Charity (15 page)

‘You get your money’s worth out of our little Swot,’ Mrs Cod joked. ‘First here in the morning, last to leave. You don’t get many of them to the pound!’

No alarm bells rang in Charity’s head. Miss Hawkins often popped in to ask her to buy something in the village shop.

‘I’m just making tea,’ Charity said. ‘Would you like a cup too?’

Miss Hawkins’s eyes flitted round the kitchen, but seeing only Charity and Mrs Cod left behind, she nodded.

‘I was going to suggest you came up to my sitting room,’ she said rather hesitantly. ‘But if you don’t mind, we can talk here.’

Charity filled the big brown teapot with hot water and put it on the table. She knew she wasn’t in trouble, as Miss Hawkins always sent a messenger with a summons for that kind of thing, but she was curious.

Odder still, Miss Hawkins poured the milk into the cups and took over the tea pouring.

‘I’ve had a phone call from Mr Charles,’ she said, handing Charity her tea and patting a chair for her to sit down at the big table. ‘I’m afraid it’s sad news, Charity, and he asked me to break it to you gently.’

Charity clutched her stomach with fear.

‘Someone’s hurt?’

‘Not as serious as that, my dear.’ Miss Hawkins looked terribly strained and the way she looked round at Mrs Cod suggested she was unsure if she should continue here. ‘No, the children are well, it’s just that your Uncle Stephen has taken them to his house.’

‘For
Christmas
?’ Charity asked. ‘Without me?’

Miss Hawkins squirmed, hardly able to continue.

‘Not just for Christmas. Permanently.’

For a moment Charity thought it was a bad dream. Only a week ago she’d had a letter from Toby saying they were putting up the Christmas decorations and he was to be Joseph in the Nativity play. It felt as if someone had opened a trapdoor beneath her and she was falling into a black hole.

‘No!’ Charity’s cry was pure anguish. ‘It can’t be true. He can’t take them!’

‘James is still with Mr and Mrs Charles,’ Miss Hawkins hastily added, hoping that would make it less painful. ‘You’ll be with him for Christmas.’

Charity was motionless, eyes brimming with tears.

‘But why?’ she asked, her voice shaking. ‘Prue was settled at the grammar school. Toby was happy too. And what about James with everyone gone?’

Miss Hawkins felt ashamed of herself now for not realising just what a shock this would be to Charity. She certainly shouldn’t have blurted it out in the kitchen.

‘My dear, I’m not able to answer that. Mr Charles received a message only yesterday that Colonel Pennycuick was sending his driver for the children. He would’ve preferred to tell you himself, but he thought it would be worse if he wrote, or waited until you came home and found Prue and Toby already gone.’ Miss Hawkins blinked fast behind her glasses. ‘Of course Mr and Mrs Charles are terribly upset too. But as the colonel is the children’s guardian there was nothing they could do.’

‘I must go and see them,’ Charity said and jumped up, pulling off her apron. ‘I’ve got to warn them what our uncle’s like.’

Miss Hawkins got up and put her hands on Charity’s arms to restrain her.

‘No Charity, you can’t go. A letter will come tomorrow morning explaining everything.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Charity’s face had lost all its colour, her eyes dark with growing anger. ‘Uncle Stephen’s an evil man. I must go to them.’

Miss Hawkins sighed deeply. Mr Charles had predicted that Charity might attempt to go to London. But even he hadn’t foreseen she might want to rush to Studley Priory.

‘You will not leave the school now,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s only ten days till the end of term, and meanwhile you’ll calm down and wait for Mr Charles’s letter. There is nothing to be gained by confronting your uncle. It could make things far more difficult for you in the long run.’

‘Why has he done this?’ Charity whispered, anger turning to utter dejection as tears streamed down her cheeks. ‘Isn’t it enough to lose our parents, without splitting us all up too? Uncle Stephen doesn’t know anything about children, he’s cruel and nasty. It was bad enough for me when I went there for a week. They’ll be so unhappy.’

‘Calm down, Charity.’ Miss Hawkins put on her most officious voice. ‘Wait and read Mr Charles’s letter. It might not be as bad as you fear.’

Charity drew herself up and looked Miss Hawkins in the eye.

