by Sara Seale
“O-ho! So you want her out of the way?” said Astrea, who missed very few tricks of this kind. “I confess I had toyed with the idea of her for Marc—so good for his ego—you would never pander to it. I have another little scheme, dear child. The money for you and the dear boy for Ganymede. How would that be?”
“Not at all suitable, Astrea darling,” said Roma, lowering her heavy lids. “But, talking of the money, have you seen your lawyers yet?”
“No,” said Astrea a little peevishly, “the stars were not propitious.”
“But don’t you think you should, honey? That little attack you had the other day—well, one never knows, does one?”
“Later, dear child, later,” Astrea replied irritably, and Roma, who seldom overplayed her hand, left it at that. She had found out what she wanted to know. No will had yet been made in favor of Charity, and, with a little judicious juggling with the stars, she should be able to guide Astrea’s mind into the right channels.
When Marc came down at the weekend, he caught Charity totally unprepared. She had gone for a walk to the Beacon to be out of the way when he arrived, and had never expected to see his tall figure climbing the track to meet her. In this moment of watching him, all her brave resolves seemed to melt away and her bones turned to water, so that when he reached her and took both her hands in his, she could only leave them there and gaze at him speechlessly.
“You’re looking fine-drawn. Aren’t you well?” he said, examining her critically.
“Quite well,” she answered. “And you? You look tired.”
His smile was the old mocking one she remembered.
“It must be a mark of progress that we each first look for well-being in the other,” he said, and quite suddenly he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
“Oh ...” she said, then again, “Oh ...”
“Be quiet, Pierrot,” he murmured against her mouth.
The April wind blew merrily about them and, somewhere near, young larks chirruped in their hidden nest in the grass. His cheek was warm and hard against hers, and his hands suddenly gentle on her shoulders.
She opened her eyes after what seemed a lifetime, then broke from him and fled precipitately down the hillside.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ROMA’s eyes missed very little where her own interests were concerned, and one look at Charity’s revealing face as she ran into the house and up the stairs confirmed her suspicions that Marc’s attention had possibly begun to wander.
“It’s too bad of you,” she told him softly as he mixed her a drink before dinner that evening.
“What’s too bad of me?” he asked with a smile. “That I had to cancel our last dinner date on account of work?”
“Oh, that! Of course not, darling—our other dates made up for it, didn’t they?”
“You were always a glamorous person to take around. You still are,” he told her gracefully.
She took her whisky and raised her glass to him.
“Good fortune!” she said. “I will always wish you that, Marc, and it looks like coming true, doesn’t it? You have quite a reputation at the Bar, so I’m told. The shekels must be pouring in.”
His smile was a little wry.
“Are you having regrets on that count, my dear? It doesn’t always pay to be hasty in your judgments, you know.”
Her eyes grew soft and melancholy.
“I’ve learnt that,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve learnt a great many things in the past seven years.”
“Life was disappointing, in spite of the dollars?”
“Yes. They didn’t bring me comfort—or love.”
“Do you need comfort, Roma?”
“I need love.”
“The two can mean the same, I think. I discovered that some time ago.”
“You? But you’ve never married.”
“Not so far.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Now tell me what’s too bad of me.”
She remembered that irritating forensic habit of returning suddenly to a point which had not escaped him, but this time she was pleased with the opening.
“Too bad of you to give that little companion of Astrea’s inflated ideas of herself,” she said, and saw the instant masking of those familiar features.
“If you’re alluding to Charity, I suggest we leave her out of the conversation,” he replied coldly. “She has nothing to do with us.”
“Of course not, darling, but do you think you’re being quite fair?”
His eyebrows lifted, but he made no reply, and she went on, stretching deliberately so that the lovely lines of her body were clear and inviting.
“You’ve made the odd pass at her, honey, haven’t you? I can’t say I admire your taste, but men see their women differently, I suppose.”
A little nerve in his cheek twitched convulsively. “That’s not a very pretty thing to say,” he replied with the icy reserve of temper held in check.
“I daresay not, but the girl is very young. She probably likes to boast that the brilliant Marc Gentle has designs on her.”
“Is that what she’s told you?’
“Of course. She couldn’t wait to brag that you had chased her up to the Beacon this very afternoon as soon as you arrived. You shouldn’t play with paid employees, darling; they’re all alike—kiss and tell.”
“Thank you,” he said courteously, but there was a pinched whiteness about his nostrils that warned her not to pursue the conversation, and she was relieved that Astrea chose that moment to join them and demand her usual glass of sherry.
Charity slipped into the room as late as possible, and Astrea remarked a little peevishly:
“You are frequently late these days, dear child. You disappoint me. Have you said good evening to my nephew?”
“We’ve already paid our mutual respects—on Cleat Beacon,” Marc said rather grimly, and at the amused look of satisfaction on Roma’s face, Charity felt herself beginning to blush.
