on a caressing quality, which makes me feel uneasy. I don't like that silken tone of voice; it's always a prelude to something unwelcome. And it is: his hand is stroking my exposed bosom.

I flinch, but he takes no notice. He may even think it's a response of pleasure. He does. 'Oh, Margaret,' he murmurs. 'May we try again tonight?'

Tonight? The giddy feeling rolls and swells through my body. The wedding night flashes before me in all its horror and I am tense from head to toe. 'Please, Robert. Not quite yet. I'm not ready.'

I wonder, though, if I'll ever be ready. If it's not tonight, then it must be tomorrow, or the day after. And it must be done. It's like a high hedge that has to be painfully scrambled over, but, surely, once on the other side there should be smooth pastures happiness and affection and the beginnings of family life. Everything I want, in fact.

I glance at Robert. He is less nervous than on our wedding night, and I am calmer too. Maybe now is the time to abandon myself to his touch, here at six o'clock on an autumn evening in our own room with an hour to spare before dinner. I can let my eyes fix themselves on the watercolours of the Lake District, the pretty brocade curtains, the fading light through the window anything so I don't have to think about what he is doing with his hands and his lips or the other, more appalling parts of his anatomy. I merely need to make the effort.

But even as logic is telling my mind to submit, my body is in a panic. Robert is breathing hard and doesn't seem to notice my distress. He's plucking open my chemise, murmuring things I can't hear. I know that they are words of love and desire. I'm sure that they are meant to melt me, make my arms soft and my lips ready but I'm a piece of wood beneath him. I feel the old nightmare returning; the dark shadows, the hot sense of guilt. I cannot, cannot do this; I rear up from the chair and push him off. My strength surprises me. It surprises him too he falls heavily against the dressing-table, striking it with his elbow, and then slides to the floor, making my eau de Cologne bottle topple over with a crash. He looks up at me. His shirt is open, the b.u.t.tons on his trousers partly undone. He's lost all his dignity.

I feel instantly ashamed. 'I'm sorry,' I say. 'Dear Robert, I am so sorry.'

He shakes his head. He is perplexed and angry and sympathetic all at once. 'I'm not a demon from the depths of h.e.l.l, you know. Just a man wishing to make love to his wife.' He gets up, reb.u.t.tons his trousers and smoothes his sleek black hair.

I apologize again. 'You must think me unloving but it's simply that I can't . . .' But I cannot explain. I'm shaking head to foot.

He takes my hand tentatively this time, as if he fears I will hurl him to the ground once more. 'I know you're apprehensive. It is a natural thing in a modest and well-brought-up young woman. But you are perhaps taking such feelings to the extreme. There is nothing to fear from me at any rate. We have known each other for eight years. Surely you trust me by now?'