Charity Child

by Sara Seale

  “I’m not aware you have been treated like dirt at Cleat,” she retorted viciously. “On the contrary, Astrea has spoilt you ridiculously and given you inflated ideas—so, evidently, has our learned friend, who’s doubtless regretting it.”

  She saw the pain and defeat in Charity’s eyes at the mention of Marc, and her confidence was restored. She had, it was evident, successfully scotched that little incident.

  “Well, honey,” she said more amiably, “we’ll just have to put up with each other for a while. I don’t imagine you’ll be staying long now there’s no need for Astrea to employ a companion.”

  “Are you definitely making your home here?”

  “Until I marry again.”

  “I see.”

  Charity, indeed, saw more than she liked. She could not grudge Roma her rightful place at Cleat, but her tender heart ached for the old prima donna who would never know the difference between affection and exploitation; even for Marc Gentle, caught once again in the toils of an old infatuation, and prepared, it seemed, to barter reality for illusion. Did men only desire what seemed unattainable, she wondered sadly, for Marc, she knew, was not like Astrea. He was too intelligent, too worldly-wise not to recognize Roma for what she was. This time, he would take her and expect little in return, and that, thought Charity, was dead sea fruit.

  Mr. Fennimore’s appointment to visit Cleat was for Friday, but that same morning his clerk telephoned to express regrets that, owing to a sudden chill, the old gentleman would be unable to travel down to the country. Astrea was inordinately put out, more for the disappointment of postponement than any urgency in the matter, but Roma added fuel to the fire by insinuating that Charity might have had a hand in the matter.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” she said. “She tried to dissuade you at the beginning, if you remember, darling. She could easily have put the old boy off, herself.”

  “But why?” demanded Astrea. “I am not ill—it can only mean a postponement.”

  “A postponement is always a help if you hope to benefit,” Roma said, .and the old eyes clouded.

  “Nonsense!” she exclaimed, and Roma stooped to give her a light, airy kiss.

  “It isn’t nonsense,” she said with soft reproof. “You yourself had already given her the idea she was to inherit. You can’t blame the girl for being alarmed when I unexpectedly come home to cut her out.”

  “I haven’t,” retorted Astrea, stung, as always, by opposition, “said you will cut her out. You neither of you know my intentions, and, after all, what gratitude did you show, Roma, dear child, running off with that old man? If you had waited—”

  “If I’d taken Marc, as you wanted, you mean? But Marc was stubborn. He wouldn’t have conditions attached to our marriage.”

  “And you wouldn’t take him as he was—do not forget that.”

  “I know, honey—I was flying too high, and I paid, for look at me now—not a cent, no home but yours, and the wasted years behind me.”

  “Got found out too soon by your old Yankee husband, did you? Ingratitude brings its own punishment,” said Astrea smugly, and Roma’s mouth tightened. Her patience with the old lady’s vagaries was beginning to wear thin.

  “Ingratitude is what you usually get for foolish indulgence of a dependent,” she said crisply. “Has Charity fooled you with her soft speech and gentle ways? For all your kindness to her she thinks you treat her like dirt—nothing better than a servant—she told me so.”

  “Like dirt—my little Ganymede?” For a moment Astrea’s eyes held the hurt astonishment of a child’s, then her outraged indignation boiled over.

  “It’s too much!” she cried. “She’s no better than all the others—indeed she is worse, for I trusted and loved her. Marc was right at the beginning, and I should have listened. Roma, my dear, dear child, you were sent to me in time—my true spiritual daughter to save me from that other. She shall go at once—no, at the end of the month, for I must not be hasty, and the child will have nowhere to go. Send her to me, now.”

  Roma hesitated, torn between satisfaction that she had so easily achieved her own ends and doubt at the advisability of precipitating a crisis on the eve of Marc’s visit. Astrea was always unpredictable, and Charity, if she chose, could make a good case out for herself.

  “Why not leave it till after the weekend, darling?” she suggested. “We don’t want tears and scenes while Marc’s here, do we?”

  “Charity has never made scenes, she is simpatica,” Astrea rebuked her. “No, no, dear child, I must be guided by the stars. I have been warned today and the message is quite clear. Send her to me.”

  Charity, if saddened by the interview, was not surprised; it had been plain for some time that Roma meant to get her out of Cleat, but her heart was heavy at the nature of her dismissal. She did not understand the import of many of Astrea’s accusations, for her reasoning appeared more confused than real, and it seemed futile to deny the twisted half-truths which could so clearly be traced to their natural sources. She wept a little, not, as Astrea supposed, in penitence or remorse, but because she had come to love the old diva with all her whims and eccentricities, and was loath to leave her unprotected.

  “You weep, my child?” Astrea said, at last exhausted by her own histrionics. “Perhaps I may reconsider. You are, after all, so young, and you have not meant to hurt me, I think.”

  “No, I have never meant to hurt you,” said Charity, also exhausted. “I’m grateful and I love you, Astrea, but I will go at the end of the month just the same. It will be better so.”

