Charity murmured something affirmative as he cantered off, promising his running nephews that he would let them win the race home. But she wondered if she could really bear to meet him to work on the painting, that constant reminder of who he was and what had passed between them. She would have to, she decided. She owed that much to the children, who were working so hard on their Midsummer play. And she owed that much to Tristan, who was being so forgiving about the wrong she had done him.
Chapter Seventeen
On Saturday the children made it almost all the way through the play without stumbling. Charity was giving them the promised glimpse of the whale triptych when the black-caped schoolmaster emerged from behind the crates in the alcove and clambered up on the stage. She took one look at the fury in his face and said, "Go on home now, children. I'll show you more tomorrow after church, if you promise not to tell any grownups!"
The children filed out solemnly, much as if they were still in Mr. Greenaway's school, several casting looks back at their angry teacher. Charity pulled the cover straight over the painted panel and turned to face him. She had been dreading the moment he learned of all she had done with his play. Better they have it out now than in front of the entire parish on Midsummer Eve.
He didn't give her a chance to greet him or to divert him. His hands balled up into fists, he advanced on her, stopping short only a few feet away. "What have you done with my play?"
She almost shot back that she had improved it, for she didn't like feeling crowded by any man. But it would do no good to anger him further. In a reasonable tone, she answered, "You told me to revise it to fit the occasion. Therefore I simplified the language so that the children could speak the lines. It was also rather long, almost three-quarters of an hour, so I cut some of the soliloquies."
"Some! You cut them all! I couldn't believe what I heard those stupid children recite! So simple, so short. My soliloquies were gone, gone! Every last line—all my lovely poetry!" His fists opened, and he turned his hands over and gazed at his palms as if somewhere in them were the lost lines.
"But at the outset, you knew this was to be performed by children. You did give me carte blanche to make what changes I deemed necessary. And I kept the structure of the story exactly the same, only I combined some of the arguments Jonah has with the sailors."
"The most polished part of all! If only you knew how I labored over that portion, you would not be so blithe!"
Charity thought that since he had written the whole play in less than a week, she had probably labored over it more than he had. She, at least, had given some consideration to performers and audience. But one glance at his tightly clenched face told her that Mr. Greenaway was not in the mood for home truths. "I've still got the original script. You must think of this as the children's version, and the original as the adult version. Think of the possibilities!"
"Possibilities! I wrote this to be performed so that I could hear my words spoken. And what did I hear? Distortion. Reduction. Corruption!"
Fury thickened his voice and tensed his shoulders, and she knew a moment's anxiety. She had seen such anger in men's eyes before, though never directed at her, and she knew it could presage violence. Unobtrusively she moved back toward the edge of the stage, closer to the open window so that, if need be, her screams could be heard.
Such precaution was probably needless. This was David Greenaway, the ineffectual schoolmaster, whom she had pitied but never feared. He was so very angry, however, and some vestige of guilt made her feel all the more vulnerable. Soothingly she said, "Well, you needn't worry, I—"
"No, don't! Don't you try that! Don't you try to manage me!" He took a step forward, clenching his fists in front of him. "You do that with everyone. Everything. You always think you know what is best for everyone. For the village, for my school—distributing those Gothic novels at the commencement ceremonies last year! Gothics! For my play! For my play!"
Something in her responded to his anguish. She reached out to him in conciliation, in apology. But he flung her hand aside. "No! I won't have you talk me out of this. I want my name off that—that travesty! I shan't be associated with it!"
"Mr. Greenaway, let's be reasonable. If you don't want to be known as the playwright, I can't insist. But—"
"And I shan't let you use my title either!"
"Jonah and the Whale?" At this, Charity's sense of the absurd got the better of her. "Well, it's hardly your title, is it? I think the Scriptures had it first."
"Don't you laugh at me! Don't you—"
As he raised his hand, she stepped back, forgetting how close she was to the edge. She felt the floor vanish under her back foot, then in that moment of blind panic heard her name and running steps.
