Charity Begins at Home

by Alicia Rasley

  She picked up the chain again, threaded it through the locket, and held the broken ends together in her fist. Finally she stuffed it in her pocket. "But Ned couldn't wait. He ran off and volunteered on the first ship he saw in Portsmouth Harbor, an old ugly corvette bound for Riga. It just blew up one night—old gunpowder, they said. He hadn't told me what he was planning. It was the only secret he ever kept from me. If only I'd known, I would have stopped him." She finally looked at him then, not in accusation, but he could see the anguish in her eyes. "I never let myself imagine what it must have been like for him that night. But your painting—it was like that, wasn't it? Terrifying, with no escape. Burning or drowning."

  There was no use apologizing, but he knew nothing else to say. "I'm sorry you saw it."

  "No, no. It's not your fault. It must be a great painting if it felt so true. But that's the danger, isn't it?" She felt in her pocket for the little gold circle, opened it up, and studied her brothers' faces. "I keep trying to forget that. If it's true, if it's real, it will hurt sometime, no matter how much I try to make it right."

  Knowing it was inadequate, he offered the obvious. "But if you can't make it right, it doesn't mean you've failed. You don't have to take all the world's burdens on your shoulders."

  "Oh, I know." She glanced at him now, her smile a little crooked. "I know that the world would go on turning without my help. I'm not essential at all—oh, don't pay me any mind. I'm just a bit blue-deviled because I saw the date today and realized that Ned's birthday is Saturday. He'd be coming of age."

  Tristan envisioned the date carved on the headstone in the churchyard: June 19—Saturday. "But you are twins. It's your birthday, too."

  She looked startled as if this had never occurred to her. "Well, yes, I suppose so. But we don't celebrate it anymore. I visit the graves, but that is all."

  He found it so intensely sad he could hardly keep from gathering her close and vowing to banish all sorrow from her life. But of course, she would recognize the emptiness of that. Sorrow was inevitable in life. She just hoped for a little happiness, too, and that she wouldn't have to make it all herself.

  So he only jumped off the stage and held out his hand to help her down. "Now that the hand of God is done, I feel inspired to another divine work. I think I will try to use the last bit of sun on that brown study of mine."

  She gave him a sidelong glance as they left the church hall. "You work too much, you know."

  "Finally! Finally I understand what is meant by that old English aphorism, the pot calling the kettle black."

  This made her laugh, and he felt cheered. Perhaps he made her happy after all. At least he could divert her on those few occasions when she let herself feel sad.

  She didn't let go of his hand as she usually did, as she was supposed to do, but held it shyly until they entered the public road. "Tristan, will you do me a favor?"

  "Anything," he swore. "Within reasonable limits, that is."

  The ironical glint was back in her dark eyes. "This is reasonable, I think. Would you teach me a bit of Italian? I mean, more than just insults."

  This he hadn't expected. "I suppose I could. I don't usually speak it in England."

  "Not even with Anna?"

  "No. I doubt she's fluent any longer. But I imagine I could. Why?"

  She took a deep breath as if ready to confess to a crime. "I learned it at school but haven't had much call to keep up with it. Oh, I've read Dante's Inferno, but I don't imagine Italian is still spoken that way."

  "I don't imagine it ever was, even in Dante's time." Just before they reached the gates of Calder Grange, he said, "I should have known you would ask me that."

  That annoyed her as he figured it would. She regarded him through her dark lashes, suspicion all over her face. "I am glad you find me so predictable."

  "Oh, predictable you are not. Once I might have called you inconsistent—in fact, I think I did."

  She didn't look away, but color crept up her cheeks at this reference to the unmaking of their betrothal.

  "But now I see that you are consistent. Not, oh, symmetrical, mind you." He held the gate open for her, musing, "Only, well, designed with a logic I haven't come across before but is nonetheless logical. I cannot predict a thing about you, but when some facet of you is revealed I think, yes, that makes some unlikely sort of sense. Some harmony that echoes the harmony of the universe."

