Charity Begins at Home

by Alicia Rasley

  Mr. Perry, standing in the middle of the circle of tables, struck up the traditional cuckoo song. The song swelled up, led by a few members of the church choir, and Charity softly sang the old words as she had sung them almost every Midsummer of her life:

  Summer is a-coming in.

  Loudly sing, cuckoo!

  The seed grows,

  The meadow blows,

  And the woods spring anew.

  Sing, cuckoo!

  Her throat closed up after the first verse, and she couldn't sing anymore. Her father had always joked that Midsummer was a fertile time for Calders, as his twins had been born early the morning after a particularly enjoyable fair. It was the cuckoo's foot ale that brought on the birth, her mother had claimed—and the dancing around the bonfire, of course.

  To the accompaniment of other old rounds, the girls of the parish served the other courses of the banquet. There was the sweet omelette made with almonds and honey, and the heavy brown bread topped with great dollops of butter, and a suckling pig for each table—a wealth of country produce, donated by the local farmers and prepared by their wives.

  Last year Charity never had a chance to eat, so busy was she directing the serving of the banquet. But tonight Charity was idle enough that she could see how the gruesome sight of the suckling pigs, their mouths stuffed with apples, impressed the children and how the constantly replenished bowls of ale impressed their fathers.

  It was quite a feast, and when it was done, Margo and her husband the baker brought out the destiny cakes on great platters covered with cloths. At each table, the diners reached under the cloth and grabbed a cake sight unseen. This was yet another Midsummer fortune-telling technique that the vicar disdained, waving his hand dismissively as the platter was held out to him.

  Charlie got a hat and gravely said it meant he would soon be a scholar. Tristan got a key and speculated hopefully that he would be elected to the Royal Academy, the key to artistic fame.

  Charity, however, got a square. Everyone at the table offered a different interpretation of this prosaic shape. One man—a stranger from the next village west—said it looked like a coffin to him, but the others shouted him down. A treasure chest, a house, a trunk. "No," Charity said finally. "It's just a box. Pandora's box. And all that's left is hope."

  "I still think it's a trunk." Tristan took it from her and held it up to the torchlight. "I'm an artist. I live out of a trunk. I can tell one when I see it. This means you are going to take a trip." Then he took a bite out of it and handed it back to her, no longer quite square.

  She could only laugh at his effrontery, but the familiarity his gesture implied brought hot color to her face. He didn't give her time to protest, rising from the table to say, "I suppose I must get into that armor. I don't suppose you'd like to help?"

  Charity blushed even more hotly as her tablemates laughed and offered their opinions on this proposition. Fortunately Charlie was back to studying his rocks in the dim light and didn't hear. It was only a bit of Midsummer raillery, after all, she told herself. She would hear much worse as the night darkened and the ale diminished.

  So she only reached over and shook her brother's shoulder. "Charlie, go and help Lord Braden with his costume. No, don't worry, no one will take your rocks." Her assurance didn't assure Charlie. He regarded his tablemates suspiciously as he handed her his prizes. Then he followed Tristan across to the church hall.

  She swept up the crumbs of the destiny cake and carried the dishes to the huge vat of water near the cooking fires. Mrs. Williams was sweaty and harassed, gesturing to the serving girls and calling to the men carrying heavy trays of dirty dishes. Charity dutifully offered to help, but Mrs. Williams only shook her head.

  It was time to set up for the St. George play anyway, Charity told herself, leaving the banquet behind, beckoning to Jacob at his cousin's table. Without too much stumbling he made his way out of the banqueting area and down toward the stage. Fortunately he had no lines, only the job of carrying the dragon about the stage, and he was sturdy enough to do that even when his mind was muddled.

  Charity gathered up a couple of youths to help her light the torches and set up a few chairs for the elderly around the stage. In the gathering darkness, the ring of torches cast an eerie glow on the scene. The vicar would not like that, she thought. It looked like a habitat of Dionysius, with the lush greenery and the flickering flames and the deep darkness beyond.

