Rosie of the River

by Catherine Cookson

  Gone was the façade. It was as if the wind had whipped Rosie naked, for she simply leaped at her tormentor and brought her hand with a crashing slap across the side of her tall opponent’s face. But when her hair was grabbed in both hands and as she felt it being torn from her head she let out a scream; then bringing her knee up, well under her opponent’s short hockey skirt, she caused that young lady’s hands to loosen from her hair and grip her stomach. Then Miss Fordstone-Grey found herself gripped by the collar of her sports shirt and being swung round. When the toe of Miss Rosina Stevenson’s hockey boot seemed to embed itself in her nether quarters, she leaped clumsily into a shallow ditch bordering the playing field.

  The commotion had brought teachers and pupils from other parts of the field, and one of the teachers was demanding an explanation. ‘You what?’ she shouted at Rosie, who answered quite plainly for everyone to hear: ‘I kicked her in the arse, and I’ve been wanting to do that for some time because I’m sick and tired of her innuendoes and insults. I’m not putting up with it any more from her or from anyone else.’ The result was that she was immediately ordered to make herself ready for a visit to the Headmistress.

  As she said to Fred and Sally, she felt it was to be the end of her days there, but she wasn’t sorry: she knew she was capable of going out into the world now and finding a job. Yet she also knew she wasn’t quite ready: she wanted to get more languages into her head, as many as were needed to be an interpreter. An interpreter she meant to be, and Miss Barrington, too, acknowledged she was indeed cut out to be one.

  Poor Rosie, the Carpenters thought. But they still laughed at the thought of her kicking the so-called lady in the hindquarters and not moderating her explanation to the teacher. There must have been an uproar in the school that day!

  When later she was called before the head and her deputy, also seated in the office were the French teacher, the history teacher and the games instructor.

  Rosie of the River was still very much to the fore as she stood in front of these five ladies and was asked to explain the meaning of her behaviour towards another pupil, and at least Miss Clarke herself was not surprised at the simple and straightforward reply: ‘I’d stood enough,’ Rosie had said. ‘I never passed her or her cronies without some jibe being thrown at me, though I never replied for I remembered my first training under Miss Barrington. She would have said, “Just that will puzzle them more than anything.” It has been difficult advice to take, but I’ve taken it up till today.’

  ‘And what caused you to change your attitude today?’ demanded Miss Clarke.’

  ‘Because she said that the policy of this school had changed. At one time only those out of the top drawer were taken in. That was too much of a quip for me to resist, and I replied that it was a pity they were making so many reproductions now, or words to that effect.’

  ‘I swear Miss Clarke gave a sort of hiccup and cough to hide a spurt of laughter. So I went on and told them exactly what Miss Constance Victoria Fordstone-Grey said about my parents, and about Miss Barrington having, as she said, to drag me from the gutter; that she even had to teach me how to speak in English before I was allowed here.’

  Apparently, here Rosie had choked before she could add, ‘She said that no wonder my mother was a murderess and doing ten years because she tried to kill her husband as he, a dirty old man, had been living with a mistress, and it all had been headlines. I—I couldn’t stand that. Now could I? It was too much, and so I let blaze…You all know the rest.

  ‘After much more palaver,’ she continued, ‘Miss Clarke broke in, saying stiffly now, “We’ve heard enough. Go to your room, Rosina. We shall call you later.’’’

  And it wasn’t until some time later, in fact the following day, that Rosie knew that her two friends and the five friends of the injured person so-called were summoned to appear before the same committee of ladies. Rosie’s two friends gave their version of what had transpired word for word, only adding that they were surprised that Rosie had done what she did because she had put up with Miss Constance Victoria Fordstone-Grey’s taunting for a long time. Two of the other five girls had quite a different version. It was said that Rosina Stevenson would always aggravate a situation with her quips. The other three girls, however, admitted that it wasn’t until Constance had spoken of Rosie’s mother being a murderess and her father a dirty old man that Rosina retaliated angrily.

