Charity Begins at Home

by Alicia Rasley

  She broke off her cheery monologue, and Tristan could hear his sister's now-familiar sobs. He almost went in, but then the heartbreaking sounds quieted, and he imagined Miss Calder's shoulder was getting soaked again.

  "There, there, darling. You know, this is all sad enough without you thinking yourself the center of gossip. For Kenny was ours before he was yours. We all loved him despite his faults, so we can hardly think the worse of his wife for feeling the same way."

  "But I didn't even know that he had faults like that."

  "You are in good company! Why, only this morning Mrs. Jenkinson— she buys our excess milk from us— told me that Kenny Haverton was the sweetest boy in Kent and no one would ever convince her otherwise. Of course," she continued thoughtfully, "he'd never put a snake in her picnic basket, so she could still cherish an illusion or two."

  A watery giggle was her answer. "Did he really do that?"

  "Yes. And much, much more. I was only eight. Lord, he must have been eighteen then! And still playing such pranks. At any rate, he was very sweet when he wasn't wicked, and no one blames you for loving him. You deserved better, of course, but surely you've noticed most women deserve better than the husbands they end up with."

  There was a sardonic note in her lilting voice that saved it from girlishness, and Tristan recalled her rejected swains. Not particularly respectful of the opposite sex, Miss Calder. But then her tone briskened. "Now then, what's this about you not receiving callers? Not everyone is as rude as I, you know. If you tell them to go away, they will usually go away. And then you're left all alone with your sad thoughts. No, Anna, no more hiding away in your lonely tower. Your brother is here and I am here, and you shan't be alone, prefer it or no!"

  Anna made some inarticulate protest, and Miss Calder laughed, an impish sound, light and teasing. "You haven't any choice, my dear, so you must get used to it. Come, give me your arm, and I'll show you. Just lean on me; of course you're feeling weak, you've been lying down forever." Her voice, when it resumed, came from farther away. "Now do you see my brother and his crew there? You have been taken over by Calders. Francis has been trying to buy that south field from Kenny for years. Now he'll get his chance to farm it, after all. He is such an enthusiastic farmer, you know."

  "I'm so glad," Anna replied. "Please, take me back to bed now." There was a shifting of the mattress, and Anna's sigh. "I am glad, for I hadn't given a thought to the planting, and I doubt poor Tristan knows a hoe from a serving fork. He's not a farmer, you see."

  "But an artist! Much more exciting, I think. You never told me your brother was the famous Lord Braden. I must tell you what my aunt said when she saw his—"

  Tristan thought it best to cut short this artistic discussion before he heard something he preferred not to— the fate of all eavesdroppers, he understood. He knocked on the open door and entered to see his sister pale and lovely, traces of tears silver on her cheeks, her blue-black hair arranged against the white pillow. "Oh, Anna, I see you have a visitor." He was rather proud of his nonchalance. Miss Calder wasn't the only one worthy of Drury Lane.

  As his sister performed the introductions, even smiling a bit, Braden got his first close look at Miss Calder. She rose from her perch on the bed, her fair cheeks flushed, but she quickly regained her composure. Her hand was small and warm in his, her smile merry, revealing a couple of dimples. Her eyes, a clear hazel, were nicely fringed with dark lashes; her gaze was direct and unafraid. She had discarded the light jacket of her riding habit, and a white chemisette hinted pleasantly at the curve of her breasts. She had no claim to beauty, for there was no mystery in that gaze. But this was an appealing face, fresh and piquant and intelligent.

  And the contrast between the energetic Charity and his beautiful, broken sister was almost too painful to bear.

  As if she understood, Miss Calder moved away from Anna's bed and began to arrange the neglected wildflowers in the pitcher on the mantel. Tristan's sharp eye noted her felicity with the simple art. The daisies were surrounded by the deep pink hedgeroses, and a single green fern, asymmetrically placed, balanced the pitcher's spout. "Lady Haver has agreed to come out to the garden with me in the morning. I told her she would like the flowers, but actually I'm planning to bore her with tales of my life in London."

  "London suited you then?"

