Charity Child Read online

  CHARITY CHILD

  Sara Seale

  Charity thought herself fortunate when she was whisked away from a dreary job to be companion to “Astrea”, who had once been a famous singer and who now lived in a dream-world of highly coloured memories and astrological forecasts, guiding her life by what she took to be the advice of the stars.

  Surely one could never have a dull moment in such a household? But there was a snag, in the person of Astrea's nephew, Marc Gentle - inappropriately named, it seemed, for he could be uncommonly harsh on occasion. Charity was shown the whiplash side of his nature from the beginning, for he suspected her of being out for all she could get from his rich and impulsive aunt, and he made no bones about saying so.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “BUT, my dear aunt, your reasoning is preposterous!”

  Mrs. Clara Stubbs, who preferred to be known as Astrea, the name which had enjoyed brief fame in the musical world nearly forty years ago, turned to regard her nephew with a speculative eye. When he addressed her as aunt she knew she had outraged the logical conclusions of his legal mind.

  “I’m a preposterous woman, as you’ve often pointed out,” she replied mildly.

  Marc Gentle’s lean, forensic face softened in a reluctant smile. None knew better than he that his aunt’s mildness was deceptive. She gloried in her eccentricity and was always prepared to do battle with him.

  “Now listen to me,” he said patiently. “This girl is a complete stranger to you, like all the others, only this one you find thumping the piano in some scruffy little music shop in the Charing Cross Road. That and the fact that she was born under the sign of Aquarius constitute your sole arguments for employing her as a companion. I put it to you, is that sound reasoning?”

  “Don’t address me as if I were in the witness-box,” she said crossly. “And she did not thump the piano; her touch was very light and delicate, and the influence of Aquarius is most important. Don’t you know that these subjects show a strong tendency to form solidly helpful habits?”

  “Very likely,” he returned dryly, “but the fact remains you know nothing whatever about the girl and she quite obviously took advantage of your—er—eccentricity.”

  “Not at all. I lost her her job.”

  “By making a scene in the shop.”

  “And why not, pray? They were very rude to me. They had never heard of Astrea. One assistant even alluded to me as an old bag. I was not intended to hear, of course, but my ears are still sharp.”

  In the small silence that fell between them he regarded her with a moment’s compassionate understanding. Astrea was a big woman with the sagging diaphragm muscles of the opera singer gone to seed, and her large bust was hung about with chains and necklaces from which dangled jewelled charms of the Signs of the Zodiac, which she was never without. She was said to be in her late sixties, but was probably older, and favored clothes of no known period, with many floating scarves and draperies, but she still dyed her hair a rich Titian and her once fine eyes were always heavily mascara’d. She must often, he supposed, present a figure of fun to the present generation which had never heard of her, and her insistence that the magic of her once-famous name could never quite die was, perhaps, a little pathetic.

  “I’m sorry they were rude to you,” he said gently. “Another generation forgets easily, you know, and this was, after all, a cheap little publishing firm dependent on the latest jive for their sales.”

  “But this girl remembered,” she said imperiously. “She knew my records. It was in my defence that she crossed swords with the manager and lost her job, so you see—”

  She left the sentence unfinished and he sighed impatiently and turned away to the long, uncurtained window which gave on to an uninterrupted view of the Sussex downs lying calm and sparkling in the frost and moonlight. Yes, he saw only too well; a cheap little opportunist with the acumen to cash in when chance presented itself and the wit to place a forgotten name in the right category. She was, perhaps, more dangerous than the others.

  “Astrea—” he said, his back still turned to the big music-room she had built on to the house after her husband’s death, “there have been so many others, all out for what they could get. After each fiasco you said you would listen to me next time. Will you never learn?”

  She fell back, as she always did when she was getting the worst of the argument, on financial matters.

  “I’m in a position to pay for my mistakes,” she said regally. “My own considerable earnings went long ago, we know, but Stubbs left me all that money. I can afford to indulge my whims.”

  He did not reply immediately. She was, of course, perfectly right when she said she was in a position to pay for her mistakes. He had been too young at the time to remember the furore caused by Astrea’s decision to leave the operatic stage in order to marry Albert Stubbs, the famous sausage king. She had been married before, of course, twice, by her own rather vague reckoning, but neither marriage had interfered with her career, and it was said that her voice was beginning to go when she met Stubbs. She always alluded to him by his surname, as if he had been some kind of employee, and now she had been widowed for fifteen years with, it was said, a considerable fortune at her disposal.

  “You can’t expect,” he said at last, “that I can enjoy seeing you being exploited.”

  “My dear boy,” she retorted with the old imperious spirit, “the great ones of this earth are always exploited. Fame has its penalties as well as its glories.”

  He was too wise now to point out that her face was forgotten, but her money was an ever-present temptation. His aunt’s vagaries exasperated him beyond measure, but he was very fond of her.