‘Why is it that some adults are so stupid?’ she said. ‘My parents, social workers and Uncle Stephen – not one of them had any real idea what a child feels. They do what suits them, they lie and they cheat. And then they tell children to behave like they do.’

She turned and walked out of the kitchen. The two older women could only stare at one another blankly.

‘She’s right, of course.’ Miss Hawkins broke the silence first, picked up her tea and drank it in one large gulp. ‘We are stupid and we do lie and cheat. I wish it were different.’

‘She won’t run away,’ Mrs Cod said stoutly, her many chins wobbling with emotion. ‘She’ll sob upstairs all on her own and she’ll be down to do breakfast tomorrow because that’s the way she’s made.’

‘Can you keep a confidence?’ Miss Hawkins leaned conspiratorially across the table.

‘Of course,’ Mrs Cod nodded. ‘You know something more?’

‘That uncle is as bad as she claims. The truth is he’s told the Charleses not to allow Charity into their house, or he’ll remove James too.’

Mrs Cod’s mouth dropped open and she fumbled for a cigarette even though she wasn’t allowed them in the kitchen.

‘Thank goodness you didn’t tell her that today.’ She shook her head in bafflement. ‘Is that what’s in the letter?’

‘No.’ Miss Hawkins helped herself to a cigarette too, suddenly caring nothing for the rules she’d created. ‘Mr Charles is prepared to defy the colonel on that count. At least until after Christmas.’

‘Thank heavens for that,’ Mrs Cod said, and inhaled deeply on her cigarette.

She had talked with Charity often about her family and listened to her dreams and plans. They were all about her brothers and sister, and her objective of finding a home one day they could all share. She showed no interest in boyfriends, dancing or parties. It was as if she wore blinkers and could only see straight ahead.

‘No girl of her age should feel such a weight of responsibility.’ Miss Hawkins puffed on her cigarette, her eyes full of anxiety. ‘The trouble is, without her brothers and sister, there’s no telling what it might do to her. I’ve seen young girls go off the rails for far less reason.’

‘Me too,’ Mrs Cod agreed. ‘Look at some of the girls we’ve had here in the past. Straight out of orphanages, never had any love and they throw themselves at the first man who comes along. I can tell you that if I hadn’t had Christopher to care for when my Eric was killed, I might have gone the same way. But I can’t understand that wicked uncle of hers. Why does he want to hurt her?’

‘I don’t know.’ Miss Hawkins made a despairing gesture.

‘Her goodness, I expect,’ Mrs Cod snorted, wide nostrils flaring with anger. ‘A man like him ought to be hung, drawn and quartered. I’d like ten minutes with him to tell a few home truths.’

Miss Hawkins got up from the table.

‘Don’t let’s despair,’ she sighed. ‘Mr Charles has left the door open. He hopes the children will behave so badly over Christmas they might be sent back.’

‘I do hope so.’ Mrs Cod wiped her face with her apron. ‘We’d all better offer up a few prayers for Charity. Not even sixteen and so much sadness in her young life already.’

Alone in her room Charity broke down completely. On her dressing-table was a pile of brightly wrapped presents for the children, and the new midnight blue dress she had bought to wear on Christmas Day hung on the wardrobe door, mocking her.

‘I hate you, Colonel Bloody Pennycuick,’ she said, thumping her fists into the pillow. ‘But if you think you can break me down till I become like my mother, you’re mistaken. I love them, and I’ll get them back. However long it takes.’

Chapter Seven

1961

Charity lay on her back in the long grass, hands tucked behind her head, bare legs bent at the knees. The sun was so intense she could only peep at it through half-closed eyes, clouds wispy, like the net in her old cancan petticoat.

She was in what had once been the orchard. Two old apple trees flanked a small door set in the high stone wall that surrounded the school, but the rest of the trees had been uprooted and now it was a mere field, belonging to the neighbouring farm.

It was a good place to retreat to, as few masters or boys ever came this way. Further down the field, the ancient wall disappeared into the dense woodland which marked the boundary of the playing fields.

Sounds from the school were minimal here. The odd smack of cricket ball on willow, the occasional growled order from Giles, the head groundsman as he went in and out of his hut beyond the wall. But mostly there was only birdsong, grasshoppers and bees to break into the stillness.

