Charity Child

by Sara Seale

“Only nothing. Go and change your shoes—you can’t avoid me for ever, you know.”

  It was an unpromising remark. He had not, until now, appeared to notice that she had been avoiding him, or to show any particular desire for her company. It would be like him, she thought, obediently changing her shoes, casually to refer to that scene she had interrupted between himself and Roma, even to chide her mockingly for an imaginary interest in him. He would, she reflected sourly, be very good at nipping a supposed and unwanted infatuation in the bud, and Roma’s expression as she watched them set out did not encourage her to imagine there was any other object in the walk.

  Up on the Beacon the wind and the rain drove against their faces in good earnest, and it was not until they turned back that conversation became possible. Even then Marc seemed preoccupied, and when he did speak it was only to point out some subject of interest in the countryside. Every so often he glanced down at her with an absent smile, and presently, when the rain became more than a spring shower, he drew her into the shelter of a chalky hollow in the breast of down-land.

  “You look a proper little scarecrow, Charity Child,” he told her with a grin. He wore an old felt hat tipped over his eyes, but she had come bareheaded and the wet hair straggled over her forehead, sending little rivulets of water down her face.

  “Well,” she said prosaically, forgetting the object of the walk, “it’s a good thing my hair is straight. At least I don’t have to worry about the set of my perm.”

  He glanced at her affectionately.

  “You have very little vanity in you, haven’t you? It’s rather an endearing trait,” he said, and she looked surprised.

  “I would have imagined you’d prefer a woman who took pride in her appearance,” she answered primly.

  “Would you? But there’s a deal of difference between vanity and taking pride in one’s appearance.”

  “I suppose so.”

  She answered cautiously, thinking of Roma, but it did not occur to her that he could make any comparison between them. She knew she was plain; until now it had never mattered very much.

  “I think I would like to be nice-looking,” she told him naively, and he frowned.

  “That’s a meaningless description of anyone,” he exclaimed. “Beauty perhaps, quality certainly, but nice looks, never! It has an insipid sound.”

  “It’s better than being just plain, surely?”

  “And what makes you think you’re plain, Pierrot?”

  She looked up at the unexpected note of tenderness in his voice, then quickly away again. She did not want to revive that unfamiliar sense of intimacy with him, or to be drawn into dangerous personalities in this sheltered, lonely spot in the downs.

  He said quite suddenly and in the same tone of voice:

  “Did you catch Roma’s last remark that day in the study?”

  She caught her breath sharply, remembering that had always been a trick of his when he brought her up to the Beacon; to lull her into a false sense of security, then drop whatever bombshell he had in mind quite unexpectedly.

  “Yes,” she answered, too honest to evade the question or purposely misunderstand the occasion to which he referred.

  “A pity,” he said, and she rushed heedlessly into speech.

  “It wasn’t true ... I was very embarrassed ... I wouldn’t want you to imagine ...”

  “I don’t imagine—at least not many things,” he said and, taking her by the shoulders, turned her gently round to face him. “I thought that was why you were avoiding me so politely. Did you imagine I’d pay any attention to that kind of remark except, perhaps, to regret that it wasn’t true?”

  “Regret?” Her eyes were dark with astonishment. This whole conversation was, like a dream, proceeding on incalculable lines.

  “Why do you look so surprised? Men have their vanities as well as women—though, of course, we agreed that you have very little. Whatever you may have thought, I didn’t care much for your earlier hostility, Charity.”

  “You started it,” she retorted like a quarrelsome child. “You made your dislike and suspicion plain the moment you set eyes on me! Can you wonder that I felt hostile?”

  “No, it was a most reasonable attitude,” he replied with a twinkle. “In fact it might almost be said that your hostility allayed my suspicions. If you’d been the little schemer I thought you, you would have tried to placate me. You’re refreshingly honest, my dear.”

  Her eyes filled with sudden tears. She was not honest, she thought desolately, aware now that Roma’s spiteful observation had at least been true in essence. He could not know that, of course, neither could she fight Roma with her own weapons, for they would never be in her armoury.

