‘I might not be here when you marry,’ the old lady said as she held them up to Charity’s cheek. ‘They go with your eyes and they never belonged to the Pennycuick family: that’s enough reason to give them to you.’
It was their background that weakened Charity. She clipped them on to her ears and smiled down at her grandmother. ‘How do I look?’ she said, sweeping her hair up on top of her head.
‘Like a duchess.’ The old lady smiled. ‘Now wear them with pride. My grandfather gave them to Grandmother on her wedding day.’
Charity looked at herself in the mirror above the fireplace. She loved them. They were dainty, they did match her eyes and they made her feel wonderful.
‘I can’t take them.’ She took them off reluctantly and held them out to her grandmother. ‘They are too valuable, I’d be afraid of losing them. Besides, Uncle Stephen wouldn’t like it.’
‘Nonsense,’ Grandmother snapped. ‘I told you why I want you to have them. They suit you just as they did me and my mother before that. My son will have everything else when I go, but he has no right to these.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Charity walked into the kitchen to find Margaret filling Kilner jars with gooseberries on the kitchen table.
‘Can I help?’ she asked. ‘I’m at a bit of a loose end, Toby and Prue have gone off to the riding stables and I’m not going back to London till this evening.’
‘You can pour in the sugared water, if you like.’ Margaret wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘But you should get on out in the sunshine, you’ll be stuck behind your desk tomorrow.’
Although Margaret had been in her new job for only a few days she had already made a great many observations about the residents in the household. She was a lively and energetic fifty-year-old, her own two sons were grown up and recently emigrated to Canada, her husband Tom retired. She had already decided this was a position she could be happy in: she liked to keep busy and care for people, but more than that she’d taken these motherless children to her heart.
Charity lifted the big enamel jug and began to pour the liquid over the fruit. She liked Margaret. In many ways she reminded her of Mrs Cod at Bowes Court, with the same kind of brisk efficiency and jovial warmth. A short, stout woman with iron-grey permed hair, she had a youthful, unlined face. Although she waddled rather than walked and her big white apron emphasised her plump body, she accomplished her workload with remarkable calmness and speed. The cake tins were full of delicious homemade cakes and biscuits, and now she was looking ahead to the winter with bottled fruit. She’d even made the kitchen look more cheery with geraniums on the windowsill.
Margaret guessed that Charity had something on her mind and she was concerned that a girl of only twenty-one seemed to take on so much responsibility.
‘Don’t you go worrying about anything,’ she said. ‘Pat and me have got the house sorted now, and Nurse Giles is a brick.’
‘I think you should ask Prue and Toby to help out sometimes,’ Charity said.
Margaret glanced at Charity. Her blonde hair was so shiny and silky, her pale blue minidress the height of fashion, yet this pretty young girl seemed so much older than her years. She and Dawn Giles were puzzled about why the colonel had something against her: both of them would be proud to have her as a daughter, let alone a niece.
‘I’ll give them a few cookery lessons,’ Margaret replied. ‘Then they’ll be able to cope on my day off.’
‘I hope you can manage when James arrives later this month.’ Charity smiled. ‘He’s only eight and I’m a bit concerned Toby and Prue will leave him to his own devices too much.’
‘I’m well used to little boys.’ Margaret’s face glowed with pleasure at the prospect. ‘He can come in here and play with a bit of pastry and things. If the other two had had a bit of that they wouldn’t be such strangers to a kitchen now. But maybe you could come down for a weekend then and see him for yourself?’
‘I haven’t had an invitation yet.’ Charity raised one eyebrow, knowing Margaret understood the situation very well.
Margaret lifted the loaded jars on to a tray ready to put it into the oven, then glanced up at the clock. ‘It’s nearly time for elevenses,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go and have a chat now with Mrs Pennycuick? I’ll bring you in some coffee in a minute.’
As Charity walked into the drawing room she saw her grandmother had nodded off in her chair by the window. She looked so sweet and small, her head resting on the winged chair-back, her glasses sliding down her nose and the unread newspaper folded on her lap.