  After the girls were dismissed it would appear that the French mistress was in favour of overlooking the whole thing, as was the deputy head, but the games mistress was for Rosina being expelled, and added that the art mistress and the music mistress and others, if asked their opinion, would agree with her. To this Miss Clarke had replied that she wasn’t asking for the opinions of other teachers.

  It was twelve hours later, after a conference between Miss Barrington and Miss Clarke, that Rosie was called into the Head’s office again.

  The Head was alone now. She did not tell Rosie to sit down but she spoke to her plainly, as Rosie herself would have spoken, and she said, ‘The decision is that you may stay on at this school. I have known from the first that you are highly intelligent and that you might make an excellent scholar. I also know that a leopard never changes its spots; and here the only thing we hope to do is to cover them over. The same expression you yourself once used to me: it was hiding oneself under a façade. You have done this, and I will say very well too; but now it’s up to you whether you are to finish here or not. In any case, you will now be moved into a different dormitory, of three only. It will come under the care of Miss Weir.’

  Rosie was highly relieved that the outcome was no worse than this. Miss Weir, she already knew, was a very strict disciplinarian. When she said lights out, no repeat order was ever required. And this, Rosie ruefully admitted to herself, could only be to her benefit in her final year at the school.

  Chapter Nine

  It must have been towards the end of the fifties when Fred and Sally were in the wood one day trying to prise up the roots of an old willow tree. With the increasing success of Eve, they had been able finally to give up the unequal struggle to go on trying to live in Aunt Grace’s house in comfort, and had sold it to a couple from Basingstoke who wanted to turn it into a guest house. Their new home, Fairmile, was close by, on a road leading up to a wood. It was a charming house, but it only had a small garden, so piece by piece, when they could afford it, they had bought part of the wood that adjoined it. It was overgrown with old trees and stumps of others cut down for firewood during the war and would take several years to create the garden they dreamed of, but here they were, making a start.

  Fred had dug deep all round the old roots and cut through them, leaving the main stump for Sally to bend back and forward in an attempt to loosen it. Twice, thinking they heard a call, they stopped. The third time, they looked at each other, then Fred jumped out of the hole and followed his wife to the edge of the wood and within sight of the house. There stood a young lady, calling, ‘Where are my papa and mama?’

  ‘They both shouted, ‘Rosie! Rosie!’ Then the three of them were enfolded in each other’s arms. ‘Why didn’t you let us know?’ Sally cried. ‘Just look at us!’

  ‘Yes, I am; I’m looking at you, and you’re wonderful.’ Rosie kissed her for the second or third time. ‘And look at my dear papa; he’s in a mess. Why must you work like this?’

  ‘Why don’t you shut up and let us get inside?’ answered Fred, with a grin from ear to ear.

  An hour later they were sitting round the fire in the drawing room and she was exclaiming yet again what a lovely house this was, quite different from the old one, so beautifully built and proportioned. They had to confess that they still hadn’t got around to installing central heating, any more than they had at the previous house, but they had an Aga in the kitchen, and that was wonderful. And so it went on all during tea, and long after.

  Rosie told them about the loss of her granny, and about her father gradually letting go of wo
rk and handing everything over to Philip, who was a marvellous manager. ‘And what d’you think?’ she put in at one point, ‘He, I mean Philip, goes to Miss Barrington for language lessons. He’s studying both French and German. He wants to go over to Europe and see for himself how trade goes on in his business there and to make contacts. He certainly has a business head on his shoulders, has Phil, but fancy him going to old Briggy for language lessons, just as I did. But from what she tells me I’m afraid he finds it a little more difficult. I’ve been lucky, she’s always reminding me, lucky with having a good memory. And guess where I’m going next?’

  ‘Germany?’ said Fred.