  “It is the first of May tomorrow. You cannot go at once. What do the stars foretell today? Oh, Roma told me ... ‘you are surrounded by false friends; be strong and make a clean break ...’ ”

  Charity picked up the newspaper, which was still open at the column set aside for the stars.

  “That’s the reading for Libra. It comes directly under Virgo. Roma must have made a mistake” she said quietly.

  “A mistake? Then what is the reading for Virgo?”

  “ ‘A day of no importance; you should watch your health ...’ ”

  “My health ... yes, send Minnie to me, will you, dear child?”

  Charity looked at her sharply. The correct reading of the day’s forecast was quite sufficient to put fresh ideas into Astrea’s head, she knew, but the old lady did not look well. She could not stand the scenes she so delighted to make as she used to before that last attack, and, when Minnie came, the girl’s unspoken enquiry was anxious.

  “Now, ducks, what have you been up to?” the old servant said, as if to a child. “Getting yourself in a state because that old lawyer chap couldn’t come down today? Miss Roma says she’ll take you up to London next week to see him in his office, though where’s the hurry after all this long time beats me.”

  “There may be hurry, there may be,” said Astrea with sudden urgency. “My stars say I must watch my health today.”

  “Those dratted stars!” snapped Minnie. “What do you want to read ‘em to her for, Miss Charity?”

  “I won’t be doing it much, longer, Minnie,” Charity replied. “I shall be leaving soon.”

  “Leaving?” echoed Minnie sharply. “Had enough of us already, just when you might be of use?”

  “It’s Madam’s wish,” said Charity wearily, and Minnie sniffed.

  “Miss Roma been getting at you again, ducks?” she said. “Never did know the false from the true, did you?”

  “Surrounded by false friends ... surrounded by false friends ...” murmured Astrea vaguely. “The stars said that, too?”

  Minnie compressed her lips, but only settled her mistress more comfortably and ordered her to take a strong dose of her heart medicine.

  “Take no notice,” she muttered to Charity. “She’ll doubtless change her mind again—usually does.”

  But Roma would see to it that there was no change of mind this time, Charity thought, and in her heart knew that it was best. She had no place here at
Cleat any longer, and she could not wish to stay on week after week or even month after month and watch the development of Roma’s carefully laid plans.

  Marc was not expected until the evening on Saturday, but he took the household by surprise by arriving at Cleat before luncheon. Astrea, who still did not feel very well, was staying in her room until dinner time, and Roma had hired the car from the village and driven into Brighton to shop, so only Charity was there to greet him, and she thought with dismay of the meal they must partake of alone together in the gloomy dining room, and the long, solitary afternoon ahead.

  “Well,” he observed, surveying her evident reluctance for his company with sardonic amusement, “you’ll have to put up with me for the time being. I promise to keep my distance.”

  It was unkind, she thought, to remind her immediately of past mistakes, but she had never deluded herself that the weekend would be easy or pleasant.

  “I’d better tell Minnie you’re here,” she said awkwardly. “She won’t have anything prepared as there was only me to cater for. Are you content with bread and cheese?”

  “Why not? Or, better still, I’ll take you out to lunch and so avert Minnie’s grumbles,” he replied, and seemed to be enjoying her obvious embarrassment. He cut short her protests with his customary brusqueness and told her to go and do something to her face and be quick about it. He would, in the meantime, go upstairs and pay his respects to his aunt.

  “Well, where shall we go?” he said when they were settled in the car. “Brighton and a slap-up lunch with obsequious waiters and discreet music? No, I don’t think so—you don’t look right for the phony splendors of tripperdom.”

  “Am I not suitably dressed?” asked Charity nervously. When Roma visited Brighton she wore mink, outrageous heels and jewels. Charity had put on a plain dark dress and sandals and, because the day was warm, had no coat or hat or gloves.

  Marc gave her a careless glance and grinned. The prim white collar of her high-necked frock made her look rather like a schoolgirl.

  “Why so anxious?” he said with a hint of mockery. “You are very suitably dressed, Charity Child. No man would dare to take advantage of you in that confection.”

  Charity sighed. It was, she saw, going to be a matter of fencing between them, of disconcerting remarks on his side and the half-bitter raillery at which he was so expert. She would, she thought, keep silent when possible, and she hoped that luncheon would not be too much of an ordeal.

  He drove down Cleat Hill and through the village and on into the wooded Weald which she had never been able to explore, and as the car moved leisurely through the twisting Sussex lanes, dappled with sunlight, she could forget her silent escort and relax. The woods had a misty softness pierced by the fresh green of larch and the delicacy of silver birch. An old countryman working at his hedging and ditching waved them by with a nod of greeting, children ran out of cottage doorways to shout, and the small gardens were a riot of color with aubrietia climbing over banks and walls.

  They stopped in a village with a green and a pond and a beautiful seventeenth-century inn. A maypole was set up on the green, gay with its many-colored twisted streamers.

  Marc said, “Well, will you care about this, do you think? The pub has quite a reputation for plain country fare. It’s worth a visit, anyway, if only for a mug of beer.”

  He got out and stretched his legs, screwing up his eyes against the sun which struck dazzling light from the pond. He was not, Charity knew, really consulting her wishes; he had chosen, before they started, where he would lunch.

