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LESLEY PEARSE

PENGUIN BOOK S

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First published in the UK by William Heinemann 1995

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For every adopted child, especially those born in the Fiftiesand Sixties. It is my hope that some of the events in this book will give them a clearer understanding of theclimate for unmarried mothers at the time, and perhaps give them the comfort of knowing they were never given up easily, or ever forgotten by their natural birth mother.

Chapter One

Greenwich, London 1960

‘Make sure you get carrots from the front of the counter,’ Gwen Stratton glanced up from writing a shopping list. ‘There were several bad ones last week. And don’t go hanging around in Woolworth’s, Prudence, you know how Father feels about that!’

To an outsider stepping in from the frosty streets, the Saturday morning scene in the kitchen of number 14 Easton Street had a look of almost Victorian cosy domesticity. Mother sitting at the scrubbed wood table juggling a list of requirements against the meagre pile of coins in front of her; the four children dutifully engaged in various tasks around her.

An Aladdin paraffin stove, a pan of boiling handkerchiefs and meat being browned in a frying pan added diverse smells to the warm, steamy fug. The clatter of dishes, the polishing of brass and little James chattering to himself as he sat on his potty, almost concealed the resentment which emanated from all but the youngest member of the family.

All four children were remarkably alike and small for their ages. Fourwhite-blond heads, pale, thin faces, big blue eyes. Charity and Prudence, fifteen and ten respectively, dressed alike in quaintly old-fashioned navy blue serge smock dresses and long grey socks, both with their hair neatly plaited. Tobias was nine, his shirt, long shorts and pullover all grey, his face streaked with black from the Brasso he was rubbing

into candlesticks and an embossed wall plaque of a boat.

YoungJames, aged two, was shuffling around on his pot. Chuckling with delight at a rag book, he was wearing only a yellowing wool vest, his baby hair still fluffy and as yet unbrushed.

Everyone in Greenwich thought the Strattons were odd, but despite their eccentricity and poverty they were accepted, even admired.

Bertram Stratton was a preacher. Not an ordinary vicar like Reverend Soames at St Michael’s but an Evangelical preacher at Babylon Hall. He took his fiery sermons out into the streets, shouted out hell and damnation to anyone that would listen. His flock weren’t the people with smart clothes and nice houses but the poor and the downtrodden.

Their neighbours in Easton Street were ordinary people – bricklayers, plumbers and bus drivers – but they had a grudging admiration fora man who could stand out in all winds and weathers shouting outhis godly messages with such ferocious certitude. They respected his life of piety, the lack of comfort or luxury in his home and nudged each other when they saw the four blond children who looked like frail angels going with him to his church.

Extreme orderliness masked the poverty and lack of modern appliances in the somewhat gloomy kitchen. Jars of bottled fruit sat in lines on bare wood shelves. Scoured saucepans hung with military precision on hooks above the old gas cooker. Even the few items of clothes hanging on the overhead airing rail were ironed and folded. There was nothing unnecessary; no letters poked behind cups on the dresser, odd buttons, books or toys left carelessly.

The only word which summed up Easton Street accurately was ‘mean’. Built in 1890 of plain red brick, this terrace close to the River Thames was intended to house the poorest workers in the community. Even

the amount of land used was frugal. The houses squashed and stretched up to squeeze in more rooms, rather than give their inhabitants comfort or space.

The Strattons’ neighbours had made the best of their homes. They painted and papered, knocked down walls, built bathrooms and modernised their kitchens. But number 14 remained just as it was built; even the old gas mantles on the walls were still in place, despite the addition of electric light.

A dark, draughty house, almost impossible to heat. Damp crept in each winter, peeling off paint and paper, leaving a musty smell that nothing could disguise.

No one could accuse Reverend Stratton of the sin of pride or even of laying up treasures on this earth. Although it was kept scrupulously clean and tidy, every stick of furniture had been given to them. The only adornments were framed biblical quotations on the walls; the one in the kitchen read ‘Honour thy Father and Mother ’.

‘Are you listening?’ Gwen Stratton scowled round towards Prudence washing up just inside the scullery. ‘If you bring back mouldy carrots again I shall just send you back!’

‘Yes mother,’ Prudence sighed. She was dreaming of a pale blue velvet dress in the window of the haberdashery shop. She knew of course she’d never own it, any more than she’d ever be allowed to have her hair curled in rags or have patent leather bar shoes. But then, even her parents couldn’t stop her dreaming.

‘That’s enough Brasso.’ Gwen Stratton rapped her pencil over the back of Tobias’s hand. He was sulking because he wasn’t allowed out to play football in the street like the neighbours’ children. ‘Polish it off and put some elbow grease into it.’

Charity cut carrots and onions into slices at the end of the table.

‘What is the matter with you?’ Gwen Stratton

looked up at her eldest daughter, irritated by her slow progress. ‘There’s moretodothis morning than chopping carrots. Get amoveon!’

Charity couldn’t meet her mother ’s eyes.

‘I’m just tired.’ She glanced up at that biblical text on the wall. ‘I didn’t sleep much last night.’

The glass on the text acted as a mirror, revealing all her shortcomings so clearly. The childish plaits, pale face and stick-thin legs showed exactly how she got the nickname of Weed.

She was tidy enough – many people pointed out what a credit all four children were to their mother –but no one else at school had such awful old-fashioned clothes and clumpy shoes.

‘Pass the iron tonic here,’ her mother snapped. ‘You’re always tired these days. As if I haven’t got enough to worry about without you dripping around the place complaining all the time.’

Charity handed the bottle and spoon over silently. Had a stranger observed Gw en Stratton pouring two large tab lesp oons of to n ic into her el dest da u ghte r ’s mou th, th ey migh t v ery wel l have wondered why she di dn’t take the medicine herself. Fo r al th ough the o bedie nce o f the ch il dr en , the cleanliness and order in the house suggested she was a good wife an d mother, som ethin g clearly ai led her.

Everything about Gwen Stratton was drab, from her weary voice, her clothes and her stooped narrow shoulders to the plain brown dress and shapeless cardigan she wore every day except Sundays. Thick lisle stockings, feet in worn carpet slippers suggested she was far older than her forty years. Bitterness wafted out of her like a sour odour.

Charity gulped down the tonic, quickly following it with a glass of water, then turned to the stove to flip over the browning meat. She had no need to ask what chores she had to do today. As the eldest, five

years older than Prudence, she was responsible for the washing.

She added flour, stirred it well in, adding a jug of stock, then deftly transferred the bubbling mixture to a large saucepan, scraping in the vegetables. Nausea welled up again as a thick brown scum rose to the surface. She spooned it off, wishing she could do the same for her teeth, which seemed to be coated with the iron tonic.

‘Turn that down and leave it,’ Mother barked. ‘James has finished!’

Charity dutifully turned to her little brother, and lifted him from the pot to wipe his bottom.

‘Pooh!’ She smiled lovingly at James. ‘Hang on while I empty this, then I’ll get you dressed.’

She took the pot out through the scullery to the outside lavatory,emptied it and sluiced it round. She paused for a moment in the frosty air, fighting back the desire to burst into tears.

A burning soreness down below, hatred for her father seething in her heart and a feeling of utter dejection wereenough to make herrun down the back alley to the river and let herself sink into the glutinous brown mud. Yet as always she knew she had to stay here and bear it, for the sake of her brothers and sister.

Charity hadn’t even known there was a name for it until just recently. She’d heard the rude ones in the school playground, but notthe real one.

She was looking up the word‘incessant’ in the dictionary when she stumbled upon it: ‘incest’. Sexual intercourse between persons related within prohibited degrees.

Being able to put a name to it didn’t really help. It just made her dark secret even more shameful. She was certain her mother knew, or at least suspected. If Mother letithappen, how could Charity expect anyone else to help, or even believe her?

It tainted everything, like an incurable disease. Father had come to her the first time just after baby Jacob died four years ago. It had hurt so terribly she’d cried for days, but everyone assumed she was just upset about Jacob dying. It had stopped for a while until James was born but then started again soon after. Now she was sure nothing would stop it.

She could bear the funny handmade dresses mother insisted on her andPrudence wearing. She accepted the endless prayers, church and chores and even lack of freedom, but Father made her feel so dirty inside, nothing could wash it away.

In a few weeks’ time, at Easter, she was due to leave school. To any other girl this might mean a chance to escape. But Charity was more than just the eldest child. She was nursemaid, cook, cleaner and housekeeper. She could turn her back easily on her parents, but not on Prudence, Tobias and James. If she left who would love them? Would her father turn his attentions to Prudence?

‘Come on!’ A sharp tap on the window from her mother brought her back to reality. There was no escape, not from Father, nor Mother, or the chores.

Back in the kitchen Charity sat down and took James on to her lap, smiling at his round pink and white baby face, despite her misery.

‘Me come wif you?’ he said, holding herface betweenhis two plump starfish hands.

‘Can he, Mother?’ Charity asked, pulling on his pants and threading his legs into knitted trousers.

‘If you put his snow-suit on,’ Gwen snapped. She was stuffing towels and sheets into a pillowcase with the kind of speed which suggested she was anxious to get all the children out of the house. ‘Mind you take Father ’s surplices out of the dryer when they’re still damp. And don’t go losing any socks.’

Almost the moment Charity bumped the pram

down the two front steps into the street, her spirits rose slightly. For a couple of hours she was free of her mother ’ s carping, weak March sunshine was melting the thick frost and although there was nothing beautiful to look at on the way to the public baths down by the Blackwall tunnel, she had James to give her some comfort.

‘Me walk,’ James said in a high-pitched squeak of excitement, stretching up to hold the handle of the pram. ‘We go see boats?’

‘Not now.’ Charitysmileddown at her little brother, feeling a surge of love for him. ‘Maybe after dinner, if you’re a good boy.’

