Charity Begins at Home

by Alicia Rasley

  Closeted in the balcony-level study with three volumes of agricultural notations, Tristan was almost relieved to hear childish screeches in the great hall below. He had left the boys in care of the sole surviving groom, but they had apparently escaped again. He emerged from the study to the sounds of running feet. Then he heard a crash and knew, somehow, that it was the Sevres vase he had given his sister on her twenty-fifth birthday. He strode to the railing, about to remonstrate with his nephews, when someone beat him to it.

  "Lawrence, Jeremy! Did I break that when I opened the door?" The cheerful voice carried clearly on the lofty foyer. "No one answered my knock so I just walked in. I vow I don't know my own strength! I mean to say, I didn't fling the door or crash it against the wall. But look on it—shards all over the floor! What an Amazon I must be!"

  "What's an Amazon?" Jeremy asked.

  "A very strong woman. Stronger'n any man." Tristan could hear her voice lilting with pride. But unless he hung over the railing, which he wasn't about to do, he would catch no glimpse of the unknown Amazon below him, under the balcony.

  Lawrence's scornful tones, however, were all too familiar. "You're not an Amazon, Charity. You didn't break the vase. I did."

  So this was the estimable Miss Calder, taking a break from her festival planning. Braden wandered farther along the railing, hoping for an unobstructed view. But he could only see fragments of porcelain scattered on the muddy parquet floor around a discarded bouquet of flowers.

  "Oh, Lawrence, are you the strong one then? Did you just open the door and see the vase crash to the floor from your enormous strength?"

  "No, he pushed it," said Jeremy, a boy without the guile of his brother—or Miss Charity. "He was in a taking something terrible."

  Braden expected the girl to respond with the awful voice of authority, as he himself was about to do. But instead he heard only amusement. "Well, I should hope it was a terrible taking! I hope just a minor pique wouldn't inspire this sort of destruction, or we're none of us safe from Lawrence the Terrible!"

  Jeremy's giggle encouraged her, and she said, "What a shame! Your mother told me once that your uncle gave her that." Her sigh was a masterpiece of longing and regret. "I was always so thrilled to see the vase and know it was most probably criminally obtained. All my relatives are so tediously honest, you know, and you get to have a smuggler uncle."

  Tristan had never precisely considered his act of packing the vase carefully in his luggage and walking off a ship a crime, but he supposed it was, at all that. And his credit with Lawrence immediately went up a notch or two. "Uncle Tristan smuggled that?"

  "Well, it's of no account. The excise agents would have no use for the vase now. Look at it, all smashed to bits. Lawrence, you wild man, what were you thinking, smashing your mother's vase?" There was the slightest pause, then the gentle suggestion, "Were you angry at your mother, perhaps?"

  Tristan, curiously moved by the girl's unconventional tactics, waited for the boy's answer. Finally Lawrence cried, "She wouldn't see me! She sent me away! She said she couldn't bear to see me today!" In an instant his sobs were muted, presumably by a feminine shoulder.

  "Oh, you poor darlings. It's been awful for you, hasn't it? I just don't blame you a bit, Lawrence, in fact I can't, for I've been just as bad myself."

  "You? Bad?" Lawrence's voice was raw but retained its scoffing note.

  "You would never believe it to look at me, would you? But I was so wicked once. No, I can't tell you! It's too bad!"

  Of course, the boys were begging at this point, and Tristan himself was in some suspense. Reluctantly Miss Calder said, "You must promise to tell no one. And promise you won't think too badly of me. You see—come here, Jeremy, sit with us."

  Braden heard the swish of skirts on wood and imagined her sitting down on the floor and gathering the boys into her lap if she were telling them a bedtime story. "It was all because of preserves."

  "Preserves?" Jeremy echoed.

  "Yes, preserves. Strawberry, cherry, peach— my mother loved to put up preserves. It always embarrassed me to see her working like a scullery maid, and of course she made me help, too. Oh, she'd have the whole house steaming with the heat of a dozen kettles, and all the maids would be peeling grapes and plums. And I, naturally, had to stir the muck. You can imagine what that did to my elaborate coiffure."

  "What's a coiffure?" Jeremy whispered.

