Charity Read online

  Toby poured himself a large glass of whisky and sat down again once Nurse Giles had left. One more night here and back to his regiment to play soldiers and in a year or so, once the estate was finally his, he could buy himself out of the army.

  He was just about to start on a second glass when he saw Prue’s car turn into the drive.

  The Morris Minor estate she drove said all there was to say about her. Boringly practical and yawningly dull. He could almost bet she had a ‘Ban the bomb’ sticker on its back window. Toby got up quickly, tucked the glass under the settee and went to open the front door.

  ‘What a nice surprise!’ He tried to look delighted as Prue stepped out of her car. She looked halfway between a hippie and a frumpy housewife. Her long hair was scraped back from her wide face and held with a rubber band. She wore no makeup, a long smock-type dress and the kind of Jesus sandals only favoured by intense librarians. Toby often wondered why she made no effort to make the best of herself, but Prue was full of feminist claptrap these days and perhaps she thought by making herself look as unattractive as possible she would never be mistaken for a sex object. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘I want to talk to you,’ Prue said with that tight-lipped look he remembered so well from when they were children. ‘I’ve got things to say to you, Toby. Where are the servants?’

  ‘If you mean Margaret, she’s doing some shopping.’ Prue had some wonderful expressions, but then she belonged in another century. ‘Dawn Giles has left now. So we’re all alone.’

  Prue stormed past him leaving in her wake a faint hint of lavender water. Toby followed her into the drawing room and flopped down on the settee.

  At closer inspection he could see she looked quite demented. Her usually pale face was flushed and he noticed at once she’d bitten all her nails. She didn’t sit down, but leaned one hand on the mantelpiece as if bracing herself for something unpleasant.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked. ‘And do sit down.’

  ‘I don’t want a drink,’ Prue snapped. ‘And I’d rather stand. I’ve had that friend of Charity’s down today.’

  ‘What friend?’ Toby’s stomach churned alarmingly.

  ‘Dorothy.’

  ‘Oh that old slag.’ Toby felt relieved. ‘I thought she’d gone off to America with some old man?’

  ‘She is actually a very charming woman, Toby. I think you’ve been leading me up the garden path.’

  ‘I don’t get you.’

  ‘You’ve been turning me against Charity. You told me Charity bought her promotions business with money earned from prostitution.’

  ‘So she did.’ Toby rearranged his long legs more comfortably and leaned back with his hands behind his head.

  ‘No she didn’t.’ Anger flashed in Prue’s blue eyes, turning them into accusing lasers. ‘Dorothy was very candid with me. There’s a world of difference between getting a friend to help out and going on the streets.’

  ‘Come on now!’ Toby laughed awkwardly and cursed inwardly. It looked as if Prue and this woman had had a real heart to heart. ‘You’ve often said yourself how odd it was that she got the money together.’

  ‘Yes I have,’ Prue admitted. ‘And I’m ashamed of that now.’

  Toby couldn’t find anything to fight back with.

  ‘I was a louse,’ he said feebly. ‘I was just mad with Chas and I threw up a few things to get at her. When you’re angry you don’t think of what you’re saying. I’m sorry.’

  He knew he had lost his grip on Prue now. She had many faults, but she had integrity. No amount of charm and sweet talking was going to bring her round.

  ‘Do you know, Charity has never once said anything bad about you to me?’ Prue slumped into a chair, and put her hands over her face. ‘I’ve been a selfish bitch. But the biggest mistake I ever made was not to suspect your motives when you said Charity was a whore. I should have gone straight to her and found out what your row with her was about. Maybe then she wouldn’t have cracked up, with someone on her side.’

  She got up quickly and strode towards the door, then turned, her face like stone.

  ‘Don’t try and contact me again, Toby, not ever – and I shall make sure James doesn’t come near you either.’

  She was gone before Toby could think of a reply. By the time he’d risen from his chair she was already pulling away in the drive.

  He couldn’t sleep that night. The house creaked and rustled and he was scared, so scared he was shivering.