For all the bad things in her life, Charity loved her brothers and sister with aconsumingpassion. She hadn’t been allowed to have a childhood herself. At five, when Prudence was born, she was expected to fetch and carry; when Tobias arrived a year later she was already an accomplished nursemaid.

She had never owned a doll – never needed one as these children had been living, breathing ones. Each one of them had been born in the house, put into her arms just minutes after their deliveries. It was she who tucked them into bed and told them stories; she had spoon-fed them, changed their nappies, walked them in the pram. Father had never encouraged outside friendships, so she had turned in on her family and as shame isolated her further from girls of her own age, her devotion to the children had grown.

It was a long walk to the baths, skirting through dismal back streets much like her own and and James was tired of walking long before they got there. Charity sat him between the two bags of washing, smiling as he attempted to sing baby songs for her entertainment. As they crossed the road to enter the old soot-ingrained building, Mrs Bayliss and her daughter Jenny stopped by thesteps to wait for them.

‘Hullo ducks.’ Mrs Bayliss beamed a welcome. ‘Let’s take one of them pillers. ‘Ow’s yer ma?’

‘About the same.’ Charity smiled shyly.She liked Mrs Bayliss, she was fat, fifty and what her mother called ‘common’ with peroxided hair set on curlers under a headscarf, but she was kindly.

‘Your dad ought to try and move you. That Easton Street’s too near the river. Enough to make anyone’s chest bad.’ Mrs Bayliss clucked in sympathy. ‘And all you kids to look after too!’

Charity didn’t comment. There was nothing wrong with her mother ’s chest, but this and ‘nerves’ were the common diagnosis of Gwen Stratton’s problems.

She put the brake on the pram, passed one pillowcase to the woman, then grabbing James under one arm, hoisted out the other bag.

‘How are you two?’

‘Fine, ducks.’ Mrs Bayliss caught the heavy door opened by her daughter with her am ple r ump, making room for Charity to sweep through. ‘Be better still once we’ve got this lot clean and ’eard a bit of gossip.’

The damp heat hit them like walking into asteam room.

‘Grab those three machines,’ Mrs Bayliss ordered her daughter. She turned to Charity and tickled James’s chin affectionately. ‘We’ll share one for our whites, ducks. Give us yer money and I’ll pay.’

Charity felt a flush of unaccustomed pride. It showed your status at the baths if someone offered to share a machine. Of all the things Charity could charge her parents with, lack of hygiene wasn’t one of them. Their sheets and towels might be threadbare, but they were sno wy white. Father ’ s shirts and surplices wouldn’t have shamed an archbishop.

Twenty huge washing machines with stainless steel lids took up the central position. On the far wall were as many vast dryers, filling the air with roaring,

sloshing and tumbling sounds, belching out heat and steam. To the right was a row of sinks where women scrubbed collars or washed woollens; on the left an area for ironing, with boards, and roller machines for sheets.

The steamyair was enough to flatten a‘beehive’ or turn straight hair like Charity’s kinky in seconds. Winter-white arms bared, faces glistening with sweet from the intense heat and the rich sound of raucous laughter gave the room a party atmosphere.

He was serving dr grey trousers. Along the girls with their long hair all of them laughing at It was true she smelt had been standing over a heat. She was prettier girls with their plummy than compete if she was not with stringy hair, and with sweat

She took a deep breath to Rob, aware that he too was shamed by it. W disappeared back into

A place where fifty or so women displayed their dirty washing openly was bound to make them more gregarious. Stains were discussed in detail, and the events that had led up to them. Nothing was too personal. Whether it wasblood from a fight, soiled linen from an incontinent parent or child, or even the aftermath of childbirth, it was aired in public.

At half-past ten as shec from the bar was gr

CHARITY

‘He thinks I’m bloody stupid.’ One woman waved a shirt with a bright red lipstick mark on the collar. ‘He tried to tell me Idone that! Itell you next time ’e goes down that club I’ll follow ’im and if I catches ’im with that cow, I’ll split ’her ’ead right open.’

Charity had learned a great deal about the rich tapestry of women’s lives just by listening to conversations in here. She learned about unfaithful husbands, domestic violence, miscarriages, childbirth and sex. Though the conflicting items she heard about the latter often puzzled her.

Were women supposed to like it, or hate it? It was hard to tell. One moment they spoke tenderly,atother times it was with spite and anger. Stories ranged from funny to crude, but now and again were poignantly romantic.

But of all the things that caused her fright and alarm, that expression ‘up the spout’ was the one which played on her mind. She learned that the first symptom of pregnancy was ‘being late’. As Charity hadn’t even started her periods perhaps she didn’t

need to be anxious about this. But it niggled at her like a sore tooth.

Her lack of breasts worried her too. Jenny Bayliss was only ayear older and she’d had big ones since she was thirteen. Was she a freak? Was her thin, flat, boyish shape somehow connected to what her father did? Suppose even now she had ababygrowing inside her, some hideously deformed creature that would one day pop out and prove to the world how badly she had sinned?

Once the machines were filled, the soap powder added, Charity took off James’s snow-suit and sat down with him on her lap. Muriel Jenkins was in today and she watched as the slender blonde ironed miles of net can-can petticoats.

Like most of the women Muriel had her hair in curlers, a chiffon scarf over them, but she didn’t subscribe to the common uniform of crossover pinny and down-at-heel shoes. She took part in ballroom dancing competitions and even when she came in here to wash, she was always dressed to kill. Today she wore a red wool sheath dress and matching stilettos, and her eyebrows were a thin pencilled line of astonishment. She did her ironing with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, yet could carry on a conversation at the same time.

Muriel fascinated Charity more than any of the other women. She was glamorous, outspoken and very funny. Although she was married to aman called Brian, she went dancing with other men. Today she was telling a tale about a partner whose zip broke as they were doing the quickstep.

‘“Hold me tighter,” he says to me,’ she mimicked the man, moving back from her ironing board to show the stance with an invisible partner.‘He says, “Me zip’s gone Mew. Press closer or someone will see.” I says “If I press closer there’ll be more things going up than the score”.’

Ch ar ity nev er k new qui te h ow t o re act to t hes e adult conversations. Shou ld sh el aug hk now ingly as th e ot he r wo men di d? O r p re ten d n ot t o u nde rst an d?

She had been coming here with the washing since she was nine. It was the only place she felt comfortable in, because she was accepted. The women admired her blonde hair and told her that one day she’d be a beauty. They teased her because she spoke ‘proper ’; but they showed admiration for the way she cared for her little brothers andsister.

‘Get yourself ajob in an office,’ Muriel had said once. ‘Work hard and save your money and you’ll soon be able to move into a flat of your own. Stop worrying about them kids, that’s yer ma’s job. Before you can say Jack Robinson some chap will be asking you to marry him.’

Muriel’s words were kindly meant, but Charity knew she had no skills to get an office job. Neither would she be able to save her pay, as Mother would take it all. As for the hope that a man might ask to marry her, the very thought made her feel quite sick.

It was just before one when Charity loaded up the pram to go home. James made no protest now about riding between the bagsofwarm, drywashing and the afternoon ahead wassomething to look forward to. On wet Saturdays Charity often took the children into the Maritime Museum. Prudence liked to see Nelson’s uniform, Tobias, the model boats. But as it was dry and sunny, today she might be able to take them up to Greenwich Park.

As Charity bumped the pram backwards up the stepsinto the hall, almost immediately she sensed something was wrong.

Tobias and Prudence were sitting glumly at the already laid table, Mother stirring the stew at the stove.

‘Mrs Bayliss shared a machine with me.’ Charity put the two shillings down on the table, looking enquiringly at the two younger children.

Her mother merely turned and scooped up the change. No look of appreciation, not even a glimmer of a smile.

‘Call Father, dinner ’s ready,’ she said tartly. ‘And I hope you left his shirts damp?’

Tobias rolled his eyes fearfully at Charity as Father strode into the kitchen.

Bertram Stratton was a big man, but in the small and crowded room he looked huge, his dominant personality overshadowing them all.

A broad nose, fleshy lips and square, strong chin made him miss being handsome by ahair ’s breadth, but the effect was spoilt by an overlarge forehead and small blue eyes under thick eyebrows. Darker blond hair than his children, weatherbeaten skin from hours spent outinthe streets and the width of his shoulders sat uneasily with his dog collar.

Father beckoned forthe children to stand for grace. He stretched out his arms, bringing his hands together slowly, fingertips just touching.

‘We thankyou God for thesegifts you have set at our table. Amen.’

Chairs scraped on the lino as they were pulled out again to sit. Charity noted the way Prudence and Tobias were squirming nervously and wondered what they’d done.

Mother ladled out the stew into bowls, Charity hurriedly tied a bib round James’s neck, sitting him on a cushion on the chair next to her.

Father lifted his spoon to his mouth, sipped and smiled. ‘This is excellent, Mother,’ he pronounced sanctimoniously.

Mother lifted her eyes from her own plate.

‘I suspect Prudence and Tobias have stolen from me this morning,’ she said, her tone almost malicious.

‘There has been an alteration on the shopping list.’

Charity’s heart sank. She began eating fast, guessing she would be drawn into this before long and she wanted to finish her dinner before that happened.

‘Explain!’ Father looked hard at Tobias and Prudence sitting side by side, then back to his wife.

‘Eightpence has been added to the final sum,’ she said, her mouth pursing as if sucking lemons.

Charity kept her eyes down. Sweets were forbidden in the Stratton household. It was an odd coincidence that eightpence would buy each child a quarter!

‘Prudence! Your explanation please.’ Father rapped her over the knuckles with his knife.

‘Mrs Moore must’ve made a mistake.’ Prudence’s voice shook and Charity knew immediately she was lying.

Charity glanced at Tobias through her lashes. Her brother had a very sneaky streak and she was certain this was his idea. But however wrong it was, she felt a great deal of sympathy. None of them ever had pocket money like other children.