She found herself caught up in Tristan's arms, firm and secure. "Thank you," she whispered, then, in a stronger voice, added, "I'm fine. You may put me down."
He did but kept his arm around her shoulders while she found her footing. The residue of terror seeped away as he held her. She took a deep breath and nodded to him, and then drew back closer as Mr. Greenaway dropped off the stage next to them.
She couldn't believe it, but he was still angry, and didn't moderate his tone even in the presence of another man. "You deserved that, after what you did to my work. You deserve worse. And you'll get it."
He started to shove past her, but Tristan shot out a hand to block him. "Don't threaten the lady, you cur. And don't ever, ever think of touching her again."
Greenaway was too angry to mind the warning and yanked himself away, in the process brushing Charity with his arm.
With lightning swiftness, Tristan grabbed him by the lapel of his scholar's cape and hauled him up. "You haven't learned your lesson, have you, schoolmaster?"
The uppercut connected smartly with Mr. Greenaway's jaw, jerking his head back and clattering his teeth together. Charity resisted the urge to cheer, especially when he picked himself off the floor and stumbled out, whispering, "You'll regret this, Charity Calder."
As the door slammed behind him, Charity tried to rearrange her face in sterner lines. "I suppose you think that was the appropriate response to this situation."
Rubbing his knuckles, Tristan grinned down at her, his dark eyes alight with triumph. "It must be, or it wouldn't have felt so good. It's all he deserves, threatening a woman. Don't worry. I won't let him near you again."
Shaking her head, she took his fist and turned it over to gently stroke one red knuckle. When the red faded to pink and finally disappeared, she dropped his hand with an exasperated laugh. "Paint! I though you might have broken your hand and ruined your career."
"A paltry sort you must think me, to break a hand on a jaw like that."
"Where did you learn to box?"
"I told you Eton was a hellish place. The Etonians took exception to my accent, you see." As he said that, she heard a slight deepening of that elusive accent. "That's all I learned in three months there—to fight." He smiled at her disbelief. "Stood me in good stead in all those fights on the docks in Naples."
As if this were an everyday encounter, he retrieved the leather bag he had dropped and began drawing out his brushes. He was so very nonchalant, fluffing the bristles up as he approached his painting, reaching out to grab up the palette he had left on the table. But he seemed brighter somehow, at least in Charity's vision. Perhaps it was only the afternoon light streaming in through the windows or the reflected glow from his eyes. But there he was, gleaming, burnished by triumph.
"Thank you," she said finally. "He frightened me."
"You didn't show it. Help me, mia, if you are feeling up to it. You've got a good start on the background, but there's so very much more to do. Why ever did I propose a triptych?"
He was so casual she almost missed that sweet Italian endearment, but then she realized he was trying to comfort her without alarming her. He would know that work soothed her best. She took up the blue-daubed brush he prepared for her and came to stand next to him at th
e painting. And after a few moments her hand stopped shaking and she was able to paint the sky instead of just making streaks on the canvas.
Only then did he move farther away to fill in the fingers of God. And only then did he mention the confrontation with Greenaway. "I take it he objected to your direction of his play."
"Yes. But you were there, weren't you, when he first gave it to me? You recall I told him that I would have to make it fit the children better."
"You did say that. And he agreed." He reached out his brush and dabbed a bit of pink on her nose, and as she laughed and tried to rub it off with a rag, he added, "Don't let him worry you. You did the best you could with it. He is typical of his sort. He thinks whatever he produces must needs be art."
She tucked the rag away into her pocket, still troubled. "But he is right, you know. I do always think I know best. I do manage things. I always have. No one's ever minded before, or at least no one has ever said so."
He stopped painting and gazed at her, then slipped an arm around her waist so that his palette was dangerously close to her muslin'd hip and his mouth was dangerously close to her ear. His tender words stirred her hair. "Charity, cara, you are what you are. And I for one wouldn't have you one whit less than that."
