Charis (2 page)

Their marriage was happy but things were difficult with Mildred
trying to run the household even though William made it plain that Elizabeth
was in charge. On the rare occasions that Henry came home it was even worse.
Elizabeth tried to shield her father from the tension as his health deteriorated
rapidly, but knew that he must be aware of it. William indeed blamed himself
for marrying Mildred in the first place and wondered how he could’ve been so
stupid to have been taken in by her. At one time he had even considered divorce
but knew that Mildred would have sued for large amounts of money that by rights
belonged to his heirs, so he had continued on, thinking it worth the sacrifice
to ensure his daughter's inheritance was intact. He knew that Mildred would
never consider divorcing him. She valued her position too much. So he did what
he could to ensure that neither she nor her son could get their hands on any of
the Beresford property or money.

Elizabeth and Paul had been married for two years when William died.
She had taken his early morning cup of tea into his room to find he’d passed away
peacefully during his sleep. Elizabeth tried to comfort herself knowing that he
was with his Jane again and was thankful to have Paul to lean on, who took upon
himself the task of all the funeral arrangements.

Mildred could hardly contain her excitement. All these years she had
waited for this moment – her husband dead and now she, as the widow, would
inherit Meadow Lea Hall, the estate and the home farm. All to be hers and
Henry's.

Alas for her, William proved to be more astute than she’d thought.
His will was watertight. She was to get an annual allowance and the right to
remain in the house as a permanent guest for her lifetime. For Henry? Nothing.
The will noted that William had provided the very best, and most expensive
education for the boy and he felt that was all he was owed. The property and
all his money was left in its entirety to his daughter Elizabeth, and to “the
heirs of her body” after her. If Elizabeth died childless it was to go to an
heir with Beresford blood, believed to be a distant cousin living somewhere in
Australia. And to any children that Elizabeth may have, the same conditions
were to apply. William had done his best to ensure that neither Mildred nor her
son would benefit from all her scheming.

After that, things settled down a bit. Mildred seemed resigned and
Henry was usually off in some isolated part of the world “digging up dead
people and things,” as Elizabeth used to say. When Elizabeth found she was to
have a baby her joy was full, her only disappointment that her father hadn't
lived to see his grandchild. But she was well and had an easy pregnancy. She
and Paul enjoyed buying all the baby things and when they discovered it was a
girl, spent hours trying to decide on a name. They finally chose Charis Jane;
Charis just because they liked it, but they liked it even more when they found
out it meant “divine grace,” and Jane after Elizabeth's mother.  Elizabeth was
so full of good health that it was all the more dreadful that she died bringing
her precious little baby into the world. Paul changed his mind about his new
daughter's name by adding Elizabeth. She was to be known as Charis Elizabeth
Jane Ainslie.

*****

Paul was devastated at the death of his wife. They’d been married
for only three years, but he obviously adored his baby daughter and devoted his
life to taking care of her. It was fortunate that he was able to continue his
writing and provide a good living for them. He also had sufficient money to
upgrade many things that needed doing to Meadow Lea Hall. He put in several
en-suite bathrooms, had the heating modernised and the whole house rewired and
re-roofed. Then all the little utility rooms were converted into one with the
kitchen and it was brought up to date with all the latest appliances and
gadgets. Mrs. Patterson was elated with her new domain and as Charis grew she
spent time watching her cook and learning how to do simple things. Life for the
little family was happy and peaceful. For the most part, Mildred kept to
herself in her own suite of rooms and Henry only came to visit once or twice a
year. But even so, when he was there it seemed to Charis that the atmosphere
changed and she felt her peace threatened.

Walking to school was fun and only on rare occasions, when the
weather was really bad, did they drive. If there was snow, Charis bundled up in
her thick winter coat, woolly hat, gloves, scarf, and snow boots. In the rain
she wore her wellies and they shared the big umbrella. Paul had a way of
turning such mundane things as a walk to school into fun. They laughed at the
funny stories he would make up about the things they saw on the way, or he
would tell her stories about his childhood.

Paul was the younger of two boys and he and his brother Philip had
been close and shared many common interests. Both enjoyed writing and chose it
as a career, but Philip decided to become a journalist. He got a job with a top
newspaper and worked his way to being a war correspondent, a job he loved. He
was good at it too and Paul was proud to see his brother's name on reports that
came from many of the world's battlegrounds, until that dreadful day, when
instead of Philip's news about the war zone, the news was about Philip's death.
Killed in a bomb blast, he had died instantly.  Paul had been only twenty when
his parents had died in a traffic accident so with his brother's death he was
now alone in the world. He concentrated on his writing and he was also good. It
wasn't long before he proved to be very successful. He was twenty-seven when he
met and married Elizabeth. She was twenty-two.

The stories that Charis enjoyed most were ones of Philip and Paul as
young boys and the things they used to do; they had a model railway their
father had built for them in an attic room and a tree house in the garden, they
played football in winter and cricket in the summer, they went off joy riding
on their bikes, they hiked the hills close to their home in the Lake District,
and went to Scotland for holidays in the summer. They walked Hadrian's Wall
from coast to coast and took a bottle of sea water from the north Atlantic to
pour into the North Sea on the other side of the country. A favourite summer
holiday was when their parents hired a narrow boat and travelled the canals in
the Midlands. Going up and down in the locks was always exciting for young
boys. One year, as older teenagers, just the two of them went to the continent
and travelled around for six weeks visiting as many countries as they could;
France, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Switzerland.

But nothing is this world lasts forever and Charis' young life was
shattered the day her father died.

