by Sara Seale
“I don’t drink, thank you,” said Charity clearly, and he paused beside her chair with raised eyebrows.
“No?” he said sceptically.
“No.”
He shrugged and sat down again, and Astrea leaned across the table in the candlelight.
“Marc does not approve of what he pleases to call my whims,” she said. “You mustn’t let him embarrass you, my dear.”
“Mr. Gentle, I think, fears that your kindness and good nature may become exploited,” Charity answered politely, and Marc’s mouth tightened. So she was ready to do battle with him in the open, was she, the cool little minx? Very well, let her know where she stood.
“Unfortunately, human nature is easily gulled—haven’t you found that, Miss Child?” he said suavely, but was unprepared for the grave regard she turned upon him.
“No,” she said gently, “I’ve always found people take you very much as they find you, but I haven’t, of course, your insight into human nature.”
“Touché!” Astrea exclaimed delightedly, and gave a deep burst of throaty laughter.
Marc’s answering smile was a trifle grim, but he inclined his head graciously towards Charity, and sat watching her in silence. In the faintly distorting light of the candles the Pierrot illusion was extraordinary; the plaintive brows and the thick black lashes looked artificial in her white face. She was even wearing a dress with some absurd dark toby frill at the neck, and he wondered, with sudden irritation, if she knew of the teasing resemblance and dressed to emphasize it. Her composure was unusual and a little disturbing, then she looked up, suddenly aware of the regard, and he saw, for a fleeting moment, that she was not composed at all, only young and puzzled, and a little alarmed. He saw, too, the instant hostility spring into her eyes before she lowered her lashes again.
“How old are you?” he asked, and his voice had momentarily lost its antagonistic mockery.
“Twenty.”
“Your birthday must fall between the twentieth of January and the eighteenth of February. When was it?” Astrea asked with sudden intensity.
“Well, actually, it’s the day after tomorrow—Sunday,” Charity answered reluctantly.
Astrea clapped her hands together, and her old eyes held a child’s delight.
“Then you are still nineteen—a child, like Ganymede, the shepherd-boy who is identified with your Sign—Aquarius the Water Bearer!” she exclaimed. “How fitting that you should spend your birthday here! Marc, we must celebrate ... but so little time, so little time ... tomorrow we will go to Brighton and plunder the shops, and Minnie shall prepare a special feast—and a cake. So much to think of ... I must go at once and speak to Minnie...”
“Oh, please—” Charity began, distressed at so much attention being focussed upon her, but Astrea had already gone, leaving the two of them to an uncomfortable silence and their unfinished sweet course.
“Well!” Marc said softly. “You’ve certainly timed your entrance very well, Miss Charity Child.”
For the first time she was driven to plain rudeness with him.
“I think you’re altogether hateful!” she said. “Do you imagine I wanted to mention my birthday—to have a fuss? Do you suspect everyone your aunt employs of trying to feather their own nests? You may be a very clever lawyer, Mr. Gentle, but you should have learnt by now, I should have thought, to discriminate.”
She banged her spoon and fork on to her plate, leaving her sweet unfinished, and sat glowering at him in the candlelight.
His eyes rested on her for a moment, seeing the reticence in her face, and being vaguely troubled by it. If he had misjudged her, then she might suffer quite considerably from Astrea’s whims and fancies.
“Perhaps you should know—” he began a little awkwardly, but his aunt came back into the room with the gusty ebullience which characterized all her entrances.
“Minnie is making a sour mouth about it, of course,” she announced, “but she’ll come round, as she always does. Now, let us go to the music-room for coffee, and discuss our plans. How fortunate Marc will be here for your birthday, my dear child—so much more amusing for you than a sabbath’s sojourn with an old woman. Are you ready, Marc? We will persuade Charity to play for us.”
Marc and Charity pushed back their chairs and stood for a moment in the failing light of the guttering candles. They were part of the background, Charity thought, watching Marc and his aunt; they could not know that it was her first experience of candlelight spilling on old silver and polished mahogany, of damask napkins and fine glass, of the leisurely formality of a meal prepared by other hands. She was a stranger amongst them, an alien to their way of life, and, in Marc Gentle’s eyes, a character that was already suspect.
“Would you mind, Mrs. Stubbs, if I went to bed?” she asked, and saw Astrea’s mouth drop in disappointment.
“Astrea, dear,” she replied automatically. “And not play for us, Charity? I was looking forward to an evening reviving my memories.”
Charity hesitated. If she was being employed as a companion, her duty clearly lay in obliging her employer, but Marc interposed smoothly:
“The girl is probably tired. There will be time and enough to spare for music when I have gone.”
It was pleasantly spoken but, glancing at his rather forbidding face, Charity thought that he, as much as she, wanted to end this ill-assorted threesome.
“Of course,” Astrea said, but she looked put out. “I trust you will sleep well. I, of course, always sleep with my head to the magnetic north—so vital to well-being. We can move your bed, if you wish.”
“Please don’t trouble,” said Charity, who had never heard of the advantages of the magnetic north. “Goodnight, Mr. Gentle.”