  Suddenly he felt terribly alone. The old house didn’t seem so attractive a proposition and he still had that one last job to do before he would be free.

  ‘Oh Prue, let me look at you!’ Charity was on her feet the moment her door opened and she saw her sister standing there shamefaced. She didn’t feel the stab of pain in her back; she forgot too just how long it had taken for her sister to visit. All that mattered was that Prue was here now.

  Prue had clearly made a great effort with her appearance. In a pink Laura Ashley dress, her hair loose on her shoulders, she looked like a rosy milkmaid.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Prue managed to get out before she burst into tears.

  Charity put her one good arm round her sister and hugged her awkwardly. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she murmured. ‘Come and sit down and tell me all your news.’

  Prue found it even harder to bear the fact that Charity only wanted to hear about her. No angry questions, no recriminations.

  ‘I’ve been such a bitch,’ Prue sobbed. ‘I shouldn’t have let Toby turn me against you. How can you ever forgive me?’

  ‘Because you’re my sister, and I love you,’ Charity said evenly. ‘Because all of us have scars from the past and we all have different ways of dealing with them. You’ve been a good girl, you used your brains to better yourself. I would have scolded you if you’d done any of the things I did.’

  ‘Scolded me!’ Prue managed a weak laugh. ‘That just about sums your attitude up. “Laid into me”, “whacked me”, that’s the way we were brought up – yet you use words like “scold”!’

  ‘I was always a bit feeble.’ Charity let go of Prue’s hand and caressed her cheek. ‘Don’t let’s go over the past though, it’s done with.’

  ‘But it isn’t,’ Prue insisted. ‘Look at your face. If I’d come to you when Rita asked me to, maybe I could’ve prevented that. I hate Toby. I’ll never speak to him again.’

  ‘Hush now.’ Charity put her finger to Prue’s lips. Prue brushed them away, looking at Charity in astonishment.

  ‘He’s a rotter, Chas, and you know it deep down. Stop protecting him.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Charity smiled. ‘But it comes hard to let any one of you three go. I’ve been holding on to you all for so long.’

  ‘Tell me about seeing Prue again?’ Rob asked.

  It was the afternoon of the following day and Rob had arrived to find Charity looking very peaceful. She was lying on her bed because her back was hurting and he’d insisted she stayed that way.

  ‘She was so different,’ Charity said. ‘More like she was when she was little, sort of warm and caring. We talked about so much, about the kids she teaches, Tim, her husband and about the times back in Greenwich.’

  ‘Tell me about things you did together when they were small,’ Rob said.

  Charity told him about the trips to Greenwich Park, doing the washing on Saturdays with James sitting between the bags of laundry.

  She couldn’t see Rob without twisting her head round and in some odd way it made it easier for all the images to come back. She saw Easton Street, smelt the smell of the baths.

  ‘I used to tell them stories about the house I’d find for us all one day,’ she said. ‘I’d tell Prue she could wear her hair loose and have a blue velvet dress, and Toby could go out to play football whenever he wanted to.’

  Rob listened carefully as Charity described Babylon Hall, her school and the chores she had to do. She had never spoken this fluently before; now her bleak childho
od was spilling out, making him see and feel how it was.

  But again and again she returned to the part about this fantasy house.

  ‘Why did you want to live away from your parents, Charity?’ he said softly.

  ‘To keep them safe,’ she said. ‘So Father –’ she stopped suddenly.

  ‘So Father – what, Charity?’ Rob held his breath for a moment.

  ‘So he couldn’t hurt Prue,’ she blurted out.

  Rob waited. He could see that her neck and cheek were flushed, and her breathing was faster.

  ‘Like he hurt you?’

  It was raining outside, a sudden violent shower that would soon be over and it had made the room darker.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  Her voice changed as she began to tell him, it rasped in her throat, laboured and in pain.

  Rob heard the stairs creak in the darkness, heard the wind coming off the river and experienced the pain with her.

  Graphic descriptions with nothing held back. He could see the big man coming towards Charity’s small skinny body in the narrow bed, hear his panting as the terrified child cowered away from him.

