Charity Begins at Home

by Alicia Rasley

  Tristan was unsurprised to see Charity as the church organist. He wouldn't be surprised, in fact, if she stood up and gave the week's lesson. She looked small at the keyboard, though it was a tiny organ, too small to hide the figure of the boy pumping the bellows. Charity was frowning with concentration as she approached the end of one of the simpler Bach fugues. As she pressed the last key, her shoulders lifted in a silent sigh of relief and the vicar entered the reverberating sanctuary.

  Tristan was lulled by the familiar cadence of the mass, though he was used to hearing the words intoned in Latin. He and Anna had been baptized Anglican, of course, but their father had been a free-thinker who thought their religious education should best end there. Their mother always threatened to have them baptized again by their cousin the archbishop in Naples, but she never carried through. Such an absurdity, all this anguish about the true church. His mother loved her statues of tormented martyrs, while Mrs. Cameron would think them vulgar, preferring Anglican saints too sensible for martyrdom. Why should either have to give way?

  The vicar wouldn't hold with such tolerance, Tristan thought, as Mr. Langworth stood at the pulpit, frowning at his notes. Apparently he found something amiss, for with a righteous snort, he balled up one page and flung it away into the recesses of the pulpit. Then his pink face turned red as he pierced the congregation with a glare and reminded them not to flirt with the devil. How inscrutable people were, after all. When they first met, Tristan had thought the vicar the most amiable of men, a pastel study of gentleness and mercy. And here he was, thundering like Jeremiah about paganism, as though paganism could stand a chance in cautious Christian Kent.

  Mr. Langworth's gaze seemed to fix on Tristan for a moment before passing onto another churchgoer. Could the vicar have heard of Tristan's classical paintings? But surely even the vicar would understand that the classics weren't pagans, precisely. Of course, the gods weren't Christian, but—It didn't matter, Tristan told himself firmly, but he had to smile, imagining the vicar's certain response to the Aphrodite painting. Pagan and nude, besides. He would probably collapse in apoplexy.

  Tristan rubbed his forehead to hide his grin, then noticed Lawrence's less successful attempts to contain his mirth. When Tristan nudged him, the boy could only nod in the direction of the organ. Charity was sitting up straight, innocently attending to the vicar's sermon. But then she darted a glance at Lawrence and made a face. He dissolved again into silent laughter, earning a sharp glance from Mrs. Cameron. Charity, her eyes bright at her own escape from reproof, turned back toward the pulpit. But for an instant her eyes met Tristan's and her expression faltered. Then she raised up that stubborn chin and focused every ounce of attention on the vicar.

  The service was concluded, the recessional hymn only an echo, before she looked back at their pew. She ran lightly down the altar steps, taking Anna's hand, drawing her out into the sunlight to greet the vicar, keeping up a soothing stream of chatter, even convincing Anna to push back her veil. A few other ladies came to say hello, but most kept their distance, only nodding respectfully at the new widow.

  Francis Calder stood, hat in hand, at the edge of the church steps, staring wistfully at the pale vision in black. When Tristan took pity on him and presented him to Anna, the normally hearty Calder could only stammer his way through a few pleasantries. But Anna responded to this flattering awkwardness, lowering her eyes and holding out a fragile hand.

  Immune to his sister's attractions, Tristan for the first time observed how stupidly men responded to beauty. Even the vicar, pagan denunciation forgot, hovered about her like a great black moth, inquiring solicitously of her health, bending close to hear her faint answer.

  Tristan liked to think that as an artist, he took a more objective attitude toward feminine beauty. But then he recalled a contessa who had kept him cooling his heels one sweltering summer in Rome. He glanced around, wondering if Charity would be able to read his thoughts if she saw his face. But she was gone from the little circle around Anna.

  He heard her light voice mixed with childish shouts, and located her off to the side of the church lawn within a wedge of wisteria bushes. She stood in the center of a circle of children, extending her hands in front of her then out as if she were swimming. "Swim, swim, Jonah! Swim away from the whale!"