“Goodnight, Miss Child,” Marc returned gravely, and watched her leave the room and, through the wrought-iron banisters, saw her long, slim legs climbing the stairs.
“Well,” he said, turning to his aunt, “you will have to make do with me for the rest of the evening, I’m afraid.”
“So ridiculous!” Astrea said crossly. “Do you suppose she’s not strong, Marc?”
“You told me yourself she looked undernourished,” he reminded her unkindly.
“Did I? Even so, the very first evening she should have been willing to fulfill the functions of a companion, don’t you think?”
“You’ve been treating her like a guest, not a companion, Astrea,” he said gently, and, as he followed her to the music-room, wondered, with wry humor, which of them most needed protecting from the other.
CHAPTER TWO
CHARITY slept well in the most comfortable bed she had ever known, but her waking thoughts were not of Astrea, the miraculous source of so much felicity, but of the unpleasant nephew who so plainly resented her and whose weekend visits, she knew without doubt, were going to prove a very large thorn in her well-being. But the morning brought fresh contentment The downs beyond her window sparkled with sunshine and frost, and Minnie brought up early tea, a luxury Charity had never known before.
“You mustn’t do this for me,” she said shyly. “I’m used to getting up early in the morning and doing a job.”
Minnie regarded her with that expressionless stare which Charity felt, took in so much more than was apparent.
“Madam’s orders,” she replied. “Never learn, will that one. Paid companions waited on as if they was gentry.”
“I don’t expect to be waited on,” said Charity, withdrawing a little against her pillows. “I’m sure you’ve enough to do without that, Minnie.”
“Soft-soap me, would you?” the old woman retorted uncompromisingly. “What I does for you is only for Madam’s sake, see? Not but what you won’t lap it up, to the manner born, same as the others.”
She went away then, and Charity sighed. It was not pleasant to be resented, and so far only Astrea, it would seem, had shown welcome for her.
When she was dressed she went downstairs to seek breakfast and found Marc eating alone in the rathe
r gloomy dining room. She dutifully bade him good morning, and when he did not reply, turned towards a side-table to help herself from the various chafing dishes.
“Not one of the orange juice brigade, I’m glad to see,” he observed without looking up from his paper. “You slept well?”
“Yes, thank you. Does Mrs. Stubbs not come down for breakfast?”
“No—and she’ll be very annoyed if you continue to address her as Mrs. Stubbs. You’d better try to remember.”
“I’m sorry,” Charity said, and at the same moment Astrea erupted into the room, presenting a strange appearance in an ancient negligee over which she wore a puce cardigan and sundry scarves. Her dyed hair was still in curlers, and her face unadorned except for hastily applied mascara.
“Marc, you will take us to Brighton, I trust?” she said, seizing an apple from a dish in passing. “I shall hurry my toilette today for that reason. We will lunch at the Metropole and then do the shops and visit the fortune-teller on the pier.”
“There will hardly be a fortune-teller at this time of the year, will there?” Marc seemed quite unsurprised.
“No—no, perhaps not. Charity, dear child, have you made a list of your presents?”
“My presents?” Charity sounded bewildered, and Astrea waved her hands airily over the breakfast table. Although she was clearly just out of bed, she still wore her rings and her bracelets with their tinkling charms.
“But of course! It’s your birthday tomorrow and you must make a long list—not that the local shops will have much choice. Perhaps we should wait and go to London on Monday.”
“I’m sure that would be best,” her nephew murmured, but at any hint of opposition, Astrea became immediately resolute.
“No, no!” she cried. “It wouldn’t be the same at all—a birthday cannot pass without gifts. Now, dear child, what would you like? A fur coat, a fitted dressing-case, a bicycle, perhaps? Or can you drive a car?”
“But, Mrs. Stubbs—Astrea, I mean—presents like that are out of the question—besides, I don’t want anything, truly I don’t.”
Charity caught Marc’s expression of cynical enjoyment and, later, thought she understood it, for when in the afternoon they made a hurried round of the Brighton shops, Astrea quickly tired of the proceedings, hurriedly bought a pair of cheap nylons and a gaudy sponge-bag and left her nephew to pay the bill.
Charity caught his eye as they left the shop and burst out laughing. His answering grin was wholly spontaneous, and for the first time she felt they were in accord, but in the evening, waiting for Astrea to join them in the music-room before dinner, he observed with his old mockery:
“I hope you weren’t disappointed that no fur coats materialized. My aunt likes to make grand gestures. I’m afraid they are apt to be misunderstood by the people who have had false hopes raised in their bosoms.”
“I would have felt most uncomfortable if your aunt had spent a lot of money on me,” said Charity stiffly, and he raised one eyebrow.
“Would you, Miss Child?” he replied with a slight drawl. “Your predecessors didn’t all show your restraint—in fact I may say some of them managed to line their nests quite nicely, despite poor Astrea’s proverbial parsimony.”
She decided to ignore this obvious dig and exclaimed with genuine surprise;
“Parsimony? But your aunt has a most generous nature.”
“Oh, I grant you that, when it suits her, but she has the foibles of the wealthy—cuts down on food one minute and foots a gigantic bill at the Ritz the next. Not to be relied upon, you see.”