  ‘I felt so dirty all the time,’ she croaked. ‘I couldn’t take in my lessons at school and they called me a dunce.’

  Rob had this desire to take her in his arms, but he knew he must suppress it, because there was more to come.

  ‘When he said I was to leave and he’d find a job for me I was scared for Prue. I asked God to help me – and then the fire came.’

  Charity had told him about the fire before, but never like this. He could feel her indecision on the stairs, hear Prue screaming, see the flames as they engulfed the house.

  ‘I was glad when I woke up in the hospital,’ she sobbed. ‘I heard the nurse telling me they were dead, but all I could think of was that I’d never have to see Father again.’

  ‘Have a sleep now,’ Rob said gently when she finally stopped crying. He put a blanket over her and stepped back. ‘You’ll feel better soon.’

  Her eyes seemed to beg him to stay. Rob sat down on the chair by the bed and waited till she fell asleep.

  He felt like crying himself now. He could remember the sixth-form boy who called him into his study at school when he was just twelve. The pain and dirtiness of that had never quite left him either. He’d tried to tell his father once, but he wouldn’t listen.

  As Charity finally fell asleep, Rob stood up and looked at her. He could remember looking down once before like this, when she was asleep in the garden of the cottage. She was wearing his old blue shorts and a white blouse, her long silky hair white-gold against the deep green of the grass. His heart seemed to swell that day, just as it was doing now, and he knew the seeds she’d planted so long ago had begun to grow.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Hugh hesitated outside Holly Bush House, a bunch of red roses in one hand, his briefcase in the other.

  It hadn’t taken much detective work to find out where Rob had tucked Charity away: all Hugh had had to do was phone Stratton Promotions and say he wanted to send Charity some flowers. It was a smarter place than he’d expected, though. A big detached house in a tree-lined quiet cul-de-sac, backing on to the river. From what he knew about most of Rob’s patients, few of them could afford even a day out in Brighton.

  Hugh almost wished now that he hadn’t seen Charity’s picture in the paper. For some odd reason he couldn’t get her out of his mind, and Sophie was starting to notice how distracted he was. Only last night she’d asked him if he was having an affair.

  The trouble was, he was finding fault constantly with Sophie, comparing her unfavourably to a girl he hadn’t seen for twelve years. What sort of madness was it that made a man in his position start dreaming about sunlit pools, walks in woods and bike rides, and what made him feel he’d missed out somewhere along the line?

  ‘I’d like to see Miss Stratton, please,’ he said to the black nurse who answered the door.

  ‘I’m afraid she doesn’t have visitors unless by prior arrangement,’ the nurse replied starchily.

  ‘I’m a solicitor, and an old friend of Miss Stratton’s.’ Hugh smiled engagingly, removing his bowler hat. ‘I wanted to surprise her. But if you’re unsure you could always stay in the room with us.’

  He took out his business card and handed it to her. Molly read it, looked up at his smooth, handsome face and weakened.

  ‘I should ask her first,’ she said.

  ‘That would spoil the surprise,’ Hugh said. ‘Go on, let me just see her for a few minutes. As I said, you can stay in the room if you think I look a bit dodgy.’

  Molly was a romantic at heart. She looked at his dark blue eyes, then at the roses. Matron wouldn’t approve, but then she was out for the evening. Besides a solicitor wasn’t just anyone, it was as safe as a doctor.

  ‘For you I’ll bend the rules,’ she said. ‘But if Charity’s upset I’ll throw you out.’

  Hugh followed the nurse up the stairs. He was impressed by the place, it was more like a good hotel than a nursing home, airy and bright, with thick plain carpets and pastel walls.

  Molly stopped before a door at the end of a passage and turned to Hugh. ‘Miss Stratton is easily upset,’ she whispered. ‘Please be very tactful.’

  ‘Of course,’ Hugh assured her. ‘Now don’t tell her my name, just say it’s an old friend.’

  He stood back.

  ‘You’ve got a surprise visitor,’ he heard her say. ‘Shall I ask him to come in?’

  ‘Him?’ Hugh heard Charity reply and just that one word brought her image back to him and made his heart lurch.