  He touched her wet lashes.

  “Have I upset you?” he asked. “Was it too early to hope for a change of heart?”

  His words, she thought, might be taken any way, for his tone was almost casual and she had no experience to fall back upon.

  “I don’t know how to answer you,” she said unhappily, and he drew her wet head against his breast for a moment.

  “No, I suppose not,” he said. “And perhaps I’m not very sure what I’m asking. But I’m going away tomorrow, and I’d like to think that when I come back you will have grown a little fondness for me.”

  “Fondness?”

  “Well, liking, then. There could, I think, be a seed of great liking in both of us.”

  Now she only wanted to run from him before she could offer him what he might not really want. Had he quarrelled already with Roma, she wondered, that he must seek solace or assurance from the nearest girl to hand?

  He must have seen the doubt and bewilderment m her face, for he smiled a little wryly.

  “I haven’t made myself at all clear, have I?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Well, don’t let it worry you—we are only at the beginning of things, you and I.”

  “Are you and Roma—” she began, despite herself, because that picture of them kissing in the study kept returning, but his expression immediately changed and the old mockery was back in his face.

  “There’s an adage that says ‘never apologize, never explain.’ It’s worth following, I think. The rain has stopped; we’d best be getting back,” he said, and that, thought Charity, silenced, was as far as one would ever get with the enigmatic Marc Gentle.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She thought Roma greeted them with relief when they got back to the house. She and Astrea had probably got on one another’s nerves, shut up together on a wet afternoon, and Astrea’s demands could prove a little exhausting. Charity did not miss the swift, enquiring look the girl sent Marc, and when her eyes finally came back to rest on Charity’s bedraggled appearance she gave one of her slow, satisfied smiles.

  “What a sketch you look, honey!” she said with pleasure. “Don’t you go for those nifty little raincoats and hats in this country?”

  “I like the rain on my head,” Charity answered, still glowing from that strange, sweet intimacy on the downs. Roma must have been aware of some change in her, for her eyes suddenly narrowed.

  “Not attractive to the opposite sex, my dear,” she said sharply, “or did Marc pay you compliments?”

  “As far as I can remember, I called her a scarecrow,” Marc said, but there was an unaccustomed warmth in the smile he gave Charity.

  Roma’s mouth curled in amusement, but Astrea was immediately up in arms.

  “Scarecrow, indeed!” she boomed, clasping the very wet Charity to her bosom. “My little Ganymede is one with nature—all Aquarians are free as air and so, so simpatica. Do you not find her simpatica, dear boy?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Marc retorted with a grin. “We aren’t, perhaps, on those terms. Hadn’t the child better go and change?”

  “Yes, yes, do that, dear child! Put on that pierrot frock with the toby frill—it becomes you so well—and, later, you shall play us Au clair de la lune. Roma, you smoke too much. You will ruin y
our health, besides which you will smell of the saloon bar.”

  “Really, Astrea!” Roma murmured, and closed her eyes. Yes, thought Charity with a certain sympathy, it had clearly been a trying afternoon.

  Charity put on the dress for which Astrea had asked, but she had no great liking for it. It made her look too thin and reminded her of the occasion when Marc’s eyes had quizzed her unkindly in the candlelight and silently accused her of exploiting his aunt.

  “Well!” observed Roma, viewing the frock with indulgent amusement. “I can’t say I share dear Astrea’s enthusiasm for your creation—it makes you look like a bean-pole!”

  “You could not carry off such a simple gown, dear child,” Astrea told her somewhat waspishly, and Charity sighed. It distressed her when Astrea singled her out for favors, for she only did it, she was sure, to pay back some imaginary grievance against the other girl.

  “Your dress is beautiful,” she said shyly to Roma, and saw Marc grin. It was, she supposed, annoyed with herself, a gauche attempt to divert their attention to Roma, but she had been sincere in her compliment. She admired all Roma’s clothes.

  “You can have it if you like,” said Roma carelessly. “I’m sick of it myself.”

