Part 2 (1/2)

I spent the intervening time idly admiring my parasol, although I didn't dare open it again in case it brought even worse luck. After about ten minutes, I heard Nettie coming back up the stairs, and I put the parasol down quickly. I thought I heard her crying, but the sound stopped once she got to the door. When she came in she was wiping her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief and trying to look businesslike.

'What's the matter, Nettie?' Suddenly I knew something serious had occurred.

'I'm to go, Miss Daisy,' she said flatly.

'Go?' I stared at her blankly. 'Go where?'

'Your ma and pa don't feel I am fit to look after Benjy and I can't say as I blame them.' Then she started to cry. 'It don't bear thinking about what would have happened if Mr Jameson had not been there. Oh, Daisy, he might have drowned as easy as winking and I might be up on a murder charge! I thank the Good Lord it's no worse. Your mother is giving me a good reference as I've been reliable for twelve years, but she says under the circ.u.mstances it would always be between us and she could never trust me again.'

'But you've always looked after him,' I said incredulously. 'I shall tell Papa and Mama that you have to stay.' I got up, ready to do battle, enraged on Nettie's behalf and more than a little fearful on my own. I couldn't imagine life without Nettie.

She caught my arm. 'Now, Miss Daisy, you are a dear girl, the best ever, but things is better left as they are. I'm sorry to leave you so sudden but you're getting a bit old for a nursemaid now and I expect you'll manage fine without me. You'll be a proper little lady like your sisters before you know it. And I'm sure Benjy will get to like his new nurse as quick as anything.' She turned away, and I knew she was crying some more and didn't want me to see. 'Now get your clothes on for church,' she said in a m.u.f.fled voice, 'or I will be in trouble for that, too.'

'Aren't you going to help me dress?'

'Sorry, Miss Daisy, I'm to pack straight away.'

'Aren't you even coming to church?' Papa was strict about everyone attending even if they had a cold or headache and I could not imagine he would excuse Nettie now.

'I have to pack, Daisy. I told you, I have to go.'

'What, today?' I couldn't believe that Nettie, whom I had known all my life, was to depart with such awful suddenness. 'But who will look after me?'

'Like I said, you're old enough to manage on your own. Hannah will help you with your hair I expect, and you can pretty much do everything else for yourself; and what you can't do you must learn.' Nettie pulled her old portmanteau from under her bed and started to open the drawers of the wardrobe and remove neat piles of white linen which she put inside the bag with a good deal of steady attention, as if she was doing arithmetic in her head.

'But you'll still come back and see me, won't you?' I felt a terrible numbness descend. It was like the world coming to an end.

'Better not,' she said, at the wardrobe again, with her back to me. 'Your ma says a clean break is the best. And I expect I'll have my time cut out with the new children I'll be looking after, especially if I have to go to London for a position. I couldn't keep popping back to ask after you every five minutes.'

The idea of Nettie with some other children cut me to the quick; especially the notion that she might enjoy herself with them so much that she couldn't be bothered to see me. 'Don't you love me any more, Nettie?' I cried, my voice thick with grief.

She turned to me, and the face that I'd thought was so familiar to me seemed that of a stranger. The way her face was puffy and the tears were rolling uncontrollably down her cheeks made her look so different from the Nettie I knew.

'Oh, Miss Daisy,' she cried, putting down a pile of linen. 'I love you more than anything. Don't you know that? And Benjy's like my very own child. I always knew I'd have to go one day and leave you all behind but never like this. Never like this. It's too cruel!' She gave out a kind of howl and opened her arms and I howled too and ran to her and breathed in her warm, biscuity smell and felt the scratch of her starched ap.r.o.n against my cheek.

'I won't let you go!' I said, hugging her as hard as I could. 'I'll hold on to you so tight they won't be able to separate us, and you'll have to take me with you wherever you go.'

She laughed through her tears. 'My, that would be a bit of an inconvenience me carrying you round my waist like an extra ap.r.o.n and you clinging on for dear life! We'd never get as far as the bottom of the street like that.' She took her work-worn thumb and wiped my tears outwards, one side after the other, so that I felt them roll wetly by my ears and down my neck. 'You have to be brave. We both have to be brave. Things is painful sometimes. We can't do or have what we want all the time. It's part of growing up.'

'Then I don't want to grow up,' I retorted, hugging her tighter than ever.

'We all have to,' she said. 'It's the way of life. You can't be a child for ever. Now get your Sunday clothes on and show me how well you can dress yourself.'

'If I make a mess of it, will they let you stay?'

'I don't think so, Miss Daisy.'

