Charity Child

by Sara Seale

  “Is that what you meant?” he persisted, but she would not be drawn into so intimate an analysis of her reflections. She had been thinking of Roma, but she could not trespass in the unknown territory of his desires.

  “I spoke without thinking,” she said. “Say some more from A Shropshire Lad for me.”

  “Say some more? Why don’t you ask me to recite and have done with it?” he mocked with a wry little smile, but he obeyed, nevertheless, selecting quotations at random, lulling her into a state of quiet content until he asked suddenly:

  “What made you tell Roma I had kissed you?”

  She was jerked back to reality by the harshness in his voice. Had he brought her here, after all, only to rate her, or, worse still, to remind her, in person, that no man cared to be pursued?

  “I—I didn’t,” she stammered, not understanding why he should ask such a question.

  His shrewd eyes flicked over her, alert and penetrating, and she felt as she knew his victims must feel in the witness-box. She could almost see the ghostly outline of a wig framing his angular features, the wig which Roma had declared to be so becoming to him, then his mouth suddenly lost its hardness in a small, ironic smile.

  “Oh, I see,” he said with an enigmatic inflection, and immediately spoke of something else, but, for Charity, the brief moment of respite had gone. She could only see him now through Roma’s eyes, the man who would one day marry her with or without love, the man who had philandered elsewhere in an idle moment and regretted it.

  They had been late with their luncheon and the other couple had long since gone, but they lingered over their coffee, for Marc seemed abstracted and disinclined to move. Presently the sound of the village band from the green told them that the May Day dancing had begun, and Marc called for his bill. They stood for a time with a group of villagers watching the dancing, but there was no magic in it for Charity. The children were unskilled in their manipulation of the maypole ribbons and not very attractive in their rather ill-fitting white frocks; the band played with apathy and out of tune, and a dogfight started on the edge of the green.

  “Come on,” Marc said impatiently. “The canine impromptu act is obviously going to be a bigger attraction than the dancers. Let’s leave them to it.”

  It was only in keeping with the day that the maypole festivities should have been a failure, thought Charity as they drove away, but as they came again to the wooded lanes which had so pleased her, Marc pulled into a little clearing and switched off his engine.

  “Well, Pierrot, shall we walk in the wood?” he said, with a lifted eyebrow.

  Charity obediently got out of the car. She could not imagine why he should want to prolong an occasion which had scarcely been an unqualified success, but to make excuses would only have implied that she did not trust herself to him.

  As she began to walk down the narrow path which led into the wood, his voice behind her observed with that disconcerting habit he had of reading her thoughts:

  “You see I am keeping my distance, as promised. What a ridiculous waist you have, Charity. What does it measure?”

  “I don’t know,” she said nervously, and felt him suddenly pull at her belt to halt her progress.

  She stood there stiffly, wondering if he was going to kiss her again, despite his conviction that she had been chasing him, but he only gave her a gentle prod and let go her belt.

  “Go on,” he said. “There’s a fallen log over there in full view of the road. We might, with impunity, sit there for a bit and enjoy the spring sunshine, don’t you think?”

  The log lay across the mouth of a clearing in the wood and was overgrown with moss and lichen. Charity perched at one end, carefully smoothing her skirt and feeling a little foolish; Marc sat astride the log at the other end and suddenly burst out laughing.

  “How very naive you are, Charity Child,” he said. “Very naive, and rather endearing. Did you know this part of Sussex used to be famed for its iron foundries a century or so ago? You can still see the old hammer ponds in the woods.”

  “Can you?” she said politely, and sat picking at the cool, green moss between them. She could not follow his alternating moods and she wished, suddenly, that she might wander off alone and explore. Bluebells, almost over, made a carpet of blue through the trees and the branches of young, unfolding breech were a delicate pattern against the sky.

  “Where will you go when you leave Cleat?” he asked her abruptly.

  “I don’t know. It depends what sort of job I find, I suppose.”

  “And what do you imagine you’re fitted for? Will you go back to thumping a piano in the Charing Cross Road, or will you try to find another eccentric old lady like my aunt?”

  His voice was mocking and she thought the implication was plain. He was still, it seemed, unconvinced of her intentions where his aunt was concerned.

  “I don’t know,” she said again. “I haven’t had time to think.”

  “No? Do you remember I once told you I was beginning to suspect you were marked out for disappointment, disillusionment and, probably, grief?”

  She sent him a startled look.

  “Yes,’ she said. “You told me, too, that I had no business to get myself born into this day and age. What did you mean?”

  “Don’t you know? You’re an anachronism, poor, lost Pierrot—perhaps we both are. Well, you’ve experienced the disappointment—even the disillusionment. I trust, so far, grief has kept away.”

  He was speaking lightly, even flippantly, but her spirit ached afresh, for grief had not kept away; grief ran through her numbed thoughts now as it had done when her father had died.

  “Oh, yes,” she answered with bright hardness, “grief has kept away, thank you. What is there to grieve for?”