  She looked back from her flowers, perhaps sensing some challenge, though he had meant none. The she chuckled, a pretty sound, like gold coins in a pocket. "But of course. And I suited London! I was named the Incomparable! Actually," she told Anna in a stage whisper, "I was called the Comparable, but here in the country they don't understand such distinctions and think it a fine title indeed."

  Anna, he was glad to notice, made a brave show of feminine curiosity. "Did you fix the attention of any special gentlemen?"

  Miss Calder set the pitcher of flowers on the night table and wrinkled her nose in dismay. "Oh, tomorrow when we are in the garden, I shall confess all. Now I must take my leave and go back to the church. Oh, Anna, Lawrence has a matter to take up with you. Please don't be too angry with him, for he's a boy, and boys are inclined to be troublesome." She cast a mischievous glance at Tristan. "Of course, you only had the one brother, and I've no doubt he was a paragon. But mine weren't so good, and Lawrence is no worse than the best of them—or no better than the worst, is that what I mean?" She picked up her jacket and gloves and bent to touch Anna's cheek. "Till tomorrow, dearest."

  "I'll see you out," Braden said in response to the speaking glance the girl gave him.

  As he had expected, the silent invitation was extended for purposes less lascivious than instructive. While they walked down the staircase, Miss Calder quickly outlined Lawrence's crime and punishment. She gestured to the dingy parquet floor of the foyer. "You see, he's swept every bit. So if you could just— oh, forgive me. I shouldn't tell you how to handle your own nephew. I've so many brothers, you see, that I tend to play big sister to any little boy. But he really was very sorry."

  Tristan promised not to give Lawrence the thrashing he no doubt deserved. "They have no nurse, you see, and have been let to run wild."

  "I'll send over my old governess Cammie. She's been sadly underworked since Joey— since we grew out of the schoolroom. But of course, she reared us, so we've never been able to let her go. She'll enjoy staying with the boys till you find a permanent nurse."

  "I would be in your debt," he replied, with a humility that was entirely new to him. He was unaccustomed to such open generosity as these Calders had shown. "My sister is already a world improved."

  She tugged on her riding gloves as they reached the front door. "I'll arrange some visits from the ladies of the church. Does she sew at all? She can make rag dolls to give away to the poor children at the Midsummer fair. Busy hands mend a troubled heart, you know. Well, of course, you know that, you're an artist. Do try to admire her, won't you? She's probably missing all the compliments she usually garners. Some women waste away for lack of flattery, I think. And Kenny darling— what a snake he was— Kenny's end must have been a great blow to her pride. If you tell her she's still lovely, perhaps she'll think she's still lovable." She wrinkled her nose again, a childish trait, and rather endearing. "Of course, she'll be mighty suspicious, hearing such twaddle from her brother, but the ladies do appreciate flattery, no matter what the source!"

  Awkwardly he said, "I don't know how to thank you."

  "Then don't." She walked briskly through the door he held open. "You'll no doubt be wanting to curse me in a day or two, calling me an interfering baggage. Will you remind her I'll be by at eleven? I'll bring lunch. Join us if you like."

  This invitation was delivered with candid amiability that was hard to suspect. But in his experience, unmarried girls didn't invite men to lunch so casually, and he recalled her brother's speculative comment, You're an artist— she likes art.

  But before he could ready a polite refusal, she was running down the stone steps, her light farewell floating b
ack to him. Not waiting for his help, she used a rail of the fence for a mounting block, and in a moment, never looking back, she was cantering down the avenue. She rode well, her back straight, her hands light. Yet another accomplishment of this most accomplished miss.

  Anna had sagged back on her pillows but raised her head when he returned. "Isn't Charity a very good sort of girl?" Her eyes misted as she touched a daisy chain Charity had left on the counterpane. "And she hasn't any reason to be. I never paid her the slightest mind. Oh, I invited her and the other gentlewomen to tea, of course, whenever we were here, but we were never here. But she and her brother, they're just being kind, aren't they? I'd forgot that sometimes people are just kind."

  He took her hand, hurt by the transparency of the skin over her fragile bones. "It's the country way, I suppose. A little village like this must weave a web of kindness if it is to thrive."