'Why not?' I cried out.

'Because I've been paid a month in lieu of notice and I've agreed to go. Them's the rules,' she said, trying to disentangle my arms from around her back.

'Whose rules?' I said.

She seemed a bit flummoxed by this. 'The rules of England, I suppose what everybody agrees to in order to make the world go round smoothly.'

'But it's not going round smoothly for you!' I cried angrily. 'Or for me! I think they're silly rules!'

'Look, Daisy,' she said. 'Life is a good deal more complicated than it seems when you're eleven. But you know I love you and I know you love me, and we'll always know that, won't we? Won't we?' She made me look her in the face, and I began sobbing anew. 'And if you don't get ready for church, you'll only make it worse for yourself and me. You know how your papa can't bear anyone to be late and he's cross enough already.'

'Will you dress me one last time?'

'Yes, of course.' She seemed relieved to have something to do for me, and I was dressed in no time, Nettie's practised hands doing up b.u.t.tons and tying tapes as she had done hundreds of times before. Outwardly I was calm, turning obediently and holding out my arms for my sleeves and standing patiently as Nettie combed my hair. But I was seething inwardly at the injustice of it all.

'There, you look really pretty. That's how I shall think of you in the future.'

'Will you think of me, Nettie?' I asked, a horrible pang of grief filling my throat.

'Course I will. You and Benjy both, and all the happy times we've had together.'

A dreadful thought occurred. 'Will you still be here when we come back from church?'

She hesitated. 'I don't know, Miss Daisy. It depends.' But she avoided my eye. And when I returned from church two hours later, she was, as I expected, gone. Her wardrobe was empty, her bed stripped and bare.

I have to confess that at that point I threw all my birthday presents around the room in a wild fury, including the parasol and journal and especially the India-rubber ball that Nettie had given me, which no longer seemed so pretty. I hated her then; I hated her for going and leaving me. And I hated the world for making the rules that meant she had to.

Monday 9th June Yesterday was the unhappiest day of my life! My dear Nettie was sent away and I'll never see her again! Mama says I mustn't mope, but I don't see why not. Everything is different and horrid! Mama has made Hannah sleep in the nursery for the time being but she doesn't like looking after Benjy and keeps asking me what she should do to stop him crying. I told her I didn't care and everything was Benjy's fault anyway. I was sorry afterwards and said I didn't mean it and Hannah said the sooner we had a new nursemaid the better it would be for all concerned as she couldn't be in two places at once and she was supposed to be a parlourmaid after all and had three ladies to look after as it was. I shall be glad when she's gone. She's very ill-tempered and doesn't do my hair at all nicely.

Everyone at Miss Prentiss's knew about Benjy nearly drowning and Mr Jameson saving his life and everyone crowded around me and asked lots of questions, even girls I didn't know and who had never spoken to me before, which made me feel quite important. I told them Mama and Papa had been very cross and Nettie had cried all night and then she had packed her bags and gone off to London with a month's wages, saying she would never forget me. DEB Oh how I remember the excitement of having a near-drowning in the family! I felt rather notorious and played up to the drama of the situation, quite putting aside all my sympathy for Nettie, and enjoying the feelings of importance that her misfortunes aroused. 'Serve her right,' said one older girl. 'Some servants are so lazy; they need to be kept in check.' That brought me up short; I knew Nettie was never lazy and she certainly didn't deserve her punishment. None of us had thought Benjy could have crawled so fast, and we'd all merrily left Nettie to get on with the packing while we went off to enjoy ourselves. And then I began to wonder why Mama hadn't watched over Benjy herself. After all, she was his mother and was always saying what a jewel he was. Yet she did surprisingly little for him. She rarely fed him or played with him or put him to bed. In fact, she rarely put me to bed either. Indeed she only spoke to me when I went down to the drawing room in the afternoons, or when we were out visiting or going to church. Nettie had done everything else, yet she had been dismissed on the instant.

The more I tried to make sense of it all, the more nonsensical it seemed. The rules of life seemed arbitrary and cruel. It seemed that Mama and Papa had to be obeyed and honoured whatever they said or did, just as G.o.d had to be obeyed and honoured even when He allowed bad things to happen. I could not help feeling that it was a topsy-turvy arrangement, and that if I had charge of the world, I would make sure children would be listened to, and people like Nettie treated as they deserved. But of course I did not have charge of the world. I hardly had charge of myself.

3.

JOHN JAMESON.

