Charity Child

by Sara Seale

  To Charity, the small offerings were infinitely pathetic; little bunches of primroses, almost over, daffodils which had bloomed their best before April was out, and the first early roses from cottage gardens. But there were wreaths, too, opulent beside the humbler offerings; lilies, carnations, even orchids, tributes from the few professionals who remembered Astrea and had read her small obituary in The Times. There were few mourners to follow the coffin and the service was short and simple. As she heard the bell toll on that sunny afternoon in May, Charity’s thoughts turned to Housman and she wondered if Marc too was remembering. They tolled the one bell only ... and so to church went she ...

  Quite suddenly she understood him. His obsession with Housman was a clear pointer, for was it not a philosophy shared because life had taught him, too young, to accept the things that came too late? Was he not as simple as she, desiring still the goodness and felicity of what had been denied him earlier? She looked at his straight back as he stood, rigid and erect beside Roma in the pew in front, and her love flowed out to him, a love her father’s companionship had made possible for a man so much older than herself. In Astrea’s passing there was now no great sorrow, for she had come to rest, but, dwelling on this small, insignificant last gathering, Charity knew a moment’s affectionate sympathy for that out-dated spirit. How Astrea would have enjoyed the grave panoply of plumed black horses and sable trappings, the funeral orations of bygone years; just so should Astrea, the Star-maiden, the toast of a more colorful era, have gone to her final rest.

  “Are you all right?” she heard Marc whisper as they began to file out of the little church, and she realized she must look strange, still locked in the absurd realms of her imagination.

  “Quite all right,” she told him with a smile. “I was just thinking of the horses and their plumes.”

  His eyebrows rose a fraction with their quizzical enquiry, then he smiled. “I see what you mean,” he murmured, and they out the sunlit peace of the little country churchyard with the clear sky arched above them and the blue curve of the downs beyond. Charity’s eyes went instinctively to the long ridge which was Cleat Beacon and Marc’s gaze followed.

  “Later?” he said. She did not answer, but moved on to the graveside to stand beside old Minnie for the final commitment to earth.

  Roma stood beside Marc, beautiful and unmoved by the curious glances of the villagers, her face a mask of hardness. In the sunlight her hair shone like a burnished aureole, just as Astrea’s must once have done.

  Marc drove them all back to Cleat House, empty and indifferent in its mock-Gothic ugliness, and Roma went upstairs to pack. She was, she had announced earlier, removing herself to London as soon as the funeral was over; she could not endure much more of rustic stagnation.

  Charity went to her room to change into slacks. She would go to the Beacon, and whether Marc came to find her there or not did not really matter. On Cleat Beacon she had been made aware of many things which, as yet, life had not begun to teach her; there she would bring order to her thoughts and learn to face the future.

  Climbing the chalk track which had so often before led his steps to the crest of the Beacon, Marc saw her outlined against the sky. The wind lashed the black, tapered slacks against her long legs and the hair from her eyes; her face was lifted to the breeze, and her slender body seemed caught for a moment in a familiar drooping curve. She was as he always thought of her, the sad pierrot of tradition, lost and forlorn because nowhere had she found to lay her head and heart.

  “Well—” he said as he walked along the ridge to meet her. “Are you waiting for me, or do I turn back?”

  The smile she gave him was questioning and a little remote. She could not, as yet, read what was written for her in his face, and she was, for perhaps the last time, still a little unsure of him.

  “Did you remember in church about the one bell tolling?” she asked, and he smiled.

  “Summer time on Bredon? Yes, but Housman also had a happier one.

  ‘And now the fancy passes by,

  And nothing will remain,

  And miles around they’ll say that I

  Am quite myself again’.”

  “But that,” she said quickly, “was a rather cynical postscript to the first verse.”

  “So it was,” he replied with a wry smile. “I must remember in future that you are too familiar with our mutual friend to quote out of context.”

  “He’s made me understand you a little,” she said shyly.

  “Has he? Well, at your age you shouldn’t care for such a philosophy. I’m not sure I always do, myself. Let’s walk.” He took her arm and began to march her along the ridge of the Beacon towards the chalk hollow in the breast of downland where they had sheltered that rainy afternoon and he had called her a scarecrow.

  She looked about her, aware of changes everywhere. Speedwell and pimpernel showed among the tufty grass, the lambs had grown big and lost their grace, and the dewponds, filled with spring rain, presented clear mirrors to the sky.

  “How lovely it all is,” she said with faint regret. “How strange that life should go on, no matter what happens.”

  “Not strange—only natural,” he said. “Does Astrea’s death matter so much to you?”

  “Yes, in a way. Cleat was the first real home I’d had since my father died.”

  They had reached the hollow, and he drew her down into it out of the wind and the bare exposure of the downs.

  “Well,” he said, “you have your remedy. I can offer you a home, even if nothing else appeals.”

  She turned to look at him, startled by the sudden humility in his voice, and saw the mixture of purpose and uncertainly in his face.

  “Would you be willing to offer me a home, and nothing more?” she asked wonderingly.

  “If necessary—though I would hope for something better in the end. Could you not give me that expectation, do you think?”

  She was so close to him that she could see the small, puckered lines of anxiety at the corners of his mouth, and the urgent question in his eyes. It was so strange to see him humble and uncertain that she could find no words to reassure him, for had it not been he who had always called the tune and made of her what he would?

  “Oh, Marc ...” she said, and her eyes filled with tears.

  He stretched tentative hands towards her, touching her lightly, with no hint of the possession he had shown once before.

  “I love you very much, Pierrot,” he told her gravely. “So much that if you’ll still have none of me I’ll leave you and wish you well.”

  The tears flowed over then, and her hands went to meet his, her fingers entwining, bringing the comfort which she now knew he asked of her.

  “That I couldn’t bear,” she said, “for if you left me now, I would have nothing. Were you—were you not making fun of me, after all?”

  He pulled her into his arms and his cheek was rough against hers.

  “I never made fun of you, my darling,” he said. “I was clumsy and out of tune with the moment that day. You were, you see, so young, so inexperienced, and were raising such valiant barriers of pride between us. Have you not heard the trumpets yet?”

  “The trumpets?”

  “Don’t you remember? ‘When the people heard the sound of the trumpet ... the wall fell flat ...’ That’s what you were thinking when we drove back to Cleat that day, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, and you knew. You always do know what I’m thinking, Marc, it’s—it’s most disconcerting.”

  His eyes were suddenly grave and searching and the little nerve in his cheek betrayed his own uncertainty.

  “Not always,” he said. “I was never sure if you could love me. I’m not sure yet.”

  “Aren’t you, Marc?” she whispered. “Haven’t you always known that I wouldn’t be proof against you? I have no experience of men like you—nor indeed of any man, except my father.”

  His expression was wryly tender.

  “And you still want to put me i
n his place.”

  “No,” she said on a long sigh. “I want you for what you are and for what I can give you, if you’ll let me, and—and—I don’t feel at all like a daughter to you.”

  “I should hope not!” he retorted with something of his old assurance, then, before he kissed her, he took her face between his two hands searching it hungrily for the qualities he would always remember; the grave, enquiring eyes the plaintive brows, the innocent, generous promise of the young, untutored mouth.

  “You have all the advantages over me, after all, Charity Child,” he said softly, and found her mouth with his.

  THE END