  When the children took up her cry, she changed from coach to whale, swimming purposefully across the grass as the children scattered, shouting with glee. Her fashionable blue bonnet was hanging down her back; sunlight glinted off her hair. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes abrim with laughter, as she pretended to grab Jeremy out of the swirl of children around her.

  She belongs so well, Tristan thought. Wherever she is, she makes her home. Whomever she's with, she makes her own.

  Near him two stately matrons stood, commenting on the service and the weather, watching the children play. "That Charity Calder," one remarked significantly. Mrs. Dalton, he recalled from the introductions.

  Tristan pretended to be absorbed in watching his nephews gambol with the village children. But really he was waiting, daring her to call Charity a hoyden, to disapprove of her high spirits and unladylike display, so that he could rise to her defense.

  "That Charity," Mrs. Hering agreed, shaking her head, and then proceeded to demolish his assumptions about the narrow-mindedness of country folk. "Such a very good sort of girl. Look at how well the children mind her. Little Lawrence—why, he's an earl, and she has him apologizing for knocking down the blacksmith's boy."

  "Well, the Calders have never held themselves too high. I'll wager it's a relief for you, isn't it, Agatha, that she's come back as organizer of the Midsummer fair?"

  Mrs. Hering glanced around for the vicar and, finding him gone, snorted. "Well, I got no joy in the position! She's the only one, it's true, who can get round the vicar when he's put his back up. And he's got his back up with this festival, right enough." Lowering her voice, so that Tristan could barely hear her, she added, "My Crispin, you know, is set to offer for her again. She refused him once, but he was out in his timing, for her father had just died. She's out of mourning now, and she's had her season, and I imagine she must have decided Kentish men are just as good or better as any she saw in London."

  "Well, I wish him the best, I do. If she married your boy, she would be able to stay here in the village where she belongs."

  Tristan knew a pierce of resentment as these women assigned themselves ownership rights to Charity, as if her birth in this village gave them first claim on her. But he was surprised at his own proprietary sense—as if somehow he should have that first claim, should he choose to exercise it.

  Just then Charity detached herself from the children and ran up the stairs. "No, no, Mrs. Hering," she cried breathlessly, waving the ladies away. "I'll take care of the altar. You go on home to your dinner. I have to talk to the children's parents about the play anyway."

  Tristan wanted to reach out and stop her, to hold her back, to force her to stop working just for a moment and give her attention to him. But she only tilted her head to the side and smiled as she went past him into the church. He refused to chase her into the sanctuary, determined to wait until she came out.

  After their long afternoon together, he had expected more communication with her than a greeting and that quick smile. But she'd paid more mind to the blacksmith's boy, behaved more flirtatiously with Lawrence, smiled more warmly at Mrs. Hering. But then, none of their encounters—had they really met only four times?—had followed any pattern he recognized. When they did connect, he felt comfortable yet always intrigued, on edge, not a combination he expected with women.

  Young Charlie Calder, who had been one of the altar boys, came out of the church then and, casting a quick glance at Tristan, leaned on the iron railing beside the steps. As the younger children scampered over the lawn, calling out challenges to each other, Charlie's thin face grew still. Tristan knew an unwilling sympathy for the boy. He was so wiry, as thin as a reed, his thick dark
hair the most substantial part of him. How unlike his siblings Charlie was. They were all so gregarious and confident, and Charlie's shyness was that much sharper in contrast.

  Tristan didn't want to reach out to this boy; his own nephews were expensive enough for a man who couldn't afford much emotional expense. But Charlie looked so lonely there, waiting for his sister, watching the children but unable to join them.

  "What do you plan for your holiday, Charlie?"

  At least the lad could respond to a direct question. His voice was low and quiet as if each word came considered. "I'm supposed to study Latin. That's in the morning. I have chores, too, of course. And rock hunting. I collect rocks and fossils, and the like."

  "And you fish, your brother said." Tristan felt a bit of triumph that they were having a real conversation. Charlie even looked up at him.

