Part 18 (2/2)

'Are you teasing me, Robert?'

'I believe I am, Margaret.'

I think, in the dark, he may be smiling at me.

22.

JOHN JAMESON.

And now, at the time appointed, I sit here waiting, although I know in my soul that she won't come. I find I can't enjoy the warm fire Donnelly has stoked up for me, or the sight of the kettle boiling on the hob. Even the tempting sight of the jam tarts on the sideboard does not lift my spirits. Her husband has prevented her; that much is clear. My little tete-a-tete with him yesterday was not of the most amicable kind.

I had not expected him to call on me at all. I don't know the man in the slightest, and my thoughts were all on Daisy. Indeed, the moment I had finished my morning lecture on plane trigonometry, I could not help looking in the lodge to see if there was a note from her. My pigeonhole was bare, but the porter advised me that I had a visitor. 'I've put him in your sitting room, Mr Jameson,' he said, pa.s.sing me a visiting card. 'I hope I did right.'

It is unusual for me to have visitors in the morning. I always arrange for my little friends to come near teatime. Indeed, all my visitors are encouraged to come then. A visit just before noon is extremely inconvenient. So I took the card rather crossly, ready to dislike whoever it was who was now encamped in my sitting room. To my surprise, the card said, The Reverend Robert Constantine M.A., and I a.s.sumed it could be no other than Daisy's new husband. My first thought was that something dreadful had befallen her, so I hastened across the quadrangle and up the stairs.

He was standing at the fireplace, staring at the mantelpiece. I could see him in the gla.s.s as I came in: a slight man, almost a head shorter than I, with very black hair. He did not have the appearance of someone who was about to impart news of illness or death; in fact, if anything, he seemed rather angry.

'Mr C-Constantine I believe?' I said, extending my hand as he turned to face me. 'I am John Jameson. To what do I owe the pleasure?'

He ignored my hand. 'I am not sure it is a pleasure, sir. I am here concerning my wife.'

'She's not unwell, I hope? I was so looking forward to seeing her tomorrow.'

'You expect to see her tomorrow? She is due to come here, to these rooms tomorrow?' He looked so aghast that I realized that he was unaware of my invitation. I could not imagine why Daisy should have kept it from him, but I was mortified to have blundered in this way.

'I was hoping I might see you b-both,' I said, feeling a small misdirection was required in the circ.u.mstances. 'But I only dispatched my note yesterday and I have not yet had a reply. So I must admit to being in the dark as to the reason for your visit now. But, pray sit down; it makes me uncomfortable to see anyone standing.'

He hesitated, then sat, keeping himself bolt upright on the edge of the armchair as if he were ready to launch himself at me on the slightest provocation. There was an awkward pause, and then he said grimly, 'Mr Jameson, how well do you know my wife?'

'I don't know her at all.'

He leaned forward. 'How can you deny it when there is a photograph of her on this very mantelshelf?' He pointed at it, accusingly.

'Oh,' I said. 'I don't deny that I know Daisy Baxter. That was, of course, ten years ago. But I have never met your wife; she is another creature altogether. Which is why it would be very pleasant to make her acquaintance in my rooms.'

'I see you are a casuist,' he said, as if 'casuist' were cognate with 'murderer'.

'I simply try to make words mean what they say.'

'Very well,' he said patiently. 'I will play your game. How well did you know Daisy Baxter?'

'I'm not sure I can answer that. It's a very open question. And to be frank, I'm not sure what it has to do with you.'

'I am her husband.'

'You are not Daisy Baxter's husband, though, and it is Daisy Baxter we have established as the subject of this interrogation.'

He gave a groan of exasperation. 'Are you deliberately obfuscating? I want a simple answer to a simple question.'

'In my view, simple questions rarely have simple answers. For example, ”What is the purpose of life?” rarely provides an answer of fewer than ten thousand words, and generally a great many more.'

He got up. 'I think you are avoiding answering me, Mr Jameson. And that is because you are guilty. Guilty of a heinous act towards my wife or the child she once was. You are loathsome, sir. And a coward to boot.'

I have never had such words openly directed to me; I felt quite nauseous. I have been prepared for vilification from a number of quarters during my life, but did not expect it from the husband of Daisy Baxter. I stood up too, and felt glad that I was the taller man; it gave an illusion of superiority even though I felt weak as water. 'Heinous act, Mr Constantine? What on earth do you mean?'

'You have used your influence over my wife or over Daisy Baxter, if you insist to take photographs of a vile nature. It is my belief that you have corrupted her.' To my surprise, having delivered himself of this dreadful accusation, he burst into tears copious tears, in fact such as you might expect from a servant girl. I was taken aback. I myself have not wept since Dr Lloyd admonished me that day in his study when I was fourteen years old, and I think it weak of a man to give in to hysteria in this way. But clearly he did not know what he was saying. How could I have 'corrupted' my darling Daisy simply by taking her picture? She was just the same sweet creature afterwards as she was before. And if he found her less lovely because she had shown herself to me in all her innocence, then the fault was with him.