  "A hair arrangement. And I didn't have one, once preserving day was done. I never could understand why we had to put up so many pots every year, for we had shelves and shelves of them. Five brothers, I had, and we never made a dent in the supply. But still Mother had to put up more. Then she died."

  "You poisoned one of the pots?" Lawrence breathed.

  "I poisoned— Lawrence, where do you get these notions? Has someone been reading you gruesome German tales? No, I didn't poison anything. I wouldn't poison my mother, even if she made me put up preserves every day of the year."

  "I didn't really think so," Lawrence's shame was mitigated only by his disappointment. "So what did you do that was so wicked?"

  Miss Calder signed gustily. "I was so angry when she died. Oh, don't look so shocked at me! You promised you wouldn't think badly of me! I know it's shameful, but I really was angry that she died. I was sad, too, but first of all I was angry." There was a combative spark in her words now. What a voice she had, Tristan marveled, wishing he could see her expression. She could go on Drury Lane tomorrow. "And I don't think either of you can tell me I shouldn't have been."

  Jeremy squeaked his demurral, and, in a bit of a huff, she went on. "So the day after the funeral, I went into the stillroom—" her voice lowered shamefully, or perhaps only conspiratorially— "and I took one of the jampots and—and I took it out to the pond and I heaved it. As far as I could. Apricot preserves. My favorite."

  There was a moment of silence. "That's not very wicked."

  "Well, Larry," she mimicked his scornful tone, "it's not a Sevres vase, to be sure. But then I'm not titled. I can't afford to go about destroying my valuable possessions. But valuable or no, it made me feel much better. I even went back into the stillroom and got another pot."

  "Did you heave that one, too?" Jeremy, at least, was still innocent enough to be impressed.

  "I was going to. But then I saw the label. It had an etching of the Grange on it, with the big oak tree in the front, and underneath it said 'From the kitchens of Calder Grange'. We have only one kitchen, actually, but Mother thought it more impressive in the plural. She used to give the jam to all our guests. She sometimes had to press it on them, for I imagine they had stillrooms full of preserves, too. You know, I'll wager we could end starvation entirely if we just gave away the contents of our stillrooms! But perhaps," her voice grew meditative, "perhaps even starving people would get weary of forever eating grape jam."

  Tristan leaned back against the paneled wall, suppressing a laugh. Lawrence was not so amused at the digression. "You didn't heave it, did you?"

  "No, I didn't. I meant to, but then I thought of how much my mother loved to make the preserves and how she always told me that good jam was just like love, sweet and nourishing— that isn't very appealing, is it? Jam is so sticky! So I put the pot down and sat there in the stillroom and just cried and cried there among the jampots Mother loved so."

  "Mother loved her vase!" Lawrence suddenly wailed. "That's why I broke it! She was so cruel!"

  "Oh, darling, I know! Even if she didn't mean to be, I know how hurt you must have been! And you couldn't tell her so, when she isn't well, could you? So you had to break the vase instead." The slightly ragged edge to her sigh touched Tristan as much as Lawrence's sobs, and he no longer cared very much about the vase. "But I haven't the slightest idea what to do now. Can we mend it?"

  "Not likely," Jeremy replied with mournful pride. "It's in a thousand bits."

  "And someone's sure to notice it's gone. That's why I chose a jampot. No one would notice it was gone, for there we
re a hundred others. But what are we to do?"

  Lawrence said, "I suppose I must confess to Mama that I did it."

  "Are you sure you can? I never confessed about the jampot, except to you, of course, for I knew you wouldn't spill the soup. I wasn't brave enough. Perhaps you aren't either."

  His manhood questioned, Lawrence could only aver, "I am so brave enough. I'll even confess to Uncle Tristan."

  "My word, Larry, you must be careful. After all, we know your uncle is, well, criminally inclined."

  I? Tristan wanted to protest but held his tongue, for Lawrence, of all people, was defending him. "He's not so horrid as you might think, Charity. He said Jerry and I could be pagans if we liked."