  "Well, Barry fishes. Mostly I tramp around in the water, looking for interesting pebbles. Barry doesn't like it. He says I scare the fish." The boy's rare smile flashed; for a moment he resembled his sister, all bright irony. "But he'd rather not get any bites at all, than to spend the time alone. Barry hates being alone. He doesn't care if I don't say a word or if I fall asleep, as long as he can chatter away."

  "Where are your brothers?"

  "Francis is right there." Charlie gestured toward the knot of people still around Anna. The eldest Calder was standing protectively near. Tristan supposed he ought to feel guilty, to let another man keep guard over Anna, but he felt only relief.

  "And Barry stayed in bed." Charlie ducked his head and smiled to himself. "He went to the Rose and Crown—that's the public house—with the squire's boys last night. He said he couldn't face the day. He turned green when I yanked open his drapes and let all the sun in!"

  "But aren't there five of you? And Charity? Where are the other two?"

  The laughter left Charlie's eyes and his face grew still again. "They're—they're out there. Out back. Charity's there." Then, with an apologetic bob of his head, Charlie slid down the iron rail and ran off down the lane.

  Tristan meant to propose a meeting with Charity to start the Jonah painting, and besides, he was curious to discover the reason for the boy's odd manner. So he walked through the empty church, his footsteps echoing in the quiet. Light streamed through the prismatic stained-glass windows, painting the gray stone floor with color. The altar cloths had already been put away; Charity was nowhere to be seen. He stood indecisive in a pool of rosy light, then walked on, automatically genuflecting in the papist way as he passed the altar.

  At the end of the altar rail, beyond the statue of St. Christopher holding a lamb, was an arched door. This led through a small passageway to an exit out the back of the church, away from the village.

  The steps led down to an old brick walk through the old graveyard. On either side of the path leaned headstones, most worn smooth with age. Charity stood before a group of newer ones, a bouquet of the altar lilies in her hand. She bent to place a bloom before each of three stones. One was a doubled arch, like Moses's tablets—for her parents, no doubt. The other two were smaller. She put a hand on the smallest and patted it, as she might pat the head of a child, then repeated the action with the other simple stone. Then she stood there silently, head bowed, the remaining blooms dropping unnoticed from her hand, her pale blue skirt rustling in the light breeze. The only other sound was the distant cries of children.

  Abandoning his original intent, Tristan turned and pushed back through the door before she could see him. But he found no answer in the empty sanctuary. All the prisms disoriented him, all that dancing color in the gray stillness. The place seemed to echo with color, with the last solemn note of the Bach fugue she had played, with the secret sadness of a cheerful girl.

  Chapter Eight

  Monday the two eldest Callers shared a working lunch at the white iron table in the courtyard. Behind them the Grange spread out, comfortable as a dowager, its two wings edged with centuries-old gardens. If they looked up from their papers, they might see a sunlit meadow complete with grazing cows and a brook reflecting the angelic blue sky. But they seldom looked up; it might be a landscape worthy of Constable, but it was home, and not worthy of note.

  Francis and Charity often met for lunch in the brick courtyard to exchange village news and make plans for the household. This camaraderie was relatively new, as they had never been close as children. Four years separated Francis from the twins Charity and Ned, an unbridgeable gap in childhood. And Charity had always been fonder of her high-spirited twin than of sensible Francis.

  But she was ever old for her age, and those four years shrank as her responsibilities grew. Francis had been helpful when Ned died, when they had to unite to keep their father from drinking away the estate in remorse. A year or so ago Charity realized she actually liked Francis. She didn't want to, for he possessed too many of her boring virtues, steadiness and diligence and thrift, and none of her cherished flaws—cynicism and guile and secret romanticism. And Francis was stuffy, no doubt about it, in a way she had never been. Even this morning, when he expected to spend the day in the fields, he wore a starched neckcloth under his riding coat.

  But Francis had a fine intellect, even if he used it primarily to make agricultural progress, and a dry sense of humor that occasionally, on certain sorts of days, struck his sister as hilarious. And when she was being very honest, Charity admitted that it was good to know someone as reliable as she was herself. She never worried that Francis would bankrupt them with some mad investment or that he would miss dinner without sending word or that he would plunge into melancholy just when planting started, requiring her to set her own shoulder to the plow.