“If you’re trying to warn me off—” she began indignantly, but, perhaps rather fortunately, they were interrupted by Astrea herself, her evening make-up hurriedly applied with startling results, and her out-of-date gown more suitable to a ballroom than a quiet dinner at home.
“I wore this for one of my concert recitals nearly thirty years ago,” she said, catching Charity’s look of faint surprise. “I wear out all my old professional clothes in the evenings—so foolish to buy new, don’t you think? Now, this evening we will have some music, yes?”
It was, of course, impossible to refuse, and although Charity was very loath to display her small talent in front of Marc, she sat down obediently at the piano after dinner. It was a beautiful instrument and soon she was able to forget the unresponsive figure by the fire. She played well by ear and was able to meet most of Astrea’s demands for operatic arias and the better known German lieder. At intervals she found herself embraced while Astrea’s fluid emotions found release in easy tears. It was all rather bewildering and a little embarrassing, and she became suddenly very conscious of Marc’s silent attention, of his long, supercilious nose, and the little smile of sardonic amusement which hovered about his mouth,
Astrea suddenly wearied and flung herself into a chair on the other side of the fireplace and Marc said unexpectedly:
“You play very well. Are you good enough to take it up professionally?”
“Oh, no,” Charity answered with a smile. “I just have a certain facility, that’s all. There’s no room for the gifted amateur these days.”
“How sensible of you to know your limitations, my dear,” said Astrea approvingly. “I never knew mine—not that I had any, of course.”
Marc smiled.
“But naturally—you were Astrea,” he said with a graciousness that sounded sincere. “Will you give us something of your own to finish up with, Charity Child?”
She was grateful for the implied compliment, and knowing, on his own admission, that he was not really musically inclined, began to play simply one of the familiar French nursery songs of her childhood.
Au clair de la lune
Mon ami Pierrot ...
When she had finished playing she saw Marc watching her with narrowed eyes and was instantly aware of a change in his mood.
“Why did you pick on that?” he asked sharply.
“But for obvious reasons!” cried Astrea. “ ‘Mon ami Pierrot ...’ charming, charming ... did I not tell you at once of the resemblance, Marc?”
“What resemblance?” Charity asked, bewildered by both of them.
“To Pierrot,” Astrea replied, delighted with her own word picture. “I said to Marc, when he was to meet you at the station, that he would know you because you had a face like a sad pierrot. He thought, no doubt, I was being extravagant, but it’s true, isn’t it, dear boy?”
Marc made no reply, but simply smiled, not very pleasantly, and Charity felt herself flushing. He thought she had chosen the song deliberately, playing up to Astrea’s romantic notions, she told herself angrily, and wished she had been inspired by any other than that plaintive little air. She sat irresolutely on the piano stool, twisting her fingers together, then as Marc rather deliberately started a conversation that would exclude her, she closed the piano and went to sit in an unobtrusive corner of the room.
Astrea made a great to-do of Charity’s birthday, insisting on champagne and an orgy of music, and producing small gifts from her trinket box, an old-fashioned locket, a coral bracelet with a broken clasp, and a very charming string of tiny pearls which she hastily snatched back and replaced with a brooch set with a rather indifferent amethyst.
“But that, of course, is the right stone for Aquarius, dear child!” she cried. “You must always wear it to bring you good fortune. My own stone is the sardonyx—so uninteresting. I was born under Virgo, you know—Astrea, the star-maiden, daughter of Jupiter. I took it as my professional name, naturally. My ruling planet is Mercury, which accounts for so much, don’t you think?”
Charity knew little about astrology and she found Astrea’s changes of mood bewildering. So far, nothing had been said as to the duties which might be expected of a companion, and, when Charity timidly asked, her queries were waved aside as if they were merely frivolous.
“Later ... later ...” Astrea answered vaguely. “You shall be a daughter to me, my child—a spiritual daughter as Roma once was
. Ganymede, cup-bearer to the gods—is that not a charming conceit?”
Charity thought her employer’s preoccupation with the stars and their attendant mythology might become a bit exhausting, but she earnestly did her best to follow these sudden allusions, and only felt foolish when she found Marc’s sceptical eye upon her. She was grateful for the fact that he had not embarrassed her by feeling obliged to produce a birthday gift of his own, but it was an uneasy day and she felt thankful that tomorrow was Monday and he would be gone.
Minnie’s cake was a masterpiece of icing and sugar decorations and twenty pink candles. She carried it in herself and watched phlegmatically while Astrea went through the traditional birthday ritual like an excited child, exclaiming and clapping her hands, supervising the cutting of the cake, and helping Charity blow out the candles, insistent to the point of mild hysteria that not one candle should be left burning to court disaster.
Charity felt thoroughly uncomfortable, aware of Marc’s dark presence in the background, quizzing in silence the childish antics of two adult persons; then Minnie spoke, her old face creased in a loving indulgence that was both startling and revealing.
“Bless your heart, ducks, you’re like a child! It might be your own birthday and you twenty years old today and all the world at your feet,” she said.