Charity had got into the habit of going for a long walk each afternoon when she was on early duty. Through the small gate, across this field and then on to a footpath that led all the way to Mayfield. Each day she pushed herself to walk a little further, to make herself so tired she couldn’t lie awake dwelling on how alone she was, or how much she hated Uncle Stephen.

It was July now, seven long months since the shattering news that Toby and Prue had been whisked away to Studley Priory. She might have forgiven her uncle for that, as by all accounts they were happy there. But when Geoff and Lou dropped the bombshell later that he wanted Charity cast out entirely, not even allowed to visit James at Clapham, she felt murderous.

Lou and Geoff assured her they would keep writing to her, pass on all the news they got of the children. But that could never make up for holding James in her arms, watching him grow or playing with him. Neither did letters match up to having a home to go to in the holidays. Never to have Lou sitting on her bed at night and chatting, or Geoff teasing her as she helped him in the garden. Did Uncle Stephen know how desperately abandoned she’d feel without them to run to? Is that why he did it?

As Geoff pointed out, they could take a chance and defy Stephen, as they already had at Christmas. But James was to be taken to Studley in future, for part of each holiday too, and no one could reasonably expect a three-year-old not to speak of seeing his older sister. But although Charity knew Geoff and Lou were only honouring Stephen’s wishes because he might whisk James away from them too, it still felt a bit like they had joined the enemy camp.

Rage was the fuel that had kept her going in the last six months. As she washed dishes, laid tables and prepared vegetables, her mind was always on a single goal: to get the children back, with her.

Charity had no clear idea of how she was going to do this. She would need a well-paid job and a home of her own before she could even think of tackling Uncle Stephen. All she had on her side was determination. One day they would all be together, whatever Uncle Stephen said or did.

Loneliness was Charity’s biggest enemy. In working hours she found solace in the other women, but once that was over she often found herself slipping into black despair.

Carol had left suddenly at Easter because a place came up for her in the college in London. A new maid called Deirdre had taken her job, but along with having a personality akin to a rice pudding, she lived in the village and ran off home the minute she’d finished her work. Now there was no one to share cocoa and cake with. No trips to the cinema or the pub. At night in her room Charity buried herself in a book, turning her radio on just to shut out the silence, and tried hard not to remember nights when the room had rung with laughter.

Carol’s departure had become another deep loss. Her battered portable typewriter sat on the chest of drawers surrounded by photographs of the children, Geoff and Lou, like some kind of shrine to happier times.

But as Charity lay in the grass she wasn’t reminiscing, or even planning, she was just seeing the whole month of August as some kind of black hole which she didn’t know how to fill.

Every other member of staff was awaiting the holiday with happy anticipation. Mrs Cod had Christopher coming home, Pat was planning days out at Hastings with her children, even Miss Hawkins was going away to Eastbourne. Charity could stay at the school with the skeleton staff of groundsmen and a couple of masters and their wives, but who would she talk to? How would she pass the time?

Just a week till the end of term. Another week clearing up after the boys and doing the big spring-clean. Then nothing.

Charity turned over on to her stomach and rested her head on her arms. She was wearing the pale blue shorts Mrs Cod had given her, that had once been Christopher’s. Although she had put on a little weight and her legs and arms were turning brown, it gave her no pleasure to see that her body finally looked womanly. Not when she was so terribly alone.

‘Hallo there!’

A male voice startled her and she sat up quickly, wrapping her arms instinctively round her bare legs.

‘You work at the school, don’t you?’

Despite her shock at being discovered, the boy’s fresh, flushed face, the cricket whites and his tousled black hair made her smile. He was clearly as surprised to stumble on her as she was to be spoken to.

‘Yes, in the kitchens.’

‘What are you doing out here?’

This question might have been construed as a reproach at a humble kitchen maid lying around in a field just beyond the school wall, but his wide grin held nothing but interest.

‘I’ve been for a long walk. It’s so warm still I didn’t want to go back.’

She didn’t even consider the rule about not fraternising with the pupils. To ignore him would have been rude.

‘I’ve seen you scuttling across the playing fields loads of times,’ he said, flopping down on the grass beside her. ‘I always wanted to get a better look at you. You’re the only pretty member of staff.’

Charity blushed scarlet at such an unexpected compliment and shuffled back on the grass, away from him.