  They dealt together so amicably that she seldom remembered that when Francis finally decided to make someone a wonderful husband, Charity would have to surrender her home to another woman.

  But today her worry about the future extended only as far as the next three weeks, culminating in the Midsummer fair. Actually, the festivities would all take place on Midsummer Eve, June 18, starting in the afternoon with athletic events and an open market. The great evening banquet would cap the day's revelry, culminating in the plays and the parade and a great bonfire after darkness finally fell.

  Pencil in hand, Charity was deep into revisions of one of the plays, the one that was to keep the children out of mischief. She had set aside the lists of duties yet to be delegated and booths yet to be assigned, and now stopped editing only long enough to sip her lemonade, which was growing warm in the noon sun.

  Mr. Greenaway's Jonah and the Whale was just as fearsome as she had dreaded, full of intricate metrical patterns, labored classical imagery, and odd but ingenious rhymes. She wondered how a schoolteacher could expect children to rattle off the likes of "Forcible bears the great Leviathan/to yon trim brig we few rely upon." She changed to "The whale is ramming the boat! The whale is ramming the boat!" and hoped Mr. Greenaway wouldn't notice the substitution.

  Weary of the whale and his chronicler's heavy hand, Charity sighed and with a sense of relief took up the booth assignment sheet. This was a more delicate task than might be expected, with the need to accommodate longstanding village rivalries. Neither Mrs. Hering nor Mrs. Dalton could be trusted with the pie booth, for example, for each would be sure to give her own pies the most advantageous placement and sales pitch, while making vaguely foreboding observations about the cleanliness of the other's oven. Mr. Petrick, the local magistrate, had asked to run the children's bean-toss game again, but Charity thought him too rulebound. He never countenanced "helping" a beanbag into the bushel basket, so last year only three children won prizes.

  Charity nibbled on her pencil, then inscribed the magistrate's name on the line for the bottle-smash game, which attracted a raffish set of older boys. The kindly Mrs. Petrick could take on the bean-toss booth, and Mrs. Hering could have the ale concession. Charity smiled, remembering the fiasco one year when her own father had been put in charge of that booth. At least Mrs. He
ring could be trusted not to drink up most of the supply, give free samples to all her friends, or end up standing on the barrel declaiming bawdy poetry.

  "What do you say to a family excursion Wednesday?" Francis asked, looking up from his perusal of the day's post.

  Charity knew better than to commit herself, for she had accompanied her brother on excursions before. "I say no, if it means standing in a barley field while you discuss some farmer's new way of processing manure."

  "It's not my idea. Comes from your artist."

  "Lord Braden?" With elaborate unconcern, she raised her pencil and returned to her booth diagrams.

  "You have other artists? Yes, Braden. And don't pretend you aren't curious. I see your little ears prick up." Only after she put down her pencil with an exasperated sigh did he explain. "Braden writes very kindly to ask if we—I expect he means the lot of us, but Barry's gone back to Oxford, he'll be glad to hear—will join the lot of them—I expect that means the little demons, too, worse luck—on a picnic luncheon in their Greek folly on Paige Hill." He tossed down the paper in disgust. "Blast, they've remembered that execrable folly after all. I was hoping they'd forget it was ever built and one night I could send Barry and the squire's boys to tear it down. You would think, wouldn't you, that an artist like Braden would see what a travesty that temple is and rid Kent of it once and for all."

  Charity let him run through all his oft-stated objections to good English landowners who defaced the good English landscape with bad copies of foreign buildings. She was too busy contemplating what this invitation might mean to take much note of his dissertation: "A druid structure like Stonehenge, well, I could abide that, and anything Celtic, for the Celts were the earliest British race, and, I suppose, even a Roman ruin, especially here in Kent where they ruled, but Greek? Greek?" She looked up only when he spoke that infuriating word. "A pagan temple, only a stone's throw from our fine Norman church."