‘Charity will go down to Mrs Moore to find out the truth.’ Father glared first at her, as if daring her to cover up for them, then at Prudence and Tobias. ‘If I find you have been dishonest, you know what will happen, don’t you?’

Charity dawdled at the chemist’s window. The display of home permanent waves attracted her attention. Some of the girls at school used Toni and she wished she could too.

Greenwhich High Street was packed with shoppers – girls of Charity’s age flocking into Woolworth’s to look at lipsticks and to listen to the toptwenty pop records; boys hanging around on street corners watching the giggling girls. Women with bulging string bags gossiped in groups. The Clipper and the

Nelson were both packed to capacity with men swilling down beer.

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 openair 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.

Reluctantlyshe 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 outsidebyadisplay 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 a n d r et riev ed i t, o ffe ri ng up a qu ick pray er o f than ks , 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 kit chen. 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 theoffered 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 darksuspicion 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 condonetheir 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 areal 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’llfind 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 letJames out of the pushchair then, smiling as 16

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 didtohide 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 putthe 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 thetable, 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 asmall 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 histea. 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 herehewould 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 ca nnot inf luence tho se innocent ch ildren 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 jobhewould 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 curtainswereopen just enoughto see that it was still dark and there was no sound of traffic.

‘Satan finds work for idle hands,’ hermother snapped viciously, pulling the bedclothes from her. ‘So you can clean the kitchen and the lavatory and preparethe 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.

Two hours later Charity had finished. She took some pleasure in the fact that she’d discovered dirt her mother had missed and found mice droppings behind the stove. The room didn’t look much different, but her red hands and the clean smell of polish on the old dresser proved she’d completed her task.

The potatoes were peeled and placed in a scoured saucepan, cabbage washed and cut up, carrots scrubbed and sliced and now she was laying the table for breakfast.

‘Haven’t you lit the stove?’ Her mother came in as Charity filled the kettle, intending to take her parents tea. ‘Get theothersup,’ Mother snapped. ‘Then get yourself washed and changed for church.’

It was clear there would be no respite today. Charity obeyed silently.

James was soaked right through. It was only recently that he had stopped having a nappy on at night. Charity normally lifted him late at night to use the potty, and no one else had bothered. She stripped off his pyjamas and the sheets and made them into a bundle, then lifting him up into her arms she carried him downstairs to wash him.

‘Dirty boy!’ Mother slapped him on the leg as Charity carried him in.

James howled indignantly, wrapping his arms round Charity’s neck and burying his small face in her shoulder. She took James and the sheets into the scullery, filled the sink with warm water and plonked him into it.

Although the temperature was well below freezing, he reached out for a cup and spoon on the draining board, the smack forgotten.

‘No time for playing today,’ Charity said gently, standing him up so she could wash him. ‘Smelly boy!’

‘Not smelly.’ He sat down, making the water splash over the sink.

She lifted him out and wrapped him in a towel, then took him back into the kitchen to dryand dress him. Mother handed her his clothes without a word.

‘Smart boy,’ Charity said as she pulled on his navy blue knitted trousers and matching jumper with a sailor collar.‘Nowmind you don’t get in amess before church!’

Mother was cutting the bread, banging the knife down on the breadboard hard to show her displeasure. Charity reached out for abib and put it round James’s neck, then sat him on a chair.

‘Now behave,’ she warned him, filling his bottle with weak tea. ‘I’ve got to get washed too.’

She hated taking all her clothes off when someone, particularly her father, might walk in at any minute, but this was the routine every morning and had been since she was thirteen when he had accused her of smelling like a polecat.

She shivered, goosepimples all over her thin body as she soaped herself from head to foot. Standing on a cork board, she wondered if there was anything she could do today that would be right.

The children sat at the table, subdued and white-faced as they heard Father coming downstairs. Mother had ignored them so far, turning her back on them while she boiled eggs. She banged afresh pot of tea down on the table just as he came through the door, looking up at him enquiringly.

‘Stand for grace,’ he said.

His voice was calm and measured. He was always more amenable on Sundays, perhaps because he knew it was the one day of the week when he could preach to people who actually wanted to hear him.

He smiled benignly round at his children, all in their Sunday clothes and with well-scrubbed faces and brushed hair.

‘Today in church you must pray for God’s forgiveness. Yesterday you broke one of his Commandments. After dinner today I want all three of you to write all ten of them out, a hundred times. Now Tobias, what is the first one?’

It struck Charity that her parents’ attitudes were opposing. Why, if Father had decided to forgive them all, was Mother still smarting with anger? But then Mother was always a mystery.She wouldn’t speakof the past, even though she sometimes hinted she’d been used to better; neither did she ever speak of the future. Was it Father who made her so unhappy? Or her children?

By half-past nine Father was washed and shaved, dressed in his Sunday suit with a clean white collar. Charity stood awkwardly as Mother put the mutton with the potatoes round it into the oven. She spooned some rice into an earthenware dish, added sugar and milk and grated a nutmeg over the surface.

‘Don’t stand there staring at me,’ she snapped at Charity as she put the dish on the bottom shelf of the oven. ‘Go upstairs and make the beds, or we’ll all be late for church!’

Charity stood for a moment in her parents’ room, just looking.Like all the rooms it was devoid of colour or real comfort. A plain wooden bed, a dressing-table holding nothing but a hairbr ush, comb and glass receptacle for hairpins, and a battered wardrobe with a full-length mirror. But it was the bed which held her attention, and the clear indentations made by her parents’ bodies.

All of them had been born in that bed and there was a time when she had considered it a magical place. But now as she bent over to pull the bottom sheet tight and smelt that smell of her father, it was

just another shameful reminder of what men, marriage and having babies entailed.

Once the bed was made and the quilt smoothed over, Charity paused in front of the mirror to look at herself. Her grey Sunday dress was identical to every other dress her mother had made her since she was a small child: a loose smock gathered on to a wide yoke, only this one had a white lace collar and pearl buttons on the cuffs.

She was probably the only girl at Maze Hill Secondary Modern who preferred wearing her uniform. At least in a navy gym-slip and blazer she looked like everyone else. There was no point in fantasising about buying a full skirt with a can-can petticoat beneath it, pretty pointed shoes, and having her hair permed in a bubble cut when she started work. By Easter she would be in an overall, cleaning up after people she’d like even less than her parents and still with no money.

In church Charity held James still with one hand and her prayer book with the other, but her mind wasn’t on the prayers.

Baby lon Hall was agrub by li tt le pl ace w ith a corrugated iron roof and many of the windows bo arde d u p. F at he r ’s reli gi ou s co nv ic tio ns di dn’ t allow adornments or comfort, so the chairs were rickety and the hassocks threadbare. Even the altar was covered in a simple white cloth with a plain brass cross.

Prudence, on the other side of James, was dressed just like Charity,except that her coat, dress and hat with an upturned brim were brown instead of grey. The colour gave a peachy glow to her cheeks and she was putting on that goody-goody face that fooled everyone. Prudence had never had it as hard as Charity. Because she was clever and five years younger, she managed to get out of chores. Sometimes

she treated her older sister like a maid and she had precious little loyalty to anyone.

Toby was fidgeting, his mouth set in a surly expression of boredom. His hands were in his blazer pockets and his long grey socks had fallen down round his ankles. If Father was to notice he would get more punishment than writing out the Ten Commandments. Charity worried a great deal about Tobias. He was cunning, greedy and untruthful. Although some of this was only because he was kept on such a close rein at home, sometimes she saw a ruthless streak in him that she couldn’t find an excuse for.

There were a great many new faces in church today, but all of them looked remarkably like the regulars: poor, feeble-minded and lost.

Tobias called the lady in the red hat in the front row ‘Mrs Amen’ because every time Father paused for breath she would shout out ‘Amen’ and wave her arms. There was Mr Beavis who belched continually and went straight from church into the Stag’s Head on the corner,and frail little Miss Wilkes who had paper flowers tucked into her hat-band, along with a dozen more equally sad people.

Why was it that her father ’s rousing sermons only moved people like this? There was not one rich or beautiful person in hisentire congregation. Was it just that people further up the social scale didn’t need the support of religion in their lives?

Father was positively bouncing with good humour at dinner. Not only had the collection brought in ni ne po un ds , t we lv e s hi lli ng s a nd tu pp en ce , b ut three new followers had all spoken up about their changed lives since they found Christ and Preacher Stratton.

‘It’s never too late to turn from wickedness.’ His voice filled the kitchen as he carved the mutton. ‘A man can be in the gutter, even in a prison cell awaiting

hanging, but if he offers his heart and life to the Lord, even at that late hour, he will be saved.’

Charity kept her eyes on her dinner plate. She knew he would move on to the bit about how not asparrow falling from his nest was missed by the Lord, and she wondered if God had been looking the other way when Father came to her room at night.

‘I spoke well today, didn’t I, Mother? Some days my words fall on stony ground, but not today Ithink.’

‘You were very eloquent and rousing,’ Mother replied. ‘Let’s hope the new followers manage to keep your light inside them and resist temptation.’

Charity found the interchanges between her parents interesting. Their conversations were always so stilted, like two strangers on a bus speaking out of politeness, rather than interest. Charity looked from one to the other, through her lashes.

Mother wore her Sunday brown wool dress with a cream lace collar. The drab colour made her skin even duller; the shapeless style would have been more suitable to an older fatter woman. Charity had vague recollections that she hadn’t always looked like this. Was this something that happened to most women as they grew older? Or was it a manifestation of her inner unhappiness, just like her imagined illnesses?

The clock in the parlour struck eight and Charity sighed with relief. It had been an endless day. Sundays always were.

The wind grew stronger and stronger as Charity lay in bed. It was coming straight from the river with fierce gusts that made Mrs Rumbelow’s washing line next door slap against their yard wall like a whip. Someone furthe r down the street had a tin bath hanging on a nail and it banged like a bass drum.

