The Rose Stone

by The Rose Stone (retail) (epub)

  “No! That’s not fair. You’re always Gordon! I want to be him. You be the Mahdi for a change.”

  Ralph, without lifting his eyes from the page, put his fingers in his ears.

  “Don’t be daft! Gordon gets killed, doesn’t he?”

  “Well, then, why do you want to be him all the time?” asked the younger James smartly and with a belligerence that presaged another storm.

  Anna slipped from Josef’s lap, took his hand. “They’re going to start fighting again. Come in the other room. Tell me a story—”

  “Anna, my dear, your father’s expecting me—”

  “Please.” Her face was woebegone, her lower lip wobbled, though she tried to hide it. He sighed. Ever since he had arrived this little one had followed him like a small puppy – why, he could not imagine. Somehow he had fallen into the unexpected habit of telling her the folk tales of his own childhood, that he had thought long forgotten.

  “Please,” she said again, and in conscience he could do nothing but comply. They went into the night nursery. She towed him to the chair by the fire and climbed on to his lap.

  “Which story would you like?”

  “Ivan the Ninny,” she said at once.

  He put a hand to his head in mock despair. “Anna, Anna! I’ve told you that a thousand times at least!”

  “Oh, please. It’s my very favourite.” She cuddled into his shoulder. Josef held her awkwardly. He cleared his throat. She lifted her head.

  “Joss?” Her voice was very small.

  “Mmm?”

  “It is all right? Mama, I mean – and the baby?”

  What else to say? “Of course. Quite all right. You’ll see. Now – I can’t remember – how does this wretched story start?”

  She settled herself back against his shoulder, closed her eyes. “Once,” she said, her voice softly sing-song, “long ago in the Northern Steppes, where the wind blows a thousand miles before it greets a tree—”

  * * *

  Joss, as he himself had more than suspected, was wrong. It was not all right. For twenty-four hours the household waited in tense and worried silence as Grace struggled to give birth to a tiny scrap of humanity over whose chances of survival when she did finally fight her way into the world the doctor shook a solemn head. On his advice a priest was called and on that bitterly cold late February day Margaret Jane Rose, named for Grace’s mother, was baptized by the bedside of her desperately weakened mother. Deep anxiety for mother and child made the next few weeks a nightmare. The whole house went on tiptoe, its thoughts and activities centred around the stuffy, darkened room on the first floor where Grace lay victim of childbed fever, and the small room on the next floor where the daughter she had brought so painfully into the world struggled for life. A wet nurse was brought in, a large, lugubrious woman who, like the doctor, shook her head knowingly over her small charge. Winter’s grip loosened, the first pale haze of life appeared upon the trees in the park, strong spears of green pushed through the grass in Kensington Gardens as spring worked her yearly miracle and the first flowers reached for the light – and though Grace, at last, began to recover some of her strength, the baby still ailed.

  One who, to her own guilty dismay, could not find it in her heart much to care about that was Anna. Her first reaction to the much longed-for baby sister had been anti-climactic disappointment. Here was not the playmate that she had imagined but a sickly, ugly, pale-faced scrap smaller than the doll that the Smithsons had given her, that did nothing but whimper, sleep and – worst of all – take up everyone’s time and attention. For the first time in her life Anna felt totally left out. Her father, her grandmother, even Tanya – none of them seemed to have time for her any more. Anna knew, too, that in some mysterious way her mother’s illness was connected with the arrival of Margaret Jane, which increased her resentment and antipathy towards the new arrival tenfold. The sight of her mother – a fragile, pallid face upon a vast white pillow, shadowed eyes, small, claw-like hands – horrified her. And it was the baby’s fault. She knew it was. Each night, on her knees by her bed in the night nursery, she prayed to Jesus aloud under the stern eyes of Nanny Brown for the recovery of both invalids; privately she indicated her willingness to strike a bargain – if He had to take one of them, then He could take the baby and welcome. If He would just let Mama get well and let things go back the way they used to be she, Anna, would never do another naughty thing as long as she lived.