Charity stood at one of the long windows looking out, a feeling of peace filling her. A gap in the bushes by the railings on the far side of the drive gave a view over the fields right across to Beckley. It had rained constantly over the weekend, but now the sun had come out again and everything looked shiny and new. A couple of birds were bathing in a puddle on the drive and Morris the gardener was clipping the yew hedge, his pipe dangling from the corner of his mouth.
Stephen was listening to the morning story on his wireless in his room. Nurse Giles was out in the laundry. The hum of the vacuum cleaner suggested that Pat was cleaning Grandmother’s room.
It was disappointing that Toby and Prue had scooted off so early this morning. Charity had hoped they would spend her last day with her, but they had been cooped up the whole weekend.
Charity felt content, even sorry to be leaving. Stephen had come round enough to offer a little grudging respect. Grandmother and she had become close. It would take a little longer perhaps to really find Prue and Toby again, but the first steps had been taken and Charity didn’t think the door to Studley was going to close behind her for good when she left tonight.
Glancing round, she noticed her grandmother’s nose was running and she moved over to her, taking a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe it.
But as she put her hand gently on the old lady’s cheek, the coldness of her skin sent a shudder of alarm down Charity’s spine.
‘Granny!’ she said, caressing the old wrinkled face. ‘Granny, you’re cold.’
She knew at once, even though she’d never seen death before. It was no chill from a draught. Her grandmother was dead, even if she looked as if she was in a peaceful sleep.
She ran to her uncle’s room next door, barging in without knocking.
He was sitting by the wireless, resting his head on one hand, his elbow on the arm of his chair.
‘Uncle Stephen,’ she cried, her eyes welling with tears. ‘It’s Grandmother. I think she’s dead.’
He sat up straight, eyes widening in shock, his face blanching. Charity caught hold of his chair, turned it and pushed him towards the door.
‘Get Nurse Giles, you fool!’ he yelled at her, as they reached the drawing room, Charity propelling his chair towards his mother. ‘Now!’
Charity had wished Stephen a thousand punishments in the past. But never this.
She heard his bellow of pain before she got to the hall and looked back to see him bent over in his chair, his head in his mother’s lap, arms trying to enfold her small body.
Nurse Giles could do nothing but confirm what Charity already knew. They drew the heavy curtains between them, then Charity phoned the doctor while the nurse tried to prise the sobbing Stephen from his mother’s body.
It had been eleven when Charity found her grandmother but time seemed to stand still from that moment. She remembered Prue and Toby returning from the stables on their bikes, seeing their flushed faces blanch and dissolve into tears as she broke the sad news.
‘But I went in to see her this morning, and she was fine then,’ Prue sobbed. ‘We shouldn’t have gone out riding.’
‘She asked me to get her some chocolate,’ Toby said, covering his face with his hands as if he didn’t want anyone to see him cry. ‘I forgot about it.’
‘Don’t blame yourselves for anything,’ Charity said soothingly, herself crying for the old lady who had become dearer to her e
ach day. ‘The doctor said the heart attack struck her while she was asleep, she never knew a moment’s pain.’
Over and above the sounds of Toby and Prue’s grief was the terrifying noise of Stephen’s anguish. Wailing, sobbing and incoherent ramblings to Nurse Giles from the drawing room seemed to fill the whole house, echoing eerily around the stone walls of the hall and sending cold shivers down Charity’s spine.
‘I’m so sorry uncle.’ Charity lay one hand on Stephen’s shoulder. The undertakers had carried Grandmother through to the cold, still room just across the passage from Stephen’s room.
Charity wished she could do more to comfort Stephen. Nurse Giles had helped him on to his Chesterfield and given him a sedative, but he looked crumpled and old, his face yellow in the gloom. Yet even though she felt his loss and shared in his grief she couldn’t hold him, or even find the right words.
Nothing much in Stephen’s room had changed in six years. Charity’s eyes were drawn to the mock battle scene, and she remembered him shouting at his mother just a few days earlier for knocking over a couple of lead soldiers.
