The Beggar Maid (15 page)

‘Wonderful,' he said, wiping his lips on his napkin. ‘Another of your culinary masterpieces, my dear Enid. Truly delicious.'

Mrs Rose glowed with pleasure as she passed heaped plates to Charity and Dorrie. ‘Thank you, doctor.'

‘I remember my granny's puddings,' Charity said, licking her lips. ‘But they weren't anything like this, ma'am. It is truly delicious.'

Dorrie had taken such a large mouthful that she was unable to speak. Her thin cheeks were puffed out and a dribble of custard ran down her chin. Charity distracted Mrs Rose's attention by raising her glass of water as she had seen Wilmot do on several occasions when there was something to celebrate, only then it had been a wine glass filled with expensive claret. ‘A toast,' she said grandly. ‘To Mrs Rose and her unforgettable Christmas dinner.'

Dr Marchant rose to his feet, holding up his glass of sherry. ‘Mrs Rose.'

Dorrie choked down the last of her pudding and in her haste to join in somehow managed to knock her glass over. Mrs Rose leapt to her feet and began clearing the table. ‘You stupid clumsy little girl,' she hissed. ‘We must get the cloth off before the water ruins the French polish. I knew it was a mistake to let you eat with us.'

Dorrie burst into tears and fled from the room.

‘It was an accident, Enid.' Dr Marchant rose slowly. ‘If the table is marked we can call in the French polisher. It's not the end of the world.'

Charity was already on her feet and had begun piling up the plates. She waited until Mrs Rose had marched out of the dining room with the remains of the Christmas pudding. ‘I'll help, sir. Why don't you sit by the fire and rest?'

‘I think I might. I'm not as young as I was, Charity.' Moving slowly, as if each step was an effort, he went to sit by the fire. He leaned back in the armchair, resting his feet on the brass fender with a contented sigh.

‘I'll help Mrs Rose with the washing up and then I'll be on my way.' She glanced at the window but darkness had fallen and lacy flakes of snow clung to the windowpanes.

Dr Marchant followed her gaze. ‘You must stay here tonight, my dear. I won't take no for an answer. It will give you time to think about my suggestion that you reside here on a more permanent basis, or at least until I can find you a more suitable position.'

Charity folded back the tablecloth and mopped up the water. ‘No harm done,' she said. ‘A little wax polish and a lot of elbow grease will soon set that to rights.'

‘Tell Mrs Rose to make up a bed for you,' Dr Marchant said firmly. ‘We'll talk more in the morning, but now I'm a bit tired.' He lay back against the cushions and closed his eyes.

Charity picked up a pile of dessert plates and carried them to the kitchen. She could hear Dorrie clattering about in the scullery, and the swish of water as she washed the dishes. Mrs Rose was about to put the remains of the goose in the larder but she stopped in the doorway, giving Charity a questioning glance. ‘Well? Has he persuaded you to move in with us?'

‘Dr Marchant insists that I stay tonight, but I'll go home first thing in the morning.'

‘What will you do when you lose the shop? He found you on the street and that's where you'll end up, I've no doubt.'

‘Don't worry, Mrs Rose. I won't accept the doctor's offer to come and live here. It was more than kind of him to suggest it, but I have to make my own way in the world. I'll find work somehow and a place to live.'

Mrs Rose's taut features relaxed just a little. ‘It's not that I have anything against you personally, but we have our own ways here, and another person in the house would make life difficult.'

‘I ought to help Dorrie with the washing up.' Charity made a move towards the scullery but Mrs Rose held up her hand. ‘No need. The girl has to earn her living. It's what she's paid to do and I don't want her to get it into her head that you'll be here on a permanent basis.'

‘I think you're very hard on her, ma'am. She's just a child.'

‘And children have to learn their place. What use will she be in service if she can't obey orders? I can't have her talking back when I tell her what to do, and if you're here she thinks she can get away with anything.' Mrs Rose put the plate on the marble shelf and closed the larder door. ‘Come with me. I'll give you clean linen and you can make up your own bed. I'll send Dorrie up with coal and kindling and you'll be able to make yourself comfortable in the spare room, but it is just for one night.'

