Charity Begins at Home

by Alicia Rasley

  It was all very moving. "But Francis, what is it about her that dazzles you? That makes your heart thrill?"

  He flushed a fiery red. "I'd hardly tell that to my sister!"

  Charity gave an exasperated sigh. "Just tell it to Anna, will you? Believe me, she will not be scandalized."

  From his shrug, she knew she had persuaded him, though he would never admit it. "Am I too precipitate? It hasn't been half a year since Haver's death."

  With the acuity of one miraculously restored to sight, Charity perceived that Anna was already expiring with impatience. "Surely you can come to some understanding now. You know how high your credit is, Francis. No one will ever question the propriety of anything you do."

  Francis reached down to ruffle her hair in an awkward expression of gratitude. "You don't think that you and Braden—he's still hanging about, I can't help but notice. Our children could be, what do they call it, double cousins."

  The leap of hope was too dangerous to allow. "Oh, I don't see any profit in regret."

  Fortunately their youngest brother thundered into view before Francis could take issue with this or suggest an alternative.

  "I thought you two would be here!" Charlie planted himself between them, obstinacy set in his mouth and chin. "I'm glad I found you both together. Now listen." From his breeches pocket he took out a much-folded page and opened it. In an authoritative voice, he read, "I am not going to Eton. Instead, I will study privately with Mr. Champfeur, the retired schoolmaster in Deal." He added in a normal tone, "You remember him, Charity. He came last year to see my agate collection and told you then that he tutors scientifically minded boys. He's a very accomplished geologist."

  "I remember," Charity said faintly.

  Charlie returned to his script. "Mr. Langworth's sister lives in Deal and keeps house for boys who go to the choristers' school there. He thinks I can have a place with her. I shall visit home every Sunday so you can be sure I am well."

  Francis was taken aback by the stand of his most passive sibling. "But Charlie—Calders always go to Eton and then to Oxford."

  Handsomely Charlie allowed, "I shall consider Oxford. Cambridge is better known for its science masters, however."

  In his unostentatious way, Francis was just as school-proud as his brother Barry. "I shan't hear of Cambridge, Charlie."

  "But Mr. Champfeur? You will agree to that?"

  Francis and Charity exchanged glances and then identical helpless shrugs. "Have we any choice?" she asked. "You've made a hash of your Eton prospects. Deliberately, I've no doubt. Well, Francis, if you're agreeable, I'll ask Mr. Champfeur over for tea and pursue this. He did seem a worthy man."

  Charlie wasn't one to leap about with glee, but he nodded graciously. "Thank you, I assure you it will be for the best." With dignity, he turned on his heel and marched back to the Grange.

  "He certainly laid down the law to us," Francis observed once he was out of earshot. "But how will he bear up? He's so shy."

  Charity imagined him in a Deal boarding house, thirty miles from protective siblings. Of course, Eton was even farther away and likely a harsher environment than Mr. Champfeur would provide.

  Francis had the same thought. "He knows himself best, I suppose." He gazed at the straight back of his little brother. "If he maintains that attitude, I don't think anyone will trouble him."

  Charity waited until he had left for his errand before she rose, spilling flowers from her lap. Francis, Anna, even Charlie: they had all decided to start new lives. She wondered if she had the courage to follow their example.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  One of the tasks Mrs. Williams assigned to Charity was selling admission tickets. So it was that she greeted her brother Barry when he arrived from Oxford just as the games started at five. He paid for his ticket with exaggerated care, counting out the pennies and laying them in her hand, and then giving her a quick, shamed grin. This was, she thought, his way of apology.

  "Where are your seven friends?"

  "Didn't come. I didn't want any more trouble, you know. Hey, is that Lawrence and Jeremy in the three-legged race? I've got to see this!" And he loped off, leaving Charity to wonder how he had managed to deal with his friends, whether he had quietly agreed to carry out the bets anyway. Then she decided she'd rather not know.