  It seemed, however, that it was to her public rather than her private prayers that He listened. First Grace’s health improved, then, gradually, the baby’s. But to Anna’s bewilderment and deep disappointment life still did not revert to its former happy pattern. For although her mother, once on the road to recovery, regained a good deal of her strength with a speed that was remarkable to anyone who was not familiar with the iron will that resided within Grace Rose’s rather frail-looking frame, her absorption with the new baby was such that as spring turned to summer and the blossom drifted to the ground like snow, her other children saw little of her. Her own crisis over, Grace became obsessed by the need to ensure her child’s survival. Everything else became subordinate to that as, over everyone’s protests, she took personal charge of the nursery and exerted every ounce of her own hard-won strength to that end.

  By that time Anna truly hated the baby. She tried not to, prayed that she would not, was haunted by the visions of hell that Nanny Brown was in the habit of painting with relish when she spoke of what awaited naughty children when they died. And Anna knew that the way she felt about Margaret Jane was more than naughty; it was truly wicked. But she could not help it. There seemed to be no one to turn to – the boys seemed not in the least affected by the changed circumstances – they went their private, noisy, cheerfully quarrelsome ways and seemed to notice nothing. Bereft and miserable with that self-centred misery of childhood that can see no end to unhappiness, rebellious at what she saw as an undeserved and unlooked-for rejection, made wretched by the savage pangs of jealousy and lonely by her own sullen touchiness, Anna became naughty, slipshod in her lessons, quarrelsome with her brothers, unbiddable in the nursery – where the fierce-tempered and autocratic Nanny Brown was inevitably more than a match for her. All of which simply served to make a miserable situation worse.

  “Really, Anna, I don’t know what’s got into you! I wouldn’t claim that you were ever the best-behaved child in the world, but lately – Go to your bed at once and wait till your father comes home!”

  Supperless again, Anna would crawl into her narrow bed and sob herself to sleep, comfortless and – as she saw it – loveless. Practical and usually level-headed, Grace, strung to breaking point by the knowledge that the baby, though holding her own, was not improving as she should, punished the child in the way of the times, harshly. The strap and the cane were considered the only remedy for a badly behaved child and Anna received both in good measure. She did not know, then or ever, of the tears her mother shed after these painful sessions. She only knew that her world had turned upside down and she was wretchedly unhappy. And it was all the awful baby’s fault.

  It seemed to Anna that only Josef – now known universally by Anna’s pet name of Joss – had not changed towards her. Joss, indeed, would certainly have been surprised had he known how largely he figured in his young foster sister’s life. In truth he saw little of her, for he was now utterly absorbed in his new life, and the problems of a child were none of his concern. He, together with Boris, was working for Josef, and – unlike Boris – he was passionately enjoying it. Josef had planned a kind of apprenticeship for both of them, so that the two young men should learn every facet of the business, from the running of the workshops to the management and finances of the business. It was this last that fascinated Joss. Considering his lack of formal education, he had an astonishing head for figures, although his reading was and always would be hesitant at best – and though, to Josef’s exasperated amusement he could not tell diamond from paste and was not parti
cularly interested in learning to do so, the possibilities of the trade, the sums involved and the opportunities for investment and profit absorbed and excited him. So it was that his involvement with Anna’s problems was slight – but, because he quite liked the child, odd little thing that she was, with her straight, wispy hair and plain, solemn little face, when he did see her he was casually kind, an attitude which, perhaps understandably in the circumstances, brought in return from Anna a devotion that would have astonished him had he suspected it. In fact only three people in the world really meant anything to Josef Anatov – his graceless little devil of a brother whom he had shepherded and fiercely protected through their dangerous youth, his newly discovered sister Tanya, whom he considered to be the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and Josef, who had saved her and who now offered a new life to her brothers. Joss’s life had not been one to encourage open-heartedness or easy, loving relationships. Lessons hard-learned in a bitter school were not easily forgotten. And so he had little or no understanding for Anna – though for her the day was lightened if he so much as smiled at her.