  ‘No. Belgium, Brussels, the embassy there. I’m to be a first assistant and interpreter to—’ She now stopped and slapped her own cheek, saying, ‘Remember what you’re told, woman: no names! So all I’m going to say to you, dear Papa, is I’ve been employed as interpreter to a certain gentleman of high standing, and I was the chosen one of nine.’ Then turning back to Sally, she said, in her old voice, ‘You could’ve knocked me down with a sledgehammer. You could, Mrs C, you could. I felt, although it would be promotion, it would be a cushy job. But it’ll be no cushy job, for it really is a big step forward. I shall meet some of the mighty of the day. Oh, you wouldn’t believe it! Yes, I have already met quite a few people like that, but from a back seat as it were. Now I’m in the front stalls and this is where I wanted to be. The next place will be the stage.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with an opinion of yourself, is there, Miss Rosie of the River?’

  ‘No, sir; not a thing wrong about that. I knew where I was going, at least have known where I wanted to go, from the beginning. I thought I’d been educated at that school. You’re never educated until you get out into the world and you meet these people, these so-called high-ups. Oh, how glad I am that Rosie Stevenson is still underneath: I can pick them out while they are smiling and shaking hands and bowing. Oh, yes, there are lots of people you have to bow to, and occasionally a few you’ve got to curtsy to. Would you believe that, Mrs C?’

  ‘Anything you say I’ll believe, Rosie, anything. Oh, and you look marvellous, wonderful. You look so…well…like…what can I say?’

  ‘An upstart?’

  ‘No, never that.’ Fred was shaking his head, and his wife with him.

  Then Sally said, ‘The only way I can put it, you look like some distinguished gentleman’s lady wife. I can see you standing at the foot of the stairs receiving the guests.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs C!’ Rosie started to laugh and it was a cracked laugh. ‘You won’t believe this, but I had to stand in for someone who had been taken ill, and that’s exactly what I had to do, stand at the foot of the stairs and welcome the guests. I got a new dress specially.’

  They all laughed now, but stopped when, looking at Fred, she said, ‘It’s funny, Mr C, but in jobs like these I have found that men are afraid of each other. Women aren’t so much, no. But what am I thinking about? They’re mostly being kept by the men who, probably, they keep pushing from behind. Oh, yes, they do; in many cases it’s evident. And you know’—she looked from one to the other of them—‘at times I’m glad I was brought up as I was because then, being pushed aside as if I were nothing, I had time to look at people, to study them, and it helps me now.

  ‘Anyway, enough about me. What about you, Mrs C? You’re looking very elegant these days.’

  Sally felt that in comparison to the glittering world which from now on would be the backcloth to Rosie’s life, her own success with Eve was a modest affair. Nevertheless, she was proud of it, and was able to make Rosie laugh with her stories about some of the mishaps that had befallen her on her early buying trips to London, and her comments on the fashion world which she now felt herself to be a part of.

  ‘There’s another thing, or person, we’ve never spoken about,’ said Rosie, after a pause in the conversation. ‘I know, because I keep putting my hand out and wanting to stroke his head. He must have been a great loss.’

  Fred and Sally looked at each other; then they both smiled at her. ‘We can talk about him now, dear,’ Sally said. ‘We couldn’t at one time; he was like our first child. We mourn him more than we shall any relative who is likely to die.’

  ‘Are you thinking about getting another?’ Rosie asked quietly.

  ‘Yes; we are thinking about having a labrador. But it’s not going to be easy.’

  Being a sensitive creature, Rosie must have noticed the sadness that had come upon them both for she suddenly turned about and beat the back of the sofa as she cried, ‘Fancy me forgetting to tell you this bit of news!’

  ‘What bit of news?’ said Fred, now interested.

  ‘Who d’you think I saw just this last week?’

  ‘Well, we’ll never know unless you tell us; we don’t move in your world, do we?’ Sally said.

  ‘Do you remember Pontoon Mouth?’

  ‘Remember Pontoon Mouth? Of course we remember Pontoon Mouth, or Whalemouth as you called him. What’s happened to him?’

  ‘Oh, what hasn’t happened to him? Did you know he got married?’

  ‘No, we didn’t. Where d’you get all your news from?’ Fred asked.

