Charity (3 page)

Father had gone out while the children washed up. He was probably down by the
Cutty Sark
, his usual spot on Saturday afternoon for giving one of his open-air sermons. Charity had no wish to see him being heckled by crowds of drunks as they turned out the pubs; she got ribbed enough at school for having such a strange father.

Reluctantly she moved on towards the greengrocer’s, dreading the further embarrassment of being forced to explain to Mrs Moore what her mother suspected.

The shop was as busy as always on Saturday afternoons so Charity lingered outside by a display of fruit arranged on fake grass, waiting for a lull when she could speak to Mrs Moore.

Something slimy on the ground made Charity look down, and as she moved her foot from the old cabbage leaf, she saw a shilling lying there. For a moment she was transfixed, blinking disbelievingly at the silver coin. To anyone else it might have seemed like luck; to Charity it was surely a gift from heaven!

Under cover of tying her shoelace, she bent down and retrieved it, offering up a quick prayer of thanks, then ran straight to the sweet shop to get it changed.

There was just a tiny stab of guilt as she bought a quarter of dolly mixtures for fourpence, but the jingling of the eightpence in her pocket, and knowing she’d saved Tobias and Prudence a caning, more than made up for it.

‘Mrs Moore added it up wrong,’ she lied breathlessly as she entered the kitchen. Mother was ironing Father’s surplice on a blanket on the table, Tobias and Prudence sitting close to her, faces drawn with anxiety. ‘She said she was sorry, but she was rushed off her feet when the children came in. Can I take them to the park now?’

Mother looked at the offered eightpence, eyes narrowing with suspicion. Charity seemed far too pleased with herself and her face was flushed with more than just running home.

‘You may,’ she replied. ‘But make sure you’re back before it gets dark.’

After the children had gone, Gwen sat down at the table, resting her head on folded arms. She was tired, so tired, and deep down she knew she needed help. She had long since stopped questioning why she felt no happiness at anything. She went through the days, the weeks and months like a robot programmed not to think. Craving solitude, but when it came, like now, she felt desperately lonely.

‘You made your bed,’ she murmured, too weary even to voice the rest of the expression. Charity flitted into her mind, but she blanked out the dark suspicion by mentally recalling the ingredients she needed for a cake.

‘I’ll go to the doctor on Monday,’ she murmured as she got up to finish the ironing. ‘Perhaps he can give me something.’

‘How did you do it?’ Tobias asked once they’d crossed the main road by the Maritime Museum. James was in the pushchair, tucked in with a blanket. Tobias and Prudence either side of Charity were holding the handles.

Charity looked down at him. Admiration shone out of his big blue eyes, but she saw no real guilt, which worried her. Prudence had the grace to look ashamed, biting her lip as if she was on the point of confession.

The bag of dolly mixtures in her pocket was a reminder of her own guilt. She couldn’t share them out without seeming to condone their wrongdoing, and neither would she enjoy them alone.

‘Never you mind how I managed it,’ she said sternly. ‘The point is you did steal that money and it was very wrong. Mother has little enough spare cash as it is. The only reason I covered up for you was because I didn’t want you to be caned.’

‘It was Tobias’s idea,’ Prudence whined. ‘I said it was wrong.’

Charity looked from one to the other, seeing faults in both children. Prudence could be an insufferable little prig, sucking up to adults and showing no real loyalty. Tobias was deceitful and wilful despite endless punishments, but then he was just a child.

‘You are both equally to blame,’ she said firmly. ‘Stealing is a sin. You must promise me you’ll never do such a thing again.’

‘I hate Father.’ Tobias stuck out his lip belligerently. ‘He’s mean to us. I’m going to run away to sea as soon as I’m old enough.’

Charity felt duty bound to admonish him, but her words were softened by deep sympathy. Tobias was a real boy: he loved football, climbing trees and wide open spaces. She and Prudence could accept the constraints of their life more easily because they’d already discovered this was how it was for females, but Tobias had only other boys at school as examples and they had all the freedom they wanted.

‘I’ll be leaving school soon,’ Charity said gently as they walked in through the big park gates. ‘I’ll find myself a flat somewhere, then maybe you can come and visit me.’