  “I’m going to be like Ivan the Ninny,” she told him one day, very seriously. “I’ll go away, and I’ll do something very clever – and everyone will be very sad because I’ve gone, but then I’ll come back, rich, and—”

  He grinned. “Ivan married a princess. Will you come back married to a handsome prince?”

  She glanced at him sideways. She had her own very private ideas about handsome princes. “Perhaps.”

  Joss had picked up the piece of paper upon which Anna had been drawing – the only activity lately that she still seemed truly to enjoy. “Why Anna – how very pretty.” A dragonfly swooped across the page, wings exaggeratedly long and body tapering to a graceful, curling curve. Beneath it was a spray of leaves, inaccurate in detail but delicately drawn.

  Anna flushed and took the paper from him. “Miss Spencer says I draw very badly. She says I don’t draw things the way they are.” Miss Spencer came to teach the young Roses each morning in the school room above the nursery.

  “Does that matter?”

  “Miss Spencer says it does. So does Nanny.”

  Her tone reached even his insensitive ear. “Ah. Then I suppose it does, eh?”

  She nodded.

  “Well,” he said abstractedly, gathering his papers, “I like it. You can tell your Miss Spencer that, eh.” He laughed, totally oblivious to the devotion in her eyes.

  * * *

  It was less than a month to Anna’s ninth birthday. No one this year talked of a party – her parents were too occupied with the still-ailing baby and, “Only good little girls have parties,” Nanny Brown informed the child, sanctimoniously. “Naughty little girls don’t deserve birthdays at all. What’s this, Miss?” – with smugness in her tone as she turned smartly and caught Anna with her tongue out, “asking for another hiding, are we? I’ll have something to tell your Mama when she comes up this afternoon. As usual.” Nanny Brown was that product of an age that provided little employment for its women outside domestic service or slave-labour in a sweatshop or factory, a child-minder who did not particularly care for children.

  In her strongly held opinion they should be seen and not heard, kept clean, quiet and out of the way, taught their manners and their A.B.C., their wilder natural instincts kept firmly under control by threat, intimidation or physical punishment. She had come highly recommended from a minister’s family – the Reverend Mr Bassett having assured her future employer of her absolute competence in all matters appertaining to the care and discipline of children. She had been taken on as the family had arrived at the new house, and Grace – pregnant and then ill – had been only too pleased to leave the running of the nursery in her obviously capable hands. Needless to say, the opinion of the children of the house was never consulted. They, with one accord, all detested her, a fact that, had Grace known of it, might have given her pause for thought. Anna was a sore disappointment to Nanny Brown. She never expected much from little boys – ill-mannered little savages that they were bound by their sex to be, but girls, ah, girls were different. Or should be. Anna should have been the pride of the nursery – Nanny’s pet, demure, well-mannered, pretty, a credit to Molly Brown’s loveless dedication to her position. Instead the child was a constant source of irritation – untidy, plain, ill-mannered, disobedient. In Molly Brown’s opinion her father and mother were far too lenient with her. Punishment made the child – the beatings that this one did receive were in no way severe enough. Why, the Bassett girls, good dear little lambs that they were, had meekly submitted to a beating regularly each Sunday morning before church, in case any unadmitted or forgotten weekday sin might be besmirching their pure little souls. That was the way to subdue a child’s spirit properly. Anna, Nanny considered, got away with murder with her indulgent mother and father. But not in the nursery – oh, no, Molly Brown made sure of that.

  The battle was a ferocious one, and one that poor Anna had no hope at all of winning.

  Three days before her ninth birthday Anna awoke feeling even more miserable than usual. Her head felt like lead and her nose was running. She snapped at James over breakfast and was reprimanded for it, burst into tears when Trudy, in a hurry as usual, tugged too hard at her hair as she was attempting to tidy it, could not concentrate upon her seven times table and had her knuckles painfully rapped by an exasperated Miss Spencer. Lunch – eaten in the nursery with Nanny and Trudy – brought no respite. Half-way through the unappetizing meal – Nanny having very firm views upon the diet suitable for growing children – her nose began to run again. She felt in her pinafore pocket for her handkerchief.

