Free Charity by Lesley Pearse

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    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 the lady 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. Oxford station 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.
    Moving out of the way of the train seemed the best idea. She pushed through the crowd and went over to a mail 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 a man: 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 a little tot. I was 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