BY PHILIP LOWE

My dearest wife has written her own memories in a book and has inspired me to write my own. I feel a little cautious in sharing my own memories of relationships and journeys. As long as everything I have experienced has brought me here, it is excusable.

I pray that our children do not experience the doubt, duplicity, and pain that I had.

I do not wish to deny the work my father must have effected, yet I believe, as my own future has taught me, he could have behaved differently—not only towards me.

My early teenage years became ripe picking fields. As I grew, my opinions changed.

At times, I recalled memories I thought were lost. Some were too uncomfortable. I have been able to reflect many times on motives and aspirations, yet it seems there has always been a different hand directing my path.

I do not know how my wife has relieved her life and her own difficulties. She must be so much stronger than me. Reader, I love her.

Grandfather

I cannot remember exactly when this visit happened. I do remember that beforehand, I was strolling outside near the kitchen and saw a young, dark-skinned man. He just looked at me. I was surprised at his offence and assumed he was a member of the

staff, or a relative thereof. He did not look at all perturbed to see me; it would have been a different story if my father were here. I noted there were the beginnings of a beard on his face. I thought he looked rather magnificent.

My father was away on another “business” trip. Just then, a member of staff I had seen before called me to the front of the building, where I was met with a coat and a carriage. My mother was there and helped me with the coat, but no Pierre. On the journey from Thornhill, near Derby, I was told I was to visit my grandfather, my mother’s father, for the first time.

I wondered why I was not forewarned about such a visit. 

I was shocked on arrival at his house; it looked rather small and grubby. The surrounding houses looked similar. Certainly tiny compared to Thornfield.

My grandfather met me at his door; a smiling man, which I thought was very unusual. Immediately, his dwelling seemed noisy—people were unceremoniously leaving and entering his door, as if some event were taking place. It felt cramped and full of activity. 

There were many in his house, and my mother disappeared into the kitchen, I thought (not knowing why). We had arrived in the middle of a conversation about a “Fawkes.” I thought they were talking about the near collapse of Parliament some years before. It turns out I was wrong; there was a different Fawkes—a man in the company of my grandfather (and I do not know who that was) had been seen locally “performing.” Not the man famed for political violence then.

The conversation involved a great deal of laughter, to which I was most unused.

I was taken into a number of rooms, all filled with cheerful talk and laughter. All very foreign to me. In one room, a man offered me a sip from his glass. So I could see all was “above board,” he took a gulp of the stuff. I slipped some of the black liquid, shuddered, and spat it out onto the floor. It tasted vile; my behaviour seemed to cause another eruption of laughter. I was worried that I would be in trouble for a messy floor. No such repercussion hit me.

All fell silent as an old woman arrived. She was evidently known to the group in the room, who bowed to her and made space for her.

She spoke with a slow, tremulous voice. She appeared to be speaking a foreign language, yet I somehow understood her. Her teeth seemed unnaturally white, yet her eyes kept me focussing on her as she directed her words and attentions to me. I was rather out of sorts here.

From beneath a vast, dark red woolen shawl, she produced a set of what turned out to be tarot cards. The scriptures tell us to have nothing to do with fortune telling, from cards, stars, or anything else. God is enough. So I was dismissive, if not scared, of those cards.

She held a finger up, then beckoned for me to come close. My eyes shut. I felt her hand exploring over my head; her hand lingered on a lump I have at the bottom of the rear of my skull.

I assumed she was diagnosing me in some sort of phrenological way. She herself has many layers of material on her hair. And grey hair sprouting therefrom.

She then said, “This young man is special in that he shall escape the confines of his experience; his head tells me he shall be married to an unexpected woman.” She then swooned and fell towards numerous hands that stood, and then sat her down

“He is… a … family …” She then burst out laughing, as did all the surrounding men. She removed her headdresses as she laughed. She turned out to be my grandfather, who laughed long and ruffled my hair. His surrounding audience laughed and applauded. He was given another glassful of the black liquid, which he greedily drank, and pulled me towards him; he kissed me and pulled me to his lap. This was utterly new to me, but I found I loved it—being the centre of attention and hearing raucous laughter. Even hearing my grandfather magically change his voice was a treat for me.

After this performance, several men left; I was surprised to see some men kissing each other and embracing goodbye. Some laughed as they did it. I was later told by a member of the kitchen staff at Thornfield that this was a “very theatrical” thing to do. I was certainly not surprised to discover that the Bible is obviously against such behaviour between men. Perhaps I had seen in my grandfather’s house some sort of ritual. Certainly, my grandfather emerging from female wrappings was exceedingly strange. The men I saw had beards, mustaches, facial hair; my young mind could not cope with such things.