  Charity had only to look over the village green and the church lawn to know that everyone in the parish, and many from other parishes, had turned out for the fair, all wearing the green sprig that signified Midsummer. It was a success, despite the change in leadership.

  The light breeze tugged the silver ribbon holding back her curls. Distractedly she pulled it out and, combing her fingers through her hair, retired it at the nape of her neck. There was a good crowd, rising laughter, a cloudless sky of that particular Kent blue. If the ale held out all evening, and the candles and the destiny cakes foretold good news, they might just avoid disaster.

  Certainly there were shillings aplenty being spent at the booths that lined either side of the green. Mrs. Dalton's jumble booth was popular, and there was a long line of girls at the ring-toss booth that offered rag dolls as prizes. Charity waited to make sure that each girl who played the game walked off cuddling a doll. Today was not the day for scrupulous honesty in prize-awarding. They had a supply large enough, she was sure, for every poor girl in the county.

  She waved to Mrs. Hering standing militantly at the ale booth and blessed the woman for rationing the precious liquor to a tankard per person per hour. No one would get foxed on that meager amount, and their supply would last all night.

  She saw Tristan and Anna over by the race track and, smiling to herself, wandered over to join them. She wondered if Francis would take Anna aside this evening and make his proposal or wait for a less public occasion. She sobered, recalling the last public occasion that they had all gathered on this village green and the proposal that had taken place then. It seemed so long ago, and she hardly remembered the girl who had received that proposal with more trepidation than triumph. That girl had been so frightened of the future, or reaching for a dream and finding it hollow, of changing her life and finding it unchanged—or too changed. She had been so certain of her place, and so uncertain, in the end, of herself.

  Now she saw Tristan sweeping his nephews, still tied at the ankle, into a victory hug. Here among the fair broadfaced sons of Kent, he stood out as exotic, though he wore the same country casual dress. He would never really fit in, she realized, no matter how many ties he established here. But that was what she had always admired about him, after all, his otherness. Through him, through his art, she had gained entrance to another world.

  What she would do in that other world, whether he would share that with her, was not something she could determine now. Finish the old business first, she told herself.

  When he saw her, Tristan flashed her a grin and held out his hand. But Lawrence and Jeremy reached her first, hopping across the divide to collapse clinging to her legs. Laughing, she peeled them loose and knelt to untie them. "I am so proud of you both! First place in your first Midsummer event!" She couldn't forgo a bit of a moral lesson along with her congratulations. "And it's all because you two worked together as brothers, as a team."

  Cammie, who had been sitting under the shade tree, came up to add her own commentary. "Yes, boys, Charity is right. Perhaps you can apply the same camaraderie to your spelling lessons."

  The boys looked dubious, but the effect of the victory hung on. Still in accord, they seized Cammie and Charity and pulled them over to the obstacle course, proclaiming that Charlie was in the finals.

  As they waited for the contestants to line up, Charity outlined for Cammie the future Charlie had planned for himself. She forced down the lump in her throat and spoke as gently as possible. It meant a new future for Cammie, too, once Charlie left home, especially if Charity followed his example.

  But Cammie, watching the last of her Calder charges tug up his drooping stockings and take his
mark, did not lament. "Good for him. I must say, I worried I would have another year of trying to force him to study his Latin if Eton wouldn't have him. I daresay this Mr. Champfleur can find some way to connect the classics to geology and have better success." With a firm hand on Lawrence's shoulder, she pulled him out of face of another boy who dared to root for someone other than Charlie. "Lawrence, all this shouting will distract Charlie from the race. Now muzzle it and just watch."

  Immediately Lawrence hissed to Jeremy to quiet his cheers, and the two squatted down together beside the track in rapt silence. Cammie waited until the opening gun sounded and the older boys bounded past. "Lady Haver has been kind enough to ask me to remain to teach her sons until they are ready to go off to school. So I will be remaining at Haver for a short time at least."