I feel that events are conspiring distinctly to my advantage. I am persona very definitely grata in the Baxter household since my adventure in the watery mud of the Cherwell. In fact, I can do no wrong. Even the supercilious Mrs Baxter cannot thank me enough. Not only did she send a note (rather over-scented with lavender) in her own hand to express her lifelong grat.i.tude, but she also sent a gold propelling pencil engraved with my initials, and a brace of wood pigeon, which was deposited at the lodge with the porter and conveyed thence to the college kitchens to be prepared for a small supper in my rooms. It would have been bliss to share the repast with Daisy, and to see her delicate little face and grey eyes looking at me from across the table; but that is a bridge too far. Instead I sent an invitation to Smith-Jephcott (who occupies the rooms below me), and we pa.s.sed a pleasant enough evening picking at the bones. After dinner, I showed him my new photographs and he was very complimentary. He said he particularly liked the one of Mrs Baxter reclining on the ground, and remarked that she seemed to be something of a sweet little pigeon herself a comment which sickened me. I hardly felt inclined to show him the study of Daisy and her friends after that, but I was so proud of it I could not resist. He glanced at it rather carelessly, then pa.s.sed over it without a word, giving his attention to the family group instead, and showing especial interest in Daisy's sisters. 'This may be your chance, Jameson,' he said. 'In a few years the eldest will be seriously marriageable.' The man is an idiot, and a cra.s.s one. If it had been in my power, I would have turned him upside-down and shaken every sc.r.a.p of pigeon out of him before kicking him downstairs.

But even Smith-Jephcott's coa.r.s.eness cannot damp my good humour. I know it is not right to exult at the near-drowning of a little child, but I cannot help feeling it is Fate that I was on the spot when the nursemaid's vigilance failed, and that my quick actions have endeared myself to the family in a way I could not otherwise have brought about. In addition, I find my dear child much more at liberty than formerly. The nursemaid has been sent away and no other has as yet replaced her, so the Baxters are only too grateful to me for entertaining her when I visit, which I now do every day. Daisy is still reserved with me, which is to be expected, but I know that I can win her round, and that it will not be too long before I see again that immediate and natural delight which flashed across her face when she unwrapped the parasol. That was an exquisite moment for me; a proof that I understood the things that made her happy. Which is more than her parents seem to do. I cannot help wondering what on earth possessed the Baxters to give their daughter such a dull and worthy present for her birthday. Daisy is far too young to be cultivating the heavy art of introspection by committing her daily doings to paper. She has only just ceased to be ten; she has no need of the discipline of self-examination. She needs to be free, to play and wander at will, and to read and listen to amusing stories ones that will take her into the realms of the magical and absurd. And if I have my way, she will do so. She will travel with me along the golden pathways of the imagination.

And yesterday I took a small step towards this goal. When I made my way to the vicarage as usual in the mid-afternoon, I was carrying under my arm a fine leather alb.u.m in which I had carefully mounted all the photographs I had taken at the picnic. I had spent three days finding an alb.u.m that satisfied me; and the a.s.sistants in five separate stationery shops in the Cornmarket and the High had given voice to their impatience as I rejected one after another of their showy volumes. (I really cannot see why they were so incapable of supplying what I needed: I described exactly what I required in terms of size and shape: linen-jointed, four photographs per page, fifty pages altogether but they seemed to have no idea of proportion, or indeed, of taste.) I did eventually find a decent enough one, with deep brown pages eight inches by five, of a nice stiff quality with a double golden line running three eighths of an inch in; and, I have to say, the photographs looked very well on them.

Mrs Baxter summoned everyone to the drawing room to look, and all were delighted at what they saw. Mrs Baxter ran her elegant fingers over the pages as if they were velvet, and the once-disdainful Christiana and Sarah exclaimed over their likenesses with evident approval. Thus emboldened, I asked the Baxters if it would be possible to make some additional studies. I said I was particularly pleased with how the composition with the younger children had turned out and would like to take my amateur practice a stage further by setting up the photographs in more steady surroundings.

'The bright suns.h.i.+ne of the riverbank is all very well,' I said. 'But when I am indoors I can arrange the light for the pictures to suit myself. I have a special place in college where my equipment is kept and I have some fancy costumes that the little girls would no doubt like to dress in. Do you think their mamas would agree to such an arrangement? Chaperoned, of course,' I added.

Mrs Baxter said she thought this an excellent idea and would ask the parents of Daisy's friends if they would agree. 'I will advocate most strongly for you, Mr Jameson. It is the least I can do in terms of the debt of grat.i.tude we all owe. Once we have their answers I will set a time, and send Hannah along with them. She'll like an outing, no doubt, and I'll release her from her duties here. Tell me, how long will you need?'