Father ca me home soon af ter Ch a rity ha dg one to bed a nd h e se eme d in h ig h spi ri ts a bou t so meth in g. H is g ree tin g to hi s wif e was j ovi al an d he

la ug hed lou dl y. P e rha ps h e’ d ca lle d i nto th e Ne ls on or the Cl ipp er o n h is w ay b ack from c hurch ; may be to ni ght the y’d put mon ey i n hi s co ll ect ion box , instead of he ck ling him .T he rum bl e of hi s vo ic e lu ll ed he r in to a c omf ort ab le dre am lik e st ate , no t sl ee p e xa ctl y as sh e cou ld st il l h ea r t he w ind , but fo r on ce h er m in d wa s free o f an xi ety. Wh en h e in te nde d to vi sit h er he a lw a ys sl ip ped u pst ai rs fo r a dr in k fi rs t . M ayb e t he s ce ne l as t ni ght ha d fr ig hten ed hi m off f or goo d?

The wind woke her later. Something fell down into the yard at the back with a sharp crack. Charity knelt up on her bed and peered out, but it was toodark to see anything but the big poplar tree at the end of the terrace.

It was being thrown from side to side, so violently it would surely come crashing down soon. In the house across the backyard there was a light in an upstairs room. Were they listening to the wind too and feeling frightened?

Then she smelt it. Something acrid and smoky. She pressed her face up against the glass trying to see if it was a chimneypot on fire, but could make out nothing other than the dark outline of roofs against the sky.

She sniffed again.

It seemed to be coming from downstairs. Could Mother have forgotten to turn out the paraffin stove in the kitchen and now it was burning the wick?

Pulling her cardigan on over her nightdress she made her way down to the next landing by the children’s room. The smell was far stronger here and to her horror she saw smoke wafting up the stairs.

It was pure instinct to run into their room first. The kitchen was underneath it and just those seconds on the landing were making her choke.

‘Quick, get up!’ she screamed. ‘There’s a fire!’

Tobias was out of bed in a trice. Prudence sat up sleepily.

‘Come on,’ Charity called again, shaking her sister ’s shoulder.‘Just slip your feet in your shoes and put your cardigan on.’

She reached into the cot and lifted the still sleeping baby out, wrapped a blanket round him, then looked again at the other two.

Tobias had apullover on and was fumbling under his bed for shoes, but still Prudence was sitting in a trance.

‘Prudence! Hurry,’ Charity screamed at her. ‘We’ve got to get out!’

Only then didthe girl move, hastily stuffing her arms into her cardigan, blue eyes wide with fear.

‘Come on. ’ Charity opened the door, clutching James to her shoulder, but as she turned to go down the few steps to where their parents slept she could see flames licking round the corner of the hall below.

‘Mother, Father!’ she yelled. ‘Fire!’

For a split second she was uncertain what to do. Reason said she must rouse her parents now, but another voice was urging her to concentrate on getting the children out.

‘Cor! A real fire!’ Tobias said almost gleefully, pushing round to look closer. Prudence’s wail of fear made her reach out to cuff Tobias’s ear.

‘Back to the bedroom,’ she ordered them. ‘We’ll have to get out the window.’

Nails had been hammered in so the sash would only open a few inches, a precaution against the children falling out. Tobias struggled with it, Prudence began to cry and James was now coughing hard with the smoke coming in.

‘Hold James.’ C harity shoved the baby into Prudence’s arms, picked up a cricket bat of Tobias’s, and whacked the glass.

‘Let me do it.’ Tobias stepped forward when Charity

failed to break it. He took afew stepsback, ran at the window and crashed the bat hard into the middle. The glass was shattered, but still holding together. Using the bat like a battering ram, Tobias thumped again until there was a hole big enough to climb through.

Charity could hear the fire now, even over the wind and the tinkl ing, fal ling glass. It was aroaring, whooshing sound that seemed to be coming closer with every second.

‘You first, Tobias.’ Charity quickly scooped up an eiderdown and draped it over the spiky shards left in the window frame. ‘On to the kitchen roof and I’ll pass James down to you. Once you’re down shout to Mrs and Mrs Rumbelow for help.’

He wriggled through the hole and jumped the eight feet to the roof below effortlessly, as Prudence let out a howl of terror.

‘Is the fire in the kitchen?’ Charity shouted down, ignoring her sister for a moment. Tobias showed up clearly in the darkness in his striped pyjamas,his blond hair ruffled by the wind.

‘I don’t think so, it’s OK out here,’ he called back, totteringdown to the edge of the roof, peering over and shouting loudly.

For a moment Charity hesitated, staring down into the darkness. She realised to her horror that she couldn’t reach far enough down to place James into Toby’s arms and if she dropped him he could roll off the roof and be killed.

‘Prue! Shut up and help me make a sling for James.’ She snatched up one of the bedspreads and put it down on the floor.

‘I’m scared, I want to get out,’ Prudence wailed, backing away from Charity towards the window, her eyes on the smoke billowing under the door.

‘Don’t wriggle, James.’ Charity sat James down in the centre of the bedspread and pulled up each of the

four corners above his head. He immediately stood up, poking his head through one corner.

‘Sit down and stay down.’ Charity pushed him firmly on the head. ‘Please be agood boy.’ Her heart was thumping, her mouth dry and she coughed with the smoke. Surely Mother and Father had smelt it by now? Why didn’t they come?

Her fingers wouldn’t work properly, the bedspread was too thick to tie securely and Prudence was no help at all.

She had the quivering bundle on the windowsill now. Charity couldn’t trust Prue to hold anything, so she thrust her aside with her hip and leaned out.

‘Ready, Toby?’ she yelled, unable to see him now. ‘I’ll lowerhim bitbybit until Ifeel your hands grab him. Don’t drop him, whatever you do!’

Her arms were almost pulled from their sockets as she lowered the bundle, slowly feeding it through her hands. Wind bit into her bare arms, pieces of glass were pricking through the eiderdown beneath her belly,but still shetalked to James.

‘I’ve got you and Toby’s waiting. Hold on to my waist, Prue!’ she called out.

Prue screamed.

‘Hold on to me!’ Charity yelled back, letting her hands slowly slip back up the bedspread. ‘I’ll get you out too in a minute.’

James was screaming now; the bundle swinging from side to side as he struggled to get free, but at last Charity felt the weight supported.

‘That’s it! I’ve got him,’ Toby called back. ‘You can let go!’

A piece of glass hit Charity on the head as she pulled herself back in. Pr udence was coughing, leaning towards the window doubled over.

‘You now.’ Charity lifted her sister up on to the eiderdown and gently pushed her on to the windowsill. ‘Jump, Prue, it’s not far.’

Prudence was frozen on the sill, too scared to jump. Charity leaned out behind her, taking her sister ’s hands in hers. ‘Don’t be scared,’ she said. ‘Just let yourself dangle, then I’ll drop you the rest of the way. ’

Charity couldn’t hold her any longer anyway. She let her sister ’s fingers slip through hers and heard her fall with a thump.

She was jumping up on to the windowsill when she paused and looked back towards the door. A flickering light beneath it showed that flames were close, but she had to make certain her parents had got out.

‘Prue, hold James and stay there for a moment,’ she called down. ‘Toby, try and get down to next door over the wall and get help. I’m going to get Mother and Father.’

Both James and Prudence were screaming now. Lights were coming on in the houses at the back.

As Charity opened the door to the landing, the smoke and heat nearly drove her back. She could hear crackling. The wall at the bottom of the few steps was lit with reflected light from flames further down. Clamping the bottom of her nightdress over her mouth she inched her way down towards it.

But as she turned the corner on to the narrow landing opposite the study, tongues of fire were licking over the sisal mat towards her. Another second or two and she’d be caught in it.

‘Jump out the window!’ she yelled, unable to get to their door.

For just one second she stood there, staring in horrified fascination. The fire was like a monster, lapping up everything in its path. The heat was so intense it scorched her bare legs and arms and she knew she could do nothing more to save them from here.

‘Mother, Father,’ she yelled one moretime. ‘Get out. Get out!’

A blast of flames knocked her back, catching the hem of her nightdress. She turned and fled into the

dark room, shouting in terror. In one desperate leap she got to the window. Clinging to the eiderdown she flung herself through mindlessly and only the sudden chill and the crash as her body hit the roof told her she was safe.

Dimly she heard Prudence crying as she lay there coughing her lungs up. Then a man’s voice urging her sister to help.

‘Put the cover over her first,’ she heard. ‘Then pass me the babby.It’sall right, sweetheart, we’ll soon have you safe.’

It was a strange, disjointed nightmare. Screams, shouting, sirens and gruff male voices. Suddenly it was so bright and hot she thought it was summer. But then someone lifted her. She could feel rough serge against her skin, hear a man’s voice telling her she was safe and she was carried away into darkness.

Chapter Three

The events between Charity being lifted down from the kitchen roof and ending up in the children’s ward in Lewisham hospital were hazy.

A fleeting glimpse of a crowd of neighbours watching thefire consuming the house as she was carr ied to th e ambula nce on a s tre tc her. F i remen wrestling with hoses, dark shapes against the glow of the fi re. Prudence crying and Tobias’s white, scared face. Then br ight lights and many faces looming over her and a doctor telling her she needed just acouple of stitches in thecut on her head, but he was giving her some medicine so all the pain would go away.

When she woke up, for a moment she thought she had dreamt it all, but her dry mouth, the bandages on her hands and a dull ache all over her made sense of the flowered curtains pulled round the bed. A nurse came to give her a drink: a big woman with coppercoloured hair and gentle brown eyes who sat on the bed and told her both her parents were dead. Charity listened while the nurse explained how ahot coal had fallen from the fire in the parlour and smoke had found its way up into the bedroom above long before the firegot agrip on the house. She tried to soften it by telling Charity that her parents didn’t even wake, that they had died peacefully long before flames reached them, but somehow it meant nothing.