‘Couldn’t we come to live with you too?’ Tobias looked up at her imploringly. ‘It’ll be awful once you’ve gone!’

Charity sighed deeply. ‘You and Prudence have to work hard at school,’ she said, taking one hand from the pushchair to ruffle his hair affectionately. ‘That’s the way out, so you can get a good job.’

She let James out of the pushchair then, smiling as he ran forward over the grass shrieking with delight as Prudence and Tobias chased him.

Here in the park Charity felt a sense of peace that she found nowhere else. She’d learned at school how the meridian line passed through here, giving time to the rest of the world, so if Greenwich was important, perhaps she was too? All these huge old trees planted centuries ago, all the vast expanse of grass and the view over the river and London when they climbed up to the observatory gave her a sense of belonging to a greater scheme of things.

Charity seldom went out of Greenwich. Her knowledge of the world and the rest of London was only from books and hearsay, but here in the park she felt God’s hand as she never did in Father’s church. If he could look out for each squirrel and deer, work all those miracles of changing seasons, then surely he saw too that she needed just a minor one to make her and her family happy?

They played a brisk game of hide and seek, humouring James by pretending they couldn’t see him when all he did to hide himself was cover his face with his hands. Tobias climbed trees, flattening himself on bare branches then jumping down to frighten them.

Dusk crept up on them suddenly. Charity put the now tired James back into his pushchair and they hurried back down the hill chattering to each other, each small face rosy from the cold, fresh air, earlier events in the day forgotten.

But as Charity opened the door and hauled in the pushchair, she knew something more had happened in their absence. The fire was lit in the parlour, the cosy flickering through the open door offering a warm welcome, yet a pall of something unpleasant hung in the air.

‘Come in here!’ Father’s voice boomed out from the kitchen. ‘All of you!’

Mother sat at the table, arms folded in front of her. Father stood with his back to the paraffin stove, warming his backside, and his eyes were colder than a January morning.

‘What is it?’ Charity ventured, bending to take off James’s snow-suit.

‘Leave that,’ Father pointed an accusing finger at her. ‘Stand there the three of you and let me look at three liars and thieves.’

When Charity saw the shopping list on the table alongside the sixpence and two pennies she had brought home earlier, her insides churned and she had a strong desire to visit the lavatory.

Father prolonged the torture by merely staring hard at each of them in turn as they stood in a row quaking.

‘Explain to me how you came by this money,’ he said at last, fixing Charity with a look of intense hatred.

There was nothing for it but to admit what had happened. Clearly Father had checked up.

‘I found some money,’ she whispered.

‘Liars and thieves,’ he hissed, crossing the room and slapping Charity hard round the face. ‘But I blame you most of all, daughter, for you have covered up one crime with another.’

Charity reeled against the wall from the force of his blow. Prudence covered her head with her arms and Tobias backed towards the door.

‘Upstairs, all of you!’ Father roared. ‘I’ll be up the minute I’ve eaten my tea to deal with each of you.’

James let out a howl of fear, ran to Charity and clutched at her legs. Mother got up from the table snatched him back from her and dumped him on a chair.

‘I’m ashamed of you,’ she shot at the terrified children. ‘Get out of my sight.’

‘I feel sick,’ Prudence sobbed. ‘I’m so scared.’

For once Tobias had nothing to say. His face was ashen, shaking like a leaf.

‘Keep quiet or he’ll be worse,’ Charity implored them. ‘Get undressed and into bed. I daren’t stay here with you.’

Alone in her own room Charity forced herself to hate rather than allow fear to overcome her. She undressed, put her nightdress on and sat down on her bed.

It was an icy, bare room, the ceiling sloping down sharply to a small window overlooking backyards. An iron bed, a Windsor chair and a chest of drawers were the only furniture.

She heard the kitchen door open some ten minutes later, a bad sign, as it meant her father hadn’t mellowed by eating his tea. There was no creeping up the stairs this time, the way he did on Friday nights. His steps were heavy and measured, his breathing laboured.

As she expected, he went past the children’s room and came straight to her. She stood up, holding the end of the bed for support.

‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ he bellowed, even before he came into the small room, the cane twitching in his hand.