'Neither Daisy nor I did anything we were ashamed of,' I said. 'You have seen something you do not like something that does not meet with your own narrow view of morality and you have jumped to some wild conclusion.'

'I don't think so,' he said, shaking his head and swallowing back his tears. 'Margaret my wife has more or less admitted her sin.'

My innards churned about in a dreadful way as I thought how all the Mrs Grundys in the world would rejoice at my downfall if it was thought I had sinned against a child. But why had Daisy turned against me and born false witness? 'What has she said?' I demanded. 'What is this ”more or less”?'

'She has hardly described it, Mr Jameson,' he said, sarcastically. 'She is a modest woman, after all. But she admitted that she had misled me as to her character before our marriage and that she was ”not as she should be”.'

'Daisy said that?'

'And I have my own very cogent reasons for thinking that her connection with you was of an unchaste nature.'

'What reasons do you have? State them at once.' I was almost choked with a mixture of fear and rage.

'They are intimate and private,' he said, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

I saw immediately that he was not on such firm ground as he was pretending to be. I suspected that he was seeking clarification of something he did not understand, on the evidence of something Daisy did not exactly say (at least, I hoped she had not cast such calumny on me). It seemed that he had come to his conclusion before even hearing the evidence. 'You cannot come here making terrible accusations against me, and then claim ”private and intimate” reasons for not saying why you are making them,' I said. 'At least you can but it would get you nowhere in a court of law. So don't expect me to take such accusations with any seriousness. And if I hear that you have in any way, shape or form spread such accusations abroad, I will invoke the law myself and have you arraigned for slander.'

He looked horrified. 'This is not a matter for the courts, Jameson. Do you think I care nothing for my wife's reputation? If I attack you, I bring her down with you in the full glare of public opinion. I would not do such a thing to her, whatever she may have done to me. I wish only to arrive at the truth.'

'The truth? Ah, what is Truth, as jesting Pilate said although, notably, he did not stay for an answer. Perhaps he knew that there is no truth in this world. There is only the truth of G.o.d.'

This seemed to enrage him. 'Swear to me, then,' he said. 'Swear to me on the truth of G.o.d that nothing impure occurred between you.' He got up and seized a New Testament from my desk, thrusting it at me as if we were engaged in a particularly urgent game of pa.s.s-the-parcel.

'I'm not obliged to do anything of the sort,' I said, declining to take it from him. 'I am not in the dock at the Old Bailey, for all you think you are both judge and jury in this case. It is enough for me to know I am innocent of all charges.' But then it occurred to me that a man as bitter and confused as Constantine was best appeased, if only to stifle further rumour. 'But for Daisy's sake, I will swear,' I said. And I did, taking the book, and reverently and solemnly invoking Christ to be my witness at the Awful Day of Judgement, that I had never laid unchaste hands on Daisy Baxter; that she was as pure when she left my company as when she had come into it.

When I had finished, Constantine put the Testament back on the desk. He seemed uncertain, then, like Dinah, when she used to pounce on her prey, only to discover it had unexpectedly escaped. 'I suppose I must accept what you have said,' he murmured finally.

'Indeed you must, unless you think I would put my eternal soul in jeopardy,' I said. 'Daisy was one of the purest-minded children I have ever met, and unless she has changed with the onset of wifehood' I could not help saying that 'I cannot imagine how there can be any charge made against her.'

He sat down abruptly and put his head in his hands. 'I can only think that her father's madness has affected her more than I thought. It seems he has the power to frighten her still.'

'Still? I am astonished to hear he ever did. In my experience, Daniel Baxter was devoted to his daughter.'

'Forgive me,' he said, glaring up at me. 'But you weren't in the house. You never had to listen to his unfortunate ravings; you never had to restrain the poor man by main force. She's had dreadful dreams about it. She can't clear him from her mind.'

Poor Daisy. I knew she suffered much in that household, trying to meet her father's exacting standards. But I had always thought that Baxter's fierceness had invariably been tempered with love. And he showed that love to all his children, even the imperious Christiana, and the disatisfied Sarah. To tell the truth, I had always envied the ease with which he accepted the due rewards of fatherhood in particular, of course, Daisy's rosy kisses, and her loving presence on his lap. And I'd seen (not without some jealousy on my own part) how his love for her had latterly blossomed, and how pleased she had been to be the object of his new-found attention. Indeed, I'd begun to feel that she no longer looked forward quite so much to the company of a rather eccentric, stammering don when she could have her handsome, doting father to herself. And when she fell ill, I believe no one could have cared for her as devotedly as Daniel certainly I could not have done so.

<script>