‘She could fare worse,’ Miss Downes said, pushing her glasses back on to her nose with one finger. ‘She has no aptitude for anything other than domestic work.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Geoff spoke. He sat forward in his chair, putting a warning hand on his wife’s to calm her. He knew Lou was on the point of blurting out that Miss Downes had no ‘aptitude’ for working with children, but that wouldn’t help Charity. ‘Charity hasn’t had a chance to shine at anything else, but she’s intelligent and a great deal quicker than you give her credit for. Can you possibly imagine what it would do to her if she was sent away from the children to look after some grumpy old cripple in the middle of nowhere?’
‘Well it’s not ideal,’ Miss Downes agreed with a shrug of her shoulders.
Geoffrey Charles had never considered himself anything but fortunate. He had married the woman he loved, pursued a career in biology that excited him. His grandmother had left him this house and with his writing they had enough money to live comfortably. Having no children of their own was a disappointment, but they’d compensated by helping children in need.
When the Strattons arrived they’d had no thought of holding on to them for more than a few weeks. But that was then – before he’d taken Prue and Toby sailing boats on the pond, before he’d bounced James up and down on his knee and felt the deep need in Charity.
She loved her brothers and sister passionately and could care for them almost singlehandedly; take them away, and she had nothing.
Barely able to read, her spelling was appalling and she could manage no more than the simplest of sums. But she had a quick mind. With tuition she could get a decent job, with love she could flourish …
‘I am backing my wife in this,’ he said, turning to Miss Downes, his gentle face for once hard and unyielding. ‘Maybe the ideas Colonel Pennycuick has for Toby and Prue might be feasible and even desirable. But you must do everything in your power to make sure James stays with us and that Charity is allowed to choose her own job.’
Miss Downes wilted under his stern gaze.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said and blinked furiously. ‘But as I’m sure you’ve realised, Colonel Pennycuick is a very difficult man.’
Chapter Four
‘Read it again, Charity,’ Uncle Geoff leaned back in his deckchair, tucking his hands behind his head. ‘This time think about the beautiful words and put some passion into it.’
‘I can’t,’ Charity giggled. ‘I feel silly.’
They were alone in the garden, reading the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It was three months since the fire and Charity was settled and happy.
A glorious June day, the sky a canopy of blue velvet. Leaves on bushes and climbing shrubs glossy with newness. Brilliant purple, blue and yellow pansies fronted clumps of lupins, with towering delphiniums taking up the rear, hiding the fence in a wall of colour.
‘Why should you feel silly?’ Geoff lifted one eyebrow enquiringly. ‘It’s just you and me! Is it right to read it like a shopping list when you feel your heart touched by the words?’
Charity picked up the book again.
She loved her lessons with him. He brought books and poetry alive, she was always hungry for more. Until she came to live with the Charleses it had even been a struggle to read Enid Blyton, but now she had her nose in a book almost continually.
‘I wish I could learn maths as fast,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to grasp that!’
‘You’ve achieved a great deal there too,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Not all of us are born with mathematical minds. You’ve mastered the basics, you can add up a row of figures, multiply and divide, that’s enough to get by with.’
‘Cup of tea?’ Lou called out.
James came out into the garden wearing only a pair of pants, his bucket and spade in his hands. His first proper haircut had changed him from a baby into a little boy. He appeared to have grown a couple of inches in as many months, but his face was as endearingly cheeky as ever.
‘That’s enough learning for one day.’ Geoff gathered up the books, put them in a pile and got up to stretch. ‘Hullo James, where are you off to, the seaside?’
‘Make a castle,’ he said, running across the lawn to the sandpit they’d made for him at the bottom of the garden.
Charity lowered the back of her chair, sat down again and leaned back.
In Greenwich the house had been stuffy and gloomy, with smells coming up from the drains and the river, and even the air made her feel tired. Here she woke early to look out at the garden, excitement rising inside her at the prospect of the day ahead.