She felt his lips brush her temple and unthinking lifted her face to meet his kiss. But before their mouths met, he pulled away, laughing. "Oh, I forgot I haven't the right to do that anymore. Amazing how quickly I became accustomed to it."
As if nothing had happened, he went back to his painting. When she only stood there, her anguish knotted in her throat, he glanced over at her as if nothing had happened. "Charity, we've six days till Midsummer Eve. And I'm sure you have many other tasks to finish before then. The play, for example." And then, as she slowly began to paint again, he went on, "Jeremy has learned the whole thing, you know, not just his own bellows. He recited all three acts for his mother and me yesterday, with Lawrence supplying the whale noises. I think it is much better than anything written by that—oca pocco cotto."
It sounded like an insult, and Miss Falesham had taught her none of those in Italian class. Charity found herself smiling. "What does that mean?"
"Undercooked goose. You see how much Italians love food. Insults and compliments both take the form of food."
By the time she had filled in the background behind the whale, he had taught her how to call someone a stupid beef, a sweet biscuit, a nagging tripe, and a limp fish, along with the associated hand gestures. By the time Tristan pronounced her accent perfect and her gesticulation worthy of a Neapolitan longshoreman, she had nearly forgot the ugly incident that preceded his lesson.
As the afternoon went on, they fell silent and applied themselves to their work. Painting was a lulling activity, drawing Charity into a world of color and light and almost no sound. Once Tristan spoke absently to her in Italian, and she smiled and decided not to embarrass him by asking for a translation. It must be the Italian part of him that paints, she thought, for he had never before confused his languages. She stepped back, looking critically at her daubings next to the precise lines and curves of his work. Perhaps when she knew more Italian herself, she would make a better show as a painter—and understand Tristan better.
Chapter Eighteen
Tristan was doing his best to persuade Charity that she had a future in painting theatrical backdrops when they were interrupted. He wasn't ungrateful to see his nephew shuffle in, dragging a picnic basket behind him. It meant he would have another hour in Charity's company, even if he must needs share her with Lawrence, too.
The boy planted himself before the stage, arms crossed over his chest. "Cammie made me bring you tea."
Charity looked startled, as if she had never meant to be occupied in the church hall through teatime. "Well, that was kind of her! And of you, too, Lawrence."
But Lawrence wasn't to be cozened out of his sullens. His benevolence, it turned out, was really a punishment for having refused to do his lessons that morning. "Jeremy got to go rock-hunting with Charlie, and I had to bring you tea! It's not fair!"
He howled that eternal lament once more for good measure. Tristan groaned while Charity wrinkled her nose and resorted to bribery. She sat down on the edge of the stage and began unloading the basket. "Come it beside me and have a crumpet. See, I'll spread some apricot preserves on it."
Even the famous apricot preserves didn't divert Lawrence from his grievance. Through a mouthful of crumpet, he reiterated, "It's not fair. He always gets his way because he's younger and everyone likes him best."
"Everyone likes him better," Charity corrected, exactly as Mrs. Cameron would. "With only the two of you, there can be no best."
It was a measure of her distraction, Tristan thought, that she did not anticipate how Lawrence might misinterpret her grammar lesson. "So you like him best, too, don't you?"
"Be quiet, Lawrence," his uncle said unsympathetically. "And close your mouth when you chew."
Lawrence subsided into mutterings, slumping down next to Charity on the stage. The adults resumed their conversation, Charity noting a paint spot on Tristan's hand that didn't match any part of their project. "What are you painting now? I mean, of your own work."
With curious Charity, secrecy was the best policy, if fascination was the aim. "Oh, it's a study of brown."
"Of brown? Brown what?"
"The color brown. Or rather the colors. Fascinating, the brown spectrum is. I'm starting around gold and ending at sable."
Her confusion was pretty enough to sketch—wrinkled forehead, chewed lip. "But what are you painting? What is the subject?"