  He turned slowly back to the warmth and brightness of the big room with its grand piano, vast gramophone, and record-filled cabinets. The walls were hung with photographs of Astrea taken in various operatic roles, and framed programs of concerts adorned with the famous signatures of the artists taking part. Mementos of past glories were everywhere, and Marc’s rather hard eyes held a look of sadness as they travelled over the familiar objects. The room was like a shrine, he thought irritably, his eyes coming to rest on the flamboyant figure of his aunt, leaning in a singer’s pose against the piano.

  She was so quick to catch the mood of another and turn it to her advantage, that already the corners of her carelessly painted mouth were drooping.

  “There’s no one left but you, Marc,” she said, extending her arms in supplication with a jangle of charm-hung bracelets. “Would you deny an old woman her harmless extravagances?”

  “They aren’t all harmless,” he retorted grimly. “What about the young woman who nearly got you to alter your will in her favor, or the poor clergyman’s daughter who made off with your diamond tiara?”

  “I should have been warned by the stars,” she said in a tone of dismissal. “One was Cancer and the other Pisces, both antagonistic to my own Sign. Your profession naturally makes you suspicious, dear boy, but you mustn’t let your court-room triumphs thin the good red blood in your veins. You are thirty-six, Marc. Young for such success at the Bar, I admit, but a dangerous age for settling into the critical habits of bachelordom. You should be thinking of marriage.”

  His resolute mouth twitched a little at the corners. It had always been her practice to turn the tables on himself. She was an adept at trailing a red herring across an unwelcome discussion.

  “My one inclination towards marriage didn’t receive much encouragement, as you very well know,” he replied a little dryly. “Let’s not confuse the issue.”

  “Ah, Roma ...” she said, ignoring the hint. “You know that was my dearest wish, but the poor child was afraid of poverty.”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “I was scarcely poor, eve
n then, except by your standards, perhaps,” he retorted. “But I’ve no doubt an American chain-store magnate proved an irresistible temptation.”

  “Roma was my adopted daughter in all but the legal sense,” Astrea said. “My money would have come to her had she married you. It was you who were difficult then.”

  “I did not care for future expectations to be the deciding factor as to whether a young woman would consent to marry me or not,” he said with sudden hauteur. “I was making a comfortable enough income even seven years ago.”

  “But Roma was ambitious,” she pleaded. “I had spoilt her with too much luxury. She was so exquisite, so gay, and now she is widowed, poor child, and you have never married. Perhaps she will return to us.”

  “With all her American dollars? No, Astrea, put that sort of romantic notion aside. In any case, I thought you hadn’t forgiven her for running off to the States with Wilbur G. Nixon.”

  “No, I haven’t. She hurt me very much. Still, she’s older now, and—I miss her, Marc,”

  His eyes were gentle.

  “And this series of unsuitable companions have just been filling in the gap?”

  “Perhaps ... I don’t know. I get bored, with only Minnie to talk to—besides, she’s getting old.”

  “H’m ... and what does Minnie say to this latest folly?”

  “Folly?” Her heavily pencilled eyebrows rose in displeasure for a moment, then she smiled reluctantly. “Oh, you know Minnie—grumbles one minute and relents the next. She doesn’t understand I need youth around me, now Roma’s gone.”

  “You could entertain.”

  “No, no, it’s not the same. People think I’m eccentric, and no one remembers. They come for what they can get. I prefer my memories and someone to share them with. This new girl at least has an appreciation of music. Her father, she tells me, was once connected with the operatic world—a composer of no distinction, I understand—but he gave his daughter a musical education of sorts. If she fits in with our life at Cleat, I might adopt her legally.”

  “Have you already suggested that?”

  She heard the sharpness in his voice and looked up at him with a twinge of apprehension. He was her nephew and in no way officially concerned with how she chose to lead her life, but she had heard him in court many times and recognized the cold resolution which could somehow manage to frustrate her more extravagant humors, however much she chose to ignore it. She looked into the dark, angular face so like his father’s, with its long nose and straight mouth, saw the sudden alertness in the bright, shrewd eyes, and mentally placed a barrister’s wig on the dark hair, and grimaced.

  “Naturally not,” she replied, matching his own displeasure. “I have only met her once—met her and engaged her,” she finished firmly.

  He gave an infinitesimal shrug of resignation.

  “Very well,” he said. “What’s her name?”

  “Charity Child.”

  “For heaven’s sake, aunt! Are you as gullible as that?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. An unusual name, perhaps, but rather charming, don’t you think?”

  “So unusual that she must have invented it on the spot. Charity Child, indeed! Was she by any chance reared in an orphanage?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. How suspicious you are, Marc. I can understand Roma’s hesitance now.”

  But he was not going to be sidetracked by the mention of Roma’s name a second time.

  “But she was down to her last shilling, wasn’t she?” he persisted. “You had lost her her job, so the landlady couldn’t be paid, I suppose. How much did you give her?”

  “Only a month’s salary in advance. Really, Marc, I consider you are being very high-handed. Used you to treat Roma to this sort of cross-examination?”