After Prue and Toby had gone to school her lessons started: English, maths and science with Uncle Geoff; history and geography with Auntie Lou. Usually after lunch she took James out for a walk so the Charleses could get on with their own work, or sometimes she wrote an essay for the following morning. But even when she wasn’t having formal lessons, she was learning. Watching and listening to Lou and Geoff, reading and discussing the news in the papers. It was as if her brain had been expanded, making so much more room she could cram with fascinating information.
She thought less and less of the past now. Sometimes it seemed like a story she’d read, nothing to do with her at all. She’d refused to see a doctor and Auntie Lou had forgotten all about it.
Charity glanced down at her bust. It was beginning to grow at last and after a course of iron tablets her periods had started, which finally stopped her vague fear that she might be pregnant. Since then she had discovered new confidence in almost every direction, particularly where Geoff was concerned. She could kiss him goodnight now, she didn’t back away if he slung an arm round her shoulder. Once or twice she’d even let him cuddle her.
‘So how is our little Elizabeth Browning?’ Lou came out with a tray of tea and put it down on the grass.
It gave her immense pleasure to see the new colour in Charity’s cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes and the extra pounds she’d put on. She would always be slender, but she was growing prettier every day now the haunted look had gone. She had all the energy and enthusiasm of a puppy; given another year, she’d be a beauty.
Geoff came back and sat down on the grass by their feet. He wore faded baggy khaki shorts and an equally old shirt open over his bare chest. His bushy beard was rather at odds with his almost bald head.
‘Are you going to be mother?’ he grinned up at his wife. ‘Or has the morning sweating over a hot stove earned you the privilege of indolence?’
‘You do it.’ Lou lay back in her deckchair and pushed her hair back from her face.
The sun had brought out a crop of freckles all over her face, arms and shoulders. She wore a faded sundress with thin straps and her legs were bare.
Charity was in turn appalled, delighted and curious at her foster parents’ lack of style. They had no interest in material things. Lou spent money on flowers for the house, Geoff collected books, but they never bought new clothes for themselves.
‘Shabby is comfortable,’ Lou had said more than once and she would make Charity laugh with her version of a quotation from the Bible, ‘Consider the Charleses of Clapham. They write books that nobody reads, they know things no one cares to share and King Solomon in all his glory had better clothes than they.’
‘We had a letter from your Uncle Stephen today,’ Auntie Lou said as her husband passed her tea. ‘He’s invited you for a holiday. How about it?’
Charity had noticed that Lou always fired out things that were troubling her. No hedging or dressing them up.
‘Do I have a choice?’ Charity asked.
‘Not really.’ Lou sighed and looked to her husband for support. ‘He’s your guardian, and I’m sure you are as curious about him as he must be about you.’
Charity was curious. She liked the thought of having rather grand relatives and she wanted to know more about her mother. But she was scared of them too.
‘I don’t have to stay if I don’t
like it, do I?’ Her voice shook.
‘No of course not.’ Geoff reached out and patted her hand. ‘If you hate it, just phone us and we’ll make the excuses for you. But try to stick with it, sweetheart, think of it as a bit of family research.’
‘When do I go?’ Charity was torn now between fright and excitement.
‘He suggested this Friday.’ Lou was leaning down pouring herself another cup of tea to avoid looking at Charity directly. ‘Geoff will put you on the train and they’ll pick you up at Oxford.’
‘I hope they like me,’ Charity blurted out in a moment of pure panic.
‘There’s something wrong with them if they don’t,’ Uncle Geoff retorted. ‘Mind you, we’d better gloss up on some Kipling before you leave. Old soldiers usually go more for him than Elizabeth Browning.’
Lou and Geoff weren’t happy about Colonel Pennycuick becoming the children’s guardian, but there was nothing they could do about it. Their first impressions of him as a crusty, bombastic man hadn’t changed. If anything they were even more wary of him. He spoke of the children like men under his command. There was no compassion for what they’d been through, or even real interest in their personalities.