  Ay, she lies down lightly,

  She lies now down to weep ...

  “Do you never weep, Charity? But of course you do. I’ve seen you.”

  She was ready to weep now, at the heartlessness she found in him, at the piercing sweetness of the spring day.

  “It isn’t very gallant to remind someone of past foolishness—any sort of foolishness,” she retorted, suddenly goaded beyond endurance. “Why should you care if I weep? Why should you care what becomes of me?”

  “Oddly enough, I do,” he replied with mild rebuke. “I have a slight feeling of responsibility, since Astrea is my aunt. Would you consider marrying me?”

  She stared at him speechlessly for a moment. The expression on his face had in no way altered, and he flicked a beetle fastidiously from his coat sleeve as if his extraordinary question had no importance.

  “What did you say?” she asked, then.

  “You heard. After all, one job is as good as another, I should have thought.”

  The sun went behind a cloud, leaving the wood dim and unfriendly and suddenly chilly. She said, because the thought was uppermost in her mind:

  “But you are going to marry Roma.”

  “Does she say so?” he enquired with lifted eyebrows. “Roma seems to spread a lot of false ideas, one way and another. You’d better take me, Charity Child; we would be protection for one another.”

  Anger suddenly mounted in Charity, consuming the hurts Marc and Astrea had dealt her, and the mischief Roma had made.

  “I will not be a bone of contention between you and Roma, or a—a whipping post, or—or a safety valve for you!” she cried incoherently, and saw him smile.

  “What an odd assortment of metaphors,” he observed mildly. “Are you a bone of contention, Charity?”

  “I always have been!” she stormed at him. “First between you and Astrea, then between Astrea and Roma, and now—now you offer this—this monstrous suggestion because you have a slight feeling of responsibility and need protection from another woman!”

  He regarded her thoughtfully and with much interest.

  “Dear me!” he said reflectively. “I do seem to have been clumsy. I had no idea that an offer of marriage might be considered
monstrous.”

  “Of course it’s monstrous!” she exclaimed, nearly in tears. “You imagined, I suppose, a p-proposal was expected because I ran after you—because you thought I ran after you, I mean.”

  “Did Roma tell you that, too?”

  She had sprung to her feet at her first outburst of temper, feeling at an advantage looking down at him, but now the rage began to seep away, leaving only misery.

  “Wasn’t it true?” she asked; then, without waiting for a reply, she leapt over the log and ran, weeping, into the wood.

  He did not follow her, and she wandered about for a long time, trampling down the bluebells, running blindly into branches that stung her face and brambles which tore at her dress. Like everything else that day the wood proved to be an illusion; it petered out quite suddenly in a disused rubbish heap piled with tin cans and broken bottles. She laughed a little hysterically and began slowly retracing her steps.

  Marc was still sitting on the log, gazing abstractedly at the sky, and the sun highlighted his nose unkindly, emphasizing its length. She advanced a little sheepishly, conscious of her scratched face and torn stockings, and he rose slowly to his elegant height and surveyed her.

  “You look a trifle dishevelled. I fear they will assume the worst at home,” he said. It was not a moment to tease, he supposed, but having bungled his approach, he could do nothing else but endeavor to relieve her embarrassment.

  She said nothing, but stood there, staring at him with her great, drowned eyes. He was still a stranger, for she had no experience in matters of the heart to guide her, and no instinct as yet, to pierce the protective armor of another.

  He took out his handkerchief and gently dabbed at a little trickle of blood on her cheek.

  “So you’ve turned me down, have you?” he asked, and she moved away out of reach of his ministrations.

  “Yes,” she said with grave dignity. “For I think you were making fun of me.”

  “Do you? I can’t share your sense of humor, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t you have said, on that score, that Charity Gentle might be a happier combination than Charity Child?”

  “No less silly,” she said tartly.

  He sighed and replaced the handkerchief in his pocket.

  “Well, I suppose we’d better be getting home,” he said. “It must be nearly tea-time.”

  He hardly spoke on the way back to Cleat except to point out marks of interest in the countryside. Whatever his object had been in making his ridiculous proposal, he seemed to be quite unmoved by his rejection.

  Charity sat beside him, feeling a little foolish. She was conscious that her own behavior had not been very dignified, but his had been beyond her understanding. She could only be grateful, she supposed, that in the end he had acted as he did, for had he followed her into the woodland taken her into his arms she would have been lost. Meager satisfaction lay in the knowledge that now he would know that she had not been running after him, but she viewed the rest of his visit with misgiving; he had only to show tenderness for her proud defences to come tumbling down.

  “Like the walls of Jericho,” she said, forgetting that she had spoken aloud.

  He gave a little smile as he changed gear for the steep rise of Cleat Hill.

  “ ‘And it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet ... the wall fell down flat ...’ ” he quoted.

