Rosie

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘That’s what comes of being so greedy,’ she said, sickened at the thought of clearing it up when she was so tired. ‘Get up and come into the bathroom.’

  Sympathy overcame her as he knelt by the lavatory bowl vomiting up still more. In Carrington Hall he’d grown used to a bland diet of mushy food. He had forgotten how to chew properly and his stomach couldn’t possibly cope with the vast amount of cheese, meat pie and ham he’d stuffed into it. Perhaps he’d learned a valuable lesson at last.

  Once there was nothing left in his stomach, she washed him, got some clean pyjamas and tucked him into her camp-bed. He fell asleep almost immediately and Rosie paused for a moment, just looking down at him, before going back into his room to clear up the mess there. She thought how cruel nature was sometimes: in sleep there was nothing to show he was different from any other man. He was handsome enough to attract any girl, but a simple accident at birth had robbed him of a career, marriage and children. She wondered what would become of him when his parents grew too old to look out for him.

  *

  Two weeks later on a Friday morning, Rosie was kneeling on the grass planting out summer bedding plants when Mrs Cook came out with a tray of soft drinks and biscuits for elevenses. She looked very pretty in a loose-fitting print dress, her white hair fluffy around her small face. No one would guess she was in her sixties; she had the grace and quick movements of a much younger woman.

  Donald was mowing the grass, but at the sight of his mother he came gambolling across the lawn. Two weeks of fresh air, sunshine, exercise and good food had done wonders for him. Dressed in only a pair of khaki shorts, his hair streaked by the sun, he had the look of a tanned, but rather thin beachcomber.

  ‘Sit down before I give you your drink,’ Mrs Cook said reprovingly as he lunged towards the tray. ‘We don’t want spills, not even in the garden.’

  She put the tray down on the garden table. Donald sat down on the grass and held his hands up expectantly. Rosie came over and joined them, sitting at the table.

  Rosie had caught a glimpse of herself in the dining-room window earlier, and smiled when she realized that she had reverted to the way she’d looked back at May Cottage. Her hair had grown quite a bit and it was a mop of curls again, more freckles had sprung up on her nose and her cheeks were bright red. Even the cotton dress she wore to garden in was shabby and dirt-smeared, and her feet were bare.

  She had been very surprised to find the Cooks didn’t give a jot about appearances. On her first three or four days here she had worn a smart navy blue skirt and white blouse, but they had jokingly reminded her that she wasn’t a maid, and old clothes were the order of the day at The Grange, especially when out in the garden with Donald. They seemed to get great pleasure out of seeing her untidy but happy.

  ‘We’ve achieved so much in two weeks,’ Mrs Cook said to Rosie with a satisfied sigh. ‘To think for the first few days I was in despair.’

  Looking back, Norah felt a little foolish that she’d expected Donald would behave perfectly from day one, and that she hadn’t anticipated the adjustments that she and Frank would have to make. If Rosie hadn’t been here, heaven only knows how they would’ve coped.

  Rosie reached down to stroke Donald’s head. ‘Tell your mother about the story I read you last night, Donald?’

  She sat back with a satisfied smirk as Donald related the tale of ‘The Cat Who Walked by Himself, from Kipling’s Just So Stories. His description was a bit muddled, but he hardly stuttered at all. He loved having stories read to him, and now he’d cottoned on to the concept of reading, he wanted so much to learn to read himself. Writing was far harder for him: he had been denied pencils for so long that he seemed unable to control one now, but maybe with practice he’d improve.

  Yet it was out here in the garden that Donald had really come into his own. Like Rosie he seemed to have an affinity with nature and growing things. Although he was clumsy indoors, he could handle a small plant with the utmost delicacy, and being outside seemed to work off much of his excess energy. He had remembered all the things she’d taught him about flowers and weeds back at Carrington Hall, and he delighted in using the mower and digging in the vegetable patch.