Charity felt she ought to cry, but she couldn’t. It was as if she was in a cocoon, able to see and hear,

but she felt nothing more than the cut on her head and the sting of the burns.

When Charity asked later where the children were, they told her that all three had been taken to foster parents who lived on Clapham Common and she would be going there too once the doctor decided she was well enough. She wasn’t badly hurt, she discovered: minor burns on her arms, hands and legs and the cut on her head.

Between sleeping and waking, nurses kept telling her how brave she was, reassuring her that none of the children was hurt and she’d soon be seeing them.

As the misty,sleepy feeling gradually faded and the bright ward full of children became clearer, a sense of jubilation filled her. She’d been rescued! She would never again have to submit to her father ’s will, never step into that dark, cold house again. No more sermons, no more wondering why their mother never stood up for them or showed any love. It was a new beginning, a brand new start for all of them.

The next morning a social worker called Miss Downes came to collect her, bringing brand new clothes. Even as she slipped on the pretty white underwear, a navy pleated skirt and a pale blue twinset, Charity’s delight was tinged with deep remorse. Her injuries were slight and she couldn’t brush her hair properly because of the cut on her head, but when more nurses came and offered sympathy about her parents and complimented her on her bravery she felt like a fraud.

She felt she ought to be crying; to be feeling a real sense of loss. But all she felt now was guilt, not grief.

‘Well don’t you look nice.’ Miss Downes looked her up and down as Charity emerged bashfully from behind the screens not knowing whether to smile or cry. ‘Now put on this coat. It’s too big, I know, but we’ll get you one that fits in the next day or two.’

Miss Downes intimidated Charity. Perhaps it was

only because she said they would stay with foster parents until they were ‘assessed’, but her manner and appearance didn’t inspire trust.

She was tall and thin, a middle-aged spinster who blinked continually behind thick gold-rimmed spectacles, made a humming sound and nodded her head. At first this seemed to mean agreement to everything, but in fact it was a daunting habit which meant nothing. She didn’t seem to be able to manage to smile at all.

Miss Downes explained that Mr and Mrs Charles were temporary foster parents who took children in until relatives werefound, or other arrangements could be made. During the car ride to Clapham she fired terse questions at Charity, not about the little ones, but about her school, what she planned to do as a career and if she knew if her father had any insurance?

Charity did what she always did when she was uncertain about anything: merely shook her head and looked at her lap. She didn’t know if she was expected to cry all the time, or try to be grown-up, but the same desolate feeling she’d had before the fire came back with avengeance.

She remembered her father urging social workers to keep a family together when the parents were killed in a train crash a couple of years earlier. Later they heard that the youngest was adopted and the other four split up between children’s homes miles away from one another. What if that happened to them?

The Charleses’ house was welcoming. Not only did it overlook a common that reminded her very much of Blackheath, but all three children were standing at the upstairs window waving as they pulled up, only to disappear and run to open the door.

A big, double-fronted house, its front garden bright with crocus and daffodils. Better still, Miss Downes left after only the briefest word with Mrs Charles and Charity was drawn in by the children to a home she

could only gaze at in wonder. That first impression was of colour, space and light, and a sense of having arrived in paradise.

Mr and Mrs Charles, or Auntie Louand Uncle Geoff as they told the children to call them, were the kind her father called ‘Bohemians’. Auntie Lou wore trousers and a kind of artist’s smock and she had long curly red hair tied up in a ponytail. Uncle Geoff was thin, with a big black bushy beard and hardly any hair and he said he was a writer.

Lou and Geoff Charles had no children of their own, but over the years they had taken in countless children in similar emergencies to that of the Stratton family. They operatedwhat they called ‘a halfway house’, aplace of safety where they could monitor and assess the needs of the often emotionally disturbed and traumatised children until a permanent home could be found for them. Deeply committed and caring, they were often appalled at the local authorities’ insensitivity and lack of appropriate training. They had learned too that many of the children who passed through their hands would not end up in ideal homes. But however short a time children were to stay, they endeavoured to make it a happy time.

The first two days Charity was at Clapham was a whirl of new experience. A real bathroom, carpets on all the floors, no chores to do – and television. The food was different too. Strange, wonderful things like spaghetti and grapefruit, and hot chocolate to drink. The house was bright and colourful, there were toys, books and puzzles and the Charleses opened their arms and hearts to all of them without reservation. Uncle Geoff said he wrote books on germs. Charity didn’t really believe anyone could write a whole book on such a subject, but he certainly knew a whole lot about everything and he made things so interesting she found herself wishing she could overcome her

fear of him. Auntie Lou was just as fascinating: she could cook a meal, hold a conversation, do a bit of ironing, all without looking as if she was doing anything. The house was clean, but she never worried if it was untidy. They had hundreds of books, paintings, ornaments and artefacts from all over the world. On top of all the other strange and wonderful new experiences, Lou and Geoff didn’t believe in standing on ceremony about anything.

It was they who shortened Tobias and Prudence to Toby and Prue, something that had always made the children’s parents smart with anger. They complimented the children on their good table manners, but didn’t turn ahair when they occasionallyforgot themselves and grabbed food, or turned their forks to scoop up tricky morsels. They turned bathtime into play, let the girls wear their hair loose and allowed Toby to kick a football around the common whenever he liked.

‘It’s good here, ain’t it?’ Toby said gleefully, just a few days after their arrival.

‘Isn’t it.’ Charity corrected hisspeech out of force of habit, but her thoughts were miles away. They were standing at the window of Toby’s room. Across the road was Clapham Common, grass and trees stretching almost as far as they could see.

A man and a small boy were flying a kite in the distance. They had been watching for some time as the man ran with it trying to get it into the air. At last the wind caught the kite and up it went, the little boy waving his hands in glee.

‘I shouldn’t feel quite so happy though, should I?’ He moved his head back from her shoulder and she saw tears glinting in his clear blue eyes.

‘You aren’t happy because they’re dead,’ Charity reproved him. ‘It’s just because Auntie Lou and Uncle Geoff are so kind and this house is so wonderful. Don’t feel bad about anything, Toby. Mother and

Father have gone to heaven and they wouldn’t want you to be sad.’

‘But you’re sad.’ He buried his face in her thin bony chest and hugged her fiercely.

She wished she could tell him her sadness wasn’t grief so much as anxiety about their future. But he was just a little boy and she couldn’t lay her burdens on him.

When Toby said it was lovely here that was an understatement. It was heaven. The kind of wonderland Charity had never even imagined in her dreams. But a voice of reason kept telling her that it was only temporary.

Downstairs a radio was playing and she could hear Prue laughing as she rolled out pastry with Auntie Lou. Uncle Geoff had taken James along to the shops and soon it would be dinnertime. The fire was such a short time ago, ahead was the funeral and shedidn’t dare look beyond that point.

But Charity kept thinking of that word Miss Downes had used. ‘Assessing.’

For one thing Auntie Lou made notes about things they said and did. Her questions came out so naturally, with such interest that Toby and Prue fell over themselves to inform her about every aspect of their former life, about their school and how they felt. But Charity was more wary.

It was good to have smart new clothes. To see Prudence’s eyes light up with pleasure at a short grey pleated skirt, patent leather strap shoes and a pale blue jumper with amatching ribbon for herhair. It made her happy to see Toby making friends withother children as naturally as if he’d always lived here. But not so good to have James snatched away from her.

Auntie Lou said she was too young for so much responsibility and insisted on washing and dressing James herself. She wouldn’t even lethim sleep in the

same room as the girls. Was this preparing Charity for the time when she would be pushed out the door, not only to work, but to find lodgings of her own?

‘But I’ve always looked after James,’ Charity said on her second day there, when Auntie Lou took James off to bed. ‘It was my job.’

Auntie Lou let her come up to the big bathroom while she bathed James, but in her gentle way she spelt things out.

‘You’re only fifteen, Charity and I know you’ve shouldered a great deal of responsibility for your brothers and sister all your life.’ She sat back on her heels beside the bath as James splashed vigorously, her red hair loose and attractively tousled round her thin, expressive face. ‘But soon you’ll be going to work and they have to learn to lean on someone else. Now’s a golden opportunity for you to sit back and letthem get used to new people. Because you aren’t their mother, only a loving sister, and you deserve a life of your own.’

Deep down she knew what Auntie Lou said was right but her feelings were so mixed up. On one hand she wanted an adult to take over, she wanted to be a little girl, to cry and be comforted the way Prue was. But she was angry and jealous, cut off from everything that was familiar, with a sense of betrayal that her brothers and sister were accepting this new woman as a mother.

‘Lunchtime!’ Auntie Lou bellowed up the stairs, startling Charity and Toby. ‘Wash your hands before you come down. Don’t be long now!’

Toby moved away from his sister,turningatthe door of his room with a wide grin lighting up his pale face.

‘Don’t worry. All we have to do is make them like us so much they keep us for ever. ’

‘They already like you, you little scamp.’ Charity

forced herself to smile reassuringly. ‘Just be a good boy,that’s all.’

There were four rooms downstairs. A very grand one the Charleses called the drawing room. A dining room and ahugekitchen right along the back of the house, then the one they referred to as ‘the den’. It overlooked the Common, and had big bay windows and a settee big enough for five people all at once. There was a table to do jigsaws on, hundreds of books on shelves, games, paints and the television.

It was quite the jolliest room Charity had ever seen. Auntie Lou had a way of flinging herself down on the settee or carpet which encouraged them all to feel relaxed in here. She never told them to put things away, she watched the children’s programmes with as much enthusiasm as they did and let James curl up on her lap whenever he felt like it.

Charity waited until both younger children had gone up to bed. Uncle Geoff was working in his study and Auntie Lou had sat down with some sewing.

The den was very warm and cosy with a stove kind of fire that never went out. Two big lamps either side of the fireplace shed soft, goldenpools of light and the bright print curtains were drawn tightly. Auntie Lou was on the settee. Charity sat opposite in an armchair, one eye on the television, the other weighing up the older woman.