She blushed so painfully that all their eyes were upon her. Roma gave her soft little laugh and Marc observed with cruel deliberation:
“What a charming picture of guilt! Do you have other assignations on the Beacon, by any chance?’
She could not reply, for her shame was too deep. He had been discussing her with Roma again, and they had laughed and, perhaps, made unkind jokes. She wanted to run from the room as she had run from Marc on the Beacon, because there was no comfort any more, no warmth, no love. Minnie mercifully rang the gong and they all went ‘in to dinner.
All through the meal Marc deliberately ignored her. Roma played, perfectly, the daughter of the house making gracious small talk, but Charity’s enforced silences seemed to annoy Astrea.
“What is the matter with you, child?” she kept demanding impatiently. “If you are not well, you should say so and go to your room. I expect a companion to be just that—companionable. You are a disappointment to me. Perhaps, after all, you are too young for the post.”
“Don’t bully her, Astrea,” Roma said with light reproach, adding to Marc in just the same tone:
“You aren’t helping much either, darling. It must be very dull for Charity having to listen to family affairs in which she has no part.”
“Really?” he said, giving Charity a brief, casual glance.
“Of course. To be employed in a household like this must be a very tricky proposition, but now I’ve come home again, there’s no real need for Astrea to employ a companion, is there? Did I tell you, Marc, I went to hear you in court the other day? You were magnificent—and how that wig becomes you!”
“Really?” he said again, and suddenly turned to Charity.
“Will you walk to the Beacon with me again tomorrow?” he asked with a sudden savage inflection, and her eyes slid away from his.
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Then we might as well go to the coast, Marc,” Roma said, with an inviting twist to her full red mouth. “It’s spring and—you and I have got a
lot of leeway to make up.”
“Why not?” he answered smoothly and, to Charity’s relief, the meal was suddenly ended.
It was not difficult to keep out of his way for the rest of the weekend. She stayed in her room, forgoing breakfast, until she heard them setting out for Brighton in the middle of the morning, and when they came back in time for dinner, Astrea monopolized the evening with anecdotes and record playing, and a rather pathetic effort to recapture the spirit of those other evenings and her past successes.
“Will you play, dear child?” she asked Charity when the evening seemed to pall, but Charity could not have played, with Marc still treating her with the contempt he must feel for anyone who had run after him, and Roma, relaxed in her chair like a surfeited cat, sure in the knowledge of her own power.
Her apologetic refusal caused a mild storm. “Really!” Astrea exclaimed with a coldness that was quite foreign to her. “I sometimes wonder what you think you are here for, dear child. I house you and treat you as my own—and all the time this dear child, Roma, was waiting to bring comfort to my old age. Is it too much to ask that you should play for me? After all, it’s that for which I employed you, is it not?”
Marc looked at Charity. Her face was the face of a bewildered child, a child who had suddenly too much to bear and was nearly at breaking point. He was angry with her, and bitterly disappointed, but he did not want to watch that sad clown’s face much longer.
“Leave her alone, Astrea,” he said unexpectedly. “She’s tired, I think. You shouldn’t expect us all to have your amazing resistance and vitality. Let the child go to bed.”
The tears sprang to Charity’s eyes at this unlooked-for rescue and she scrambled awkwardly to her feet.
“If you will excuse me, Astrea,” she said, and made her way, thankfully, out of the room.
She was so tired that she stumbled on the stairs and instinctively made for the room which had once been hers, but, on the threshold, she turned away, remembering. Roma had resumed her control of the house, of Astrea and of Marc, too. She would go away, she thought, wearily, away from this semblance of comfort and warmth and affection, back into the world which offered none of these things.
She took a bath in spite of her tiredness, hoping it would make her sleep, and, on the way back to her room, ran straight into Marc. The lights in the house had been put out and he was, presumably, on his way to bed. She would have passed him quickly, without speaking, but he stretched an arm across the passage, resting his weight on the wall and blocking her path.
“Well, Charity Child, do you feel better for your ablutions?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” she answered, and stood waiting patiently for him to allow her to pass.
“You,’ he said in suddenly soft accents, “are the misguided little girl who kissed and told. Did no one ever teach you the ethics of these matters?”
She blinked up at him in the dim light. His face was the face she remembered the day he had first met her at the station, cold and forbidding, and sharp with suspicion,
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Don’t you? I’d thought more highly of you, Charity, than to go bleating to Roma, of all people, of my unwelcome attentions. You didn’t, I must confess, show any very great reluctance up there on the downs.”
She only stared up at him, too tired to take in what he was implying, too sick at heart to care very much. His eyes flicked over her. She looked absurdly young in her long blue dressing-gown, the damp hair clinging to her well-scrubbed forehead, a spongebag clasped to her chest. Her natural defencelessness brought back again the old urge to shake or kiss her.
“Are you really just one of these silly little girls who like to boast of a conquest?” he asked, and when she did not reply, took her hand suddenly from the wall and stood aside to let her pass.