  She liked that better as he hoped she would. She would not give over to flattery. She used that so much herself she could sense Spanish coin from far away. But objective appraisal—she liked that. She wasn't used to having anyone study her so closely or analyze her so well. But then she hadn't known an artist before. Lucky for him, observation was his stock-in-trade.

  To keep his compliment unmawkish, he added, "And so I realize that a thrifty girl like you would naturally prefer to get her Italian lessons for free."

  Her pleased look vanished, and she put on a vexatious face. But he saw the laughter in her eyes and knew he was making progress. She took more pleasure in his company than she ever had before. Now he just had to convince her how significant that was.

  ***

  Just as Tristan was turning back toward Haver, Charlie Calder caught up with him to thank him for a fossil he had sent over with Jeremy. "The ammonite is a fine specimen of an extinct species. I can see just how closely it resembles the modem pearly nautilus, Nautilus pompilius, that is."

  "I thought you were a dead loss at Latin."

  Charlie ducked his head. "I can't abide Virgil, but the genus and species of mollusks are simple. Could—could I ask you a bit of advice?"

  The boy looked so brave and abashed Tristan could hardly say no, though he would have liked to refer the boy to the much wiser Sir Francis for counsel. Apparently this way the sort of question one didn't ask an elder brother, however wise.

  "You went to Eton, didn't you?"

  Having expected some excruciating question about the physical changes of pubescent boys, Tristan had no appropriate answer prepared. Finally he came up with one. "Yes. For a few months. After that I was privately tutored."

  "How did you manage that?"

  "I don't recall, actually." At Charlie's disappointment, he tried harder. "We usually spent the winter in Italy, so that first autumn I just left. I think that was the year the French took Naples, so we couldn't escape Italy for a couple years."

  "That's no good then."

  Charlie's disappointment was a bit of a sting. Charity at least had found the story fascinating, how they hid their British passports under the floorboards and spoke only Italian, even to each other, so that he hardly remembered his English when they got out.

  But Charlie's intent came clearer when he said with a crooked grin, "It's not as if I can contrive a war just to keep from Eton. Why didn't you go back when you got home?"

  "Oh, my father paid no mind that I never went back to school. He hadn't much respect for the Eton education as so many of his students had come from there."

  "When you say you were privately tutored, what do you mean?"

  "I studied with an art master in Florence, and then in London. I was supposed to have a tutor in Latin and the rest of the academic subjects, but I can't remember having one after my mother died. Father kept me sharp in mathematics, but I still can't conjugate a Latin verb."

  Charlie's eager nod worried Tristan, so he added, "It would not be an ideal sort of schooling for most. I wanted to be an artist and cared for naught else. Most boys aren't so focused in their studies."

  "Most boys don't study at all." Charlie kicked scornfully at the graveled drive. "Especially not at Eton. They only cane the younger boys and make them cry. I know. Barry's told me. I wouldn't fit in because I want to learn."

  Tristan could only agree, though he suspected Charity would not be pleased. "It's a sad case when you have to avoid school to learn. But you can't just end your schooling at the age of twelve."

  "I want schooling. I just don't want
school." Charlie chewed thoughtfully on his lip, then nodded. Some decision had been reached. Tristan only hoped he would not be blamed for it.

  "Charlie, wait." Tristan glanced back toward the Grange, but Charity had already vanished inside. "Before you go off to meet your future, I've a favor to ask you. How effective are you at diversionary tactics?"

  Charlie considered this question with gratifying seriousness. "I always talk my brothers out of thrashing me. I expect I'm effective at diversion."

  "Good, I have an assignment for you then. Only it's your sister, not your brother, you must divert. On Saturday next, after Midsummer."

  ***

  Back at Haver, Tristan walked silent as a cat past the schoolroom, but it was to no avail. The sharp-eared boys had heard him coming up the stairs and were waiting for him at the door to his studio. Lawrence hung back, looking chastened, but his brother cried, "Uncle Tris! Can I have a peppermint?"

  Tristan had taken a trick from Charity's arsenal and kept peppermints handy, finding them to be an effective means of closing the boys' mouths when necessary. Jeremy was young enough and fetching enough to get away rifling his uncle's pockets, but Lawrence knew better than to test his credit.