  Charity saw the gleam in her old governess's eyes and knew that Cammie had long since guessed Sir Francis's intentions. She would be back at Calder soon enough if Anna accepted his suit, for Francis would never have his wife and her sons living away from him, and he would never leave Calder, even for a larger estate a half-mile away. And soon enough there would be little Calders for Cammie to teach. The cycle of life would go on, even without Charity to turn it.

  Charlie was the first contestant to re-enter the green, bounding over the hay bales and under the hitching post. With typical painstaking, he ran around rather than over the water trap, avoiding the disqualification for wetness. Then, disheveled and perspiring, he crossed the finish line and, like a seasoned victor, accepted the congratulations of the Haverton boys. He glanced wryly at his sister. "Everyone else stopped for lemonade at Mrs. Wiggins's house. They'll be coming along soon."

  So it was that when the vicar, with a grudging smile, handed out medals at the ceremony following the games, Charity's protégés collected their share. Lawrence and Jeremy swaggered like conquerors with their medals on their little chests, and even Charlie condescended to show it to his sister when she asked. Barry clapped him on the back, saying jovially, "Knew you could do it, Charlie. I was betting on you." He shot a glance at his sister. "So to speak."

  Lawrence and Jeremy claimed her before she could respond to this. "They're lighting the bonfire! Hurry, or we'll miss it!"

  Charity kept tight hold of Jeremy's hand, a little guilty to use him so. But her ruse worked. When they gathered with the other young people around the bonfire for the First Rogation, Jeremy had planted himself and Charity right next to his uncle. And when everyone joined hands, hers was clasped in Tristan's firm grip.

  The circle moved slowly clockwise around the bonfire as the fragrant logs burst into flame. The chant she had taught the children rose, though she only whispered it, and Tristan only listened. It was a riddle, listing Midsummer paradoxes that reflected her own tangled emotions:

  Green is Gold.

  Fire is Wet.

  Fortune's Told.

  Dragon's Met.

  And as the flames danced before them, and the sunset blazed beyond, she struggled with her own riddles. How could the familiar seem so alien now? And why was Tristan, the man she turned away, still here, still so kind, even more intriguing than before?

  As soon as the circle broke up, Lawrence begged, "Ask us what that means, Uncle Tris."

  "What does that mean?" Tristan kept Charity's hand for a moment but turned to his nephew with every evidence of attention.

  "Green is gold, you see, because this is Kent and we farm, and so the green fields are precious to us."

  "Like gold," Jeremy interposed. "Ask us how fire can be wet."

  "How can fire be wet?" Tristan smiled over their heads at Charity.

  "We'll show you." They each grabbed one adult and dragged them toward the little lily pond in the center of the green. "We folded those boats, us and Charity," Jeremy explained. "Let's light them."

  Tristan gravely helped him to hold the candle against the fortune-teller's taper, then Jeremy set it in a boat and gave it a shove. Lawrence helped by wriggling his fingers in the water to start up a tidal wave, and the little boat set sail for the opposite shore. Tristan, Lawrence, and finally Charity launched their own boats, and Jeremy said, "Now we must each make a wish. If the boats make it to the other side, we get our wishes."

  Margo broke in sternly, "Not this year. This year I'm to read the candlewax to determine the future. No wishes allowed."

  Jeremy looked so downcast that Lawrence whispered fiercely, "You can still wish, Jerry. Just don't tell her."

  Out of fellow feeling for Jeremy, or so Charity told herself, she closed her eyes and sent up a wish as mingled as her emotions. Let me find a new way, and let him forgive me.

  She opened her eyes slowly, sensing from the warmth on her face that Tristan was watching her. All through this Midsummer ordeal, she had felt his quiet, supporting strength. Would he leave now that it was over?

  It wasn't dark enough yet to appreciate the full effect of the candles in their little boats on the water. But the flickers of flame and their reflections seemed to set the pond on fire. The little boats bobbed gaily on the waves Lawrence and Jeremy made with their hands, and soon enough the four little boats made it unscathed to the other shore, where Margo had taken up her position. She picked up Lawrence's candle and peered at the trickles of wax along the sides. "Riches and good harvests," she said, and for Jeremy, "A pony and plenty of hay."