  Nonetheless the vicar was in the audience when the squire and Molly made their entrance onto the stage. Charity stood on the side with Jacob Hering and Tristan, willing the rowdy youths to quiet their catcalling. The squire, full of authority of kingly purple robes and an evening's worth of ale, waved his arm. "Silence, you knaves, or I'll feed you to the dragon!"

  This was the perfect introduction for Jacob, and when Charity poked him he propped the dragon's pole on the crook of his elbow, as if he meant to joust, and swaggered onto the stage. At the sight of the towering dragon, red and furious, the rowdy youths hushed and children drew closer to their fathers. The squire, his broad grizzled face triumphant, his crown atilt, turned to Princess Molly. "Woe is me, my daughter, that I must live to see your slaughter."

  That was Tristan's cue. As Molly simpered and looked woefully brave, he vaulted on to the stage, sword drawn, and stepped between her and the dragon. Molly clapped her hands to her bosom, in the process pulling her bodice down another inch. "Good youth, good sir, spur on your horse and fly to take another course. The dragon, foul and fierce and sly, will grind his jaws to make me die." Jacob, holding the dragon out before him, bobbed his knees to make the fierce monster dance, and Molly drew back in a pretty display of anguish. "I beg of you, be off in haste!"

  Tristan flourished his sword and bared his teeth, and Charity breathed a tiny sigh of relief. She had worried all along that Tristan wouldn't enjoy his participation in her play, that he would associate it with their short betrothal and the trouble it had caused. But he was overacting quite as much as Molly, with the sweeping gestures and fierce expressions that a provincial audience loved. He looked very much the knight errant with the red-crossed coat of mail shining like his silver sword. At the last minute, he had left off the helmet he had never stopped complaining about, so his dark hair gleamed in the torchlight. And though his tone was still ironic, he spoke his lines without a stumble, and he glared at the dragon as he proclaimed, "My horse, my cross, my sword, and I will bring this monster forth to die."

  But Jacob just stood there, beaming foolishly, his dragon drooping from the end of the pole. Charity groaned softly. She had to wake him up. In her pocket she found a rock, and with the aim of a cricket bowler, she flung it, glistening in the torchlight. It struck Jacob on the back, startling him into action. Charity heard "That's my pyrite!" but the protest was lost in the children's gasp as the dragon reared toward Tristan. Tristan made a great show of swordplay, feinting to the left and to the right before aiming carefully and slicing across the dragon's neck.

  Jacob let out an audible sigh of relief as the dragon's head tumbled off, leaving him unscathed. Molly and the king embraced—the squire enjoying it most—then she threw her arms around Tristan. He bore it stoically, or so Charity thought, until a quick trill from Mr. Perry's fiddle signaled the start of the parade.

  Tristan poked his sword through the dragon's mouth and held the head aloft. "All come to celebrate the extinction of hell's fires!"

  It was a rousing line and got everyone up and following Tristan when he leaped off the stage and strode across the green. Charity remained behind, watching as he faithfully shook the head to release the peppermints for the children who scrambled along in his wake. He looked, Charity thought, every inch the hero, and he even gave the appearance of enjoying the role.

  By the time the torchlit parade snaked around back to the stage, she had already begun preparations for the second play. Barry, Jacob, and Crispin cursed as they hauled the heavy canvas backdrops across the green, stumbling into each
other in the dark. When Tristan saw them manhandling his paintings onto the stage, he sheathed his sword, yanked the chainmail vest over his head, and joined them. "Put the middle one there, Barry. Yes, there, in the middle. No, that's upside down. By God, if you put your foot through the whale, I'll kill you."

  Glad of his authoritative presence, Charity left the set design to Tristan and gathered her performer around her beside the stage. She wet her finger and brushed a shard of peppermint off the face of her star, Jack Moresby, and helped the Haverton boys change into the striped jerseys that proclaimed them sailors. Mary Moresby, another seaman, objected at the last minute to having her ringlets stuffed under a cap. "Fine," Charity said coolly. "We have plenty of seamen. You may go sit with your mama and watch."

