Rose Cottage

by Mary Stewart

‘That’s right. Why is it funny?’

  ‘No reason. I’m sorry. Go on. You came back on Monday night?’

  ‘That’s right, we did, and we did our bit of safe-breaking. I’ve got the goods here.’ He dug into the pocket of his jacket and brought out a yellowed envelope which bulged with papers. He laid this on the table between us, and added to it, item by item, an assortment of small objects. I recognised Granddad’s old turnip watch, the battered little box that held his medals and Gran’s rings and the ‘Mizpah’ brooch that had been his engagement gift to her.

  I had been listening to his story with only half my mind; the other half was outside there, in the car at the cottage gate. The objects on the table, for so many days past an obsession with me, seemed quite irrelevant to what was happening now. I picked the envelope up, turned it over without seeing it, then put it down and opened the box. Two medals, a twist of paper holding five gold sovereigns, a thick old-fashioned wedding ring, a pretty, cheap-looking bracelet, a brooch of seed-pearls and peridots …

  His voice said, gently amused, over my bent head: ‘They’re all there. I don’t know why I’ve been hanging on to them; we meant to leave them with your grandmother, but what with all that was going on there, I quite forgot. They’ve been in the glove compartment of the car.’

  I was hardly listening. I had picked up the bracelet. ‘But this?’ I said. ‘This was sent back to Gran after the bus crash. It was on the – it was one of the things that identified Lilias. Her initials, see?’

  ‘Yeah, I know. It certainly gave Lil a shock to see it. She’d never heard about the accident, you realise that?’ He took the bracelet from me and laid it back in the box. ‘This made it sure it was Cora and Jackie, their friends, who’d been killed. She’d given Cora the bracelet as a keepsake when they left. And they weren’t the sort, any of them, to keep in touch, so they never knew.’

  ‘The travelling folk? I suppose not. But my mother did try. She wrote to us several times.’

  He was putting the other objects carefully back into the box. ‘She did, poor girl. So that’s how you knew who’d been here, and how you found out about Lilias? You knew my name, even.’ He laughed. ‘You sure had me wondering just now if your grandmother had found the news too much for her. She promised to leave it to us to tell you, but I’d begun to figure that maybe she couldn’t wait and had gotten herself to a telephone after all.’

  ‘What? What did you say?’ The meaning of the quiet words, drifting past in that slow, even drawl, got through to me at last, and brought me up with a jerk. ‘Gran? What are you talking about? How would Gran know about this? I’ve never been in touch. What do you mean, Gran promised to leave it to you?’

  ‘Just that. We’ve just got back from Scotland. That’s where we’ve been since the weekend.’

  ‘Scotland?’ I said blankly. ‘You mean you’ve been to Strathbeg?’

  ‘That’s right. When we left here on Monday night, thinking that Mrs Welland was dead, and that your Aunt Betsy hadn’t troubled to let Lilias know, your mother was so mad that she just had to go straight up to Scotland to have it out, as we thought, with your Aunt Betsy, and find out what had happened to you.’

  ‘I see …’ I took a long breath. ‘Yes, I do see.’

  I looked at him, at Lilias’s rich, respectable gentleman, and, for the second time, found myself smiling. She’d have been upset enough, my poor mother, to face a dozen Aunt Betsys, and with Larry beside her she’d have found it easy. ‘It’s a pity she didn’t do it long ago!’

  ‘It surely is. Poor Lil. All the way north in the car she was saying all the things she’d been wanting to say, and going over all the years … Well, she’ll tell you herself, and it doesn’t matter now, thank God, because when we got there, there was your grandmother, alive and well and not believing her eyes and ears.’ He showed a hand. ‘You can imagine.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I can.’

  ‘You can say that again. Well, I left them to it. I got to know that bit of Scotland real well in the hours I spent walking around the place while they talked. It’s pretty, but kind of quiet, isn’t it? And yes’ – in answer to some questioning sound from me – ‘your grandmother’s quite okay now, and she sends you her love and wants you back there just as soon as we can get you to go back north with us.’

