After Such Kindness Read Online Free PDF

uncovered if I leave it here. Some Arbuthnot child will come across it, in an innocent quest for toys and games, and set free its secrets. Because I know there are secrets even though I can’t remember what they are. They are part of that hidden time, those dark years that I cannot account for. And while I remember writing in the book, I don’t remember hiding it, or indeed why I did so – except there is a horror attached to it all. Daisy did well, burying it here. My sisters were far too grown-up to go rooting around for toys, while my brother would have disdained to engage himself with such girlish items as books and board games. Time and neglect (and a covering of carpet) have done the rest. But now it has come into my hands again.
    But what to do? The word ‘private’ won’t protect it now. It must be destroyed. And not just torn up, but burned to unknowable cinders. I delve back through the contents of the chest, pitching out everything that I have just replaced until I come to it again. I seize it and make for the grate. But the fire is paltry, a mere cage of powdery grey coals. I take the poker and try to ginger up a blaze, but I can only manage a small flame or two. And this book is too robust. The pages will only smoulder, leaving blackened words to be deciphered by the servant when she rakes the cinders or (worse) to be spotted by my husband when he comes to fetch me home. No, I need to take it to the scullery, shove it deep into the kitchen furnace, turn it to harmless ash in seconds. I should go now, immediately, down the back stairs, pell-mell, before I have time to think. My mind is ahead of me, already going down the staircase, sensing the familiar curve of the wall as it descends to the next floor. But my feet don’t move and the book seems to grow heavy in my hands, as if it, too, is resisting leaving the room. A new voice cajoles me. Read me , it seems to say . Read me now . I feel an absurd degree of panic at the thought. And yet, to cast such precious childhood writings unread into the fire seems suddenly too drastic, too irretrievable. Again that voice tempts me. Don’t destroy me , it says. Read a little at least. You never know. I may have the answer .
    I finger the cover. The scarlet leather is still soft, the gold-leaf decoration still bright. It seems hardly to have aged, like a saint found whole and incorrupt after years in the grave. But in the end, it’s only leather and paper bound together. And as for what’s inside – well, Daisy always had such an imagination – it ran away with her at times. There’ll be no great secrets here. In fact, I’ll probably smile when I see what foolish things she’s written.
    I sink onto the threadbare rug, careless of my fine new honeymoon frock, and open it.There on the flyleaf, reassuringly bland, is the greeting from my parents: To our dear Daisy on her eleventh birthday . It’s in my father’s handwriting, precise and firm, and the roots of my hair ripple a little with remembrance. And underneath, in my own unformed copperplate, I’ve recorded my full name and address with exceptional neatness. I can still remember how I measured each line to make sure that the words fitted in exactly.
    I turn the page. And there it is: my very first entry, the same clear, pencilled writing.
Saturday 7th June 1862. My birthday.
    All sorts of things have happened today. I had some extremely nice presents and my friends came for a picnic, and Mr Jameson and Papa punted us up the river further than we have ever been. It was all extremely exilarating. But then just when I thought nothing could be more perfect, it was all spoiled.
    (Oh, dear God, of course – the fateful birthday party. And the even more fateful trip up the river. It was the day that my friendship with John Jameson started in earnest, the day when I noticed him properly for the first time.)
Mama says we must all be grateful that it wasn’t worse. And I am, of course, although I wish it hadn’t