  “Never mind Roma. I doubt you’ll hear anything further from your precious Charity what’s-her-name. What day did you say she was supposed to arrive?”

  “Tomorrow—Friday.”

  “It’s Friday today,” he told her grimly. “You know very well I’ve come for the weekend.”

  “Oh!” she clapped her hand to her mouth in a gesture reminiscent of a child. She was notoriously vague and absent-minded. “What’s the time? I ordered the taxi for tomorrow—to meet the 6:15. The poor child must be sitting on the platform, wondering what has happened. You can never get a taxi from the village at this hour. Marc, would you?”

  “Certainly I’ll go and fetch her—if she’s there to collect,” he said with sardonic pleasure. “I have a notion that I might put the fear of God into Miss Charity Child on the drive back from the station.”

  She made an imperious gesture.

  “Now, Marc, you’re not to alarm her. She is thin and undernourished, and doesn’t look very strong.”

  “Indeed? And how else do I recognize her besides picking out the most undernourished passenger?”

  “You can’t miss her,” Astrea said simply, gazing with sudden wistfulness at an imaginary property moon in the ceiling. “She has a face like a sad pierrot.”

  “Oh, really, aunt!” Marc exclaimed in disgust, and left the room with ungentle exasperation. It was a matter of eight miles to the nearest station, time enough, he thought grimly, to strip this little charlatan of pretences, should she, indeed, turn at all which he very much doubted. He had dealt, in due course, with most of his aunt’s other protégées without much trouble, but it would be infinitely more satisfactory to nip this affair in the bud before Astrea, as always happened, found she had been had for a sucker.

  He was too annoyed to appreciate the beauty of the still February night, the gentle downs and the dark folds of the distant Weald which, for years, had never failed to delight him. Cleat had been his second home for a long time, for his aunt was his only living relative and it was pleasant to commute between her house and his own London flat, spending much of his vacations there, lazing after a term’s arduous work.

  He was, in his way, as solitary as she, and, that unhappy affair of seven years ago set finally aside, he had lost his bitterness in work rather than the many alternative distractions that offered, and made a considerable name for himself in legal circles. Briefs had piled up, and at thirty-six he was already considering taking silk. A brilliant pleader in court, it was said of him; women thought him a cold fish and frequently told him so. Only Astrea penetrated sometimes under the hard shell, but although she frequently chided him on his bachelor state, he knew, that since he had not married Roma, his aunt was secretly pleased that he continued to remain single,

  Marc pulled up in the deserted station yard and almost immediately he saw the girl. For once his aunt had been right, and the absurd description fitted. The girl was sitting on a suitcase in a graceful curve of melancholy, staring up at the moon, and, by a trick of light perhaps, her face had the white traditional conception of Pierrot. She was bareheaded and even the hair clung closely to her head resembling a tight black skull-cap.

  Marc shrugged a little angrily as he got out of the car and prepared to introduce himself. He had been genuinely convinced that the girl, having made an easy killing, would fail to show up; well, she was probably after bigger game.

  “Is your name—Charity Child?” he asked, boggling a little over the flagrant absurdity of the invention.

  She looked slowly up at him, and her eyes seemed dark and enormous in her white face. She regarded him gravely before replying and his temper rose as he realized she was considering the advisability of making any reply at all.

  “Yes,” she said then. “Has Mrs. Stubbs sent you to meet me?”

  Her voice was soft and quite composed. It was, he thought, difficult to assess her age, but she was younger than he had expected.

  “I’m her nephew, Marc Gentle,” he replied with a discouraging absence of welcome in his voice. “My aunt ordered a taxi to meet your train, but she mistook the day.”

  For a moment her face showed vivid interest and the clown’s likeness was lost.

  “The ba
rrister?” she asked. “Your aunt spoke of you, and sometimes I’ve followed your cases in the press.”

  “You’re interested in the course of justice, then?” he replied a little grimly, and she looked puzzled.

  “Not very, I suppose, but I enjoy reading a brilliant speech,” she said.

  “Do you, indeed? Well, Miss Charity Child, we’d better be moving. Is this all your luggage?”

  “Yes. You say my name as if it was a kind of joke, Mr. Gentle.”

  “I’ve an idea you made it up, Miss Child,” he said with polite contempt, and as she slowly uncoiled her long legs and stood up, he picked up her suitcase and slung it carelessly into the back of the car. He did not trouble to open the passenger’s door for her; indeed, it gave him satisfaction to match her own unexpected politeness with most unaccustomed discourtesy.

  She withdrew into her corner, aware of, though puzzled by, his antagonism. Her long legs disposed themselves with grace, he noticed, and her profile, against the window, was again the face of Pierrot, a black-and-white etching, remote and withdrawn.

  He drove slowly, aware that now was the moment for the things he wanted to say.

  “My aunt has engaged you as her companion, I understand,” he began with misleading pleasantness.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was all rather sudden, but—it seemed wonderful to me to work for someone like that.”