Charity Begins at Home (12 page)

This versifier must have been particularly unlucky to end up at a village reciting Milton to cobblers' sons. At least Greenaway took some pride in it, it seemed. He still wore the short black academic robe that proclaimed him a university man, though with his short thin legs in black pantaloons it made him look rather like a sparrow. His sharp, twitching eyes, now focused on Miss Calder, completed the birdlike image.

"Do you think it will do for Midsummer?" The tension had not left his voice; the young Miss Calder might have been Leigh Hunt or some other important London publisher assessing this for publication.

"How considerate of you to do this!" Charity looked up from her reading and favored the schoolmaster with a bright smile. Then she packed the play away in her basket. "If I had known you were of such a mind, I would have asked you from the start and consulted with you as you planned the play! It's fascinating, I'm sure. Of course, it will have to be modified somewhat, as it will be children performing it, and such verse as this might be too elegant for their little mouths. Perhaps some tightening would be in order, too. But what a kind thing for you to do!"

Perhaps Tristan was more sensitive to Miss Calder than another would be, having observed her closely during their few encounters. But he sensed a reserve under the warmth of her response. Mr. Greenaway did not. His anxious hands clasped together, finally still, and he beamed as if she had promised a performance at Drury Lane. "Of course, make whatever changes you deem necessary. Perhaps the Greek epigram in line 67 ought to be translated."

He was still calling out instructions as they walked up the lane towards the Grange, and Miss Calder, in a low voice, said, "Iambic pentameter, would you believe, and heroic couplets. But—" She started briskly toward her home, pushing the basket with the offending manuscript up to the crook of her elbow. "I will contrive something out of it that the children can get their mouths around, even if I must burn the midnight oil over this epic."

That did it. If the schoolmaster was going to write the play and young Hering to build the set, Tristan would have to paint the blasted backdrop after all. Otherwise he would never get Miss Calder to concentrate on him long enough to set things right between them.

Why that was so imperative he didn't care to pursue. It was enough that she had been welcoming to him, and more than kind to his sister, and had put the household straight enough that he could paint again in good conscience. He didn't want this angel of mercy to think him a devil.

"This backdrop you wanted has been occupying my thoughts lately. But the scene that keeps appearing—well, it would require another two canvases, as I envision a triptych. And I fear it may be as unsuitable as Mr. Greenaway's epic meter. Only much more gruesome."

This gambit worked. Her steps slowed on the lane, and she looked full at him for the first time. "Gruesome?"

As he describe his triptych, he watched her expressive eyes. They widened when he mentioned the monstrous whale, sparkled when he described the seaman's legs twitching between its jaws. She was laughing when he finished.

"Oh, the children would love that! They are so gruesome themselves, you know. I just heard Daisy Sillitoe tell Mary Adams that St. George's dragon could burn flesh right off her bones and that her blood would rise in red steam. They have not been happy about having to do Jonah instead of the dragon, and seeing Mr. Greenaway's script, I can hardly blame them." Then she gave him the smile he had been aiming for, that open, generous smile that set the dimples dancing at the corners of her mouth. "But when they see this picture, they might even wonder if perhaps the Bible isn't more entertaining than they had thought!"

As they passed through the iron gate to the Grange and she waited to make sure Tristan latched it back securely, her smile faded. "The vicar now—vicars don't often think the Bible is meant to entertain, you know."

Tristan didn't know, having had little contact with vicars, but he could have guessed from the tasteful churches that dotted this pretty countryside. "Yes, I can tell Mr. Langworth lacks the appreciation for the macabre that Italian priests cultivate. If you think my whale is gruesome, you should see some of the crucifixes in Tuscany churches, dripping red blood and black sweat."

"Oh, I would love to! And the statues, too—all the gilt and glory—" She broke off, glancing up at him and away, as if she were confessing some guilty secret. "I have read about Italian religious art and seen some engravings, but I know the effect is diminished in reproductions. It's such a very different view of religion, so unrestrained, so intense."