  She glanced at him uneasily, wondering whether she had revealed more of herself than she cared to, but he made no further comment, and soon they pulled up behind a strange car in the drive of the house. Charity was speculating with surprise as to who might be visiting, for callers were rare at Cleat, when the front door opened and Roma came running out. She still wore the smart clothes in which she had gone to Brighton, but her hair was carelessly set and her eyes red with weeping.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded of Marc, her voice shrill with a mixture of alarm and suspicion. “Did you have to go joy-riding with Charity today of all days? Why weren’t you here?”

  Marc looked at her curiously. Perhaps for him, too, thought Charity, it was a new experience to see Roma stripped of her poise.

  “If you remember, I wasn’t expected until this evening,” he replied coolly. “You weren’t here when I arrived, so I took Charity out to lunch. Any objections?”

  “Plenty,” she snapped viciously, “but they can come later. It’s Astrea. She’s had a heart attack. She’s unconscious and I think she’s going to die.” Her face crumpled into tears again and, even in her own sharp alarm, Charity found time to marvel that Roma should be moved to weeping.

  Marc pushed past her without ceremony and went into the house and, when Charity would have followed, Roma caught her by the arm.

  “The doctor’s with her now. No need to hurry,” she said. “We should get that lawyer down. I’ve tried his office, but it’s closed Saturdays. Do you know his home number, Charity?”

  Charity turned slowly to look at her, and she knew with sickening certainty that this, then, was the cause of Roma’s distress; not grief for an old lady who might, at this moment, be dying, but a fevered fear that by Monday it could be too late for her inheritance.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “And if she’s as bad as you think, it’s no time to be troubling her with lawyers.”

  “Of course it’s time! This business has been postponed and postponed. Now it may be too late.”

  “Isn’t her peace of mind more important?”

  “No! Don’t you care, Charity? You may be mentioned in the will.”

  “No,” said Charity and walked into the house.

  It all seemed very quiet. Doors stood open to the rooms and the May sunshine spilled over Astrea’s amassed assortment of treasures; the hideous oriental press in the hall, the cabinets of glass and china and worthless bric-a-brac which filled most of the rooms, the Persian rugs of doubtful origin, the fine pieces of furniture which rubbed shoulders with the rest. How strange, thought Charity, surveying it all, how strange that these mute objects could represent a lifetime’s tastes and fancies and, in the end, fall under the hammer, for there was nothing here that Roma would want, and only the miscellaneous contents of the music-room might catch the fancy of a musical collector, and so perpetuate her name.

  “Charity”—Roma had followed her in—”something should be done about the lawyers. Can’t you think? Astrea must have old Fenimore’s home address somewhere. She was quite pally with him.”

  “Be quiet!” Charity said, her eyes suddenly anguished. The scent of the lilac which she had picked and arranged only yesterday came to her on a warm wave of nostalgic spring. Forever the scent of lilac and the old-fashioned wax polish that Minnie used would remind her of this first day of May when so much had crowded into her life.

  Roma was regarding her speculatively. She had time, now, to observe the torn stockings, the pinched look of shock and control in the younger girl’s face.

  “Well—” she began in her accustomed husky drawl.

  “Be quiet!” said Charity again, her eyes focusing with difficulty on the lovely, arrogant face which, even now, was ready to taunt her. “How bad is she?”

  Roma shrugged. Already her first panic had passed. Sickness in the house was a bore, and it looked as if, this time, Astrea would be unable to dismiss her ills as of no account.

  “It’s hard to say,” she replied indifferently. “The doctor seems to take a grave view, but he was a bit snooty at not being called in earlier. She’s well over seventy, poor old girl, and in her heyday, hit the high spots quite considerably, I imagine.”

  “What brought on the attack?” asked Charity, and Roma’s eyes shifted for an imperceptible moment, then returned to regard Charity with her customary tolerance.

  “Oh, we had a little argument—nothing at all, really—but you know what Astrea is. She worked herself up into one of those frenzies of nonsense and, suddenly, she collapsed. It was like that time the other day, only worse. Minnie couldn’t bring her round, and when
she did, neither of us could lift her. If Marc had been here instead of acquainting you with the facts of life in the bushes, something might have been done more quickly,” she finished viciously.

  Charity let it pass. It no longer seemed important what Roma did or said, or even Marc. Astrea, that colorful personality of a bygone age, was upstairs, dying, perhaps. She was forgotten by all but, the few, but when she went, a little of the panache of life would go with her.

  “Has she asked for me?’ she said, and Roma fumbled in the pockets of her elegant suit for a cigarette.

  “Why should she?” she replied insolently. “You’re under notice, so I believe.”

  It seemed a long time later that Marc and the doctor came downstairs together. They stood talking gravely in the hall, then Marc accompanied the stout little man to his car. Roma was lounging in her sitting room, the radio switched on to a program of dance music; Charity waited in the music-room, trying to escape the heartless beat of saxophone and drum.

  “Turn that thing off,” Marc ordered sharply when he came back into the house. “She might hear it in her room.”

  Roma obliged with a lift of the eyebrow, and Charity came through from the music-room. “How is she?” she asked.