‘I’ve got nothing now.’ His large head sunk to his chest, all the power gone from his voice. ‘I’m all alone.’
‘No you aren’t,’ Charity said gently. ‘You’ve got the children still, and your mother was so old and frail. Have a little sleep now. I’ll come back later to see how you are.’
‘No one understands,’ he wept, great tears of self-pity rolling down his fat cheeks. ‘I thought we had years together yet. I wanted to get the house restored so she could see it.’
‘She was tired,’ Charity soothed him. ‘I think she was ready to go.’
She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, the closest she’d ever got to him.
‘I’m here to take care of things,’ she said. ‘Ring your bell if you need anything.’
It was four in the afternoon, but it felt much later. Silence pressed in on Charity as she made her way through the house to the kitchen. Nurse Giles had gone to the village to collect a prescription, and Margaret had gone home for a couple of hours. Charity assumed Toby and Prue were up in their rooms, but she was too wrung out and tense to join them. She needed fresh air.
Charity slumped down on a bench just outside the kitchen door with a glass of orange squash, a hundred and one thoughts crowding into her mind. Someone ought to phone Lou and Geoff to prepare James. Could Rita manage the office alone for another week? Would Stephen pull himself together in the next day or two enough to make the funeral arrangements?
A giggle from the walled garden made her look up in surprise, but just as she was about to go and investigate, Toby’s voice rung out clearly.
‘She’d better have left us something after all the fetching and carrying we did for her.’
‘I hope it’s money. I don’t want some mouldy old bit of jewellery,’ Prue said, just as clearly. ‘Trust the old bag to snuff it just as I’d planned to have Janice to come and stay.’
Charity stood up, stunned by such callousness.
‘Let’s hope the legless ogre dies of shock too,’ Toby said. ‘Just think, this would be all mine.’
Charity’s blood ran cold. Just a couple of hours ago they had seemed inconsolable. Now their grandmother’s death was an irritation. They had no love for anyone but themselves.
Grandmother’s whispered warnings about Toby and Prue came sharply into focus. Charity blushed with shame at their ingratitude and heartlessness.
She walked silently to the archway of the walled garden, anger surging through her. As she looked in she could see them both seated on the low wall surrounding the small fountain, their bare feet in the water. Somehow their long sun-tanned limbs, bright hair and smiling faces added further insult to that caring old lady.
All around Charity was evidence of what Stephen and his mother had done with these two in mind. The restored garden, redecoration, central heating. No one could deny these children had been fortunate, at least in the material sense. The least they could do was show some respect.
‘How could you say such wicked things,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m ashamed of you.’
Prue had the grace to blush and leap to her feet, but Toby just turned his head towards her and smiled lazily.
‘You know what they say about people who listen at keyholes? You probably heard it all wrong, anyway.’
‘I didn’t get anything wrong,’ Charity said, tempted to slap their faces. ‘That old lady loved you both and I thought you loved her. She isn’t even cold yet and you speak of what she’ll leave you.’
‘Oh so holy, aren’t we?’ Toby sneered, standing up and fastening his open shirt. ‘You only crept round Gran to see what you could get out of her. You’ve always hated Uncle Stephen and you’re jealous of us.’
Charity’s knees gave way at the malice in his voice. She stumbled to the stone bench and slumped down, tears springing to her eyes. For years she’d worried about these two. Each birthday noted, cards bought that she could never send. Now she realised they were as lost to her as Daniel was.
‘Oh, I get it.’ Prue’s snooty voice shook her still further. ‘You’re scared you’ll be out on your ear now Gran’s dead.’
‘Get out of my sight,’ Charity hissed between her teeth. ‘I don’t give a damn about this place. All I cared about was you two and James, but I can see you two at least are a lost cause. You are despicable.’
They ran away then, and Charity sobbed into her hands, too overwhelmed by anger and desolation to move.
