Charity (7 page)

On Easter Monday Uncle Geoff took them over to the fair on the Common and they went on every single ride. It was magical. The big wheel whizzing round with its load of screaming passengers, all lit up like a huge Catherine wheel. ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was blasting out, vying with the noise from the rifle range, the carousel and the waltzer.

It was dark when they went home, Uncle Geoff carrying the sleeping James up on his shoulder. People were still flocking to the fair. Young men in smart suits with girls on their arms. Teddy boys on motorbikes and teenage girls in great giggling gangs. Toby and Prue had candyfloss stuck to their faces and a pink glow on their cheeks.

‘What’s going to happen now?’ Charity asked Uncle Geoff. ‘I was supposed to start work after Easter,’ she said, glancing back over her shoulder to take one last look at the fairground.

‘Lou suggested that you stay at home till the summer,’ Uncle Geoff said and grabbed sleeping James more securely. ‘We could give you a bit of private coaching. How does that sound?’

‘Nice,’ Charity said cautiously. She meant it sounded wonderful, but she was always cautious. ‘What about Prue and Toby?’

‘We’ve got them moved into the local school.’ Uncle Geoff smiled down at her. ‘A new start, eh!’

Charity had grown fond of Uncle Geoff, despite her nervousness of men in general. He laughed a great deal, great guffaws that shook his bushy beard and made his eyes wrinkle up. She liked his lean, unthreatening frame, the careless way he dressed and his gentle voice.

‘There’s things we should talk about in the next day or two.’ His dark brown eyes looked down at her with kindness and understanding. ‘Not now with little ears pinned back,’ he said, nodding his head towards Prue and Toby in front.

It was at the end of the week that Miss Downes called. She wasn’t alone this time, but with a younger woman called Miss Brady. When it was suggested that Miss Brady take the younger children out for ice-cream while Miss Downes stayed behind ‘for a chat’, Charity felt very apprehensive.

‘Now let’s sit down and have a drink together.’ Auntie Lou handed Charity a glass of milk and the adults had coffee.

They made small talk for a while, discussing James’s new words, Prue’s desire to learn dancing and Toby’s passion for football. Miss Downes kept blinking and humming as if in agreement with everything.

‘Let’s get right to the point,’ Auntie Lou said eventually. ‘Miss Downes has found some relatives, Charity.’

Just the way everyone had been trying to delay this news gave Charity a feeling of impending disaster and all she could do was stare at Aunt Lou.

‘You have an uncle and a grandmother,’ Miss Downes spoke at last. ‘We discovered both grandparents on your father’s side are dead, and he had no brothers or sisters. But your mother’s mother is still alive and your mother’s older brother, Stephen.’

‘Are they nice?’ Charity asked. ‘Do they want to see us?’

The adults exchanged glances that seemed ominous.

Charity looked from one to the other desperately. ‘Tell me the truth. I want to know.’

Uncle Geoff cleared his throat.

‘It’s not that they aren’t “nice”,’ he said carefully, his brown eyes gentle. ‘It’s just a bit awkward.’

Geoffrey Charles had learned about these relatives several days earlier, but was still stunned by the news.

‘You see your grandmother is very old, Charity,’ Geoff said carefully. ‘Your uncle is crippled. They didn’t even know about you four, they lost touch with your mother before any of you were born.’

Charity immediately imagined these relatives as much like the kind of people who lived in Greenwich.

‘Well that’s that, then.’ She shrugged philosophically. ‘So what happens now?’

She saw the three adults look at one another and knew there was more. It was very odd that Miss Downes was saying nothing. She just sat, hands clasped in her lap, still wearing her black cloche hat.

‘What is it?’ she asked, looking hard at Lou. ‘Have we got to go somewhere else now?’

Lou ran her fingers through her hair.

‘Oh Charity,’ she sighed. ‘Where do I begin? You see your mother’s family are rather grand. They don’t live in a house like this one, but a mansion in Oxfordshire.’

Charity’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

‘Let me start at the beginning,’ Lou went on. ‘Your mother’s maiden name was Pennycuick. Brigadier Pennycuick, her father, came from a long line of military men, but he died some years ago. Your uncle was a colonel in the same regiment, but he was wounded during the war and he still lives with your grandmother in Studley Priory.’