  As the Cooks’ old gardener had retired a year ago and Mr Cook had been struggling to keep things tidy, he was only too pleased that Rosie and Donald were so enthusiastic. To encourage them further, he had brought home the trays of plants Rosie was now bedding out. In private he had admitted to Rosie he believed it was work that Donald needed rather than his mother’s brand of mollycoddling, and if Rosie wanted to stay with him in the garden all day, that was fine by him.

  Rosie did want to stay in the garden; to her it was heaven, even in the rain. In the evenings she studied the gardening book Thomas had given her, and the many other books she found in the house. Day by day her knowledge of plants, flowers and trees was expanding.

  Steadily, Rosie was also growing fonder of the Cooks. Maureen had been wrong in saying they were rich. They were comfortable, the house was lovely and they had a smart car, but they weren’t rolling in money. The house and the business had been inherited from Frank’s parents. The business was manufacturing tractors and other farm machinery, yet it was only during the war when special government contracts came Frank’s way that he had really made it pay.

  Norah came from a poor family in a nearby village, and although she moved into the big house when she married Frank, life was a struggle as his parents were old and sick and she had to nurse them. In fact the friend who’d lent them the apartment in Piccadilly was one of only a very few rich friends; almost everyone else they knew was quite ordinary, and some of Norah’s old school friends even lived in farm cottages not so different from May Cottage. As for Frank, he was more comfortable having a pint over in the pub with working men than mixing with the many professional men who lived in the village.

  They both had a strong social conscience. Norah was always popping out to check on old people in the village, and she took an active interest in a local unmarried mothers’ home. Frank was involved in raising money to send farm equipment to poor countries, and until quite recently he’d run a scout troop.

  But of all the things Rosie liked about them, it was their openness she admired the most. Nothing was hidden. They didn’t whisper between themselves, and if one of them was angry, they said so. Over meals they discussed anything and everything, from the local gossip to business, current affairs, and their family, often stopping to explain a point here and there to Rosie so she understood who or what they were talking about. They never made her feel awkward or excluded, and even more importantly, she felt valued.

  Norah had given Rosie Saturday as her day off because Frank was home then to help with Donald. Last Saturday Rosie had caught the train to Tunbridge Wells to look around, but it had rained all day and she’d come home by three, looking, Norah thought, as if she’d felt very lonely on her own. She hoped Rosie might get to know some of the village girls soon, and get out to a few dances or parties. She might be very fond of Donald but it wasn’t healthy to spend all her time with him.

  ‘Now what time is Gareth coming tomorrow?’ Norah asked.

  Rosie’s smile spread from ear to ear. ‘His train gets in at eleven.’

  ‘What are you going to do with yourselves?’ asked Norah. ‘Or is that privileged information?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ Rosie said. Gareth had written to her five times since she’d got here and it had taken some wangling for him to get the next day off. ‘Just explore locally, I expect.’

  ‘Well, bring him home for tea around five,’ the older woman suggested. ‘I’d like to see him again, and I’m quite sure Donald and Frank would too. Now I’d better go indoors, I’ve got dozens of letters to write. Donald, put your shirt back on for a bit. I don’t want you getting burnt, and the sun’s very hot today.’

  Once his mother had gone inside, Donald went back to the lawnmower, and Rosie returned to the planting, but her mind
was now on Gareth. These last two weeks had flown by in many ways, yet it seemed like an eternity since she had said goodbye to Gareth outside Carrington Hall.

  Every single night she’d relived his kisses as she lay in bed, growing hot and tingly all over.

  These feelings were so confusing. They felt wonderful, exciting, just like everyone said love was, but yet they made her ashamed too. She tried to tell herself that what she felt for Gareth had nothing in common with what she’d seen Seth and Norman do to Heather, or Saunders to Angela, but a small voice kept warning her it was related, and that all men were animals.

  Yet Mr Cook was so loving to his wife. He was attentive, they were kind to each other, interested and warm. Rosie wanted a marriage like that too one day.

  ‘Rosie!’

