31
Infinitely soothing, Charlotte thought at the garden table while pulling seedlings from cucumber sprouts in trays. Clearly God had planned it so, so that His creation would not starve.
She heard hinges creak and looked over at Rosalind, coming through the gate. “Hello, Mother. Did you rest?”
“My limbs, yes. My head, no.”
Rosalind slipped into the seat facing her. Her face fairly glowed in spite of her hat; Charlotte suspected it was only partly because of her walk.
“I’m sorry,” Rosalind said.
“Please, don’t be. I feel much better now with my hands in soil.” She smiled at her daughter. “May I assume your meeting with Mr. Pearce went well?”
Rosalind smiled. “You may assume my meeting with Jude went well.”
Charlotte raised her brows.
“He’s invited me to lunch on Tuesday. Mr. Galvez will prepare an Indian dish. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. I’m delighted for you.”
“And I’m delighted that my trunk arrives tomorrow. I’ll have something to wear.”
Charlotte studied her gown. Brown, trimmed in blue, and rigidly tailored. “As you’ll be in Exeter anyway, why not buy a ready-made gown? I’m sure Mrs. Deamer would be quite happy to accompany and advise you.”
“I have gowns.”
“Yes, well . . .”
“You take issue with the way I dress?”
“To be frank, your clothes are like uniforms.” Charlotte cast for the right words. “I just wonder if your generation . . . you women who are educated . . . fear that accenting your femininity would be at odds with your newly won rights.”
Rosalind smiled. “Miss Beale does say ‘frilly is silly.’”
“Well, it can be, taken to extremes. Imagine a woman of my age and size in laces and flounces. I would resemble a Christmas tree.”
“Now you exaggerate, Mother,” Rosalind said, but smiling as if picturing the thought.
Saturday morning, Danny sat almost mute, avoiding looking at Rosalind though she sat directly across from him.
“Miss Kent is my daughter, remember?” Charlotte said from the head of the table, wondering if he had forgotten. “She’s home for good now, or at least for a very long time.”
“You’re the lady who got lost,” Albert said. He was perched on the very edge of his chair, more standing than sitting, apparently so as to reach his food better.
“Indeed, I am,” Rosalind replied. “I would be wandering still had you boys not set me in the right direction.”
Albert smiled. “Perhaps you would have gone into the woods.”
“Oh my!” She feigned a shudder, which made him chortle.
Charlotte smiled and looked at Danny. “Miss Kent and Mrs. Deamer are to take the train to Exeter after breakfast.”
“Exeter has the big church,” Danny murmured, pushing eggs around his plate with his fork. “I went there with Mother and Father. Before Albert came.”
Danny had never spoken of his mother. Charlotte’s heart ached at his blank expression, as if his grief had turned into dull acceptance over the years.
“What a sweet memory you must have of that day,” Rosalind said.
“I can’t remember all of it,” he said, adding to Charlotte, “Father bought fish and chips. Not at the cathedral but a café. And chocolate cake.”
“Chocolate cake,” Albert said wistfully. “I saw one in the kitchen.”
“It’s not polite to hint, Albert,” Danny whispered.
Charlotte raised brows at Coral, bringing in some tea. She nodded and smiled back.
Silence passed other than the clicks of cutlery against china.
“Boys, can you guess this riddle?” Rosalind asked. “What has a face and hands . . . but no body?”
After a moment, both heads shook as if they had a string attached.
“A clock!”
Albert laughed, and Danny pushed his lips into a strained smile.
“Could it be that they were punished for speaking to me the evening they were washing the fence?” Rosalind asked Charlotte while the boys helped Coral take dishes into the kitchen. “Does Danny resent me for that?”
“I shall certainly ask.”
After seeing Rosalind and Mrs. Deamer off from the porch, Charlotte turned to the boys. “Albert, please ask Coral if you might assist her in the kitchen.”
He scampered away without asking why his brother wasn’t included.
“Danny, what is wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing is wrong, Mrs. Kent,” he replied.
“You couldn’t even look at Miss Kent. Why?”
He crossed his arms, holding himself, and began to sniffle. She took the handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to him.
“Will you stop having us here?” he asked after blowing his nose.
“Whyever would you think that?”
“You hired us because you miss her terribly.”
Charlotte leaned to draw him into her arms. “Nothing will change. Why, I should miss you terribly if you weren’t here.”
She felt his small body relax, heard his yawn.
“You’re sleepy.”
He tensed again. “No, missus.”
“Danny, I’m not angry,” she said, straightening to stare into his eyes. “You’ve done nothing wrong. But it’s unnatural for children to be so tired.”
She waited.
A goldfinch twittered.
“Albert wets the bed if I don’t put him to the pot,” Danny blurted.
“During the night? Does he not go before turning in?”
“He does.”
“And so you must stay awake to do this?”
“He sleeps so hard.”
“Is he punished if he has an accident?”
Danny was trembling. “Yes.”
“By your father and stepmother.” She said it this way so he would not have to name names, merely eliminate one. Please let there be only one.
“Not Father.”
“What does your stepmother do?”
“Um . . .”
“Does she strike him?”
The trembling increased. “Please don’t speak to her.”
“I won’t.” Not that she did not wish to march over there this minute and give her a piece of her mind, but the boys would suffer reprisals. A benefit from having lived with Roger was the awareness of how brutes conducted themselves. In their pettiness, they consistently had to have the upper hand.
“Are there marks on Albert?” she asked. “Is that why he wouldn’t sit?”
He turned his face to her. “Please, please don’t look at them. Please, Mrs. Kent! Albert speaks without thinking and would mention it. We’re not even to tell Father.”
“What would happen if you did?”
He shook his head. “We can’t.”
“Surely there is a way I can help you.”
“You do! That’s why I was afraid you would stop.”
Charlotte sighed and wished Rosalind and Mrs. Deamer had not left. Holding this in without exploding was going to be difficult.
She brushed back his hair. “Very well, Danny.”
For now.