I returned home with my mother, and we made a stop not far from my grandfather’s house. A friend of my mother, Ruth, lived there alone with her two dogs. The presence—and scent—of the dogs reminded me that I had been there before and why Pierre had not joined us. He does not like, and indeed is afraid of, dogs. When he was very small, a dog had snapped at his face as he was rather too close. Pierre wore a small scratch after that.

The dogs seemed a lot smaller than when I last saw them. I recall them being huge, snarling things.

When I first saw them, I, too, was nervous, yet my mother had said that they were well-trained, but I thought they were going to attack me, and I hid behind her. Indeed, they never did attack. They just went and lay by the fireplace. 

On this visit, one dog was unwell and, on its way out of the back door through the kitchen, defecated on the floor to much concern, congratulations, and demonstration of love from its owner. After she stroked it, she cleaned the detritus away; the owner was saying it was “such a shame” that the illness had caused this.

I thought at the time, if a child did anything like this—me certainly—the child would be mercilessly punished. So some dogs, horses, and other animals may be treated better than people. How unfair.

On the way back, my mother told me (when she was not sobbing) Ruth’s story. He had known her since they were both children. They both had dreams of marrying rich men; yet in their early teens, Ruth met and fell in love with a young, unmonied man.

Ruth confronted her parents, who saw her choice of man as extremely disappointing. They fought over a number of years.

Caught up in memories, my mother began to weep loudly.

When she settled down, my mother said that, with great reluctance, Ruth’s parents agreed to her marriage. Ruth became pregnant very quickly; all seemed happy.

Yet he died a few months later, leaving her pregnant and alone. She gave birth at the expected time, yet the baby only lived a few hours. Tragically, Ruth’s father died soon after. He was followed by his wife soon after.

My mother had known Ruth all her life, but could not offer the help she wanted to because of her occupation, nor what Ruth needed.

Ruth was left penniless and homeless. After some time, she began to make and sell her own preserves, and we took away a boxload when we left. Both women held each other and wept as we left. 

All that my mother could say on the return to Thornfield was that Ruth was now a “silk thrower,” whatever that was.

It was clear that my mother had no desire for my words or company.

When I returned i took it upon myself to deliver Ruth’s preserves to the kitchen, and I thought about going outside where I had seen the dark-skinned young man earlier, but Pierre wanted my attention as my mother was in no condition to give hers.

The next day, sure enough, the young man was there, this time accompanied by a ball. Again, he looked at me, but this time kicked the ball in my direction and smiled a welcoming smile.

He introduced himself as Adan. His mother’s name was Ambrosine. I had seen her already several times serving with the other kitchen staff—she was a large black woman I remembered. Adam had been warned that he was in an unusual position, extremely strange given my father’s hatred of black people. Adan’s mother must have kept herself hidden, only emerging when my father was away. I did not hold my own feelings for my father back from Adan—why would I want to protect him?

Adan showed me how he could control the ball at his feet with his knees, upper legs, shoulders, and head. I thought this was amazing, I had had nobody to learn from, until now.

Adan warned me about using my head when the ball was wet. He told me he tried this once and knocked himself out. I did not know if it was how he told this story, but we found ourselves hopelessly laughing. I had never laughed so much before, and Adan’s status immeasurably leaped in my opinion.

We got along well and met and talked and played in the small space he was allowed whenever I could make it away; my father was often away on business trips abroad (so he said), and my mother was busy, if not with Pierre, then with a thousand other things.

He would have to go promptly to his meals, and his mother warned—quite unnecessarily, I thought at the time—that I should never try to emulate how he talked. I never thought he had an unusual voice—no matter how hard I listened. Certainly, he emphasized certain things, but I did not try to copy him. What a silly idea, I thought. Anyway, who was she thinking about? I am a poor mimic; anyway, Adan’s mother had obviously been warned about this before. 

I am not clear regarding how we came to talk of it; I was probably talking about Christmas or Easter or something. I was talking about “the Lord’s birth” or “the Lord’s death,” and Adan began to laugh. I asked him what was making him laugh. He said, “He is not my Lord!” It turned out that he did not follow my faith, as he was Jewish!

An Ashkenazi Jew to boot, he said.

I did not know what to make of this. I did not know that there were different types of Jews. He said that he looked inside a church—briefly—when he lived in Alsace. He said he was astonished by the amount of statuary and the number of pictures there were. 

He said that surely the presence of such images must take focus from God? I remembered when I was very young, a teacher—or what I thought was a teacher—near our front door showed a picture of the Virgin to the children gathered to hear him; he did not seem interested in what he was saying but I recall a girl looking at the image with adoration and she leant her head against the image as if it was a person. I thought at the time that this was a dangerous possession.

Adan said that, most importantly, it defies the first commandment. He then said—and this was the only time he mentioned Christ—that in Christianity believers are encouraged to love God with all heart, soul and mind. Nothing should stand in the way of this excellent relationship. God should always come first.