Everything was remarkable about these people. They believed even children were entitled to an opinion. They never brought up God or church. They used the word ‘fun’ a great deal, a word that just hadn’t been in her parents’ vocabulary. They laughed uproariously at jokes, sometimes cuddled like sweethearts, and they argued quite heatedly at times. Their world felt so good, yet alien to everything Charity had been taught. Part of Charity’s mind still clung to her parents’ values, and it confused her.

‘Can we stay here for ever if we behave?’

She regretted the rash question the moment the words had left her lips and, worse still, she saw a flicker of uncertainty in the woman’s green eyes.

‘Come and sit beside me.’ Lou patted the settee. ‘Come on! Ilike to be close when Italk to people about important things.’

Lou was very anxious about Charity. She was concerned with the future of all four of them, but could sense that this child was deeply troubled.

Such a sad little girl. Of course she looked forlorn because of her bandages and sticking plaster, but it went deeper than that. In many ways she seemed younger than Prue, even though she was very maternal and protective. She wassothinand underdeveloped for a girl of fifteen.

Lou had already had a glimpse into the Stratton household from things Toby and Prue had said and she shuddered. A chronically depressed mother, a bible-thumping father, a home that was ruled by fear. She’d planned to wait until after the funeral to discuss their future, when she herself knew what would happen, but she wasn’t going to tell lies now, not even to soothe.

‘I can’t say what will happen for certain.’ Lou’s thin, vivacious face took on a slightly tense look. ‘You see right now Miss Downes, your social worker, is tryingtodiscover if your parents had any close relations. If they did, one of them might become your legal guardian. But at the moment we have to take each day as it comes. I wish I could promise you that you’ll all stay here for ever. But I can’t, Charity.’

‘I don’t think we have any relations,’ Charity said quickly. ‘I’ve never heard of any. ’

‘What do you know about your mother and father?’ Lou raised one fair eyebrow. ‘Where did they grow up?’

Charity thought hard, then shrugged. ‘I don’t know.

I’ve often wondered about it. How she came to meet Father and why she was always so sad.’

‘Tell me what your mother was like.’ Lou changed tack. ‘Describe hertome.’ She had already been given a description by Miss Downes, of both parents.

‘She looked older than she was,’ Charity said.

Lo u w as su rpr is ed by thi s s pa rs e de sc rip tio n. Ch il dre n us ual ly l ist ed t he th in gs th ei r mot he rs we re n ot ed f or: the ir co o kin g, s ew ing or r ea di n g st or ies .

‘Was she blonde, like you? Did she like reading, or music?’

Charity shrugged again.

‘I think she liked birds, she used to put the breadcrumbs out in the yard. She was good at sewing.’

Lou could tell by the children’s speech and their manners that Mrs Stratton hadn’t been from a working-class background.

‘Did you talk together much?’

Charity looked baffled at the question.

‘I don’t mean about everyday things. But feelings, what you wanted to do when you were grown up.’

Charity shook her head.

‘Well what about other things? Did she ever explain about getting married and having babies?’

Lou expected a blush, even an embarrassed giggle, but she didn’t expect the fearful look that came into the girl’s eyes, or the way her fingers nervously picked at the hem of her skirt.

‘No! I mean, I knew about babies because I was there when James was born.’

‘Well that’s good,’ Lou smiled warmly. ‘No wonder you’re so close to him. Lots of girls of your age find all that a complete mystery. I know I did. Can you believe, Inever even knew about periods? Iwas terrified when it happened. I thought I was dying.’

Charity had a blank look on her face.

‘You have started them, haven’t you?’ Lou asked.

Charity felt herself growing very hot and uncomfortable.

‘No,’ she whispered.

Lou wasn’t surprised. Charity showed no sign of any kind of development, but she felt the girl’s anxiety.

‘Well perhaps I should explain the whole thing.’ Lou smiled, putting down her sewing and picking up a pad and pencil. ‘It’s bound to happen soon and when it does you’ll be prepared.’

She drew a sketch of a woman, putting in the Fallopian tubes and the womb, thenproceeded to go through what would happen.

‘We all pick up some funny ideas,’ Lou grinned. ‘I always thought our tummy buttons had some vital purpose, but of course they don’t. We just go along having a period once a month until such time as we get married.’ She paused at that point to make sure charity was taking it in.

When a couple marry they make love to have babies. The man puts his penis in here and his sperm travels all the way up here –’ she pointed to the womb on her sketch. ‘Then the female egg comes down and joins it, and snuggles down in this nice cosy place and grows into a baby. I’ve got a good book about all this, would you like to read it?’

‘No,’ Charity snapped. Just the mention of the word ‘penis’ made her feel sick. She wanted Lou to shut up, to tear up that sketch and leave her in peace.

‘Oh dear, I’ve embarrassed you.’ Lou put one hand on Charity’s face and tried to draw it round to hers. ‘I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, but girls have to know these things.’

Charity was mortified, sure she’d given herself away,but she didn’t know how to put it right.

‘I knew all that,’ she said, twisting her hands together, the sick feeling growing stronger. In fact she didn’t know properly,even thoughtechnically she was no longer a virgin.

‘Well that’s good.’ Lou refused to be frozen out. ‘But I think I should take you along to my doctor and get him to check you out.’

‘I’m not going to a doctor,’ Charity panicked and jumped up. ‘I don’t want a man looking at me!’

‘Charity!’ Lou caught hold of Charity’s arms and held her. She knew such a violent reaction had to mean something more than plain embarrassment, and she knew she couldn’t ignore it. ‘It doesn’t have to be a man. I know a lady doctor too and it’s only a blood sample, nothing more.’

The moment passed. Lou made acup of tea, dropped the subject and they watched Wagon Train together.

That night Charity dreamed of splashing through a pool of water and woke suddenly to find she had wet the bed. In the dark she lay there sobbing, not knowing what to do. It turned cold and she got out of bed, stripped off her nightdress and shoved it down the back of the radiator. She put her clothes on, then lay on the floor wrapped in the eiderdown till morning.

She didn’t sleep again. Terror gnawed at her. If Auntie Lou was to find out she’d surely throw them all out. Should she run away now? Leave a note begging Lou to look after the others?

Charity felt like afive-year-old as she lay on the floor. She had no money, nowhere to go. This was God’s way of paying her back for all the bad things she’d done. No one would ever like her; she was tainted.

Geoff was surprised to find Charity down in the kitchen fully dressed when he came down at seven to make some tea.

‘Couldn’t sleep?’ He rubbed his eyes, then wrapped himself tighter into his plaid dressing-gown. He noted that the table was laid for breakfast and also, more

importantly, the dark circles under Charity’s eyes.

‘I had a bad dream.’ She tried to smile but her lips refused to co-operate. ‘I think it was just the burns prickling.’

‘Well let’s have some tea then,’ he said, glancing down at Charity’s legs. He noticed she’d removed the bandages. ‘Lou will look at them later. I expect a touch of ointment will soothe them.’

Charity was in the den looking at a book when Lou called her into the kitchen. Toby and Prue were sitting at the table, drawing. James was pushing around a woolly dog on wheels. It was eleven o’clock, no one had remarked on anything unusual over breakfast and the fear inside her was gradually subsiding.

She saw Auntie Lou bundling sheets and her nightdress into the washing machine. The blood froze in her veins, and panic overwhelmed her.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Lou turned towards Charity and opened her arms. ‘Did you think I’d be cross?’

Charity avoided her arms and just hung her head in silence. She was sure Auntie Lou would find out the truth. The temptation to spill it all out was so strong, she felt as if she was being drawn into a wind tunnel. But in the back of her mind was that embroidered text on the parlour wall: ‘Honour thy Father and Mother ’.

Father couldn’t hurt her again. Prudence was safe. What good would it do bringing something so shameful out into the open? It wouldn’t make her forget, she couldn’t go back to being as innocent as Prue. All a confession would do was bring shame to the family name.

‘Life’s been hard,’ she whispered. ‘Sometimes I wished I could just leave home. But I never wanted anything like this to happen.’

‘You’ll feel better soon,’ Lou murmured, enveloping

Charity in an aroma of Blue Grass perfume and newly shampooed hair.‘It’s nature’s way of healing, don’t try to hold it back.’

The funeral service would have pleased Father. The sun shone and Babylon Hall was full to capacity with all his reformed drunks, the sad and the lonely people who thought so much of him. There in the one place Charity had felt proud of her father she was able to mourn. Silently she promised herparents shewould take care of her brothers and sister and vowed to keep her secrets to herself. Auntie Lou had said no more about seeing a doctor.Everything was over.

Easter came with the suggestion that happy times were here to stay. Uncle Geoff led an Easter egg hunt in the garden after church. Prudence was beside herself with happiness because Auntie Louhad bought her the pale blue dress with a smocked yoke she’d admired for so long. Charity got a full circular skirt, a wonderful emerald green one with a separate can-can petticoat and awhite ‘Goosegirl’ blouse with a ruffle round the scoop neck.

On Easter Monday Uncle Geoff took them over to the fair on the Common and they went on every single ride. It was magical. The big wheel whizzing round with its load of screaming passengers, all lit up like a huge Catherine wheel. ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was blasting out, vying with the noise from the rifle range, the carousel and the waltzer.

It was dark when they went home, Uncle Geoff carrying the sleeping James up on his shoulder. People were still flocking to the fair. Young men in smart suits with girls on their arms. Teddy boys on motorbikes and teenage girls in great giggling gangs. Toby and Prue had candyfloss stuck to their faces and a pink glow on their cheeks.

‘What’s going to happen now?’ Charity asked Uncle

Geoff. ‘I was supposed to start work after Easter,’ she said, glancing back over her shoulder to take one last look at the fairground.