  Charity flushed, aware that the offer had scarcely been made out of generosity, but she answered politely:

  “Oh, no thank you Roma, I—I could never wear anything like that. I haven’t the figure.”

  Roma looked pleased, but Marc observed with a barely concealed yawn:

  “When you two girls have finished throwing bouquets—or are they brickbats—at each other, we might talk of something else. Are you staying indefinitely, Roma?”

  His sudden question held a serious note, and Roma fluttered her eyelashes at him.

  “I hope so darling—if Astrea will keep me,” she replied, and stretched a hand in charming supplication to the older woman, but Astrea was not in the mood for anyone’s playacting but her own.

  “We shall see,” she said evasively. “It will make extra work for Minnie, and there are the bills to be considered. Stubbs never intended this house to be used as a hotel. He told me so frequently.”

  “But, honey,” said Roma, with her soft little laugh, “you’re a rich woman! Why should you bother you head about bills?”

  “Because,” retorted Astrea with surprising practicality, “that is the only way to stay rich. Stubbs had it all worked out. He started with a little liver and lights shop in the North End Road, Charity, dear child, and look where he ended!”

  “Where did he end?” asked Charity, fascinated.

  “Strings of sausages all over Sussex—all over England!” said Astrea, jingling her many charms with vague gestures in all directions.

  Astrea’s discourse upon the source of the Stubbs’ fortune seemed to restore the atmosphere to normality. Marc did not pursue his enquiries as to Roma’s future plans, and Roma herself, if not entirely back in favor, made more effort than was usual to flatter her hostess into good humor.

  Listening to them sparring across the dinner table, Charity sat silent and thought about Marc. “We are only at the beginning of things, you and I,” he had said, and that sounded somehow like Easter and the promise of new life ... “Was it too early to hope for a change of heart?” he had said, and she had answered him foolishly because she did not know what reply he expected or if, indeed, a reply was expected at all ...

  “You’re not eating, Charity,” he remarked, and she found his eyes on her with the suggestion of a twinkle, as though he had known what she was thinking.

  “Our learned friend, no doubt, upset her on their walk,” said Roma, suddenly observant. “Did he give you a grilling, honey? He’s pretty good at stripping away your defences, as I expect you’ve discovered.”

  It was intended, Charity thought, as a warning, or a possible reminder that she shared Marc’s first suspicions that Charity was after Astrea’s money; but the unexpected strangeness of that encounter in the rain was still with her, so that she answered simply, as if they were alone:

  “Oh, no, he didn’t grill me. He didn’t even strip away my defences—perhaps there weren’t any.”

  She saw Marc’s eyebrows lift and heard the little irritable snap as Roma broke a roll in two.

  “I wasn’t thinking—I expect that sounded silly,” she said nervously, and Roma frowned.

  “I rather think it did,” she said. “Marc, I shall be coming up to town sometime. Will you be able to spare me an evening?”

  “Why not?” he replied, conversationally. We use to patronize a very select night club off Berkeley Square, if I remember right.”

  “But you were no dancer,” Roma reminded him with a small grimace. “Stiff and conventional and very proper.”

  “Proper?”

  “We-ell ... you had your moments, I’ll admit. Oh, darling, we had some good times, didn’t we?”

  “Very good.”

  “And we can recapture that?”

  “I doubt if one can recapture anything, Roma,” he said with a smile, and she pouted and flicked a crumb of bread at him.

  “We can try,” she said, and in the candlelight her eyes were bright with invitation.

  Charity sat and listened, marvelling at the ease with which they slipped back into a mood of the past. The things he had said to her on Cleat Beacon meant nothing after that brief, somehow significant exchange, and the picture of them kissing in the study came back as vividly as before.

  “Did he give you a bit of a whirl in the rain, after all, honey?” Roma managed to whisper in her ear as they left the dining room. “Just keeping his hand in, so don’t let it worry you any.”