It was early May when Charis was seven. Paul hadn’t been feeling
well over the weekend but seemed more himself at breakfast on Monday morning, so
she was surprised when instead of walking to school, her father got out the car
and said they'd drive. He kissed her goodbye and said he'd see her after school,
and with a smile and a wave he was gone. Charis never saw him again. He had a
massive heart attack later that morning and died in the ambulance on the way to
the hospital. He was thirty-seven years old.

Mildred found it hard not to gloat. Her time had finally come.
Although she could not touch any of Charis' inheritance, she would have no
trouble bullying a seven year old child, and she began immediately by banning
Lady from the house. She’d never been able to abide “that dog” as she called
her, and now she said that although it may have been Charis' house, it was her
home and the dog had to go. So Charis lost her father
and
her pet who
could have given her a modicum of comfort. Lady was sent to live with Stephen
and Sue Ridley. Stephen was the manager of their home farm and was good with
animals and they had three small children who already loved Lady.  Charis knew
they would care for the dog but missed her terribly. James, a solicitor, came down
from London. He’d been Paul's best friend since school days and Paul had made
him executor of his will and trustee of Charis' inheritance. He had a letter
for Charis, one that her father had written to be given to her in the event
that something happened to him, which she clutched in her little hand and read
and re-read for weeks and months afterward. Fortunately, James proved to be
more than a match for Mildred and held tight to the purse strings to keep
Charis' fortune intact. Mildred kept her own allowance but all household bills
were to be sent to James, and Mrs. Patterson was charged with buying groceries
and the running of the house, which just left Charis for Mildred to boss
around.

From her bedroom, Charis could hear the arguments downstairs, with
Mildred's voice dominating the others. Both Mrs. Patterson and James wanted
Charis to stay at the village school for a few more years so she could be with
familiar people and things. But Mildred was insistent it was “for the good of
the child” that she should be sent away to school. New faces and new places
would take her mind off her grief. In the end Mildred won out. On Friday,
Paul's funeral was held. The next Monday Charis was taken to London by Mrs.
Patterson to buy everything needed for school and on Friday of that same week,
George Patterson drove her to Dorset to the boarding school that was to become
Charis' home away from home for the next nine years.

Charis' misery and grief almost consumed her. Missing her father
caused her physical as well as emotional and mental anguish. Alone and lonely,
there was no one she felt she could talk to and night after night she cried
herself to sleep. Both the headmistress and the school matron tried their best
to help but couldn't penetrate the barrier that Charis built around herself.
The teachers were kind and the other girls friendly but Charis still felt
isolated.

It was always intended that Charis should go away to school, to the
school her mother had attended before her, but not until she was about eleven
years old. Her father had registered her when she was very young and the
headmistress agreed to take her early when she heard the circumstances, and agreed
with Mildred that it may indeed be for the best. But as the weeks went on and
Charis showed no signs of improvement, she began to doubt the wisdom of her
decision.

The summer holidays came, school broke up and Charis went home to
Meadow Lea Hall, and to Mildred whose power knew no bounds. She had come into
her own at last; Lady of the Manor, she enjoyed the feeling that it was all
hers
.
No more did she keep to her own rooms. When Charis came home her life was made
even more miserable by Mildred's bossy and bullying manner. Charis must sit
quietly and not speak during mealtimes. Charis must not run around and make a
noise. Charis must go to bed by eight o'clock each evening. Charis had jobs to
do and could not play or read or anything else until all the work was done. She
began spending more and more time with Mrs. Patterson as she went around
fulfilling her duties as cook and housekeeper and supervising, as kindly as
possible, the chores that Charis was assigned to do, and doing all she could to
comfort and console the broken hearted child.

In September, Charis returned to school and this time she was
pleased to be there. The summer at home has been agonising for her. At school
there was no Mildred. There was plenty to keep her mind occupied and always
things to do. She was still a quiet child but clever and eager to learn.

Before long she was working with girls a year older than herself and
she started taking her music seriously and developing a real talent on the
piano. Her best subjects were history and English – the love of both developed
from her father, her gift of music inherited from her mother. She no longer
cried herself to sleep at night, although she constantly missed her father and
longed to be able to talk to him again, or to have him tuck her in bed at night,
or sit and hold her in their big armchair and tell her more stories of his
childhood. Very early in life Charis learned what it is like to be all alone
amidst a crowd of people.

Instead of home becoming a refuge from the world, for Charis, school
became a refuge from home.  She loved Meadow Lea Hall but hated being there now
that Mildred had taken charge. She never went home for weekends or for half
term and dreaded the school holidays. Christmas and birthdays almost ceased to
exist. She would get a card and gift from James, and Mrs. Patterson tried to
make some sort of small celebration for her, but there was no tree or Father
Christmas to fill her stocking, no birthday cake with candles to blow out. Her
birthday was in August during the school holidays so she didn't even get to see
any of her friends. If she unwittingly upset or disobeyed Mildred she could be
locked in her room and be deprived of food for hours on end. Mrs. Patterson
would try to sneak something to her but Mildred seemed to have eyes in the back
of her head and knew just when to be around to thwart the housekeeper’s
attempts to help. But even that was preferable to being locked in the garden
shed and left there overnight. Charis had never liked being left in the dark. She'd
always had a night light in her room, but since the night in the shed the dark
had terrified her. She’d been cold, hungry and unable even to close her eyes –
listening to the sounds of the night and wondering what was out there lurking
in the dark, just waiting to come and get her.  George had come and released her
at first light and it never happened again. Years later Charis wondered if the
Pattersons had threatened Mildred. But being dragged to her bedroom and locked
in was a regular occurrence, although she thought that much better than being
in Mildred's company.