‘Lou suggested that you stay at home till the summer, ’ Uncle Geoff said and grabbed sleeping James more securely. ‘We could give you a bit of private coaching. How does that sound?’

‘Nice,’ Charity said cautiously. She meant it sounded wonderful, but she was always cautious. ‘What about Prue and Toby?’

‘We’ve got them moved into the local school.’ Uncle Geoff smiled down at her. ‘A new start, eh!’

Charity had grown fond of Uncle Geoff, despite her nervousness of meningeneral. He laughed agreat deal, great guffawsthat shook his bushy beard and made his eyes wrinkle up. She liked his lean, unthreatening frame, the careless way he dressed and his gentle voice.

‘There’s things we should talk about in the next day or two.’ His dark brown eyes looked down at her with kindness and understanding. ‘Not now with little ears pinned back,’ he said, nodding his head towards Prue and Toby in front.

It was at the end of the week that Miss Downes called. She wasn’t alone this time, but with a younger woman called Miss Brady. When it was suggested that Miss Brady take the younger children out for ice-cream while Miss Downes stayed behind ‘for achat’, Charity felt very apprehensive.

‘Now let’s sit down and have a drink together.’ Auntie Lou handed Charity a glass of milk and the adults had coffee.

They made small talk for a while, discussing James’s new words, Prue’s desire to learn dancing and Toby’s passion for football. Miss Downes kept blinking and humming as if in agreement with everything.

‘Let’s get right to the point,’ Auntie Lou said eventually. ‘Miss Downes has found some relatives, Charity.’

Just the way everyone had been trying to delay this news gave Charity a feeling of impending disaster and all she could do was stare at Aunt Lou.

‘You have an uncle and a grandmother,’ Miss Downes spoke at last. ‘We discovered both grandparents on your father ’s side are dead, and he had no brothers or sisters. But your mother ’s mother is still alive and your mother ’s older brother,Stephen.’

‘Are they nice?’ Charity asked. ‘Do they want to see us?’

The adults exchanged glances that seemed ominous.

Charity looked from one to the other desperately. ‘Tell me the truth. I want to know.’

Uncle Geoff cleared his throat.

‘It’s not that they aren’t “nice”,’ he said carefully, his brown eyes gentle. ‘It’s just a bit awkward.’

Geoffrey Charles had learned about these relatives several days earlier, but was still stunned by the news.

‘You see your grandmother is very old, Charity,’ Geoff said carefully. ‘Your uncle is crippled. They didn’t even know about you four,they lost touch with your mother before any of you were born.’

Charity immediately imagined these relatives as much like the kind of people who lived in Greenwich.

‘Well that’s that, then.’ She shrugged philosophically. ‘So what happens now?’

She saw the three adults look at one another and knew there was more. It was very odd that Miss Downes was sayingnothing. She just sat, hands clasped in her lap, still wearing her black cloche hat.

‘What is it?’ she asked, looking hard at Lou. ‘Have we got to go somewhere else now?’

Lou ran her fingers through her hair.

‘Oh Charity,’ she sighed. ‘Where do I begin? You

see your mother ’s family are rather grand. They don’t live in ahouse like this one, but amansion in Oxfordshire.’

Charity’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

‘Let me start at the beginning,’ Lou went on. ‘Your mother ’s maiden name was Pennycuick. Brigadier Pennycuick, her father, came from a long line of military men, but he died some years ago. Your uncle was a colonel in the same regiment, but he was wounded during the war and he still lives with your grandmother in Studley Priory.’

‘Studley Priory?’ Charity questioned.

‘That’s the name of their house,’ Lou explained. ‘From what we can gather, your grandparents fell out with your mother when she married your father.’

‘Why?’ Charity asked.

‘We don’t know.Itwas during the war and odd things happened to lots of people then. Maybe they even had someone else in mind for their daughter; she was born twenty years after Stephen, so perhaps they over-protected her.’

‘Does that mean they don’t even want to see us?’

Charity felt a certain pride that she had an interesting lineage, though judging by Lou and Geoff ’s expressions they weren’t so happy about it.

‘They haven’t made adate yet,’ Auntie Lou said softly. ‘But your uncle is prepared to become your legal guardian, and indeed to provide for you.’

Charity mulled this over for a moment. She knew enough about foster parents to know they got paid for looking after children.

‘So does that mean he’ll pay for us to stay here?’

Geoff Charles half smiled. He was surprised by Charity’s grasp of the situation. He just wished he could assure her that it was only a question of money.

‘He hasn’t had time to think that through yet,’ he said gently. ‘But for the present, at least, this is your home.’

Charity had asinking feeling about that phrase ‘at present’.

‘He won’t split us up or anything?’ she asked fearfully. ‘You will tell him we all need to be together?’

‘We already have,’ Miss Downes chipped in. ‘Mr Charles has outlined that you need a little coaching and that theyounger children areabout to start at the local school. Of course little James needs stability right now too. Idid suggest to your uncle that maybe the first point of contact could be that you spend ashort holiday with him and his mother during the summer holidays.’

Charity nodded. The summer holidays were ages away and any threat seemed to have vanished. No one was even speaking about her getting a job! Maybe they would get to stay here for ever.

‘Why don’t you run down to the ice-cream shop and catch up with Miss Brady?’ Miss Downes held out a half-crown to her and smiled with unusual warmth. ‘Don’t say anything about our little chat just yet to Toby and Prue, though.’

‘I think she took that very well,’ Miss Downes said, turning in her seat to watch Charity running down the road, her can-can petticoat bouncing beneath her green skirt showing rainbow colours. ‘A nice, sensible girl!’

Lou looked sharply at Miss Downes, colour rising in her cheeks.

‘You haven’t any idea, have you?’ she exploded. ‘That “sensible” girl has been through hell. She might be fifteen and old enough to work, but she’s still a child. Now you plan to let some old codger who hasn’t aclue about children put her through more!’

‘Now that’s unfair.’ Miss Downes’s thin lips quivered with indignation. ‘He’s their uncle and it is only right and proper that he should decide their future.’

‘His words on the phone were, “Send the girl here,

we could do with another pair of hands.”’ Lou’s green eyes blazed. ‘Don’t you think she’s had enough of being a skivvy?’

‘She could fareworse,’ Miss Downessaid, pushing her glasses back on to her nose with one finger. ‘She has no aptitude for anything other than domestic work.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Geoff spoke. He sat forward in his chair, putting a warning hand on his wife’s to calm her.Heknew Lou was on the point of blurting out that Miss Downes had no ‘aptitude’ for working with children, but that wouldn’t help Charity. ‘Charity hasn’t had achance to shine at anything else, but she’s intelligent and a great deal quicker than you give her credit for. Can you possibly imagine what it would do to her if she was sent away from the children to look after some grumpy old cripple in the middle of nowhere?’

‘Well it’s not ideal,’ Miss Downes agreed with a shrug of her shoulders.

Geoffrey Charles had never considered himself anything but fortunate. He had married the woman he loved, pursued a career in biology that excited him. His grandmother had left him this house and with his writing they had enough money to live comfortably. Having no children of their own was a disappointment, but they’d compensated by helping children in need.

When the Strattons arrived they’d had no thought of holding on to them for more than a few weeks. But that was then – before he’d taken Prue and Toby sailing boats on the pond, before he’d bounced James up and down on his knee and felt the deep need in Charity.

She loved her brothers and sister passionately and could care for them almost singlehandedly; take them away, and she had nothing.

Barely able to read, her spelling was appalling and

she could manage no more than the simplest of sums. But she had a quick mind. With tuition she could get a decent job, with love she could flourish . . .

‘I am backing my wife in this,’ he said, turning to Miss Downes, his gentle face for once hard and unyielding. ‘Maybe the ideas Colonel Pennycuick has for Toby and Prue might be feasible and even desirable. But you must do everything in your power to make sure James stays with us and that Charity is allowed to choose her own job.’

Miss Downes wilted under his stern gaze.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said and blinked furiously. ‘But as I’m sure you’ve realised, Colonel Pennycuick is a very difficult man.’

Chapter Four

‘Read it again, Charity,’ Uncle Geoff leaned back in his deckchair,tucking his hands behind his head. ‘This time think about the beautiful words and put some passion into it.’

‘I can’t,’ Charity giggled. ‘I feel silly.’

They were alone in the garden, reading the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It was three months since the fire and Charity was settled and happy.

A glorious June day, the sky a canopy of blue velvet. Leaves on bushes and climbing shrubs glossy wi th ne wne ss . B ri lli ant p urp le , b lu e a nd ye llo w pa ns ie s fron ted c lum ps of lu pin s, wi th to wer ing delphiniums taking up the rear, hiding the fence in a wall of colour.

‘Why should you feel silly?’ Geoff lifted one eyebrow enquiringly. ‘It’s just you and me! Is it right to read it like a shopping list when you feel your heart touched by the words?’

Charity picked up the book again.

She loved her lessons with him. He brought books and poetry alive, she was always hungry for more. Until she came to live with the Charleses it had even been a struggle to read Enid Blyton, but now she had her nose in a book almost continually.

‘I wish I could learn maths as fast,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to grasp that!’

‘You’veachieved agreat deal there too,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Not all of us are born with mathematical minds. You’ve mastered the basics, you can add

up a row of figures, multiply and divide, that’s enough to get by with.’

‘Cup of tea?’ Lou called out.

James came out into the garden wearing only a pair of pants, his bucket and spade in his hands. His first proper haircut had changed him from a baby into a little boy. He appeared to have grown a couple of inches in as many months, but his face was as endearingly cheeky as ever.

‘That’s enough learning for one day.’ Geoff gathered up the books, put them in a pile and got up to stretch. ‘Hullo James, where are you off to, the seaside?’

‘Make a castle,’ he said, running across the lawn to the sandpit they’d made for him at the bottom of the garden.

Charity lowered the back of her chair, sat down again and leaned back.