‘One night,' Charity said tiredly. ‘I'll be gone in the morning. You need not worry about me, Mrs Rose.'

‘Good. We understand each other.' Mrs Rose sailed out of the room, a bunch of keys jangling on the chatelaine hanging from her belt. Charity had a sudden vision of Enid Rose as a jailer, escorting her to a cell, and it made her even more certain that they would never be compatible. The doctor's house was Mrs Rose's domain and she would bitterly resent intrusion by another female whatever her age or circumstances. Poor little Dorrie was only tolerated because she was a slavey and too young to make a stand.

When she was comfortably ensconced in the double bed with its starched cotton sheets that felt like glass as she slid between them, and a fire burning merrily in the grate, Charity came close to having second thoughts. The wallpaper was patterned with bunches of violets tied with pink ribbons, which matched the cretonne curtains that shut out the cold winter night. Mrs Rose might have her faults but she was an excellent housekeeper, and the rich mahogany dressing table and wardrobe gleamed with polish. The scent of lavender emanated from the clean bedding and was echoed in a faint scent of beeswax polish. Charity lay back against the feather pillows, watching the shadows created by the firelight, and once again her thoughts travelled back to her early childhood and her tiny bedroom in her grandparents' house. That, she thought dreamily, was the last time she had enjoyed the luxury of her own bedroom. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the future, but in five days' time she might find herself reduced to begging on the streets.

On Boxing Day morning, despite the fact that it was now officially a bank holiday, Charity insisted on returning to the shop. Dr Marchant sent Dorrie out to hail a cab and Charity travelled home in style. He had pressed money into her hand as she was leaving, with strict instructions to spend it on necessities such as food, coal and candles. ‘Don't forget, my dear. You will always have a home here should the worst happen.'

His words rang in her ears as she alighted from the cab outside the shop. She paid the cabby and made her way carefully across the frozen snow to unlock the door. She let herself in and the familiar musty smell of books enveloped her as she walked between the stands to the back of the shop. The kitchen was cold and dark and she could feel Jethro's presence as if he were still huddled up on his bed giving her a reproachful stare. She placed the rush basket that Mrs Rose had given her on the table. It had been a parting gift, given, no doubt, in the hope that it would be the last she would see of her master's protégée. A quick glance beneath the spotless white napkin revealed a bundle of candles, a loaf of bread and a pat of butter wrapped in a cabbage leaf. There was also a slab of cheddar cheese and two slices of ham, an apple and an orange.

Charity picked up the fruit and held it close to her face, breathing in its zesty aroma. She had not tasted an orange since her last meal in Doughty Street. Wilmot had peeled one for her and divided it into segments so that it was easy to eat. She felt her throat constrict at the memory. They had been a happy threesome that particular evening. She had felt at ease with Wilmot and Daniel then, and had not foreseen the sudden end to their friendship, but it had happened all the same. Daniel's departure to the wilds of Dorset had left a gap in her life, and it was unlikely that she would have any further contact with Wilmot. She must look to the future now, and her most pressing need was for warmth, but first she would have to brave the cold and go in search of somewhere that was open on Boxing Day. She walked back through the shop and was about to open the door when a hackney carriage pulled up at the kerb. She raised her mittened hand and scraped a circle in the ice on one of the small panes in the half-glassed door. To her astonishment it was Wilmot who alighted first, followed by a younger man. She took a step backward as Wilmot approached the shop. The
Closed
sign was on the door but he rattled the handle and tugged at the chain. The bell clanged noisily above her head and, driven by curiosity, she unlocked the door. Wilmot and his companion entered, stamping the snow off their shoes on the doormat.

Wilmot embraced Charity as if she were a long lost friend, holding her a little too long for comfort. ‘Compliments of the season, my dear. I'm afraid it's a bit late, but I've been up to my eyes in preparing lectures for next term and time has flown by. How are you?' He held her at arm's length. ‘You look pale, but the light in this emporium is appalling.'

‘I'm quite well, thank you, sir.' Charity shot a curious glance at the young man, who was looking round the shop with a disdainful expression on his handsome features.

Wilmot released her with an apologetic smile. ‘You'll never guess who this is, Charity.'