‘I’m sorry, Father,’ she whispered. ‘Please don’t cane Prudence and Tobias, they’re only little.’

She moved back towards the window. His head was almost touching the sloping ceiling; if he followed her here he would need to stoop. But even as that thought shot across her mind she remembered how practised he was at negotiating this room, even in the dark.

‘You dare now to try and tell me what to do?’ he roared in astonishment.

Everything about him was repulsive: his high shiny forehead, thick wet lips, the faint smell of stale sweat and even that brown cardigan knitted by one of his doting parishioners.

‘Lay one finger on them and I’ll tell everyone what you do to me,’ Charity blurted out without considering the consequences.

He lifted the cane threateningly, bushy brows knitting together.

‘Cane me if you must –’ she cringed further away from him, scared by her own daring but unable to back down now – ‘but if you touch them I swear I’ll tell the world what you do.’

He lunged forward, the cane raised, but the fact that he knocked his head on the ceiling proved he wasn’t as controlled as he’d been earlier.

‘They did wrong,’ she went on, letting anger take her along with it. ‘But what you do to me is a real sin. It’s called incest.’

The word she’d never dared say openly before floored him. She saw fear in his pale blue eyes and his tongue flickered across his lips like a big slug.

‘Get into bed!’ he roared out. ‘Tomorrow I’ll find a job for you, well away from this house so you cannot influence those innocent children further. Another word from you and I’ll strip the skin from your back. I have nursed a viper in the bosom of my family.’

He turned and stamped down the stairs. The only satisfaction Charity had was hearing him pass the children’s room with an order for them to say prayers for God’s forgiveness.

It was over an hour before she could even cry. She didn’t dare creep down to see Prudence and Tobias and reassure them they could sleep easily because Father wouldn’t punish them further. She had done all she set out to do; she had protected her brother and sister. But the triumph was hollow.

Charity knew exactly what sort of job he would find for her. A skivvy for one of his parishioners. Not quality people who would treat her fairly, but cranks like himself who would show suspicion from the outset.

Desolation engulfed her as she lay sobbing in her narrow bed. Her mother had abandoned her years before. Now she was to lose the children she loved.

Prudence was so quick and clever, top of her class at school, but how long would it be before she was as dull as her older sister? What would happen to Tobias without someone to sympathise when he fought against his fetters? Would Father suck him into his church, or would he rebel against everything in defiance and end up in serious trouble?

As for James, what would become of him? Kept in the house all day with a mother who barely looked at him. Slapped and scolded continually. Charity might be able to explain to Prudence and Tobias why she had to go. But how could anyone make a child of two understand why the only person who had shown him love was suddenly gone?

A foghorn rasped out a warning to other boats down on the river, and it sounded to Charity like an omen of worse things yet to come.

‘Help me, God!’ she whispered in the darkness. ‘Do something to help all of us.’

Chapter Two

‘Get up!’

The curt order woke Charity instantly.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her mother stood over her wrapped in her camel wool dressing-gown, her hair loose on her shoulders. Under the dim overhead light her face was grey and haggard and her mouth twisted with spite.

‘Is it morning?’ she said sleepily, glancing towards the window. The curtains were open just enough to see that it was still dark and there was no sound of traffic.

‘Satan finds work for idle hands,’ her mother snapped viciously, pulling the bedclothes from her. ‘So you can clean the kitchen and the lavatory and prepare the vegetables for dinner now, before you get any breakfast.’

She was gone before Charity could speak, clonking down the stairs on shoes with broken backs.

Charity sighed wearily, got out of bed, hauled on her everyday dress and tied back her hair. Sundays were always interminable.

It was freezing in the kitchen, with ice on the inside of the window. Her mother had gone back to bed and it was just six o’clock. Aside from two unwashed cocoa cups in the sink, there was nothing to warrant a demand for it to be cleaned.

The wooden rail hoisted to the ceiling was clear of airing clothes, the plain wood table was scrubbed almost white; even the chairs were tucked under it. But she knew exactly what was expected of her. She must spring-clean it. Every pan must be scoured, every shelf washed and the contents replaced, the cooker stripped down and the floor washed.