  "Oh, but I haven't ever been part of it. I've never cared at all for the place, so slow and dull compared to London. And yet, my friends in town—"

  Tears clouded up her voice and she broke off. But he could finish her thought: Her London friends had sent her pro forma letters of condolence and forgot her. He'd never had the slightest illusion about the nature of such relationships, but Anna was honestly hurt by their defection. He forestalled her returning melancholy. "Miss Calder certainly is a helpful young lady."

  For some reason, Anna took this as an insult. "Oh, I know you think she is too managing. I saw that critical look of yours. You always used to look just so when Father put on his tyrannical performance. You narrow your eyes and raise that eyebrow even while you remain perfectly polite. I am your elder sister, don't you forget, and I know all your ways."

  As she asserted her seniority over him, she pulled herself up straight against the headboard and tugged her hand out of his. Pleased to have elicited such a spirited response, however unintentionally, he amended, "Not managing, precisely. Competent."

  "Competent. Well, that sounds very dull, and she isn't in the least dull. And I don't remember her getting the least bit forward before this. I guess I brought out the nurse in her. I seem to recall that she does sick calls for the parish. And, of course, her mother died young, and her father suffered a lingering death a few years ago, so she's plenty of experience. I think their deaths postponed her come-out for years. She must be nearly of age and only just had her season!"

  For a moment, her voice faded; she was doubtlessly remembering her own glorious season a decade earlier. Then she roused, pouting a little as her thoughts returned to Miss Calder. "And she came home unmarried. How sad! I just don't understand it. You would think one man in London at least would have noticed what a fine wife she would make. It's not as if she is an antidote, after all. She has a lovely smile and a fine little figure," Anna observed with the objectivity of a woman of fabled beauty. "I suppose there wasn't much of a dowry, but surely not every man this season was a fortune hunter. And yet she received no offers!"

  "Why do you assume that?"

  Anna regarded him with sisterly disdain. "Tristan dear, girls without fortune or beauty can't pick and choose. If she had received an eligible offer, the banns would have been posted before the suitor left the house."

  With great restraint, he forbore to correct her, knowing Miss Calder's revelation of her conquests would enliven the picnic. He only commented, "She doesn't seem to be shrinking away in response to rejection. In fact, she appeared to be entirely self-assured."

  "I knew you would say something of the sort, and in such a tone!"

  Tristan thought his tone had been impersonally admiring, but he didn't object, for Anna's eyes, so recently lackluster, were flashing in response to his perceived offense. "I said nothing critical."

  "You're judging her bold because she speaks up clearly and looks you directly in the eye and doesn't practice those mysterious die-away airs all your flirts cultivate. Men!"

  Her spirited charge had quite dried the tears in her eyes, and Tristan laughingly held up his hands in protest. "I am not judging her at all. I concede that she's a fine girl. She's cheered you and that's enough to earn her my regard. But you must admit, Anna, that she is a bit—"

  He let his voice trail off, and Anna obligingly filled in the blank. "Talkative? Oh, I imagine she is, but she is most amusing, isn't she? I know you don't like that sort of girl. You'd prefer her to communicate entirely in significant looks and wistful sighs."

  "How do you know what I'd like?" he demanded.

  "Because you are my baby brother, and your tastes haven't changed since you were thirteen and fell in love with that mysterious French émigré who turned out to be a jewel thief."

  Tristan hadn't thought of Madame Daumier in a decade, but for his sister's sake he reminisced, "The perfect woman. She opened her mouth only for kissing."

  Instead of shock, Anna responded with a big sister's skepticism. "How would you know? And I heard she also opened her mouth to smoke opium."

  "No wonder I worship her still. An opium-smoking jewel thief—the stuff of dreams."

  Anna's laughter dissolved into tears, and he held her against him as sobs racked her fragile body. She was still so beautiful, even after three months shut away in grief. Their mother had been just the same, heartbreakingly lovely even as she died of sorrow. But Anna wouldn't, not if he could help it. He waited for her tears to abate, then gently urged her back on the pillows.