"It is that," he agreed. "But Italy itself is different from England, so its religion must needs be a thing apart. Like wine and milk."

"You mean," she asked, her eyes thoughtful, "one is intoxicating and the other is nourishing?"

It was as succinct a summary as he had heard of the distinctions between his two worlds, between his mother's land and his father's. We realized that together, he thought suddenly, the two of us talking like this.

He wanted to pursue this, but they were already at the circular drive in front of the whitewashed Tudor house, and she had returned to Jonah's accursed whale, making her decision in preparation for bidding him farewell. "Perhaps you could tone down the gory aspect just a bit and keep it covered when you are not working on it? Or would you like to take the canvases home with you to paint?"

That would defeat his whole purpose. "No, no, it's too unwieldy to move about. I'll paint it at the church hall. I'll need your help, of course," he added as if in afterthought. She likes art, he recalled Sir Francis saying. "I can't spare more than a few hours a week, and I'll never get the background painted in time, so if you don't mind picking up a brush yourself."

He had thought her smile open before, but this one was better. It had the radiance of the sun bursting to life over a sullen sea.

"If I don't mind? Oh, no, I don't mind. I would love to help you paint—I can't imagine anything more—" She broke off this unprecedentedly inarticulate assent as they came to the granite steps. "Thank you. Will tomorrow be too soon to start?"

"Tomorrow is Sunday," he had to point out, knowing that Charity Calder would obey the commandment and avoid work on the Sabbath, at least what work could be postponed.

"Oh, yes." The golden light dimmed in her eyes, and the hazel became merely brown again as she seemed to take out some mental appointment book and scan her coming week. "And Monday I've the household linens and the church linens to see to, and Tuesday I will be starting work on the play and determining the booth arrangements. Another day perhaps. Send me a message when you will be ready for my help, and I shall set aside some time."

It was too equivocal a note to let her go on, but there she was, her hand on the brass knob. She was poised to escape, already wrenching open the heavy door, when he touched her upper arm. It was slim and firm from hefting goodwill baskets, and he had an instant to decide that all this walking would have worked the same magic on her legs, before he realized from her startled expression that he had crossed some unseen border.

Having already broken the rules, he tested them further, sliding his fingers down her slender arm before he dropped his hand. "Stay a minute. I want to apologize."

She didn't let go of the door, but she hesitated there on the threshold. Tristan filed that away for future reference— no woman could leave a man on the brink of apology. "For what?" she asked warily.

He had to think how to couch the apology without giving greater offense. "For teasing you so at lunch last week. Your brother had boasted of your success in London, you see, and I knew Anna would enjoy hearing of it. But it seemed you didn't mean to tell her, so I fear I gave into impulse and teased you into addressing a subject you didn't want to address."

She relaxed then, her hand sliding up and down the door as if checking the consistency of the varnish. "I grew up with a household of brothers, Lord Braden. I hope you don't think I am so poor-spirited I take offense at a bit of raillery."

If it wasn't that, then, he wanted to ask, why have you stayed away all week? But she had forgiven whatever it was, and it made no sense to go on apologizing.

That proved to be the best course, because after a moment she must have found his silence unnerving and broke it with a quick invitation. "Do come in and have tea, won't you? Francis will be in soon, and I know you must have things to talk to him about."

He couldn't think of any, but he liked the thought of tea with Charity. So he followed her into the big central hall. Flashing him a bright glance, she left him at the arched entry to the drawing room. "I'll send for Francis. He'll be with his bailiff."

He smiled as she stopped beyond the staircase and, thinking herself unobserved, kicked off her boots, tossing them into a wooden box beside the door to the kitchen. Then she ran off lightly in her stockinged feet, her skirt swirling to reveal slim ankles.