  The threat worked; Mary pulled on her cap and assumed a piratical expression, which Lawrence and Jeremy tried to imitate. The other seamen lined up in the order they would be sitting in the boat and promised not to fight until after the play was done. When they were all standing at attention, chins down on chest, shoulders braced, she said, "Don't move. I'll be just a moment."

  Jacob and Barry were wrestling the rowboat in front of the backdrop, with Tristan directing its exact placement. As Charity walked through the audience, she heard the gasps that greeted the unveiling of the whale triptych. Well, she thought with mordant humor, at least no one will ever forget this Midsummer. They will forever recall it as the one with the man-eating whale.

  When she saw the vicar sitting with Mrs. Dalton, Charity felt in her pocket for the script she already knew by heart and brushed aside Charlie's bits of pyrite and mica. She took a deep, steadying breath. This was a gesture of reconciliation, but it could be so easily interpreted as something else. And the vicar's expression when she approached him was not conciliatory—guarded, rather, as if he no longer knew how to deal with her. It didn't matter; she held out the script to him.

  "Mr. Langworth, I need your help."

  He didn't say that she should have asked for that long since on many matters of more import, but his nod was a little curt.

  In for a penny, in for a pound, she told herself. "I meant for the squire to read the words of God in the play, but then I realized that might be somewhat—blasphemous." Oh, no, she thought, seeing Mrs. Dalton's startled face, now they'll think I'm criticizing the squire. "For an ordinary man, even one as good as Mr. Hering, to take on the role of God. But for a vicar it would be no different, would it, than reading the words of God during the sermon?"

  The vicar opened his mouth to protest, but Charity didn't let him. "If we don't have God's words, then this will be just another, umm, sensational play about a man swallowed by a fish. It will have no moral import. But if God is in it, then, then—" she added bravely, "it will be godly. Do say you will read the words." She forced the script into his hand. "Do you see, I've underscored your lines—I mean, God's word—in red. You have such a powerful voice. I think you can sit here under the torch and merely speak them." The vicar was noncommittal, only scanning the lines as she used her last desperate weapon. "Indeed, I think that it might be all the more effective, to have God's word ring out from the middle of the audience, as a reminder that He is with us always."

  Mr. Langworth glanced up at this, and a curious light shone in his eyes. "So I am to perform. In the role of God."

  My word, Charity thought, he is as starstruck as Molly. Fearful of hexing this piece of good fortune, she bade him a quick thanks and sped back to the less divine performers.

  Charlie was waiting for her. He had crawled about the stage in search of his rock and trusted her no more with the rest of his treasures. She handed them over, but reminded him he had promised to supply the storm noises for the play. She showed him the bucket of large stones, which he examined with professional interest. "Charlie, please. You just shake the bucket when it's supposed to be thundering. I'll take care of the surf noise."

  At her signal, the squire, still in his royal purple robes, introduced St. Catherine's own rendition of that great Biblical tale, "Jonah and the Whale." Some notion of fairness had made her insist that he identify the author as David Greenaway and herself as merely the adaptor and director. Tristan, standing next to her, gave her arm a squeeze as the squire intoned that the backdrop was painted by Lord Braden. "And Charity Calder," Tristan whispered in her ear. "We should give credit where credit is due."

  His breath against her cheek, his generous words, made her color up. She wished that this could be over so that they could have some easeful time alone, without the specters of Midsummer or David Greenaway or Jonah's whale looming over them. Then she could thank him properly for his kindness, and—and ask him for more. She would visit him, she vowed to herself, when she traveled to Italy, no matter how improper that was. And there, in the heat of the Italian sun, they would start again, away from this village that claimed her and restrained her and kept her from herself.

  As the squire bowed and left the stage, Charity wrenched her mind back to work. She signaled to Jack Moresby to lie down on the stage as if asleep. The vicar, a born actor, took this as his cue, and intoned, "Arise, Jonah, go to Ninevah, and cry against it."

  Jack rose and stretched and looked befuddled, then when the vicar repeated the line, he put on a terrified expression and dashed downstage. Charity gave Jeremy, the first sailor, a little shove, and the ship's crew clambered on stage and into their boat. Jack approached, glancing all about him as she had taught him, and in a carrying whisper asked Lawrence, "Can you take me to Tarshish?"