She was tempted just to pack her bag and leave. But for Grandmother’s sake she had to stay and give her a peaceful funeral, without further gossip to shame her. She owed her that much.
Stephen was calmer the next morning. He called Charity into his room to discuss the funeral, which he wanted to arrange for the following Monday, and asked her help in contacting relatives and friends.
Charity didn’t know whether his apparent recovery was due to Nurse Giles’s patience with him last night, or whether it was because he’d discovered the rift between the children and her and guessed that Charity would soon be gone for good. But whatever the reason, he was remarkably benign and he actually thanked her, brusquely, for her help.
There was enough work to do in the next two days to avoid any close contact with Toby and Prue and she only spoke to them when necessary. Prue kept looking at her older sister with a kind of nervous pleading, and Charity felt she wanted to apologise, but her own heart remained stony.
Early on Thursday Charity went to London to spend a day in the office with Rita going over some urgent problems, and she didn’t return until Friday. Toby was waiting in the hall as she got out of the taxi. He was suspiciously red-eyed.
‘Please come up to my room to talk,’ he pleaded with her. ‘You don’t know how bad I feel.’
‘You feel bad,’ Charity shrugged, walking right past him. ‘Perhaps you should consider my feelings.’
He chased after her, talking all the time.
‘We’re both so sorry. We didn’t think what we were saying. We didn’t really mean any of it, especially the nasty things we said about you.’
A day back in London had mellowed Charity. Lou and Geoff were bringing James down on Monday and she had no wish to jeopardise her future relationship with him. Besides, talking to Toby alone might be a good thing, bearing in mind what Grandmother had said about him.
‘OK,’ she said, stopping at his door. ‘I’ll hear you out, though it’s more than you deserve.’
Toby’s room was in the Tudor part of the house, a spacious, low-ceilinged room overlooking the front drive. Stephen had clearly spared no expense making his heir comfortable. Charity sat down on the bed, with Toby cross-legged on the floor in front of her. He looked very young tonight, in shorts and a T-shirt, his arms and legs tanned a deep gold and a sorrowful expression in his eyes.
‘What you said isn’t really important,’ Charity told him, after Toby had tried in a clumsy way to
explain himself. ‘The important thing is why you said it.’
Toby looked blank.
‘Well, there must be some deep-rooted resentment, against me, Grandmother and Stephen,’ Charity went on. ‘Now let’s get to the bottom of that, shall we?’
‘I didn’t resent Gran in any way,’ he said, dropping his eyes from her. ‘I was very fond of her.’
‘Well, that leaves Stephen and me,’ she said. ‘What have you got against me? No one says such spiteful things as you did without meaning them, at least in part.’
Toby shrugged his shoulders. ‘I suppose I did in a way. You came here ordering us around, making Gran like you.’
‘I didn’t, Toby. I came because I wanted to see you both again and someone had to take charge. Of course I wanted Gran to like me, she was my grandmother too.
Toby looked surly, his lips curling. ‘You’ve got all the freedom.’
Charity almost laughed aloud. ‘Freedom?’
‘Yes, you can do what you like, go where you want.’
Charity shook her head at him. ‘Toby, when I was your age I was scouring pots at Bowes Court. Totally alone and often frightened. I’ve had to work really hard to get where I am now. And I don’t feel very free.’
‘But you can choose what you want to do,’ he insisted, looking up at her. ‘I’ve got to go Wellington, then Sandhurst, then take a commission in the army. I can’t choose anything.’
‘What would you rather do, then?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s not that I’m against the idea of the army. I just feel I’m being pushed into it.’
‘No one can force you to go in the army,’ she said firmly. ‘Not even Uncle Stephen, and you’ve got another couple of years at Wellington anyway. There isn’t a great deal of point agonising over it when you don’t know what you’d like instead, is there?’
‘I suppose not.’ Toby half smiled.
‘What’s more important is how you feel about people. How do you feel about Uncle Stephen, for instance?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking at his bare feet. ‘I wish he was the way I tell people he is.’
Charity Page 41