  "Give one to your brother," Tristan reminded Jeremy, who had found his prize. "What would you say, boys, to an excursion to Dover Monday? I've got to make a stop at the shipping office, but there will be time to visit the market. You may each have a half-crown to spend."

  Dover, full of soldiers and sailors and Frenchies and seagulls, was one of the most exciting places in the world as far as the boys were concerned. Jeremy started listing all the places he wanted to visit and items he meant to buy, but Lawrence only frowned and unwrapped his peppermint. Finally he said, "I could take Charity's chain to the jewelers to get it fixed. Will that take more than a half-crown?"

  Tristan answered gently, "I don't think so. That's a good idea, Lawrence. If you take it Monday, you'll get it fixed before Saturday. And Saturday will be the right day to give it to her."

  "No, Friday." Jeremy's mouth came muffled around his candy. "Friday's Midsummer Eve and the fair."

  "Exactly. She'll be too busy Friday to be bothered. Saturday, all her work will be done, and she'll be free again. Now if you leave me to paint and are very good for Mrs. Cameron, we'll take my phaeton to Dover instead of a carriage."

  "I get to sit next to you!" Jeremy cried. "I said it first!"

  Lawrence was inclined to argue the point, but he did so reasonably enough, without striking any blows or calling names worse than "sticky-face Jerry." Jeremy responded with equal civility, citing precedence and authority for his case like the nattiest London barrister.

  What good boys they have turned out to be, Tristan mused. Once he had thought them both merely loud, dirty creatures, the only distinctions between them that the bigger one was louder and the little one dirtier. Now they were individuals to him—well, they were still loud, and as for dirty, he supposed he should make them wash off all the peppermint residue before they left. But under the lint-stuck sugary glaze, each had his own face. Lawrence's was pugnacious, his nature shown in the conflict between golden hair and brown eyes; Jeremy's was elfin, his dark gaze darting quickly, curiously around him.

  Before the boys lost their tempers or got disgustingly sticky, Tristan picked them up one at a time and faced them toward the backstairs, then unlocked his door. Back in his studio, he prepared to work, changing into his painting clothes, mixing his oils, assembling his palette, clearing his mind.

  He lit a lamp, for the studio was darker than he liked. With the approach of summer had come the clouds this land was known for. No rain, but fog in the morning, haze in the afternoon, mist at night, fading down to meet the gray sea: This was the England he remembered, the one that created Constable and Turner with their vaporous backgrounds and ambiguous edges. He had always thought his art required more light than this, so he had done most of his painting in sunny Italy. England was for conducting business.

  But perhaps he was more adaptable than he realized. Here he was in England, on an overcast day, and ready to paint. He was even experimenting with painting at night and finding it feasible. The radiance cast by his vision—and by two dozen candles and five lamps carefully arranged—could more than make up for the lack of sun. The trick, he supposed, was choosing an English subject.

  Preparations completed in just the precise order, he carried the lamp past several unfinished canvases with scarcely a twinge of conscience. He set the lamp on the shelf, tilted the shade to reduce the glare, and yanked the green baize cover off his new project. It was the study in brown—a dull color, some might say, hardly worthy of the fabled Hale palette. But it required an eye like his to discern the splendor in that prosaic hue. Brown—oh, it had its own prism, from the near-black clod of rich Kent soil through the robustness of burnished parquet to the pale gold of sunlit skin.

  "Mixing the colors is all," his ancient Florentine master used to tell him. "Look at Michelangelo—now he was an alchemist of color." (Gioberti had been old enough to recall when Michelangelo's paintings glowed, before the soot of the ages had dulled and sophisticated his colors.) But Tristan knew that distinguishing the chromatics was just as essential, and he could close his eyes and see all the shadings and distinctions and contrasts that made up the brown spectrum in his memory.

  It was not prosaic at all, this color brown, for it started with gold, the gold of the sun-blessed cheek of a girl whose bonnet never stayed on her tumbled dark curls.

  Chapter Nineteen

  All Charity needed at the end of a long, trying day was the sight of her brother sprawled at her desk in the parlor, eating nuts while marking on her best notepaper. "Barry, for goodness' sake, what are you doing here again?"