‘Studley Priory?’ Charity questioned.

‘That’s the name of their house,’ Lou explained. ‘From what we can gather, your grandparents fell out with your mother when she married your father.’

‘Why?’ Charity asked.

‘We don’t know. It was during the war and odd things happened to lots of people then. Maybe they even had someone else in mind for their daughter; she was born twenty years after Stephen, so perhaps they over-protected her.’

‘Does that mean they don’t even want to see us?’ Charity felt a certain pride that she had an interesting lineage, though judging by Lou and Geoff’s expressions they weren’t so happy about it.

‘They haven’t made a date yet,’ Auntie Lou said softly. ‘But your uncle is prepared to become your legal guardian, and indeed to provide for you.’

Charity mulled this over for a moment. She knew enough about foster parents to know they got paid for looking after children.

‘So does that mean he’ll pay for us to stay here?’

Geoff Charles half smiled. He was surprised by Charity’s grasp of the situation. He just wished he could assure her that it was only a question of money.

‘He hasn’t had time to think that through yet,’ he said gently. ‘But for the present, at least, this is your home.’

Charity had a sinking feeling about that phrase ‘at present’.

‘He won’t split us up or anything?’ she asked fearfully. ‘You will tell him we all need to be together?’

‘We already have,’ Miss Downes chipped in. ‘Mr Charles has outlined that you need a little coaching and that the younger children are about to start at the local school. Of course little James needs stability right now too. I did suggest to your uncle that maybe the first point of contact could be that you spend a short holiday with him and his mother during the summer holidays.’

Charity nodded. The summer holidays were ages away and any threat seemed to have vanished. No one was even speaking about her getting a job! Maybe they
would
get to stay here for ever.

‘Why don’t you run down to the ice-cream shop and catch up with Miss Brady?’ Miss Downes held out a half-crown to her and smiled with unusual warmth. ‘Don’t say anything about our little chat just yet to Toby and Prue, though.’

‘I think she took that very well,’ Miss Downes said, turning in her seat to watch Charity running down the road, her can-can petticoat bouncing beneath her green skirt showing rainbow colours. ‘A nice, sensible girl!’

Lou looked sharply at Miss Downes, colour rising in her cheeks.

‘You haven’t any idea, have you?’ she exploded. ‘That “sensible” girl has been through hell. She might be fifteen and old enough to work, but she’s still a child. Now you plan to let some old codger who hasn’t a clue about children put her through more!’

‘Now that’s unfair.’ Miss Downes’s thin lips quivered with indignation. ‘He’s their uncle and it is only right and proper that he should decide their future.’

‘His words on the phone were, “Send the girl here, we could do with another pair of hands.”’ Lou’s green eyes blazed. ‘Don’t you think she’s had enough of being a skivvy?’

‘She could fare worse,’ Miss Downes said, pushing her glasses back on to her nose with one finger. ‘She has no aptitude for anything other than domestic work.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Geoff spoke. He sat forward in his chair, putting a warning hand on his wife’s to calm her. He knew Lou was on the point of blurting out that Miss Downes had no ‘aptitude’ for working with children, but that wouldn’t help Charity. ‘Charity hasn’t had a chance to shine at anything else, but she’s intelligent and a great deal quicker than you give her credit for. Can you possibly imagine what it would do to her if she was sent away from the children to look after some grumpy old cripple in the middle of nowhere?’

‘Well it’s not ideal,’ Miss Downes agreed with a shrug of her shoulders.

Geoffrey Charles had never considered himself anything but fortunate. He had married the woman he loved, pursued a career in biology that excited him. His grandmother had left him this house and with his writing they had enough money to live comfortably. Having no children of their own was a disappointment, but they’d compensated by helping children in need.

When the Strattons arrived they’d had no thought of holding on to them for more than a few weeks. But that was then – before he’d taken Prue and Toby sailing boats on the pond, before he’d bounced James up and down on his knee and felt the deep need in Charity.

She loved her brothers and sister passionately and could care for them almost singlehandedly; take them away, and she had nothing.