  "Pagans?" Miss Calder echoed faintly. "Aren't you afraid he's a pagan, too? Don't they boil people in oil?" Tristan didn't know whether to be amused or outraged that she was putting such thoughts in his nephews' heads. But Larry's reply reassured him. She knew what she was about, however labyrinthine her methods.

  "That's cannibals. And I don't think he's a cannibal. I don't think he'd even beat me, as long as I apologized."

  "Still, to be safe, I think you might offer to pay him back. That might pacify him. Do you get an allowance?"

  "Not till I go away to school. And I wouldn't want to have to give it up. I could tell him I'll pay him when I come into my inheritance when I'm twenty-one. I'm seven now, so it's only—" He halted, such higher mathematics beyond his ken.

  "A very long time. Well, you can put it to him. But I imagine an apology graciously extended will be graciously accepted, and you can let your solicitors haggle over the price."

  "What's a solicitor?" said Jeremy, but Lawrence shushed him.

  "I can make another vase. Not a— a whatever you said, but I have some modeling clay."

  "That's a good idea. But isn't there something else you should do first?" The boys remained in a baffled silence until she prompted, "The mess here. I wager your downstairs maid has enough to do without this."

  "She's the upstairs maid, too, and the cook." Lawrence gave a put-upon sigh, then said with an oddly adult resignation, "I'll clean it up."

  "I'll help," Jeremy piped up, for he hated to be left out.

  "Do ask the maid to watch you though, so you don't get cut. I wager she'll love sitting back and watching someone else work for a change! And I'll tell you what." The boys' silence was obviously expectant, and she did not disappoint. "If you do a good job sweeping up here, I'll see it you can help me with my Midsummer work! I must build, oh, booths and tables, and I will need some able confederates. I think you are old enough, but, well, we shall see. Now I'll go on up and see your mother. I've picked her some wildflowers from the copse, and they can't fail to perk her up."

  "She won't see you," Lawrence said with a return to his gloomy disdain.

  "Oh, I shan't give her the chance to tell me! I'll just burst in like the big bad wolf and blow all her protests out the window. Now go on, you find the broom, and I'll go huff and puff and blow down your mama's door."

  Braden heard the boys pelter off, then the girl's heels clicking on the oak parquet. "Ick. Little boy hands are always so sticky. Jam, jam, all over my dress." At first he thought she was addressing the maid or had perhaps discovered the listener above her. But then he saw her emerge from under the balcony and cross to the brass mirror on the opposite wall, and he realized she was talking to herself. He wondered if that was a habit of hers, if she was so used to cajoling and coaxing others she addressed herself with the same cheerful purpose.

  Now he recognized her as exactly the Charity he had unconsciously envisioned, a small girl with a neat figure, in a chocolate riding habit of fashionably military cut. The short jacket just skimmed her trim waist; the hem of her skirt was a little dusty from the floor. Her thick curls were of a matching brown, tumbled from their pins by little-boy hugs. What he could observe of her face was pretty, triangular, wide at the brow and pointed at the chin, with a certain liveliness around the dark eyes that accorded with her lively voice.

  Her features arranged so easily into a merry smile that he thought it must be customary, along with the wrinkled-nose face she made in the mirror. She rubbed at a smudge on her cheek, murmuring, "Minx! The elegant Anna will never believe you took in London." She laughed at her reflection's reaction to this and suddenly leaned over the rosewood table and kissed herself in the streaked mirror. Then she made another silly face and vanished, or so it seemed, but Braden realized she had only run up the steps. He melted back into the shadows, for spies best remained hidden, and watched her emerge at the top of the stairs and head to his sister's room, the motley assortment of blossoms back in her hand.

  Once she had knocked and entered without waiting for a response, Tristan moved closer to his sister's open door. He was not, in the general way, an eavesdropper. But this chit had marched into the house and immediately set about disciplining his nephews, very capably, he had to admit. Then she started talking to herself and kissing herself in the mirror. Of course, she thought herself unobserved, but her unconventional actions, coupled with that reference to the boys' criminal pagan of an uncle, made him wary. Now she meant to assault his sister with her unique brand of impertinent cheer.

  He could forgive himself a certain unease about Anna's fate at the hands of this very managing Miss Calder.