“Goodnight, Pierrot,’ he said mockingly, and she replied, because she had suddenly found herself forced back to their first encounter:
“Goodnight, Mr. Gentle. I—I don’t suppose you will be coming down next weekend?”
“Oh, yes, I shall be coming,” he said with a certain sardonic relish, and watched her slight, suddenly vanquished figure disappear down the passage to her room.
Monday morning brought its usual backwash. Marc was late getting off owing to a retarded breakfast because one of the daily women failed to turn up, which also put Minnie in a bad temper; the butcher sent chops instead of cutlets for lunch, and the scullery sink became blocked. They were all things which, strangely enough, helped to boost Charity’s sinking spirits, for it was comforting to find that such minor disasters could befall a rich household as well as a poor one, and when her father had been alive, these mishaps had been everyday occurrences. She walked to the village to change the chops, and even managed, with Noakes’ help, to free the sink; it was discouraging, therefore, to be summoned by Astrea and rated because she had not been available to carry out her daily duty of reading aloud the forecast of the stars in the daily newspapers.
“What do I pay you for, dear child?” demanded Astrea crossly. “You have always been so simpatica about the forecasts. At this stage of my affairs the rulings of the planets are most important.”
“I’ll read them now,” Charity said, without stopping to make excuses, but Astrea waved her away.
“Do not trouble,” she said grandly. “This dear child has already done so.”
Charity looked at Roma, sitting so smugly by Astrea’s bedside, and her suspicion that Roma’s reading of the stars would conform with her own desires was answered by the indolent amusement in the other girl’s face.
“ ‘A day for seeking legal advice and making decisions,’ ” quoted Astrea, jingling her charms. “Ring up my lawyers, please, Charity, and ask Mr. Fenimore to come down here.”
Charity felt a wave of anger and, uncaring how her action might appear to Roma, began to read for herself the forecasts for Virgo in the pile of papers on the bed. Most of the advice was vague and meaningless, but here it was in one of them. A day for seeking legal advice and making decisions ...
“You see?” said Roma, watching her face with malicious enjoyment, and Astrea suddenly rounded on Charity.
“Were you doubting Roma’s honesty?” she asked, and her fingers trembled a little as she pushed them through her dyed red hair. “You disappoint me very much.”
“No, Astrea,” Charity replied gently. Roma was clearly working to put her in the wrong, but she could not speak the truth without bringing distress to the old lady.
“Very well, then, go and ring them up, and don’t bungle the appointment,” Astrea ordered, still with displeasure, then added, sounding suddenly very tired: “Roma is right. It is time I put my affairs in order.”
“You’re tired—why not, wait another day?” said Charity impulsively, but Astrea stretched out a be-ringed hand to feel for Roma’s.
“Another day may be too late,” she said with her old love of drama, then at Charity’s startled expression she laughed a little unkindly.
“Don’t think I’m going to die yet, and don’t think I’ve already altered my will in your favor and want to change it again,” she said querulously, and Charity left the room without replying and went downstairs to telephone.
“You shouldn’t try to antagonize her,” Roma said later. “I can always persuade her to leave you a tiny legacy. Minnie will be down for something, so why not you?”
“Please don’t trouble,” Charity replied with distaste. “Minnie has been with her for nearly forty years and it would be scandalous if you tried to influence Astrea to cut down her legacy—but I am quite a different matter. I’ve been here only three months.”
Roma gave her a look of dislike.
“You’ve dug yourself in pretty well in such a short time, haven’t you, honey?’ she said disagreeably. “Astrea—even the fastidious Mr. Gentle coming to heel. Well, I think your duty is about over, Charity Child. We’re all of us wise to your little tricks, now
.”
Charity regarded her with that grave stare which even Roma found disturbing.
“Roma,” she said, trying to speak reasonably, “I don’t like you any more than you like me, but I do beg you to be careful how you deal with Astrea. She’s not well, for all her denials, and I think that little heart attack was more serious than Minnie let us believe.”
“My dear girl, why should I trouble myself to dislike you?” retorted Roma insolently. “I’m even a little sorry for you, though I confess I find your—er—insinuations a shade impertinent. After all, you’re just the paid companion here.”
Charity blinked.
“You’re very fond of reminding me of that,” she said quietly. “I think you must be a bit old-fashioned. A paid companion, these days, is not a servant.”
Roma’s glance was uneasy. She did not want to drive the girl into awkward revelations with Astrea or, more dangerous still, with Marc.
“Of course not,” she said hastily. “I’m sorry if I’ve given that impression, but I find you difficult to place.”
“It’s very simple,” Charity said. “I’m just a girl, like thousands of others, who has to earn my living as best I can, but that doesn’t give you, or anyone else, a reason for treating me like dirt.”
Roma looked up swiftly at the unfamiliar note of condemnation and even contempt in the younger girl’s voice. Was the dumb little cluck daring to criticize her?