The Rose Stone

by The Rose Stone (retail) (epub)

  In the cab going home Joss said, with no preamble, “Michael’s been sent down from university.”

  She looked at him blankly. “What do you mean?”

  “He can’t go back. He’s been expelled.”

  “Oh, no!” She waited. Joss said nothing. “Wh-what did he do?”

  Joss shrugged. “An unsavoury business involving a girl. The dean’s daughter, I believe.”

  “How bad?”

  “Very bad. The girl procured an abortion and very nearly died.”

  “God!”

  “They’re hushing it up, of course. But – obviously – he can’t go back. And no one else will take him.”

  Sudden anger stirred. “Of all the stupid, irresponsible, half-witted fools! What in God’s name is the matter with Michael? Is he never going to grow up? Doesn’t he ever think of anyone else but himself? Papa – What will this do to Papa? Has Michael even considered that? Hasn’t Papa enough to worry him without this?” She paused, then added firmly, “He’ll have to tell him. He can’t skulk in his room for the rest of his life.” It seemed all at once as if all the frustrations, all the self-contempt of the past months at her own weakness crystallized into a determination to face this, a real crisis, in a positive and constructive way. “It could kill him. Doesn’t Michael understand that?”

  Joss turned his head from her to look out into the dark, gaslit streets. “It won’t kill him.”

  So intent was she upon her own anger and concern she missed the oddly intense note in his voice. “It could! Oh, I could murder Michael myself!” She wriggled in her seat, the sleeping child clutched to her. “When is Michael going to tell him? Did he say?”

  “I don’t know. Some time soon, he said. He keeps putting it off”

  She sat suddenly bolt upright. “Well, he’s got a nasty shock coming. I’ll go and see him tomorrow. Both of them. I’ll make Michael tell Papa while I’m there. At least it might help a little.” For the first time in months she felt the stirring of real energy, of an interest outside her own four prisoning walls of a demanding child, depression and easy tears.

  He said nothing. But loudly as if he had spoken she knew his thoughts. The old Anna might have done such a thing. But the new one? She pressed her lips tightly together. Enough was enough. She could not – must not – be content to let the world move on without her. Her father needed her.

  The incident, unpleasant as it was, had a strangely efficacious effect upon Anna. That initial spurt of anger and energy carried her through the next couple of distressing days, and her presence did, as she hoped it might, help her father to face the fact of his youngest son’s disgrace so soon after the blow of James’s death. Michael she left in no doubt at all as to her opinion of his behaviour. He was, predictably, repentant and eager to make amends and accepted with a grateful humility that Anna suspected could not last long Joss’s suggestion that he start work with no time lost in the most menial of capacities in the offices of Rose and Company. The storm passed – but to Josef it was another calamitous stroke of bad fortune and one he found very hard to take.

  For Anna, however, the web of listlessness and depression that had bound her for the past months had been at last torn away and determinedly she set about ensuring that it should not enmesh her again.

  The new year that saw in also the new century was a troubled one for a country at war with the casualty lists inexplicably rising and as yet no good news to cheer the nation, yet still it was after all a once in a lifetime event, and there were many celebrations despite the gloomy war news. Anna’s resolution for the new year and for the new century was simple; she would get back to work, get back to life. She would find someone to help with the baby and she would – she must! – persuade Joss that now they were a family they needed a proper home. In this last she had in fact less difficulty than she had anticipated, for Joss, although still strangely loth to spend money, did not himself care for cramped living quarters when one of the occupants was a lively and noisy six-month-old. He was, however, adamant that they could afford nothing too big nor in a fashionable area. To Anna’s expressed surprise at their apparent lack of capital he replied shortly and to the point. Their financial affairs were his concern. He would make what decisions he felt necessary – and at this time, though he agreed that they needed a home, he refused to invest capital and buy one but agreed to rent a small house by the river not far from Kew Gardens, and with this for the time being Anna had to be content. At least it meant that the invaluable Mrs Lacey could remain with them and in addition she was able to employ a live-in maid to help with the baby and with the household chores. If she had hoped, however, that the move might encourage Joss to spend more time at home she was disappointed. Since the birth of the baby Joss had shown little or no interest in his wife – and Anna, to be strictly fair, accepted that in the circumstances the blame was not entirely his. She had let herself go. She had not bothered to buy new clothes, had become slipshod about her appearance. This too she became determined to change, and in this she was unexpectedly helped by a new acquaintance.