  I didn’t answer. I found I had sat down – collapsed, almost – into one of the remaining chairs, and put both hands to my face, as if the pressure on my forehead could steady the whirling confusion of thoughts and emotions. What did come with cool relief was the realisation that Gran’s part in this was already played; she knew; she was happy, and according to Larry, well again. With that part of the tangle straightened out, the rest might not be so hard to deal with. What was left now was just between me and Lilias.

  I found my voice at last. ‘It’s wonderful. I – thank you for all you’ve done, Larry. It must have been, well, just wonderful for both of them.’

  He said mildly, ‘It was quite a scenario. But I reckon Lilias’ll want to tell you the rest herself. Now look, this may be wonderful but it sure isn’t easy. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He went to the door and opened it. ‘I thought I heard someone – that’s right, I did. There’s a nice-looking young guy out there by the car, talking with her. I heard her laugh. She must be feeling better.’

  ‘It’s Davey Pascoe. I thought he might come down. He’s the son—’

  ‘I know who he is. Well, that’s great. There’ll not be that much ice left to break, will there?’ A kind look, as he paused in the doorway. ‘And I figure you can manage a bit of fancy skating if you have to. So what do you say I go talk to Davey, and walk about outside some more, while Lilias comes up here to you?’

  25

  There was a pause, while presumably he told her what had passed between us, then, while he stayed tactfully by the car talking with Davey, she came up the path alone.

  I got up. I had not even been trying to think of what to say. There was no precedent for a meeting like this, save perhaps in some old Gothic tale. I steadied myself with both hands flat on the table, as she came up the path and paused in the doorway.

  She would be a year or two over forty now, and the slender girl of the photos had put on weight, but I still would have known her, and she was still one of the prettiest women I had ever seen. On the fresh, lively beauty the pictures had shown, and the flyaway loving charm that I remembered, were superimposed the assurance of security, and the gloss of American grooming. A poised and beautiful woman, Lilias, even in the crudely lit and barely furnished cottage kitchen, though the assurance, as she hesitated there in the doorway, did in fact seem a little fragile.

  She stared at me, as Larry had stared, and then the smiles came, and with them the tears.

  ‘Why, honey …’ The phrase and the accent were recognisably American, but the soft voice was the same, and sharply, surprisingly, I remembered just how the dimple had come and gone, enchantingly, in her cheek. Remembered, too, the tears that had wetted my face on the night when she had kissed me goodbye.

  ‘I – I thought you were dead,’ I said.

  The dimple again, and she dashed a hand across her eyes. ‘Darn it, I’m happy,’ she said. ‘I’m not crying. Well, I’m not dead, never was, but you – you might as well have been, and Mother, too, but now – for goodness’ sake, we ought to be rushing into each other’s arms, but we’ll skip that bit till we know one another better, shall we? Just say hello?’

  She came into the room, still with her eyes fixed on me. ‘Yeah, well, he said you were a beauty, and you are.’ The little trill of laughter that, out of the past, I remembered. ‘But not a patch on your mother, he said, so how’s that?’

  ‘What I’d expect,’ I said, smiling back. Her light handling of the situation was making it easy. ‘It’s hard to know what to say, isn’t it? It’s all come as such a shock, everything suddenly happening, coming right … I’m happy, too, but I don’t quite know
what to say, except that I’m so terribly sorry we lost you like that, and lost all those years, but it wasn’t our fault, Gran’s and mine.’

  ‘And don’t I know it! Don’t fret yourself, Kathy love, Mother and I got it sorted out, what that old witch had done, and now Davey’s been telling me how you’d got it worked out yourself from some letters of mine you found in her room.’ A side glance. ‘I suppose you had to read them?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’ I was still, rather helplessly, feeling around for what to say. ‘But we had to. I didn’t know anything, you see. And it was so marvellous to find we’d been wrong all the time, even though it had been done in that beastly way. It was you and Gran who had the worst, I know that. I was just little, and I missed you terribly, but children get over things. But even so – all those years – to be without you …’ It broke from me with the force of anger. ‘How could she? How could anyone do what Aunt Betsy did?’