  It was not there.

  She sniffed surreptitiously, frantically searching her sleeve, but of the missing handkerchief there was no sign.

  She sniffed again, loudly in the silence. Alex looked up, nudged Ralph who was sitting next to him, and suppressed a forbidden giggle.

  At the end of the table Nanny did not lift her head but applied herself to the mountain of food upon her plate.

  In desperation Anna sniffed again and dashed the back of her hand across her face. Alex’s shoulders heaved. He was scarlet with the effort not to laugh aloud, something absolutely forbidden at the nursery table. Trudy looked at Anna, frowned ferocious warning, jerked her head towards Nanny.

  Anna had no choice. She sniffed again.

  The table held its breath. Eyes flickered from one face to another. Very slowly Nanny lifted her head. She was a large woman with a florid complexion and fierce eyebrows. She fixed Anna with a withering eye.

  “Anna. Your handkerchief.”

  “I – can’t find it, Nanny.”

  This disturbing news was greeted by a moment’s heavy silence. Anna was scarlet with mortification as, with all eyes upon her, her nose began to run again, and lifted a hand to her face.

  “No! How dare you! Dirty child!” The hand was slapped sharply away. The tears that rose to the child’s eyes made her predicament worse.

  “Here. Come here.” A stubby finger pointed to a spot beside Nanny’s chair.

  Anna obediently did as she was bid, leaving her chair and moving to stand, eyes downcast, beside her tormentor. “Please,” she said softly, hating herself for begging so abjectly, “please, Nanny, may I go and look for my handkerchief?” As she spoke she could taste the mucus on her lips. She shuddered, her stomach churning.

  “You had a handkerchief, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “This morning?”

  “Yes.” The word was whispered.

  “Then,” Nanny spread blunt, elaborately surprised hands, “where is it?”

  “I – don’t know.” Anna was desperate. She felt hot and her head ached terribly. The tears ran unchecked. Even Alex, suddenly, looked away. “I think—”

  The woman did not allow her to finish. “I see. And do you believe that your good Papa goes to work each day in order to buy things for you that you may simply go out a
nd lose them?”

  “Nanny, please—”

  “Do you?”

  “No! No, of course not. I had the hanky. I had it upstairs in the schoolroom. My nose was running. I must have left it up there.”

  “Your nose?” Nanny smirked, heavily, sarcastic, “Oh no, Miss. I’m afraid that your nasty nose is very much here with us.”

  “My handkerchief,” Anna said wretchedly. “I must have left it there. Please – may I go and look?”

  There was another moment’s oppressive silence. Then, “No. You may not,” Nanny said. “You know the nursery rules. No one leaves the table until all are finished.”

  “But—”

  “No. Return to your place and finish your lunch.”

  Anna trailed back to her chair. Picked up her spoon. Her steamed fish had got cold, the lumpy mashed potatoes were unappetizing. She swallowed. Her stomach churned.

  “What now?” asked the harsh voice from the other end of the table.

  “I don’t feel very well.”

  Nanny appeared to consider this. “Is that so?”

  Anna nodded, not looking up.

  “Perhaps a good dose of syrup of figs is called for?”

  Anna flinched.

  “Well?”

  Anna, in great discomfort, ate her lunch.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, alone and miserable, she wandered the garden. Finding herself in her favourite spot by the pond she sat down, rested her chin gloomily upon her knees. She felt wretched and lonely. No one cared. No one.

  In the distance she heard the others playing. She huddled herself smaller. Who wanted to play with them anyway?

  Close to her hand a small spider scurried across the blades of grass. Lucky spider. Lucky thing. You don’t have a Nanny. Or a mother who doesn’t love you any more—

  Self-pitying tears burned her eyes. She’d run away. Then they’d be sorry. She’d run away, and they’d think she was dead. Perhaps she would die – how they’d all cry then. They’d like her better than the beastly baby then. They’d at least notice what she’d done.