  Elizabeth Brown was the needlewoman whose work Anna had so admired at Hermione Smithson’s house before her. When finally they became acquainted, during the month of February when the tide of the South African war was turning at last in Britain’s favour as first Kimberley and then Ladysmith were relieved, this admiration was augmented by a genuine liking for the girl. She was a lively young woman with an infectious laugh and Anna thought her one of the most striking-looking people she had ever encountered. Her mass of dark hair she left loose, flying from her head in a vivid halo that framed a pale face in which greenish eyes were set wide apart above a mouth too generously wide for beauty. Her neck, however, was long and elegant, her skin alabaster white and fine. It was perhaps a strange rather than pretty face, but her constant flashing smile and animated expression lent to it an illusion of beauty. Her clothes, too, were out of the ordinary; not for Elizabeth the imprisonment of stays and corsets and tight bombazine. She dressed with a gypsy-like freedom, her skirt bright and gaily swirling, blouse and shawl wonderfully embroidered in jewel colours. The effect was truly arresting, and fascinated Anna, who felt beside her like a sparrow beside a bird of paradise. They met by arrangement at Hermione Smithson’s house, and though Beth made no secret of her initial scepticism that anything could possibly come of it, she brought with her some samples of her work. Anna was enchanted all over again.

  “Would you accept some commissions from me? If I drew what I wanted you to embroider?”

  The girl nibbled her lip doubtfully. “We-ell—”

  Anna whisked a stub of pencil from her small reticule, reached for an envelope that lay upon the table, “May I, Aunt Hermione?” Without waiting for reply she sketched swiftly upon the back. In a few flowing lines a winged insect appeared, wings poised as if for flight, “See – like that? Or—” the pencil moved again and a shadowed pattern of leaves and flowers with curled, fairy-like tendrils flowed about the letter ‘A’ “—like that?” She stopped, looking up into silence. The girl was staring at her. “Is something wrong?”

  Beth, as many people had discovered to their cost, was a girl of instant decision. “No, Mrs Anatov. Nothing’s wrong. I’d be delighted to accept your commissions.” She grinned her sudden, infectious smile. “I was obviously wrong. I thought you’d want me to embroider ‘Mother’ wreathed with violets.” The significance of the remark did not at that moment strike Anna, absorbed as she was. “Wonderful! You must come to the house. Tomorrow. Could you come tomorrow?”

  Beth Brown stood up, laughing. “Lordy, Mrs Anatov, give a girl a chance to catch her breath—”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just so excited – so keen to start. I can see so many things we could do together. Marvellous things. And, please – call me Anna, won’t you?”

  The other girl smiled. “I can’t manage tomorrow, I’m afraid – Anna – I do have a living to earn you know. The next day, though – would that do?�
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  “Perfect. I’ll have some ideas ready by then. And I’ll get together a few pieces so that you can see some of the work I’ve done.”