  The play went well. The children remembered most of their lines, no one fell out of the boat, and the vicar made an impressive voice of God. Charity let go of some of the tension that had gripped her all day. Soon Midsummer would be done and without disaster—without transformation, too, it was true. But the fair would soon be over, and she would be free.

  Tristan was still standing behind her, watching over her shoulder as his nephews rowed furiously. He laughed, and the flickering light outlined the dramatic planes of his face and the curve of his smile. Did he want another chance, too? As Francis said, he was still here. It was enough to give her hope.

  There was a burst of applause, and with the aplomb of seasoned stars, the children joined hands at the edge of the stage and bowed. Charity clapped until her hands hurt, then kissed each child coming off the stage. "You did wonderfully well," she said before she dismissed them to their families. "The best Midsummer play ever."

  Before he took his nephews home, Tristan bent to whisper in Charity's ear, "The triptych is yours, cara. I can't imagine where you'll place it, but I never want you to forget this Midsummer."

  Pausing for a moment beside her, Francis was quick to congratulate her, or so he said. His real role turned out to be spoilsport. "I've told Barry to see you home when you're done here."

  It was no use, but she tried anyway. "But Francis, what about the dancing?"

  Francis shook his head. He was distracted, looking past her to the crowd at the bonfire. "You know that's not for girls like you. The activities get heated there by the fire, and I've more important things to do than to try to peel some foxed farmhand off you."

  Charity retorted that she was quite able to deal with farmhands herself. But then she saw his fists clenching and unclenching, and recalled that a proposal was the most important thing he must be planning to do. No need to add to his anxiety with resistance.

  Still, her sense of anticlimax grew as everyone removed to go dancing and she was left to pick up the discarded costumes. Even Cinderella danced till midnight. She stomped around the stage, feeling childishly resentful. She had expected more of this night than a square destiny cake and kisses from children.

  But as she pulled the covers down over the great triptych, recalling the hours they spent painting, she had to smile. This was hers now; Tristan had given them to her. And she supposed that was better than a glass slipper and a pumpkin coach.

  Any slight hope that she might still be able to
get a dance or two with Tristan if he returned was dashed when Barry vaulted onto the stage with Jacob and Crispin to tow. They helped her douse the torches but wouldn't hear of lingering. "No, no, don't worry," Barry said. "We'll just come back after we take you home, sis!"

  So she trailed along home like a good girl, cursing the social system that let her younger brother drink and carouse and denied her even a single dance in the Midsummer firelight.

  Just as the lane up to the Grange crossed the stream, Crispin leaned toward her, his eyes clearly bloodshot even in the dim light. "Just tell me where that Greenaway fellow is, and I'll search him down and rip 'im up a bit for you. Just tell me.

  He stumbled on a speck of dust in the lane and fell onto her. With a muttered curse she shoved him away. "I don't need you to fight my battles, Crispin Hering. Especially—" she added, as he stumbled backward, flailing as if she were the whale and had swamped him with her mighty tail, "since you can scarcely stand up."

  Crispin balanced for a long moment on the edge of the road, then with an "uh-oh" he tumbled into the stream. "Some protectors you are." She shook her head and, leaving Crispin to be rescued by his friends, went on home alone.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  In that tantalizing moment before full sleep descended, she almost ignored the tap at her window. But curiosity proved stronger than drowsiness, and she shook herself awake. In the darkness the window was a gloss of moonlight; the casement was open just a crack. "Come out, Charity."

  At once wide awake, she ran to the window and threw it open, almost knocking Tristan from his perch on a ladder. "What on earth are you doing here?"

  Hands gripping the window sill, he gazed up at her innocently. In the moonlight his dark eyes danced with laughter. "Midsummer's not over yet, cara. I wanted to invite you to my picnic."

  "Tristan, we can't have a picnic. It must be near two o'clock!"

  His face fell. "Then what am I to do with the champagne? And the strawberries?" In a sudden, decisive motion he grasped her wrist. "No, I can't let them go to waste. You must come along."