  ‘Jealousy,’ said Lilias, wisely. And looking at her, lovely, still young, beautifully dressed, moving with her graceful walk round the shabby kitchen, looking about her, touching here and there, as if to help her remember, it was easy to see how she could have wakened a hell of resentment in a narrow and barren heart. She said over her shoulder, ‘Take it easy, honey. It’s over, and we’re here, and there’s a lot of life left for us all still.’

  ‘I know. It’s okay. But it’s hard to take. It’s easy to see why she would want you out of the house, but once you’d gone, to cut you off, deliberately like that, from me and Gran, and for good—’ I took a steadying breath. ‘Poor Gran. What did she say when she knew?’

  ‘After the bells of heaven had stopped ringing and we came back to earth and thought about what had happened?’ A smiling slant of the head as she lifted a corner of the cotton curtain and examined it. Her eyes came back to me, and were suddenly grave. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what she said. I’ll never forget it, and nor will Larry. She just said, “Poor Betsy. She thought she was doing right, keeping sin away from Kathy, and trouble away from me. She was a good woman, Lil dear, in her way. Try to remember that.”’ A look where mischief mingled with a kind of ruefulness. ‘When I told Larry, you know what he said? “Then may the good Lord preserve me from good women!”’ And the gravity broke up into that delicious laughter. ‘He has, too, and don’t you and I know it!’

  In spite of everything, I found myself laughing with her. ‘Do you mean that your respectable gentleman from Iowa – I read your letters, remember? – still doesn’t know about – well, the truth about me? I’ve been wondering just where he thought I came in. He didn’t seem surprised to see me.’

  ‘We knew you’d be here. Mother told us.’ She picked up a spray of lilac from the table, and was silent for a moment, brushing the scented flowers to and fro across her mouth. Above the white blossom the lovely eyes regarded me, I thought warily. ‘No, I know what you mean. Okay, you’ll have to know. He thinks you’re Jamie’s daughter.’

  ‘I see.’

  She said quickly, ‘I didn’t actually tell him that, but I know that’s what people said at the time, and Jamie and I did get married later, so it was a fair guess, and I just let it be. The rest – of course I told him – well, maybe not everything, but most of it. He knows why I left home, and about that letter, the one Aunt B wrote, and why I was scared to come home, even though I wanted so much to see Mum again, and to find out about you.’ A pause. ‘I know that was the worst thing I did, leaving you, but with the kind of life I knew I’d have with Jamie, unsettled, I mean … well, it was best for you, the way I was thinking then. And I did mean to come back, if things changed, but it didn’t work out that way. You do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you have to believe that I never stopped thinking about you, and Mum, and Rose Cottage … It’s true. Larry guessed it, too. I truly think that’s what he planned this trip for, not really to go back to his own family’s roots at all. He’s – well, it was something to me to find that people can be good, real strict with morals, I mean, and still be so kind.’

  ‘I’m glad. And of course I believe you. I could tell from the letters what it meant to you to be cut off from home.’

  ‘I reckon I’ll have to see what was in those letters. Where are they?’

  I nodded a head towards the Unseen Guest. ‘In the hidey-hole.’

  ‘Well, what do you say we light the fire and burn them up? I’ve got the key here in my purse.’

  She turned quickly away to the fireplace and reached up for the box of matches as if she had put it there herself only yesterday. She struck a match and stooped to set a light to the fire, then stayed there by the hearth with her back to me, watching while the paper caught, and the kindling burned up with a pleasant crackling blaze. Evasive action, I knew, but I could find no words for what I wanted to say, so I waited in silence, watching her as she watched the flames. She turned at length, but without meeting my eye, to pick up her handbag, which she had left on the table, but before she could open it I said, ‘Don’t bother. It’s not locked. Davey and I broke the box open.’

  ‘So you did. He told me. I forgot.’

  ‘Mother – Mum—’

  It came out hoarsely, and I stopped.

  ‘Make it Lilias, can’t you? We’re the same age now, and believe me, likely to stay that way!’ This time the light tone didn’t ring quite true. Her attempt at a laugh trailed away, and we stood there awkwardly, one to either side of the table, looking at one another.

