A Longer Journey

Godmother

As my father had planned, I went to live with Aunt Emily. I remember my aunt's house in those years as a large, gloomy place, with a number of empty furnished rooms and mysterious attics. I have vague memories of my father living there with me, but his presence dwindled over time. For many years I struggled to reconcile these memories with reality. Had he and I stayed at Aunt Emily's previously, and had I got my chronology mixed up? No; we never had stayed, and our calls there had been brief and chiefly parlour-bound. The inconsistency cost me some discomfort as I grew more aware of time and place: you are lost indeed if you cannot on some level believe your own memory—more lost, I think, than if you have no memory at all.

Aunt Emily didn't engage Welly, but she kept Sue Mossman for me. Josie took a place in the local vicarage and visited us on her days off. I suppose my father must have written Welly a glowing reference before his departure, because, true to all her threats and promises, she did indeed get a better-paid place within one week of leaving us. And I for one am glad of it.

Aunt Emily took seriously her duties as godmother. She kept up my father's tradition of daily Bible readings; she instructed Sue to read me a nightly prayer. She allocated me a garden patch and a whole greenhouse to indulge my gardening tastes. She sent for me sometimes to sit and take tea with her. She bought picture books and toys, including a magnificent rocking-horse. She never verbally excoriated me when I made a noise or a mess, although as time went on I would gladly have exchanged her patient sigh and upward glance for one of Welly's tirades.

I cannot remember Aunt Emily ever calling me by name—either Methusaleh or Thulie—until I was old enough and verbal enough to get past the sigh and glazed eyes and insist upon it. It was always “the child”, or, if addressing me directly, “child”. “Mossman, see that the child takes his exercise outdoors today.” “Remember, child, not to stare at grown-ups; it is most impolite.” “Mossman, kindly teach the child to use a handkerchief to better effect.”

The Vicar and his wife were frequent callers at my aunt's big house. I liked to see them, especially her, because she talked so much. I still loved hearing people talk, and it was becoming more than a friendly noise; I could follow more and more of the meaning, copy some of it myself later on, and think about it.

Likewise, after a year or two, I must have progressed in social acceptability enough to join my aunt for tea when they visited. I remember quite clearly, now, the slightly raised, artificially jollified tone of the Vicar's brief greeting to me, his hesitant pat on my shoulder, the inclination of his head towards Aunt Emily in acknowledgement of the work of charity she was performing in her guardianship of me. His sidelong tribute to her Christian dutifulness was always the same, year on year that I knew him, and yet I experienced it differently each time. At first, only vaguely aware of him, I felt an indefinable trace of guilt that I wasn't something else—maybe that I wasn't an easier ticket to heaven for Aunt Emily. Then it was a transient irritation. At various times thereafter, I puzzled as to what standards I might be falling below, felt contempt for what I could only perceive as unfairness, or amused myself secretly mimicking his mannerisms. I think now—and he must be long since deceased—that he was what you would call a good man: he did what he could and faked what he couldn't. Does anyone do better than that? Those with a deeper capacity to think and to feel may have less pretending to do, but the essence is the same; and I would learn, in my own way, to pretend too.

Mrs Vicar (I cannot remember the surname; my aunt called her Thea; they had known one another from schooldays) usually gave me a kiss and a sixpence.

“My dear,” she said to my aunt, “isn't he growing! Thulie, my love, you look ever so well. Do sit beside me and let's have a nice little chat, shall we? Are you doing your gardening every day, out in the fresh air and sunshine? Emily, dear, how is Thulie's garden growing? Thulie, you must show it to me after tea.”

[“A very bad cold, indeed, Reverend, but one so hates to miss the Thursday meeting,” Aunt Emily was saying to the Vicar.]

“What a big, tall boy you are getting. How old are you now—nine? Ten? I have a grandson just a little younger than you. Oh! Here's Nurse Mossman; good afternoon. Nurse, your Josie is a treasure. Such a good girl; she's making herself ever so useful with the dogs and the mynah. My dear Thulie, you must come to the Vicarage and let her show you my little dogs; you'll love them. Is he good with animals, Emily? I'm sure he's good with animals. Oh, and Thulie, my dear, you'll adore the mynah! Have you ever seen a talking bird? He really talks, like a parrot, you know. Just like a parrot, but so sweet!”

[“So important to look after your health, Mrs Wychworth,” the Vicar was murmuring. “What with supporting a child dependant.”]