  Charity felt angry, with Marc, but most of all with herself Why should he trouble with meaningless phrases when all he need have done was discuss the weather? Why should she, from the inexperience of a simple heart, read into his pleasantries something which was never intended? In the music room she sat as far away from him as possible and stared at him critically. His angular face no longer appeared attractive; his nose was too long, his eyes chilly, and he was years older than she—almost another generation—Roma’s vintage. She was unaware that he was returning her regard until he spoke.

  “You’re scowling, Charity Child, and it doesn’t become you. Is my face so repulsive?”

  She jumped, conscious that he had focused attention on her again and, seeing the sudden glint in his eye, she would not have put it past him to have read her thoughts once more.

  “I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

  “Didn’t you? What about this entertainment my aunt promised us?”

  He was, she thought, embarrassing her on purpose. He had never been particularly interested in Astrea’s musical evenings, and Roma was frankly bored by them. She shook her head dumbly, but Astrea rose delightedly to the bait.

  “Play, dear child, play!” she cried, clapping her hands, and finished rather vaguely: “ ‘Music when soft voices die ...’ you know.”

  Charity could not refuse without drawing more attention to herself, but she sat down at the piano feeling like a child who has been bidden to please its tolerant elders. She began to play a Scarlatti study because she thought they deserved a lesson in discipline, but Astrea stopped her.

  “No, no!” she protested shrilly. “Play Clair de lune and then the little French thing. Wait! I will place the light so—it will be the moon shining down upon you—and now you will see the likeness to Pierrot, Roma, dear child.”

  Marc watched with tender amusement, well aware of Charity’s embarrassment. She had no notion of self-dramatization, poor child, he reflected with fondness. She sat on the stool, stiff and correct like a schoolgirl, and the likeness to Pierrot had gone, for she had withdrawn outside the meaning of the music, but as she drifted into the familiar nursery jingle, just for a moment the likeness came back.

  “Ma chandelle est morte,

  Je n’ais pas de feu ...”

&
nbsp; She had lifted her face in the lamplight, and suddenly it was all there; the plaintive brows, the lost white face, the black etching of hair and toby frill ... As she stopped playing, he became aware of Roma’s eyes watching him cold calculation and saw her bite her lip.

  Astrea applauded with her usual exaggeration and Roma stretched her arms above her head in indolent grace.

  “Very nice,” she observed to no one in particular. “I reckon that nursery rhyme stuff isn’t difficult to rattle off.”

  “Simple things are always the most deceptive, dear child,” Astrea reproved her. For a moment Roma’s eyes flew wide open, then she relaxed and reached for a cigarette. Astrea was not subtle; she had probably meant exactly what she said, but there was a disturbing expression on Marc’s face which showed that he had taken the point.

  “What about a highball?” Roma drawled.

  Marc straightened his tall body preparatory to mixing the drinks, but Astrea frowned.

  “It is an unbecoming habit in a woman to drink whiskey,” she said. “In my day we were toasted in Imperial Tokay or Napoleon brandy, and, of course, pink champagne.”

  “Oh, come off it Astrea!” exclaimed Roma, who had enough for one evening. “You’ll be telling us next you drank it out of slippers!”

  “The gentlemen did that, dear child,” replied Astrea, unabashed. “Oh, yes, many were the pairs of slippers I had ruined by champagne. Of course”—with a pointed look at Roma’s feet—”I took size three—sometimes even two—such a pretty way it was of showing up other prima donnas’ blemishes.”

  Marc burst out laughing.

  “You’re really very naughty, Astrea,” he said. “I’d trust my eccentric aunt to have the last word anywhere. Here’s your whisky, Roma; we’ll be civilized, I think, and drink it out of glasses.”

  It had, thought Charity, undressing for bed, been an uncomfortable evening all round, and she hardly knew if she was glad or sorry that Marc was leaving in the morning. He and Roma had sat up talking after the other two had gone to bed, and on her way back from the bathroom, Charity heard them in the hall, talking in low voices, making dates, perhaps even kissing as they had in the study that day. She went to bed feeling hurt and bewildered; they took her up and then set her down and she did not know where she was with any of them. The next day Roma made it very plain.