Geoff had written a long impassioned letter explaining not only the need for stability in their future lives but the Charleses’ own desire to act as parents, even if it was decided that Prue and Toby should go away to school.
The Colonel’s reply had daunted them. His curious statement ‘as their legal guardian he had a duty to safeguard their future in the most cost-effective manner’, left them wondering if he thought his nieces and nephews were like furniture which had to be stored at the cheapest price.
Now he was demanding that Charity should visit him, and although Charity’s health and appearance had improved since her stay with the Charleses, neither of them felt she was ready to cope with further upset.
Charity’s heart was fluttering so wildly she thought she might faint.
At first it had been fun to be on a train alone. She had a magazine, a cake and some fruit. Every now and then she would look in the new handbag Auntie Lou had bought her, just the way grown-up women did. She had a pale pink lipstick in there, a comb, a clean handkerchief, her ticket and a purse full of money. There was even a small mirror in a felt pouch tucked in with photographs of the children.
But now she was almost there she was so scared she felt sick.
‘Next stop, love.’ The cheery guard opened the sliding door and reached up to swing her small case down from the luggage rack. ‘Have a good holiday!’
A rosy-faced woman smiled up at Charity as she made her way into the corridor.
‘Don’t look so scared,’ she said soothingly. ‘I bet they’re every bit as nervous as you.’
This lady had offered her tea from her flask and Charity had explained where she was going but the conversation had been halted when the lady dropped off to sleep.
Charity managed a tight smile and, case in hand, went to wait by the door.
She paused as she stepped down from the train into bright afternoon sunshine. Oxford station was tiny after the London ones, but there were dozens of people waiting to get on or meeting people. Uncle Geoff had sent a photograph of her to the Pennycuicks, but she had no idea who would be meeting her.
Moving out of the way of the train seemed the best idea. She pushed through the crowd and went over to a mail trolley to wait.
There was a woman in a red hat who seemed to be looking for someone, but she was too young to be grandmother. There was an old lady with blue rinsed hair, but somehow she didn’t look right. There was an entire family meeting a man: his children were hugging his legs, clamouring over each other to get close while his wife kissed him passionately on the lips. They made her think of Geoff and Lou and already she was homesick.
Grit from the open train window seemed to be stuck in her eyes, her hands felt sticky and dirty and her hair had gone all limp since this morning. She wished she dared slip into the toilets to wash and brush up, but she was afraid to move.
‘Miss Charity?’
An elderly male voice made her wheel round sharply.
‘Hullo,’ she replied, startled by the rather formal ‘Miss’ being put before her name. ‘Are you Uncle Stephen?’
The man was old, perhaps seventy, with stooped shoulders and a long, thin, weatherbeaten face. It seemed odd that he was wearing a navy blue suit and a peaked cap.
‘Me!’ He laughed, showing crooked yellow teeth. ‘No, I’m Jackson.’
Charity looked puzzled, but Jackson picked up her case in one hand. ‘I’m the general dogsbody: today I’m your chauffeur, tomorrow gardener or handyman. I’d have known you, Miss Charity, even without getting a look-see at your picture. You’re the image of Miss Gwen when she was young.’
‘You knew my mother?’ Charity tried to stay by his side, but the crush of people kept separating them. Considering his age, bowed legs and stooped shoulders, he moved nimbly.
‘Right from a little tot. I was with the brigadier, your grandfather, as his batman. Through the first war, right up to when he retired. Then I stayed on at Studley to help with the colonel when he lost his legs.’
Charity gulped. When they’d said her uncle was crippled in the war, she’d imagined nothing more than a limping man on sticks.
‘It makes him a bit grumpy sometimes, but his bark’s worse than his bite, if you know what I mean. Don’t you get upset now if he’s a bit sharp.’
That sounded ominously like a warning and she felt he’d moved on from her mother a bit fast too. She wasn’t sure whether to question him further in case she appeared too nosy.