‘
ALLOW ME TO
introduce my step-nephew, if there is such a relationship.' Wilmot turned to the young man who was standing behind him. ‘This, my dear, is Daniel's elder brother, Harry.'

‘Half-brother, to be exact – Harry Elliott. How do you do, Miss Crosse?' Harry doffed his top hat, and there was a teasing, mischievous gleam in his dark eyes as he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

‘How do you do?' Charity met his steady gaze without blinking. She had come across mashers like him in theatre crowds and outside expensive restaurants. They were men who could not resist a pretty face even if the girl was dressed in rags, and she had got Harry Elliott's measure. Even though questions about Daniel buzzed in her brain like a hive of angry bees, she could not bring herself to mention his name. He had obviously forgotten her and she did not want his brother to see how much that hurt. ‘I'm afraid the shop is closed today,' she added in an icy tone. ‘I was going out.'

‘Come now, Charity, that's no way to treat friends.' Wilmot was smiling but there was a warning look in his grey eyes.

‘It's my fault entirely, Miss Crosse,' Harry said with a disarming smile. ‘Daniel sent me a note asking me to get a book for him that he could not find locally. He thought you might have it in stock.'

‘Then why didn't he write and ask me? We were good friends, or so I thought.'

‘You know Daniel,' Harry said casually. ‘He's not the most thoughtful chap in the world, and anyway he knew that I was duty bound to visit our mother at some time during the twelve days of Christmas.'

‘I don't see that it matters who he asked to find the wretched book. I'll look for it myself.' Wilmot moved away and began browsing, and there was an awkward silence.

‘I seem to have put my foot in it,' Harry said, grinning. ‘Tact and diplomacy were never my strong point. Have I offended you, Miss Crosse?'

‘No, of course not.' She met his amused gaze with a steady look. ‘Are you an archaeologist, Mr Elliott?' He was as unlike Daniel as it was possible to be when they were so closely related. Whereas Daniel was not much above medium height, his half brother was a good head taller, and his hair was much darker and waved back from a high forehead. Daniel had boyish good looks, but his brother had a cynical, world-weary look. His hand, when he touched her fingers, was satin smooth, as if he had never done a hard day's work in his life, and she suspected that he was more at home at the gaming tables or at the races than he was in the country.

‘Good Lord, no. I'm what you might call a gentleman of fortune.'

‘You're a gambler?' Her first impression of him had been correct, and she could not keep a note of triumph from her voice.

‘I've been known to play the tables occasionally, and you are a shopkeeper. Aren't you rather young to be bound in leather and condemned to spend all day in this dreary emporium with only books for company?'

‘I love books,' Charity said with a break in her voice. ‘And I'm seventeen today, as it happens.' Until that moment she had all but forgotten her birthday. Since Jethro's untimely death her mind had been focused on survival, and in the past such anniversaries had meant little. Life had been a struggle when she was trying to prevent her grandfather from ending up in the gutter, and it was not much easier now.

‘Wilmot, did you hear that? This young lady is seventeen today. I think that calls for a celebration, don't you?'

Wilmot appeared from behind one of the stands clutching a heavy tome. ‘Most certainly, Harry. What do you suggest?'

‘How about the Café Royal?'

‘Excellent notion,' Wilmot said, slamming the book down on the counter. ‘Allow me to pay for this, Harry. Consider it my Christmas gift to Daniel. I've missed the boy.'

‘He's only happy when he's up to his armpits in mud and shards of ancient pottery. I expect he'll be bored to death with my mother and stepfather in Devon, which is why I seldom visit the family home.'

‘So you're not exactly a dutiful son.' Wilmot took a leather wallet from his pocket. ‘Have you change for a five pound note, Charity?'

She shook her head. ‘You must know that I can't, sir.'

He delved in his pocket and took out a golden guinea. ‘Will that suffice?'

‘The book is twelve and six, Mr Barton, as you will see if you look inside the cover.' She moved swiftly round the counter and unlocked the cash box, taking out four florins and a sixpenny bit, which she handed to Wilmot in exchange for the guinea. The sale of an expensive volume meant that she had almost enough money for the rent at the old rate. Perhaps Woods might allow her time to find the extra, or give her a month to make up the shortfall. Maybe this was the turning point and she had Daniel to thank for a second chance.