  Anna could not remember being so excited or so stimulated for a very long time. In the cab going home, her fingers itched for a pencil. Light glittered on the river and in her mind’s eye she saw the glimmer of silver and the gleam of gold. When she reached Kew the house was empty but for Mrs Lacey, who sang amongst the clattering pots of the kitchen. Anna took off her hat and coat then, as she was turning from the full-length mirror stopped suddenly and turned back, her swiftly busy movements slowing. For the first time in months she really looked at her own reflection, studying herself from the crown of her unflatteringly scraped-back hair through her drab and conventional clothes to her scuffed, dull boots. For the first time the significance of Beth’s remark about the kind of work she had expected to be asked to do struck her. She stood still for a long time, studying the dowdy figure of the stranger in the mirror. Beside that image she saw Beth, stylishly flamboyant, striking. With sudden impatient movements she put her hands to her hair, pulling out the pins and shaking her head sharply. Her light brown hair tumbled into her eyes and down on to her shoulders. She fluffed it out, coiled it more softly and becomingly at the nape of her neck. She leaned to the mirror, pinched her pale cheeks hard and watched the flush of colour that brightened her eyes and shaped her face. Beside her stood a small table with its peacock-shaded fringed tablecloth almost touching the floor, upon which rested a small vase of flowers. On impulse she plucked a flower from the vase and tucked it into her hair, then, smiling at her own absurdity, pulled the tablecloth from the table and draped it dashingly about her shoulders. The effect was startling. The uninteresting figure in the mirror was all at once a gypsy. Anna lifted her chin, set her head at a haughty angle. Nothing would ever make her beautiful – but then Beth Brown was not beautiful in the true sense of the word. Suddenly she remembered a sunny room, the sound of the sea, two decorated boxes, a birthday dinner. What had Tanya – beautiful Tanya – said that day? “How lovely your eyes are. And how fine and straight your mouth.” She studied herself with narrowed, critical eyes. Her face was a good, interesting shape – she had her father’s high, Slavic cheekbones and her mother’s short well-shaped nose. If her colouring were a little nondescript, and her mouth a little thin? That same mouth set in a familiar determined line. She did not have to look plain. Dowdy. Dull. And facing herself now, fairly and squarely, she had to admit that these were the words that came quickest to mind. What had she been doing all these months? No wonder Joss had barely looked at her since Victoria’s birth.

  Spring was coming. The dead earth, the bare, stark trees would soon be dressed for lovely summer. And so, she resolved, would she. Perhaps Beth would help her. She hoped so. For Beth obviously had a secret, and Anna, here and now, decided she would discover what it was.

  Beth Brown’s secret, as it happened, was called Arabella Dawson. Anna met her a couple of months later in Beth’s slap-happily cluttered and overcrowded little room in Bloomsbury, from whose windows stretched an unbroken vista of roofs, chimneys and spires. By the time she actually met Arabella Anna was well used to this muddle of a room where there was never a clear square inch in which to sit that was not covered in material, patterns, clothes, embroidery silks or one of Beth’s stray cats. In those two months the girls had grown very fond of each other and Anna had discovered almost for the first time the joys of fast friendship with a member of her own sex. Their relationship was based in the first instance on mutual admiration for each other’s work. Anna had already recognized Beth’s mastery – Beth had been thunderstruck at Anna’s craftsmanship.

  “But – Anna! You must exhibit with us! You can’t just sell this stuff! It’s marvellous! How come I’ve never heard of you?”

  “Heard of me?” Anna laughed, self-consciously, “Why should you have heard of me?”

  “Have you never thought of exhibiting?”

  Anna shook her head.

  “Well, we’ll soon change that. Our – that is the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society’s – next shindig is in the summer. I’ll eat my hat, and yours too, if you aren’t in it.”

  “But—” Anna stopped.

  “But what?” The other girl looked sharply at her.

  “I’m not sure if – well, my husband, my father – they might not think it right.”

  Beth straightened, on her face a look of almost comic disbelief. “Are you joking?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Then let’s have no more of that. You’re a grown woman and this is the twentieth century, not the tenth. We’ll do something together, perhaps. We’ve a few months before we have to submit it.”

  “Submit it?” Anna’s voice was a little faint.

  Beth giggled. “Do you know you’ve taken to repeating everything I say? Of course submit it. They don’t take just anything, you know. The Exhibition is the equivalent of—” she spread eloquent hands “—of being hung in the Royal Academy.”

  “Have you been accepted before?”

  Beth waved an airy hand. “Once or twice. Now – what about colours for the Unicorn Box? I thought silver thread at first, but I’m not sure now—”

  Anna was instantly absorbed. “Oh, no. Too sharp, I think, with mother of pearl. I had more in mind an oyster colour—”

  Both Joss and Josef showed real interest in the new designs Anna was producing together with Beth. The girl’s exquisitely embroidered miniatures in Anna’s settings made unusual and beautiful jewellery – brooches, lockets, bracelets, even finger and earrings. Her work was set into panels for boxes and other ornaments. She worked decorated monograms and name-brooches.