  ‘Oh, from Watson, Wheeler and Co. It’s run mostly by James, I might tell you, and he’s up to his eyes since his poor old father died. That was a shame, because he was a wonderful man.’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Sally put in. ‘He was marvellous. But go on, tell us more about Whalemouth.’

  ‘Well, he got married, but it lasted only nine months.’

  ‘She was sick of his mouth by then, I suppose,’ said Fred. ‘Although I must admit there was another side to him, which I recognised after the Connolly episode on that particular Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘Is he back on the booze?’ Sally asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t really know,’ said Rosie. ‘Yet I met him at a do when I saw him with a glass in his hand, and then I realised that he was drinking lime and soda.’

  ‘Did you have a talk with him?’ asked Fred.

  ‘Well, a short one. He came straight at me, crying, “Rosie! Rosie Stevenson, as ever was!” I nearly turned on him and said, “Whalemouth! As ever was,” but remembering my tutors, I said simply, “My! What are you doing here? How’s America getting on without you?”

  ‘“Very well, I understand,” he said; “that’s until I return, which will be next week.”

  ‘“Is your family over there?” I asked.

  ‘“Family?” He raised his thick eyebrows at me and said, “I haven’t any family, Rosie.”

  ‘“But I understood you were married.”

  ‘“I was for nine long months.” He shook his head slowly back and forward and repeated, “Nine long months…”

  ‘“And then you divorced her?”

  ‘“No, Rosie; she divorced me.”

  ‘“Well, you must’ve been very wicked.”

  ‘“Yes, I was very wicked. I enjoy being wicked, Rosie, as you must remember.”

  ‘“Well, all I can say is I hope she made you pay for your pleasure.”

  ‘“She did indeed. She only wanted ten million dollars. Anyway we settled for five.”

  ‘“And that’s what you gave her, five million?” I said, looking at him quite seriously. “You gave her only five million?”

  ‘“Yes, that’s all, Rosie, five million.”

  ‘I couldn’t help it, but Rosie of the River came back and I said, “You are a mean bugger, aren’t you?”’

  Sally and Fred were now lying against each other on the couch, shaking with laughter, and Rosie, laughing too, spluttered, ‘He put his head back and cried, “And there was I, making another mistake, thinking you had been trained to be a lady. James had also told me you were a first-class interpreter.” Then his voice changed and he said, “Rosie, let’s have dinner together,” and I pulled away from him and said, “D’you want to tie my shoelaces again?” Now we were drawing attention to our corner of the room and I said quite se
riously, “Please! Please, do not make me laugh or come out with such vulgarities; I have a very special job to live up to.” Again he said, softly, “Do have dinner with me. What about tomorrow at the Ritz, eh? What about it?”

  ‘“I can’t. I’m sorry, Charles, I’m off to Holland tomorrow.”

  ‘“Holland?” he said. “What are you doing there?”

  ‘“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve only been told I have to go to Holland. I’m an interpreter, you know, I don’t make the decisions.”

  ‘“Yes. Yes; I know,” and then laughing gently he said, “I wonder what you would come out with if during one of those sessions you spoke your thoughts aloud?”

  ‘“I wonder, too, Charles.”

  ‘“How long do you expect to be in Holland?”

  ‘“I haven’t any idea,” I said.

  ‘“Well, Rosie, I’d like us to have a bit of a natter again some time. How can I look you up?”

  ‘“You can’t, sir. You can’t.”

  ‘“Haven’t you a phone number?”

  ‘“No, only when I was at home.”

  ‘“What is that?”

  ‘“I’m sorry; I don’t give my phone number to strange men.”

  ‘“Don’t be silly. I can always ask James.”

  ‘“Well, I can always tell James not to give it to you.”

  ‘“Well,” he said now, “he’s a parson, so I’ll let him decide. You know something?” He stepped back from me. “No-one would believe that the little firebrand who has a punch like a middleweight and a knee like a wrestler’s, not to speak of a foot that she puts in places that she shouldn’t, could turn into such a beautiful piece of humanity and look so beguiling that one would think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”