  ‘He doesn’t want me to tell you who he is,’ the nurse replied in a low voice. ‘But he looks nice.’

  Hugh heard Charity giggle and he could wait no longer. He stepped inside the door.

  Her one good hand flew up to cover her mouth and her eyes opened wide as if she’d been slapped.

  ‘Are you all right, Charity?’ Molly leaned down towards her patient, who was sitting in the chair. She had registered the shock, but couldn’t tell if there was pleasure there too.

  Charity could only stare. Although she hadn’t recognised Rob immediately, she would have known Hugh anywhere. He was stockier, and his hair was longer. Twelve years ago his cheeks were almost as smooth as hers; now he had the dark shadow of a beard and a few lines around his eyes. But his dark blue eyes were instantly recognisable, just like Daniel’s.

  ‘What a surprise,’ she managed to get out at last. ‘Yes Molly, it’s OK. Mr Mainwaring can stay for a while.’

  Molly paused before she left. She wasn’t entirely happy about this. Charity looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

  ‘Ring the bell if you need me,’ she said nervously. ‘I won’t be far away.’

  Once Molly had closed the door behind her, Charity struggled to compose herself. Her heart was crashing painfully against her ribs.

  ‘Well I never expected to see you again,’ she said. ‘I’m astounded at your cheek.’

  Hugh put the flowers down on the table. He was chilled by the ice in her voice, and shocked by her scars. If the photograph in the paper had been of her like this, he would never have known her. Setting aside the scars, her eyes were hard and cold now, even the long straight hair was curly, all that was left was her wide mouth, and that wasn’t smiling.

  ‘I don’t really know where to start,’ he said. ‘I was a bit of a louse, wasn’t I?’

  ‘You’d better sit down,’ Charity said, her voice shaking. The casual way Hugh had breezed in without even phoning first suggested he had no idea how much he’d hurt her. She wasn’t sure whether she could even speak to someone so grossly insensitive.

  ‘You were a louse,’ she said coldly. ‘I expect you still are.’

  ‘Not completely unredeemable.’ He flashed his most winning smile. ‘When I read about your accident I was terribly concerned about you. I found I kept thinking about you.’

  It was like playing a ga
me of ping-pong. She airily told him she now lived in London. He spoke of his university days. Charity went on to talk about her promotions agency; he told her about becoming a solicitor.

  ‘Hell, Charity,’ he smiled with all his old charm, maybe it was a good thing my parents twisted my arm to break it off with you. I expect if you’d come to Oxford neither of us would have got any work done.’

  She smiled and let him go on about his days in Oxford. He always had been a good talker, but now she heard the emptiness in his words. He spoke of the parties, the drunken binges, even some of the students she’d met at the pub that summer. She could see just how it had been. His parents had bribed him with the sports car he spoke of and in no time at all he had forgotten there was a girl who had nothing in her life but him.

  Glib phrases tripped off his tongue: he’d ‘missed her’, he’d been ‘worried’ about her, all weak phrases, considering what she had been through. He told her about his wife, his hopes to start his own firm of solicitors.

  As Charity sat listening to him she remembered the other side of him, not the one she once loved. The way he had goaded the cleaning lady, his snobbish attitude, how he’d added bottles of drinks to the Cuthbertsons’ account and humiliated her at the pub.

  A fire began to kindle inside, growing fiercer by the minute.

  ‘What was it exactly that made you come here?’ she said eventually. ‘Idle curiosity, a do-gooding venture, or a combination of both? Or did you want to be able to dine out on the inside information you’d obtained about a suspected murderess? I bet your heart raced a bit faster when you recognised my face in the paper. I bet you thought “My God, I slept with that woman” and it gave you the kind of thrill your boring wife can’t.’

  ‘No Charity!’ He jumped up, his face bright red. ‘I loved you, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t get over you for years.’

  ‘Fat lot you know about love,’ she screamed, the fire within her out of control. ‘I was pregnant, Hugh. I was carrying your child when you dumped me.’

  The colour drained from his face.