  “Perhaps we should retain her?” Joss suggested soon after his first meeting with the dark-haired and eccentrically impressive Miss Brown.

  Anna shook her head. “She wouldn’t. I’ve already asked. She won’t tie herself down to working for one person, no matter how much we offered her. She likes things the way they are.”

  But if Beth’s free spirit could not be bought with money, her friendship was given freely and without stint. She it was who suggested one day when Anna shyly asked her advice about buying some new clothes that Anna might like to be introduced to Arabella Dawson. “If she wants to she’ll do wonders for you. Mind you if she doesn’t like you you’ll get nothing from her. You think I’m independent?” Beth rolled her eyes. “Friend Arabella is out on her own. She had a husband once. Just upped and walked out on him. Now she’s involved with the Suffragist movement – the Pankhursts and all, you know? She’ll lecture you till you’re blue.”

  “What exactly does she do?”

  Beth shrugged and grinned. “Exactly what she likes. But when she isn’t heckling politicians or holding meetings she is – mainly – a stage designer. She dresses a few people privately as well – I often make the clothes up – but mostly it’s stage stuff. Ballet, opera—”

  “How fascinating!”

  “It would be if she’d give herself half a chance!” Beth bit through a thread, grimaced. “She’s brilliant. But she’s an idiot. If it comes to a choice between a paying job and addressing half a dozen down-at-heel mill girls in Manchester, the mill girls win every time. And you can only let people down just so often. Arabella has—” she pulled a funny, wry face “—a very strong mind.”

  Anna laughed with her, a little nervously. “Then perhaps we’d better not bother? I can’t see someone like that wanting anything to do with me.”

  Beth put down the work she was holding and straightened, her face serious. “Anna, Anna, Anna!”

  Anna said nothing.

  “You really do need taking in hand, don’t you?” Beth said. And she still was not smiling.

  * * *

  “Stand still.” Arabella Dawson’s every word was brusque. She was tall, thin, angular, her features sharp and uncompromising. Yet her presence was undeniable, her poise and style something tha
t Anna could only helplessly admire. She did as she was bid and stood still. A bony finger lifted her chin roughly. Blue, piercing eyes studied her face dispassionately. She felt blood rising in her cheeks.

  “Yes. That’s what you need. A bit of colour. Turn round.”

  Bemused, half-resentful, Anna turned. Beth was sitting cross-legged upon the bed, a cat in her lap, her laughter stifled and her eyes hilarious.

  “You aren’t standing up straight. Here.” Arabella grabbed a heavy book and balanced it on the astonished Anna’s head. “Walk to the door and back. Right. And again. Can’t you feel it? You’re two full inches taller. Can’t abide a woman who creeps around like a mouse. Beth – where’s that blue?”

  “Behind you.”

  Arabella turned, picked up the bolt of blue silk, unrolled it with a smooth, flamboyant gesture so that it glimmered like sapphires in the light. She lifted it, looked consideringly at poor Anna who still stood embarrassedly with the book poised precariously upon her head. “Sit down,” ordered Arabella.

  Anna put a hand up to take the book from her head. “No, no, no! Book and all. Sit down. That’s it. Can’t you feel the difference? The world, my dear, is out there—” she swept an arm, almost knocking a cup and saucer from the table “—if you want to see it, and more importantly if you would have it see you – you have to keep your head up!”

  Anna all at once had had enough of being spoken to like a recalcitrant child. “Yes,” she said, “I expect you’re right,” and composedly and determinedly took the book off her head. Unexpectedly she caught a gleam of amusement in the other woman’s eye; and she was aware that despite her feeble gesture of defiance her back had remained straight and her chin up. She laughed.

  Arabella smiled a spare, satisfied smile. “Blue and green,” she said. “Let’s see what we can do with that.”