But then, this was the sort of house one might go barefoot in. There was no pretension here, no Adam staircase or elaborate Belgian wainscoting; it was only a comfortable old place of walnut half-timbers, oak floors, and low, long mullioned windows.

Even the formal drawing room looked like it was meant to be lived in and not just visited. He ducked his head instinctively as he entered, for the ceiling was a bit low in the style of the Elizabethan architects, crossed with rough hammer-beams that echoed the half-timbered exterior.

He was drawn to an elaborate medieval tapestry of a king's hunt hanging between the mullioned windows. It was so ancient that the purples and roses and blues had become muted, subtle, like a J.M.W. Turner watercolor. That part of his mind that dealt with art collectors wondered if the Calders knew how valuable their family heirloom was. But he knew them well enough to know they wouldn't sell it, no matter what the price. The drawing room just wouldn't look right without the tapestry that must have hung there since the Queen Anne chairs were new.

This was nobility without ostentation, and he would have recognized it immediately as the home where Charity Calder had grown up.

The wall across from the windows was lined with bookcases, and he remembered that Sir Francis was, against all expectation, an erudite man. He wandered past the shelves, running his finger across the gilt-titled volumes, noting with distant appreciation the absence of dust. His father was wont to claim that a bookcase's contents reflected the owner's character. Erudite and tidy, then, that was the Calders. There were history books aplenty, Sir Francis's, of course, but also volumes of natural philosophy, too, with an emphasis on geology, and well-thumbed editions of Shakespeare and Milton. One shelf was filled with a surprisingly extensive collection of travelogues, arranged meticulously in alphabetical order. He was not surprised to open a recent guidebook of Italy and note the penciled notes in the margin. He recognized Charity's heat hand, though he had never seen it before. "Dante's tomb" appeared next to the description of Ravenna. "Not worth the visit," he wanted to write underneath, having made the pilgrimage himself as a child in his mother's wake. But the door opened then, and he turned. Charity was no longer barefoot, he noted with some regret, but he could not find fault with her. She couldn't have been gone ten minutes, and yet here she was, her hair neatly combed, her old dress exchanged for a pretty frock of lilac dashed with white flowers, two new brothers in tow. He was too used to women who took two hours to emerge from the boudoir not to be impressed.

"Francis will be in soon. These are my younger brothers, Charlie and Barry." Charlie, the one she liked to tease, was twelve or so, but seemed young for his age, with the slim sturdy proportions of late childhood and a boy's careless dress. He glanced shyly up at Tristan, then at Charity, who smiled encouragingly back. "This is Lord Braden."

"Tristan Hale," he corrected automatically. He wasn't yet used to his title and out of some confused democratic tendency reserved it mostly for getting better service in inns. The older boy, compactly built like Francis but with Charity's smile, took his lead, grinning and holding out his hand. "Good to meet you, Hale. I'd've been over earlier, but I just came down from Oxford last night. You an Oxford man yourself?"

Tristan had lived long enough in Oxford to recognize school-fever, and this undergraduate looked to have an especially bad case. A Trinity College scarf was knotted casually about his neck, and the pocket of his riding coat gleamed with his club pin. No doubt he really believed that one could tell the cut of a man by the colors of his college scarf. "I am not a university man."

"Lord Braden studied at the Royal Academy of Art." Miss Calder's expression suggested that he might do a better job of establishing his consequence with her brother.

But the candid Barry only shrugged. "Could be worse. Could be Cambridge. Might as well be, if it's not Oxford."

Tristan smiled at Charity's exasperated sigh. "Actually I know the place well. My father was a maths don at Merton College, so I spent half my life in Oxford. Naturally I would have hanged rather than matriculate there."

"What a sorry shame! You could hardly cut up a lark with your old man right there every minute."

"Barry hopes to take his degree in cutting up larks," Charity observed ironically. "I hope he can, for he hasn't time to study anything else, between rowing practice and applying for exeats to come home at the week's end, who knows why."