  Rosie was startled to hear Donald calling out her real name. She jumped to her feet blushing. Donald had found it hard to change from calling her ‘Smith’ to Rosemary and he soon shortened it to Rose. She knew adding the ‘ie’ was just a natural progression from that, just as she sometimes called him ‘Donny’, but still it gave her a jolt.

  He was walking towards her with the grass box in his hands. ‘It’s f-f-full up,’ he called out. ‘Dad said I had to p-p-put it on the commode.’

  Despite being so taken aback Rosie had to laugh at him using the wrong, yet rather appropriate word. ‘It’s compost, not commode,’ she said. ‘Come with me, I’ll show you where it is.’

  The compost heap was in a corner by the vegetable patch, fenced off with some corrugated iron. They tipped the grass cuttings on to it, then stopped to look at the runner beans they’d planted last Sunday afternoon after Mr Cook erected the poles. Rosie was delighted to see the small plants were growing plump and starting to wind themselves round the poles. She had always grown beans down in Somerset, and perhaps it was that reminder of the past, along with Donald’s suddenly calling her by her real name, that cast a little cloud over her security.

  A couple of days earlier Mrs Cook had asked her about her childhood and her parents dying. They weren’t deeply probing questions, just friendly interest. Rosie had been able to answer quite easily just as she had with the girls back at Carrington Hall. But there were gaps in her story, like the fact that she had three brothers, that Thomas’s sister became her second mother, and of course that her father was a murderer. Just then, as if to remind her of the dangers of omitting great chunks of her background, she noticed that there was some bindweed growing next to one of the bean plants, threatening to take over the pole and choke the bean.

  She tore it out, scrabbling at the soil with her fingers to make sure she had roots and all.

  ‘Why did you pull that one out?’ Donald asked. Rosie showed him the difference between the weed and the vegetable and explained what would happen if it was left to grow.

  She felt faintly sick as they went back into the flower garden to finish off the bedding plants. The beanplant seemed to represent her, growing well because it was in good soil, and given the right conditions it would grow into a strong, healthy plant that could withstand the odd summer storm. The bindweed was like the lies and the half-truths she’d told. Seemingly gone now, it was only a matter of time before it raised its head again, and next time she might not notice it creeping up on her until it had smothered her.

  Seth and Norman were out there somewhere. For all she knew, they might one day try to find her. There were people back in Somerset who knew who she was. Miss Barnes knew too, and whatever Miss Pemberton said, she might just pass it on.

  As she placed the bedding plants in the soil, she knew she ought to tell Mr and Mrs Cook everything about herself, and Gareth too when he came tomorrow. Yet even as she rehearsed what she would say, she knew in her heart the words would never pass her lips. She couldn’t bear the thought that they might reject her.

  *

  As Rosie was dropping off to sleep that night, her mind on Gareth’s kisses, she would have been surprised to find that Thomas was thinking about her mouth and trying to sketch it from memory.

  It was very hot and airless in his flat, the windows were wide open, and he was wearing only a pair of old trousers as he sat at his table with a sketch book.

  The half-completed picture of Rosie was excellent, aside from her mouth. He had perfected her hair, and the impudent look in her eyes, defiant chin and straight little nose were just right. But try as he might, he couldn’t capture her lips.

  He had managed to convince himself in the last week that his affection for Rosie was nothing more than paternal. She’d lost her father, he’d lost his sister, one didn’t need to know much about psychology to understand why they should be drawn together. After all he wasn’t jealous when she told him in a letter how much she liked Gareth. Neither was he brooding about her being so far away and wondering when he was going to see her again.

  Why, then, was he drawing her?

  Gareth was leaning out of the window as the train came down the track, and Rosie’s heart leapt at the sight of his brown curls and waving arms.

  It was another glorious sunny day, heat shimmering on the tracks and not a cloud in the sky. The train came chugging in, belching out hot steam and smoke, and Gareth leapt out of the carriage before it even stopped.

  He was wearing a dazzling white open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled up and grey flannel trousers, his jacket in his hand. Rosie thought he must be the most handsome man in England.