  She followed him across a small paved courtyard and into the raftered hall of the inn. The cross-beams were thick and blackened with age, and burnished copper pans and brasses hung on walls which had yellowed with smoke. There was no one there but themselves, and Marc fetched drinks from a tiny bar in one of the alcoves and set them on a table, beer for himself in a pewter tankard, and cider for Charity. She did not like to refuse, remembering how her protests had always provoked him to mockery, but the cider was unexpectedly pleasant and cool and she drank it with enjoyment.

  He watched her curiously over the rim of his tankard. She drank like a child, carefully holding the glass in both hands, and he observed how slender her hands were, long and delicate, the fingernails unpainted.

  “You have nice hands,” he remarked, and her eyes went to his own hands, strong and nervous, and she remembered how he had thrust them into his pockets, unable to control them the day Roma came home.

  The thought provoked a chain of others: Roma’s face lifted to his as they kissed, the loveliness of Easter morning and the flowering cherry tree against the sky; Roma, sure in the strength of her beauty, commanding him, inviting; the bitter-sweetness of that first and only kiss on Cleat Beacon—Roma taking it all away and cheapening what had been the innocent beginnings of wonder ...

  “You haven’t much to say for yourself, Charity Child,” Marc observed. “Am I a bad host, or are you merely a reluctant guest?”

  She jumped guiltily, and catching in the sudden quizzical tenderness of his expression the quality which had charmed her from her first dislike of him, her bruised spirit cried out against the ending of so much felicity.

  “Did your aunt tell you I’m to leave Cleat?” she asked, and saw his sudden frown.

  “No. Have you been sacked?”

  “I suppose so. She doesn’t need me anymore, now Roma’s come back.”

  His eyebrows rose in two considering arcs.

  “My aunt will, doubtless, change her mind,” he observed dryly. “She’s given to whims and fancies of the moment.”

  “Oh, yes, I know, but I shall go just the same. It’s best that way,” she said, and did not know how stretched and wide her eyes seemed in her white face, nor how dark and puzzled the plaintive brows.

  “Poor Pierrot,” he said gently. “I warned you you were a new toy. When do you go?”

  “At the end of the month—four weeks from today, I suppose.”

  “May Day ...” he said, seeming to drift away from the subject as if he were not very interested. “Do you know that in certain parts of the country this day had great significance? In Cornwall they still have the Hobby Horse and the Mummers and the ritual of dancing through the streets. Even here, as you saw, there’s a maypole and children will dance on the green. We may see some of it before we leave.”

  “Is that why you brought me here?” asked Charity, thinking what a strange, unpredictable man he was.

  “Perhaps,” he said with a smile. “Finish your cider, Charity, and we’ll go in to lunch.”

  The little dining room was dark with its low-beamed ceiling and latticed windows. There was an open grill where a white-capped chef turned a joint on a spit and cooked steaks and chops to order; the tables were few and widely spaced, and only one other couple were in possession, just finishing their lunch.

  “How lovely—how different,” Charity said, her eyes round, like a child’s.

  “Has no one ever taken you to little places like this?” he asked, as he picked up the menu. “I think you would be fun to take around, Charity Child, if you could forget to be so proper.”

  “Proper?”

  “Well, shall we say, defensive? You’ve changed, you know. You’ve lost that composure that used to worry me in the days when I bit your head off. Relax, now, and enjoy the very good steak that will be prepared for us—or would you rather have lamb or the roast beef of old England and Yorkshire pudding?”

  But it was not easy to relax with the fastidious Marc Gentle sitting opposite, discussing with explicit exactness the timing of steaks with the attentive chef, and procuring with accustomed authority other delicacies that were not on the menu at all. It was not surprising, she thought, that she had lost the composure which indifference had brought. Every so often he would look across at her, with a wry lift of the eyebrow, as if he found her unrewarding company, and she was plagued by the feeling that he thought her unappreciative.

  “
You know,” she said, because so much of the day was puzzling her, “I’ve never thought of you in places like this.”

  “Haven’t you, Charity? But perhaps you haven’t thought of me at all,” he answered, but she knew he was getting at her. From Roma’s observations it was evident he imagined that she thought of him too much.

  “I imagine you in smart London restaurants—with glamorous women,” she said quickly, hoping to hide her gaucheness, but his grin told her that he accepted this for what it was, the unconsidered statement of an inexperienced young girl.

  “You don’t know very much about me, do you?” he countered, and she replied, without thinking:

  “No—except that, perhaps, you have waited too long.”

  That startled him.

  “What a strange remark,” he said and, before she could try to retrieve a comment so unconsidered, began to quote softly:

  “ ‘Spring will not the loiter’s time

  Who keeps so long away;

  So others wear the broom and climb

  The hedgerows heaped with may ...’

  Is that what you meant, Charity?”

  “Housman again—how you do love him,” Charity said, and all at once things seemed as they used to be. The guard that she must put upon her tongue could be forgotten, and he was again the companion of her solitary dreams, the man who, like her father, could guess at her immature thoughts and shape them to reality.