  "You must rest now. You have a picnic tomorrow, do you remember?"

  "Oh, Tristan," she whispered, "I can't."

  "You must." He rose abruptly and went to the door, then forced himself to turn back with a smile. "If you aren't ready to celebrate at eleven, your Miss Calder will have my head. And I know you'd never consign your baby brother to such a fate."

  "She's really very nice, Tristan, she is!" Her faint protests followed him out the door. He heard his nephews thundering up the stairs and thought Miss Calder's old governess couldn't arrive too soon to suit him.

  Chapter Four

  “I worry about you, Charity," the Reverend Mr. Langworth said in his avuncular way as they walked through the nave of the old church. The morning sunlight streamed in through the stained-glass windows, outlining every mote of dust their entrance had stirred up. "Taking on so much, with your usual household duties, and the poor work. Just preparing your brother for Eton will take all summer! I wish you would not have cut your time in London short, for I'm persuaded you need a holiday far more than we need this rubbish about Midsummer."

  "Oh, a season in London is hardly a holiday." Charity stopped by a battered pew and with her handkerchief rubbed off a bit of gumdrop from the seat back. After Midsummer, she thought, I must get all the ladies to come in and scrub down every pew and beat out the kneelers, too. "I have got much better rest since I've been home away from all the traffic noise. And you needn't worry about me! You've always said I have too much energy. Why, if I hadn't the outlet of the church work and the Midsummer fair, I don't doubt I would have to take up smuggling just for diversion!"

  "But to come home early from your grand season for such a trivial purpose! Why, I heard Mrs. Williams just yesterday lamenting that with another week you might have made the acquaintance of some respectable man that you could have joined in life."

  The vicar's sigh was quite well done as he continued down the aisle, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent so that Charity couldn't see his expression. But she could imagine it: wily, cunning, a bit shamed.

  Unfair, she thought, and almost said it aloud. Instead she followed him past the altar toward the sacristy. Her boot heels set up an angry clatter on the worn granite; deliberately she slowed, smoothed her steps, just as deliberately softened her tone as she spoke. "Mrs. Williams said that? I'll have to thank her for taking such an interest in my life. But I think I met every respectable man in London, and a few less respectable ones, so I missed little by coming home. And Midsummer isn't trivial. Why, it's the most important festival of the summer
, and the whole parish looks forward to it! Especially after the terrible spring floods, I think we need something to cheer the village folk, don't you?"

  They went on fencing like this in the church parlor, Charity and the vicar. She kept her voice light and her manner cheery; Mr. Langworth maintained a gloomy mien throughout. It must have been better than a play for the housekeeper, Mrs. Ferris, who brought in lemonade and biscuits and stayed to polish the gleaming sideboard, her ear bent in the direction of the tea table.

  Now that Charity had volunteered her services as organizer, Mr. Langworth could not credibly insist on cancelling Midsummer. But he could and did object to every proposal she made for entertainment.

  An orchestra for the Midsummer Eve banquet would be too expensive? Charity smiled and agreed, knowing that Mr. Perry, the mason, would donate his fiddle playing in return for getting the contract to fix the tower.

  The St. George and the Dragon mumming play planned for after the banquet offered a violent example to the village children? Charity pointed out that St. George was Britain's patron saint, thus the tradition had patriotic as well as religious significance.

  "What if," she said, as if struck by inspiration, "we follow it with a more devotional sort of play, one the children perform themselves? If they are desperately trying to remember their lines for, oh, say, Jonah and the Whale, they will pay no attention to the St. George story."

  The vicar could hardly accuse her of lying about the devotion of the church's children, and he could hardly cancel Britain's patron saint. So in bad grace he said, "I shan't hear of any fortune-telling. That's paganism, and worse, it will remind people of painful conflicts of the past. It wasn't so long ago that witches were burned, you know."

  That ominous warning wouldn't deter Margo Ashton, Charity knew, for the baker's wife loved to dress up in her gypsy costume and frown at her cards, intoning bad tidings in an eerie voice. But Charity would find some place for her, if not along the green where the concession booths would be located.