In Greenwich the house had been stuffy and gloomy, with smells coming up from the drains and the river, and even the air made her feel tired. Here she woke early to look out at the garden, excitement rising inside her at the prospect of the day ahead.

After Prue and Toby had gone to school her lessons started: English, maths and science with Uncle Geof f; his to ry an d geography wi t h Auntie Lou. Usual ly after lunch she took James out for a walk so the Charleses could get on with their own work, or sometimes she wrote an es say for the following morning. But even when she wasn’t having formal lessons, she was learning. Watching and listening to Loua nd Geoff, reading and discussing the news in thepapers. It was as if her brain had been expanded, making so much more room she could cram with fascinating information.

She thought less and less of the past now. Sometimes it seemed like a story she’d read, nothing to do with her at all. She’d refused to see a doctor and Auntie Lou had forgotten all about it.

Charity glanced down at her bust. It was beginning to grow at last and after a course of iron tablets her periods had started, which finally stopped her vague fear that she might be pregnant. Since then she had discovered new confidence in almost every direction, particularly where Geoff was concerned. She could kiss him goodnight now, she didn’t back away if he slung an arm round her shoulder. Once or twice she’d even let him cuddle her.

‘So how is our little Elizabeth Browning?’ Lou came out with a tray of tea and put it down on the grass. It gave her immense pleasure to see the new colour in Charity’s cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes and the extra pounds she’d put on. She would always be slender, but she was growing prettier every day now the haunted look had gone. She had all the energy and enthusiasm of a puppy; given another year, she’d be a beauty.

Geoff came back and sat down on the grass by their feet. He wore faded baggy khaki shorts and an equally old shirt open over his bare chest. His bushy beard was rather at odds with his almost bald head.

‘Are you going to be mother?’ he grinned up at his wife. ‘Or has the morning sweating over a hot stove earned you the privilege of indolence?’

‘You do it.’ Lou lay back in her deckchair and pushed her hair back from her face.

The sun had brought out a crop of freckles all over her face, arms and shoulders. She wore a faded sundress with thin straps and her legs were bare.

Charity wasinturn appalled, delighted and curious at her foster parents’ lack of style. They had no interest in material things.Lou spent money on flowers for the house, Geoff collected books, but they never bought new clothes for themselves.

‘Shabby is comfortable,’ Lou had said more than onceand she would make Charity laugh with her

version of a quotation from the Bible, ‘Consider the Charleses of Clapham. They write books that nobody reads, they know things no one cares to share and King Solomon in all his glory had better clothes than they.’

‘We had a letter from your Uncle Stephen today,’ Auntie Lou said as her husband passed her tea. ‘He’s invited you for a holiday. How about it?’

Charity had noticed that Lou always fired out things that were troubling her. No hedging or dressing them up.

‘Do I have a choice?’ Charity asked.

‘Not really.’ Lou sighed and looked to her husband for support. ‘He’s your guardian, and I’m sure you are as curious about him as he must be about you.’

Charity was curious. She liked the thought of having rather grand relatives and she wanted to know more about her mother. But she was scared of them too.

‘I don’t have to stay if I don’t like it, do I?’ Her voice shook.

‘No of course not.’ Geoff reached out and patted her hand. ‘If you hate it, just phone us and we’ll make the excuses for you. But try to stick with it, sweetheart, think of it as abit of family research.’

‘When do I go?’ Charity was torn now between fright and excitement.

‘He suggested this Friday.’ Lou was leaning down pouring herself another cup of tea to avoid looking at Charity directly. ‘Geoff will put you on the train and they’ll pick you up at Oxford.’

‘I hope they like me, ’ Charity blurted out in a moment of pure panic.

‘There’s something wrong with them if they don’t,’ Uncle Geoff retorted. ‘Mind you, we’d better gloss up on some Kipling before you leave. Old soldiers usually go more for him than Elizabeth Browning.’

Lou and Geoff weren’t happy about Colonel Pennycuick becoming the children’s guardian, but there

was nothing they could do about it. Their first impressions of him as a crusty, bombastic man hadn’t changed. If anything they were even more wary of him. He spoke of the children like men under his command. There was no compassion for what they’d been through, or even real interest in their personalities.

Geoff had written a long impassioned letter explaining not only the need for stability in their future lives but the Charleses’ own desire to act as parents, even if it was decided that Prue and Toby should go away to school.

The Colonel’s reply had daunted them. His curious statement ‘as their legal guardian he had a duty to safeguard their future in the most cost-effective manner ’, left them wonderingifhethought his nieces and nephews were like furniture which had to be stored at the cheapest price.

Now he was demanding that Charity should visit him, and although Charity’s health and appearance had improved since her stay with the Charleses, neither of them felt she was ready to cope with further upset.

Charity’s heart was fluttering so wildly she thought she might faint.

At first it had been fun to be on a train alone. She had a magazine, a cake and some fruit. Every now and then she would look in the new handbag Auntie Lou had bought her, just the way grown-up women did. She had a pale pink lipstick in there, a comb, a clean handkerchief, her ticket and a purse full of money. There was even a small mirror in a felt pouch tucked in with photographs of the children.

But now she was almost there she was so scared she felt sick.

‘Next stop, love.’ The cheery guard opened the sliding door and reached up to swing her small case down from the luggage rack. ‘Have a good holiday!’

A rosy-faced woman smiled up at Charity as she made her way into the corridor.

‘Don’t look so scared,’ she said soothingly. ‘I bet they’re every bit as nervous as you.’

This lady had offered her tea from her flask and Charity had explained where she was going but the conversation had been halted when thelady dropped off to sleep.

Charity managed a tight smile and, case in hand, went to wait by the door.

She paused as she stepped down from the train into bright afternoon sunshine. Oxfordstation was tiny after the London ones, but there were dozens of people waiting to get on or meeting people. Uncle Geoff had sent a photograph of her to the Pennycuicks, but she had no idea who would be meeting her.

Movingout of the way of the train seemed the best idea. She pushed through the crowd and went over to amail trolley to wait.

There was a woman in a red hat who seemed to be looking for someone, but she was too young to be grandmother. There was an old lady with blue rinsed hair, but somehow she didn’t look right. There was an entire family meeting aman: his children were hugging his legs, clamouring over each other to get close while his wife kissed him passionately on the lips. They made her think of Geoff and Lou and already she was homesick.

Grit from the open train window seemed to be stuck in her eyes, her hands felt sticky and dirty and her hair had gone all limp since this morning. She wished she dared slip into the toilets to wash and brush up, but she was afraid to move.

‘Miss Charity?’

An elderly male voice made her wheel round sharply.

‘Hullo,’ she replied, startled by the rather formal ‘Miss’ being put before her name. ‘Are you Uncle Stephen?’

The man was old, perhaps seventy, with stooped shoulders and a long, thin, weatherbeaten face. It seemed odd that he was wearing a navy blue suit and a peaked cap.

‘Me!’ He laughed, showing crooked yellow teeth. ‘No, I’m Jackson.’

Charity looked puzzled, but Jackson picked up her case in one hand. ‘I’m the general dogsbody: today I’m your chauffeur,tomorrow gardener or handyman. I’d have known you, Miss Charity, even without getting a look-see at your picture. You’re the image of Miss Gwen when she was young.’

‘You knew my mother?’ Charity tried to stay by his side, but the crush of people kept separating them. Considering his age, bowed legs and stooped shoulders, he moved nimbly.

‘Right from alittle tot. Iwas with the brigadier, your grandfather, as his batman. Through the first war, right up to when he retired. Then I stayed on at Studley to help with the colonel when he lost his legs.’

Charity gulped. When they’d said her uncle was crippled in the war, she’d imagined nothing more than a limping man on sticks.

‘It makes him a bit grumpy sometimes, but his bark’s worse than his bite, if you know what I mean. Don’t you get upset now if he’s a bit sharp.’

That sounded ominously like a warning and she felt he’d moved on from her mother a bit fast too. She wasn’t sure whether to question him further in case she appeared too nosy.

Jackson led Charity to the old Daimler,smiling at the way her eyes widened in delight at the gleaming car.

‘It’s like my baby,’ he admitted, running his hand over the highly polished bonnet. ‘My wife thinks I care more about it than I do about her.’

Charity felt very small, sitting in the back of the car, sliding aroundonthe leatherseat. It made her

think of her parents’ funeral and she clutched her handbag tight to her stomach for comfort.

This morning she’d thought she looked really smart in her circular skirt, goosegirl blouse and short navy blue jacket, but now her skirt was crumpled, there was an orange juice stain on her blouse and her jacket was shedding balls of blue fluff. To her further horror there was a ladder in her new nylons. Whatever would her grandmother and uncle think of her?

‘These are all part of the university.’ Jackson half turned his head towards her, pointing towards majestic buildings on either side of a wide road.

Charity forgot her appearance and her anxiety for a moment.

‘It’s very beautiful,’ she said, awed now as she remembered Uncle Geoff speaking of punting on the river, splendid gardens and the halls being so different from one another. ‘Is my uncle’s house nearby?’

‘It’s right out in the country, love. But there’s a bus comes in, or maybe your grandmother will bring you in again to look around.’

Charity was distracted for amoment as they drove over a narrow humpbacked bridge. Weeping willows hung right over the river and at last she saw the punts Geoff had mentioned.

‘I never got the hang of that meself,’ Jackson chuckled. ‘Years ago I took a young lady out in one to impress her and I fell in. Made a real fool of meself.’

‘What’s my grandmother like?’ Charity asked, wriggling forward on the seat to get closer to Jackson. His friendly admission made her feel a little braver.

He didn’t answer for amoment and Charity found his need to think out a reply disconcerting.

‘She’s a real lady,’ he said eventually. ‘A game old girl. Since the brigadier died she seems to have aged quickly, but she’s still very active.’

They were out of the town now and driving down narrow country lanes. They passed through several

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Charity

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