Barely able to read, her spelling was appalling and she could manage no more than the simplest of sums. But she had a quick mind. With tuition she could get a decent job, with love she could flourish …

‘I am backing my wife in this,’ he said, turning to Miss Downes, his gentle face for once hard and unyielding. ‘Maybe the ideas Colonel Pennycuick has for Toby and Prue might be feasible and even desirable. But you must do everything in your power to make sure James stays with us and that Charity is allowed to choose her own job.’

Miss Downes wilted under his stern gaze.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said and blinked furiously. ‘But as I’m sure you’ve realised, Colonel Pennycuick is a very difficult man.’

Chapter Four

‘Read it again, Charity,’ Uncle Geoff leaned back in his deckchair, tucking his hands behind his head. ‘This time think about the beautiful words and put some passion into it.’

‘I can’t,’ Charity giggled. ‘I feel silly.’

They were alone in the garden, reading the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It was three months since the fire and Charity was settled and happy.

A glorious June day, the sky a canopy of blue velvet. Leaves on bushes and climbing shrubs glossy with newness. Brilliant purple, blue and yellow pansies fronted clumps of lupins, with towering delphiniums taking up the rear, hiding the fence in a wall of colour.

‘Why should you feel silly?’ Geoff lifted one eyebrow enquiringly. ‘It’s just you and me! Is it right to read it like a shopping list when you feel your heart touched by the words?’

Charity picked up the book again.

She loved her lessons with him. He brought books and poetry alive, she was always hungry for more. Until she came to live with the Charleses it had even been a struggle to read Enid Blyton, but now she had her nose in a book almost continually.

‘I wish I could learn maths as fast,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to grasp that!’

‘You’ve achieved a great deal there too,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Not all of us are born with mathematical minds. You’ve mastered the basics, you can add up a row of figures, multiply and divide, that’s enough to get by with.’

‘Cup of tea?’ Lou called out.

James came out into the garden wearing only a pair of pants, his bucket and spade in his hands. His first proper haircut had changed him from a baby into a little boy. He appeared to have grown a couple of inches in as many months, but his face was as endearingly cheeky as ever.

‘That’s enough learning for one day.’ Geoff gathered up the books, put them in a pile and got up to stretch. ‘Hullo James, where are you off to, the seaside?’

‘Make a castle,’ he said, running across the lawn to the sandpit they’d made for him at the bottom of the garden.

Charity lowered the back of her chair, sat down again and leaned back.

In Greenwich the house had been stuffy and gloomy, with smells coming up from the drains and the river, and even the air made her feel tired. Here she woke early to look out at the garden, excitement rising inside her at the prospect of the day ahead.

After Prue and Toby had gone to school her lessons started: English, maths and science with Uncle Geoff; history and geography with Auntie Lou. Usually after lunch she took James out for a walk so the Charleses could get on with their own work, or sometimes she wrote an essay for the following morning. But even when she wasn’t having formal lessons, she was learning. Watching and listening to Lou and Geoff, reading and discussing the news in the papers. It was as if her brain had been expanded, making so much more room she could cram with fascinating information.

She thought less and less of the past now. Sometimes it seemed like a story she’d read, nothing to do with her at all. She’d refused to see a doctor and Auntie Lou had forgotten all about it.

Charity glanced down at her bust. It was beginning to grow at last and after a course of iron tablets her periods had started, which finally stopped her vague fear that she might be pregnant. Since then she had discovered new confidence in almost every direction, particularly where Geoff was concerned. She could kiss him goodnight now, she didn’t back away if he slung an arm round her shoulder. Once or twice she’d even let him cuddle her.

‘So how is our little Elizabeth Browning?’ Lou came out with a tray of tea and put it down on the grass.

It gave her immense pleasure to see the new colour in Charity’s cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes and the extra pounds she’d put on. She would always be slender, but she was growing prettier every day now the haunted look had gone. She had all the energy and enthusiasm of a puppy; given another year, she’d be a beauty.

Geoff came back and sat down on the grass by their feet. He wore faded baggy khaki shorts and an equally old shirt open over his bare chest. His bushy beard was rather at odds with his almost bald head.

‘Are you going to be mother?’ he grinned up at his wife. ‘Or has the morning sweating over a hot stove earned you the privilege of indolence?’