  "Let's trade, Jerry," Lawrence said immediately, but Margo had blown out their candles and picked up Tristan's. "Fame and fortune will be yours."

  Tristan accepted this with a thoughtful nod, and Margo studied Charity's candle with religious intensity. "I see—I see an adventure. Answers."

  Charity couldn't help a certain disappointment. She had rather hoped that Margo would continue in her conventional vein and predict a future with a tall, dark, and handsome man. But adventure—well, that was a start.

  "So you see, Uncle Tris," Lawrence said in the lecturing voice he had borrowed from Francis, "The fire's wet and the fortune's told. All that's left is the dragon's met—and you do that."

  "I?" Tristan assumed an expression of innocence. "I don't want to meet a dragon. I don't like dragons. They're too hot."

  Jeremy, earnest as always, pulled at his arm in distress. "But you are to be St. George! Don't you remember? We taught you your lines." He regarded his uncle anxiously, his lower lip caught between his teeth. "Perhaps we should go over your part again."

  Charity had to laugh at the horror on Tristan's face. She intervened before Lawrence could join in. "No, boys, remember what I told you about over-rehearsing? And if he doesn't remember his lines, you can always prompt him. Now look, the banquet is starting. Run on over to the children's table or you won't get a seat."

  The boys' small bodies disappeared into the crowd, reappearing a few moments later at the children's table, set safely away from the tempting bonfire. Jeremy waited for his brother to choose a seat, then sat down next to him, among boys wearing caps of green leaves and girls clutching the rag dolls the countess had made for them. The countess's sons were greeted with friendly disdain, for they were among the youngest there. Charity smiled, seeing how meekly Lawrence took this treatment from the sons and daughters of his own tenants. And Tristan, following her gaze, spoke her thoughts aloud. "There will be time enough for him to learn to be top-lofty. First he should learn how to make and keep friends."

  Tristan took her arm and steered her through knots of girls who stopped talking when she was near, toward a table where Charlie sat all alone, still wearing his medal, waiting for the banquet to begin. He was spreading his rocks out around the vase of flowers that served as a centerpiece, oblivious to the tumult around him. No, Charlie would not sit at the children's table; he had not considered himself a child for years.

  Charity smiled at Mr. Perry, the fiddling mason, who was strolling about playing the traditional St. John's fanfare. He gave her a strained smile. With the candor Tristan always engendered in her, she said quietly, "The village is disappointed
in me."

  Impatience flickered over his face. "Ignore them. You weren't put on this earth to make them happy."

  "I rather thought I was." Suddenly she smiled. "They certainly thought I was."

  He touched her hand under the table. "Well, you make me happy." After a brief pause, just long enough to send a thrill through her heart, he added, "Sitting with me and trying to divert my thoughts from my great performance, I mean."

  Before she had a chance to ask what else made him happy, Polly intervened, setting the great bowl of cuckoo's foot ale in front of them. She made a great show of bending down, so all those who had assembled at the table could see how her pale green dress displayed her bosom, lit white and gold by the flaming torches. The serving girls, as usual, had lowered the necklines of their costumes and put flowers instead of just leaves in their hair. Well, Midsummer was a festival of fertility, and Polly was definitely the picture of that. If she weren't careful, one of the local lads would take her up on it.

  The squire rose, holding up his cup of ale up for the traditional Midsummer toast, and Mr. Perry cut some sharp notes on his fiddle, imitating the sound of the cuckoo. All the children chimed in, raucously calling, "Coo-coo, coo-coo."

  Charlie, noting Tristan's puzzlement, whispered, "Dip your cup in the bowl. Don't worry, it's only spiced ale." He must have felt his sister's admonishing gaze, for he added, "I only sip it myself."

  The squire waited until everyone was holding up a cup. Or almost everyone. Charity saw that the vicar, sitting at a nearby table, kept his hands ostentatiously clasped and his cup empty. A toast to the cuckoo and the rebirth of summer."