  ‘I wanted to get up in the engine and stoke it myself!’ he said as he hugged her, regardless of the curious stares from the guard and ticket collector. ‘It seemed so slow.’

  ‘It’s right on time,’ she said, a little embarrassed and unsure of herself now the moment she’d been dreaming of for days was finally here. ‘What would you like to do now?’

  ‘Get off this platform and find somewhere quiet where I can kiss you,’ he said, putting his arm around her waist and leading her out of the station as if he, not she, was the one who knew the place. ‘Then I’ll settle for a cup of tea.’

  He kissed her for the first time just outside the station, drawing her into his arms under the shade of a tree, and he held her so tight and for so long that Rosie could hardly breathe.

  ‘I’ve got you a present,’ he said when he eventually came up for air, and delving into the breast pocket in his shirt he brought out a tiny tissue-wrapped parcel.

  Rosie smiled up at him; it was enough to just see him again without a present too. Her heart was too full to speak.

  ‘Go on, open it,’ he urged her.

  It was a tiny silver heart on a chain.

  ‘Oh Gareth,’ she whispered in awe as she held it up. ‘I’ve never had a real piece of jewellery and it’s so pretty.’

  ‘Not as pretty as you,’ he grinned. ‘Let me put it on you. That’s if my clumsy fingers can do the clasp.’

  Rosie’s fingers kept stealing up to the heart as they walked into the village hand in hand. It was like confirmation that everything he’d said in his letters was true, that they had a future together. She felt so very happy it was all she could do not to stop everyone they passed, show them the heart and tell them what it signified.

  She showed him the shops, pointed out all her favourite cottages and took him past The Grange, telling him they’d been invited back to tea. As she expected he was suitably impressed, and once they were sitting in a tea shop she told him everything that had happened since she got here.

  ‘You really like it, then?’ he said, raising one eyebrow at her enraptured description of the house’s interior.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ she gushed. ‘I’ve never been so happy. Donald was a real pain at first but he’s settled down at last, and the Cooks are so kind.’ But realizing that she’d gone rather overboard with this litany of praise, she blushed. ‘I’m being boring, aren’t I?’

  ‘No,’ he smiled. ‘I’m glad you’re happy. Of course I half hoped you wouldn’t be, so I could persuade you to come back to London. But you look so prett
y, so sparkly, I haven’t got the heart to throw any dampers on it.’

  The day just flew by. They bought a couple of meat pies and a bottle of lemonade and walked through the fields towards Heathfield, stopping on the top of a hill to look at the view, eat their picnic and talk.

  Gareth was excited too because he’d been out all week as a fireman on a passenger train. He spoke of the engine so lovingly he could have been describing another woman, and the enthusiasm with which he described all the stations they’d called at made it sound like a hot date. He said it was just a holiday relief, but the foreman said he’d be putting his name down for a permanent post soon.

  Rosie wasn’t that interested in engines and stations, but remembering how patient he’d been when she’d gone on and on about The Grange and the Cooks, she made out she was fascinated.

  ‘Can you come up to London in two weeks’ time to meet my parents?’ he said once he’d told her everything about his job.

  Rosie nodded, thrilled that he was taking her so seriously.

  ‘I’ll be working on the early shift,’ he said. ‘But I can get off at twelve and meet you at Victoria and take you straight there. They really want to meet you. I think Mum knows you are someone special. If you could manage to wangle having the Sunday off, you could stay the whole weekend because I’ve got that Sunday off too.’

  They found a little stream and paddled, then lay in each other’s arms kissing, but all too soon it was time to go back to The Grange for tea.

  ‘What a nice boy he is,’ Mrs Cook said as she and Rosie washed up after tea. They could see Gareth down in the garden watering the plants with Donald. ‘So well mannered and kind. In my opinion they are two of the most important things in a man. When you meet his mother you must look closely at her, though – it’s my belief that mothers form their sons’ characters. If you see anything you don’t like about the mum, as sure as eggs are eggs he’ll turn out to have the same traits.’