Jackson led Charity to the old Daimler, smiling at the way her eyes widened in delight at the gleaming car.
‘It’s like my baby,’ he admitted, running his hand over the highly polished bonnet. ‘My wife thinks I care more about it than I do about her.’
Charity felt very small, sitting in the back of the car, sliding around on the leather seat. It made her think of her parents’ funeral and she clutched her handbag tight to her stomach for comfort.
This morning she’d thought she looked really smart in her circular skirt, goosegirl blouse and short navy blue jacket, but now her skirt was crumpled, there was an orange juice stain on her blouse and her jacket was shedding balls of blue fluff. To her further horror there was a ladder in her new nylons. Whatever would her grandmother and uncle think of her?
‘These are all part of the university.’ Jackson half turned his head towards her, pointing towards majestic buildings on either side of a wide road.
Charity forgot her appearance and her anxiety for a moment.
‘It’s very beautiful,’ she said, awed now as she remembered Uncle Geoff speaking of punting on the river, splendid gardens and the halls being so different from one another. ‘Is my uncle’s house nearby?’
‘It’s right out in the country, love. But there’s a bus comes in, or maybe your grandmother will bring you in again to look around.’
Charity was distracted for a moment as they drove over a narrow humpbacked bridge. Weeping willows hung right over the river and at last she saw the punts Geoff had mentioned.
‘I never got the hang of that meself,’ Jackson chuckled. ‘Years ago I took a young lady out in one to impress her and I fell in. Made a real fool of meself.’
‘What’s my grandmother like?’ Charity asked, wriggling forward on the seat to get closer to Jackson. His friendly admission made her feel a little braver.
He didn’t answer for a moment and Charity found his need to think out a reply disconcerting.
‘She’s a real lady,’ he said eventually. ‘A game old girl. Since the brigadier died she seems to have aged quickly, but she’s still very active.’
They were out of the town now and driving down narrow country lanes. They passed through several tiny villages with pretty stone cottages, but Jackson remained stubbornly silent until they came to a brow of a hill.
‘That’s Studley Priory,’ he said, slowing down and pointing over to Charity’s right.
Her mouth fell open in astonishment. She had expected a big house, and knew too that it was very old, but she hadn’t imagined anything so awe-inspiring.
Studley Priory was at least a mile away, set on a small hill as if surveying the surrounding open countryside. A mellow grey stone mansion with pointed gables, it was flanked by tall trees.
‘I can’t go there,’ she whispered, suddenly terribly afraid.
Jackson heard her whisper and his heart went out to her. He could remember his feelings of awe when he accompanied the brigadier there the first time back in 1919.
He stopped the car and turned to her. All colour had gone from her face.
‘It’s just a house,’ he said gently, ‘even if it is big. Nothing to be scared of, and it’s your family home, remember.’
‘But …’ Her lips quivered and she couldn’t voice the thoughts in her head. She belonged in a city, in an ordinary house, with ordinary people.
‘Know what I thought when I first went in there?’ Jackson said comfortingly, inwardly cursing Mrs Pennycuick for not coming to the station to meet her grandchild the way any normal grandmother would. ‘I thought I was having a dream where everything was giant-sized and I was the size of an ant. I was older than you are now, and I’d already been to France and seen all sorts. But I had me first cup of tea in the kitchen and I looked around me and then I said “Well Jackson, they are only people that live here, just like you. They all blow their noses, they use the lav and wipe their backsides. The only difference between them and me is they’ve got money and I ain’t.” It worked, y’know! After that I weren’t scared no more.’
Charity smiled weakly at his irreverence.
‘That’s better,’ he grinned, showing his yellow teeth. ‘A couple of days and you’ll be right as rain. Just keep reminding yourself about what I said.’
Charity sat on the edge of the seat as the car turned off the road on to a drive overhung by trees. Her stomach was in knots with fear and she clung to the leather strap as the car hit a rut.
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