He shrugged and quoted yet another master, this one a radical who contended the human face was merely an arrangement of circles and half-circles. "Oh, subject doesn't matter. Only composition and chromatics count."
Bored with this artistic discussion, Lawrence begged another crumpet. As Charity leaned over to get it, something gold slipped from the demure neckline of her blue cambric gown. "What's that?" Lawrence demanded, half-rising from his perch. "Around your neck. The necklace."
Charity's cheeks pinkened as she replaced the gold circle under her bodice. "Just my locket. Now shall I spread preserves or—"
Secrecy was a lure to little boys, also, and little earls especially hated being kept in the dark. "Let me see it!"
Tristan sensed one of Lawrence's patented temper fits coming on and rose, speaking sharply to head it off. "No. Now sit down, boy, and behave yourself."
The tone that always subdued Jeremy only fired his elder brother. He lowered his brow and snaked out his hand and grabbed at the gold chain, his fingers leaving smudges on Charity's pale gold skin. Instinctively she pulled back from the attack, and Lawrence, triumphant, ashamed, jumped off the stage and dashed away, holding up the broken chain.
"Where's the locket?" Charity whispered, pressing a hand searchingly against her heart. But the locket had not fallen safely into her gown.
"Get back here, Lawrence." Roughly Tristan grabbed his nephew's arm and took possession of the chain. Then he forced Lawrence to his knees on the floor under a half-built booth. "Find it. It must have dropped here somewhere."
Charity was pale and trembling as she started to join the boy's search. But Tristan took her arm and eased her back into her seat. "It just fell under that booth. He'll find it—" he raised his voice— "if he knows what's good for him."
He had seen the intrepid Charity shaken already once today, but he had learned how to comfort her—quietly, unobtrusively, without drawing attention to her vulnerability. He sat beside her and held her hand as she watched Lawrence's search.
When Lawrence emerged from under the booth, her shoulders drooped in a release of tension. Head bowed, the boy trudged back to them. "Here it is. I'm sorry, Charity. I didn't mean to break it."
She took the little gold locket from him and held it clasped in her fist for a moment. Then, slowly, she opened her hand. "It's just the miniatures of my brothers." She
took her other hand back from Tristan and faltered with the latch. "Come here, Lawrence."
The boy sidled close to her arm. "See? That's Ned. He was my twin. And there's Joey. He was our youngest. That's all, Lawrence. Nothing exciting after all."
Lawrence stood gazing at the little pictures, two boys, both dark like Charity, one very young and one nearly a man. "Do you mean they're dead? But that boy—he's my age!"
"Yes, but he wasn't sturdy like you, and the influenza took him. He died late one night.It was a long time ago." She closed the locket with a decisive snap. "Why don't you run and tell Cammie you accomplished your mission? Perhaps she will let you chase after Charlie after all."
As Lawrence made his escape, Tristan rose and began to clear away his supplies. He couldn't stay next to her without wanting to hold her and let her cry on his shoulder. But he knew better than to let his tenderness overwhelm them both. She needed understanding as much as sympathy, someone to listen to her for a change.
The locket rested in her lap as she fussed with the broken link, taking it off the chain then slipping it back in and trying to squeeze it shut. When she finally spoke, her voice came muffled as she bent over the necklace. "Poor Lawrence. He doesn't mean to be so difficult. He just hates to be denied. Neddy was just the same. He could never abide the word no. I learned that soon enough—whatever he was told not to do, he had to do."
She dropped the chain next to the locket and raised her hands to her hair, pulling it back and plaiting it with quick jerky motions. She still didn't look at Tristan, only gazing at the stack of booths near the window. "It's just that word no. You should use some roundaboutation instead. I could always work Ned around without saying it if I had time. Papa never liked to tell him no either. But when he wanted to leave school and join the Navy, Papa kept saying no. The war was over, but he just couldn't let him go. He loved him best, you see, and we'd just lost Joey. I think I might have talked Papa round. What else would Ned have done with his life, if not joined the military?"
Charity Begins at Home Page 21