  Barry glanced up guiltily and hid his scrawlings under a book. "Had to bring Charlie back from London," he said with a grin. "You'll be glad to hear you're over the measles. Hey, what's this about you giving Tristan back his ring?"

  She had forgot that, when Barry left Sunday, it was with the anticipation of a new brother-in-law. What a long week it had been. "We decided we wouldn't suit."

  "Stupid. Wouldn't suit. Well, I'd say you'd suit to an inch." She opened her mouth to tell him to stubble it, but he had already veered away to another subject. "Charlie's just telling me about the Midsummer Games. Doesn't know much. Can't even tell me who's in the children's events."

  Now that he was pointed out, Charity realized her quietest brother was curled up in the hooded chair, cradling a large crystal in his arms. "I told you," he said wearily. "Charity made me sign up for the obstacle race. That whole pack from over Elham way is in it, too. Mary Moseby's supposed to be in the eight-and-under girls' egg toss, with the other girls eight and under!"

  "Big help you are. I just want to know who's the best in each event. Willie Morris and Perry Laidlaw—is that a good wheelbarrow team? I mean, I want to cheer for the winners, not the losers."

  "Very sporting, Barry," Charlie said acidly. "Well, I can't help you much. It's not as if these people are my friends."

  No, Charity thought sadly, not your friends. Just children you have known all your life.

  "What about the three-legged race?"

  Charlie perked up at this. "Well, actually, I think Lawrence and Jeremy have a chance at that. I've been teaching them how to walk together, and they don't fall down more than once each race. And Jerry's pretty good at the six-and-under sack race, I'd say."

  Charity smiled at him, relieved that he'd had to adopt the younger boys this way. They fought over his company, and that had to be balm to his fragile spirit. She regarded even Barry more benevolently now. "Cook's son is in the sprint. You might think to cheer for him."

  "Is he good?"

  "Well, he's been dodging her wooden spoon for ten years now," Charlie said with a laugh. The Calder cook was known for rapping any hand, even Sir Francis's, that edged toward her cooking. "I imagine he's the quickest boy in Kent by now." />
  "Good!" Barry said, pulling out his sheet and scrawling something.

  He wrote so quickly that Charity could tell he wasn't making notes on Classical Rhetoric or Euclidean Geometry. She shook her head. "Barry, if you come home next week for the fair, when will you have time to study for exams?"

  "Study?" Barry looked up with brow furrowed, as if this was a foreign word. "Oh, don't worry. I'm a Calder, remember? I always have it under control."

  She suppressed a sigh. Some how that wasn't much of a consolation. "What is Francis going to say when he sees you?"

  "Already saw me. Didn't say anything. Oh, he said, 'You home already? Tell your sister I've gone to Haver to check on the livestock. I'll probably stay to sup there.'" Barry brightened, pleased with himself. "What do you know! I remembered to give you the message! Sure was distracted, our Francis. Seemed to think it was my Summer Hols already."

  "And you did nothing to correct his mistake?" Charity asked.

  Barry jumped up, stuffing his notes in his pocket. "My mother didn't raise any idiots. 'Cept you, of course." He dodged away, though she only flung a scowl in his direction. "I shan't be home to supper either. Meeting Jacob at the Rose and Crown—and I'm late!"

  "Barry!" She shook her head, wondering if he would ever be mature enough to be released into the general population. "You can't go wearing your traveling clothes. Do change first."

  "Right, right. Don't wait up. I'll be late!"

  "And loud," Charlie murmured. He flashed an oddly adult smile at his sister, then, holding his crystal securely, he loped out of the parlor.

  After dinner, when the light was fading from the sky, Charity put the finishing touches on St. George's dragon. It still needed to be painted red and stuffed with paper, but as it lay limply across her lap, she could imagine how fierce it would look in the Midsummer parade. She wondered if her actors had been studying their scripts. The squire had been playing his part for years and could probably recite it in his sleep, and Molly had sworn to have hers memorized before the final and only rehearsal on Thursday. But Tristan—