  I found my voice. ‘Never mind the letters. We’ve got to talk about it, you know that. I’ve got to ask.’

  ‘Ask what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘It wasn’t Jamie, was it?’

  She did not answer straight away, but pulled out the nearest chair and sat down at the table facing me. She seemed to do it in slow motion, as if approaching some barrier which would take calculation and then painful effort to surmount. Her face, which had been slightly flushed from stooping close to the fire, was pale again; paler, I thought, than before. For the first time I could see the faint, give-away lines that strain had sketched near eyes and mouth.

  I found that somehow I, too, had sat down.

  She was regarding her hands, folded together in front of her. Then she looked up to meet my eyes.

  ‘No, honey. It wasn’t Jamie.’

  ‘Then – please—?’

  Colour came up in her cheeks again, making her eyes look very bright. She shook her head, and then said with the slightest quaver in her voice, ‘I know. I know. I have to tell you. You’ve enough to forgive me for already, but now you’re going to have to forgive me all over again. You see – that is – darn it, I don’t know how to start!’

  I said abruptly, ‘Was it Sir James?’

  That brought her upright in her chair, looking so shocked that, nervously keyed as I was, I wanted to laugh.

  ‘The master? What an idea! Of course it weren’t!’ It might have been the pretty housemaid of twenty-odd years ago, scandalised and protesting. Even her voice had slipped its careful accents. ‘How could you think such a thing? He wouldn’t never – ever – have dreamed of it, and neither would I! That would have been a real disgrace! Oh, no, it was – there was no harm in it – or so we thought.’ A pause, and then, as memory came back, a hint of her enchanting smile. ‘I was only sixteen, don’t forget, and he wasn’t much older, your father, I mean, though somehow I never think of him that way. It was all quite innocent in its way.’

  ‘Then why have you never told anyone, Gran or me? Is it because it’s somebody awful?’

  ‘Give me some credit!’ Another flash of the pretty Lilias, and this time I certainly saw the dimple flicker. ‘As if I’d ever – oh, well, I’m afraid – what I mean is – what I’m trying to tell you is, I know you’ve a right to know who your father is, but the truth is, I don’t rightly know myself!’

  That really did knock the breath from m
e. I tried for words, and only managed, crudely, ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? Do you mean there were so many of them?’

  ‘Give me some credit!’ she said again, and now I was sure of the dimple. ‘Of course there weren’t, not that could have been your father, I mean! I don’t say I didn’t always have plenty to choose from, but he …’ She leaned forward, gravely earnest now. ‘You have to believe me! He was the first, and then the only one till Jamie. By the time I knew I’d fallen wrong – though that’s a silly way to put it, since having you was the best thing I ever did in my life – he’d gone, and I didn’t want to chase after him and maybe make a peck of trouble, and, well, there was no point to it. Do you see?’

  ‘I – I suppose so …’ I said awkwardly, then, on a rush, ‘but no, I don’t see. How could I? If you’ve never wanted to get in touch with him again, neither Gran nor I are likely to try. So if he was your only, well, your only real lover, then why won’t you still tell anyone who he was?’

  ‘Because – oh, it all sounds kind of crazy now, but I swear it’s true. Okay, I’ll try to tell you how it was.’ Her hands fluttered, palm out, sketching a gesture of surrender. ‘That summer – I still remember every minute of it! It was gorgeous that year, and they seemed to have parties all the time at the Hall. Every weekend, seemingly, the place full of young folks, and cars, and tennis and dancing … You’ve never known what it was like in them – in those days. People had house parties, and dances, and there was always lots of young folks at weekends, and fun. It was such fun!’ Wistfully. ‘And in the servants’ hall we had fun, too. Oh, it was a lot of work, but nobody minded that – and of course the tips were good.’

  A pause. I didn’t speak. After a few moments she went on. ‘I was housemaiding there, you know that. Well, one night when they, the gentry, were all at dinner I went up to help turn the beds down and carry the hot water – you had to do that in those days – and when I went into his room he was there. He hadn’t gone down to dinner. He hadn’t even started to change. He was just sitting on the bed in his shirtsleeves with a letter in his hand, and he was crying.’