“Have you been doing any crayoning of late? I love to see your crayonings. What a busy little life you lead! All this indoor activity, not to mention your gardening work—You mustn't forget to show me all your pot plants.”

I took Mrs Vicar out to my greenhouse after tea, I did some talking, I listened for a while to her conversation with the gardener. I knew he was not fond of quick-paced conversation, and it was amusing for a while to watch him enduring hers, red in the face and obviously wishing himself elsewhere. After a while I returned indoors by myself, and sat down on the bottom stair near the sitting-room doorway, gazing at the effect of the sunlight on the thick coloured panes around the big front door. I found the closed door visually paradoxical: the thing that could open and confer actual freedom was so substantial, so much more opaque than its surrounding, and yet the surrounding panes, not the door, communicated to me the light and the sense of freedom. I could not decide whether I liked it or not.

I was not deliberately eavesdropping: I sat partially within sight of my aunt, if she had turned her chair. She was telling the Vicar how reluctant she was to complain, but something or other was indeed a trial of all her patience.

“Mrs Wychworth, you are working wonders,” the Vicar assured her. “Your brother—God rest his soul—could never have done half so much for him.”

“Thank you, Reverend.... I am not of a nervous or repining disposition, I trust. And yet in many ways he is not what I was prepared for. One almost feels uncomfortable in one's own house. Do you not feel his eyes to appear very large and—er—significant? A deficient child should not look so knowing, surely?”

“Mrs Wychworth, his improved understanding is a testament to your dedicated care.”

“One should welcome any small improvement to his intellect, I am sure,” Aunt Emily sighed. “But one hardly expects—Mossman believes the child is learning to read.”

They were talking about me.

“No, no, Mrs Wychworth, out of the question. Dr Hill—”

“I can read,” I said. Aunt Emily gave a faint scream.

“I can count,” I added.

They were silent, but I didn't approach them. I was still staring down the hallway.

“I want a school,” I told the door.

I had caused fuss and bother, not this time by knocking over an ornament, but by talking. I was glad I had addressed the front door and not my aunt, for it seemed I had said something extremely uncalled-for. The Vicar took out a small, densely-printed book and asked me to read some of it, but I couldn't. Sue Mossman was sent for. She brought out a handful of my Beatrix Potter books, and I recited them word for word. They covered the pictures and showed me pages at random, and I could read most of them, haltingly. Dr Hill's Sunday afternoon was interrupted by a summons to consultation.

The Vicar's wife seemed to be the only person who cared nothing, either for what I had done or for the professional verdict. She sat chatting to me while the doctor gave me a cursory physical examination. She carried on talking, more brightly than ever, while he discussed my case.

“...I'm sure you hardly see your doctor these days, such a stout healthy boy you've become...”

Dr Hill had never seen anything like me. I was a medical aberration.

“...must tell you, my dear, your gardener Meldrew is ever so pleased with how you care for your greenhouse...”

Dr Hill would write to a specialist in Harley Street about me.

“...and what a very knowledgeable man he is; I asked him all about how to bring forward spring bulbs...”

Both Dr Hill and the Vicar concurred in their immediate advice: if I were not, after all, ineducable, I should be educated.

Aunt Emily acquiesced, as to a trial that must be borne with courage and longsuffering. She clearly found my recovery quite as disconcerting as my original condition, if not more so. I wonder how many people there are in the world who can bear with tragedy most dutifully but cannot take joy in surprises? If Jesus himself had walked down my aunt's street dispensing miracles of healing and freedom, I am convinced my aunt would have preferred to quietly hang on to whatever her complaint might have been.

At all events, I was not to go to a school, it was decided. I could be taught to read, write and do sums at home, and Sue was offered double wages to teach me.

Poor Sue was scared out of her wits. “But Mam, I'm a nurse is what I am, Mam,” she almost wailed. “A sick-nurse rightly, Mam, being hospital-trained and all. Begging your pardon, Mam, I can't do governess for you, never mind what pay.”

My aunt sighed, and visibly, if not audibly, sent up a prayer for patience.

“We will look out a tutor for the child,” Aunt Emily said at last. “In the meantime, Mossman, kindly give him one hour a day with letters and numbers. I will see you are supplied with alphabet books and all you need. Your wages will rise by fifty percent and your reference, when required, will reflect your willingness to oblige.”