  But fascination with her methods kept him out of the room and out of sight, though still within earshot. He leaned against the wall, waiting to hear Anna's faint voice of protest. But she never got the chance. Miss Calder began chattering as soon as she cleared the threshold. "Anna, dear, how lovely to see you. But how sad, too! What a sorrowful time you've had of it. Kenny was so young. Such sad news, and the vicar told me you had to manage it all quite alone until your brother arrived. I'm so glad he's here, for I can't bear to think of you by yourself in this big house. Of course, you have the children, but they really cannot help as a brother can. You have been so brave! Oh, my dear, go ahead and cry, only you'll probably make me cry, too, and I don't look quite so adorable in tears. Just look at you! It's entirely unfair how glorious you look with your eyes glistening so. Your nose doesn't redden in the slightest! However do you manage it?"

  Before Anna could answer this unanswerable question, Miss Calder sped on. "I brought you some flowers. Just wildflowers. I gathered them from the copse, but they are pretty, aren't they? Have you been out to see the meadows? Full of daisies! Oh, you must see them! Kent is its loveliest in spring, you know, and that's very lovely! I'm so glad to be home when the flowers are blooming, aren't you? You really must come out to the garden, at least. Tomorrow."

  Good luck with that, Tristan thought, pressing his head wearily against the wall. But at least Anna wasn't sobbing, not that she'd had time to get a whimper in edgewise.

  "I'll pack a picnic lunch then. Alfresco meals were all the crack in London this season, so I've the most luscious menus. I'll tell you all about the Clayborne Mayday picnic at Ranelagh when all the London swells fell at my feet. I'd grabbed the last bottle of champagne, you understand!"

  As he expected, Anna made a demurring noise. But then the resourceful Charity changed tactics again. No longer the social director, she was regretful and a bit insulted. "Oh, I knew you wouldn't believe me. I told myself, Lady Haver is a true cosmopolitan. She'll never believe an ordinary girl had her day in the London sun. So I shan't even tell you." This haughtiness lasted exactly a second. "Although I was hoping you'd be the slightest bit intrigued. Even proud. For you were my model. Oh, not in appearance, of course. I hadn't a prayer of suddenly acquiring inky black waves and those flashing eyes of yours. But I'd truly applied myself these last years, ever since I first met you, to determine how you'd behave always so exquisitely. I was ever such a hoyden, but I was fortunate to have a pattern of a true lady to follow. So whenever I found myself in a precarious situation, I would ask, How would Lady Haver handle this? And I would do it just that way, and I fancy I always acted with a bit of yo
ur grace."

  To his surprise, Anna finally spoke. It was a little more than a squeak, and quickly faded, but her voice showed more animation than he had heard since he arrived. "Did you really think of me?"

  "Yes, I did. I never told any of the multitude who complimented me on my pretty behavior that it was all copied. I preferred they thought it was entirely natural, that I had grown up in some royal court and not a rough-and-tumble manor house. But I knew the flattery was really due you, even if the flatterers didn't."

  Painfully Anna asked, "Were they all talking about— about me in London?"

  "Well, I hope not!" came the gay reply. "They were all talking about me! Who is that mysterious Miss Calder? Oh, perhaps she looks as if she's just up from the country, but see how she pours tea. Exquisite, don't you think?" Her imitation of a London fop was note-perfect, and Tristan was hard-put not to announce his presence by laughing aloud.

  "I mean, were they all talking about the duel?"

  "Oh, the duel. Well, there was some talk in March, but the season was just beginning and the next thing we knew that German princess had eloped with her physician and everyone suspected he had been drugging her. So no one gave poor Kenny another thought." Ruefully she added, "Fame is ever fleeting in London, you know."

  "But here, here in Calder. Everyone's gossiping, I'm sure."

  "Gossiping? Come, dearest, this isn't London. People have better things to do than endlessly work over the latest scandal. Especially after the flood in April. And the Midsummer fair is coming up, and there's ever so much work to do. You know, I think your boys might like to help me with the preparations. Lawrence is quite the little Hercules. And they can go through their toys to donate a few to the jumble booth. You'll remember to ask them, won't you? They will love the fortune-teller, I know. Everyone will, except the vicar. He thinks it's paganism."