Rosa's Island

by Val Wood

  He wished her good day and left. No reference! That meant that Delia had been dismissed from her previous employment. But why? What misdemeanour had she committed? It was a respectable house that she had been at, one of the best in Hornsea, owned by a gentleman and his family.

  He rode down the quiet streets towards the sea. Perhaps she was walking on the sands. It had been a lovely day, sunny and bright, though now there was a sharp wind blowing. He would look along there first and if he couldn’t find her he would ride to the Mere, the lake close to the village with its pleasant walks around the perimeter, before setting off on the long ride home, and trust that the innkeeper would give Delia his message.

  He saw her down on the sands. She was alone and pacing up and down as if thinking or pondering on something. Her head was lowered and her arms clutched around herself. He called to her and she looked up, startled.

  She ran towards him.

  ‘Matthew? What is it? What you doing here?’ Her face was pale and blotchy as if the wind had scoured it, or as if she had been crying.

  ‘I’ve come to fetch you home,’ he said. ‘Ma is ill.’

  ‘I’ll lose my job,’ she complained. ‘Mrs Groves won’t let me have any more time off.’

  ‘I’ll speak to her,’ he said. ‘If I explain?’

  She shrugged. ‘You can try.’

  The innkeeper said, when asked, that if Delia returned the next evening, she would take her back, but that she would lose a day’s wages.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Matthew accepted. ‘I’ll bring her back, unless,’ he glanced at his sister. ‘Unless – our mother is worse. Is there a stable nearby? Can I hire a horse?’

  The woman nodded. ‘Just up ’street. ’Farrier has horses for hire.’ He thanked her and wondered how Delia could bear to work for such a disagreeable woman. He said as much to her and she replied that it was better than the other place and that Mrs Groves was better for knowing.

  ‘Why did you leave your other employment?’

  ‘Didn’t like it,’ she said briefly, and as they approached the farrier’s yard, she said, ‘You know I don’t like horses, can’t we hire a trap?’

  He gave a sigh. Delia could be so awkward and he wanted to get home as soon as possible. ‘I’ll ask, but we really mustn’t delay,’ and he realized that she hadn’t asked one single question about their mother’s state of health.

  Matthew hitched his horse to the hired trap and they drove in silence out of Hornsea. Then he said, ‘Ma’s very poorly, Delia, I don’t think she’ll recover from this.’

  ‘What is it she’s got?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ he said uncomfortably. ‘I think it’s a woman’s thing and I don’t like to ask.’

  ‘She’s had it a long time then,’ she submitted, and lapsed into silence. After a while she said, ‘I suppose I’ll have to come home! Maggie can’t now that she’s married, Flo won’t and ’twins’ll be getting wed soon.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten Rosa,’ he said quietly.

  ‘No I haven’t.’ She stared straight ahead. ‘She can’t stay if anything happens to Ma.’

  ‘Why can’t she?’ He looked at her in astonishment. ‘She’s family.’

  ‘No she’s not! She’s no relation. And she’s same age as me so she can’t stay with you and Da and Jim. It wouldn’t be right. Folks would talk.’

  He gave a short humourless gasp. ‘I don’t believe what you’re saying! Folks! What folks? Have you taken leave of your senses?’

  She turned to look at him with cynicism written all over her face. ‘You allus was sweet on her. She can do no wrong, can she?’

  He refused to be drawn on the subject and simply said, ‘You wouldn’t want to come home after enjoying your freedom and independence. You’ve forgotten what it’s like under Da’s thumb.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said, ‘and I might decide to come home.’ She paused, and there was a note of uncertainty in her voice when she spoke next. ‘Or I might not. I’ll let you know when I’ve decided.’

  The next morning Rosa got up early and left Mrs Drew to the ministrations of her daughters and set off to walk to Patrington to see her grandmother. She would, she knew, miss having Flo there to help her with Aunt Bella. As she crossed the bridge over the channel she looked back towards her former home, Marsh Farm, and wondered why Mr Drew had been so eager to have it. The house is wasted, she thought, echoing Matthew’s former words to his father. Jim is never there, and I can’t think why he wanted such a small parcel of land.

  Her grandmother was struggling to dress Aunt Bella when she arrived, but it was an impossible task, for each time Mrs Jennings put an item of clothing on her, such as a shoe or a stocking, the old lady took off the other one. She refused to have her hair brushed nor would she wear her cotton cap.

  ‘Flo manages her so well.’ Mrs Jennings sighed. ‘I can’t do anything with her!’

  ‘Why not leave her in her night robe, Gran?’ Rosa suggested. ‘It doesn’t matter for once and she’s quite comfortable and respectable. Then perhaps later she’ll let me brush her hair.’ Aunt Bella’s fine white hair was standing on end. ‘Why don’t you make us a nice pot of tea and I’ll sit with her.’ She guessed rightly that her grandmother would be glad of a few moments of peace pottering in the kitchen.

  She picked up the fire tongs and put another piece of coal on the fire, then draped a shawl around Aunt Bella’s shoulders and tucked a blanket around her knees. The old lady said something unintelligible to her and Rosa nodded and smiled back.

  ‘Gran,’ she said, when Mrs Jennings brought in the tray of tea and scones. ‘Why do you think that Mr Drew wanted our farm after Grandda died?’

  ‘Now you’re asking me summat! I never could fathom it out,’ her grandmother answered. ‘But he was forever hovering about looking over it, even afore your grandda was took ill.’

  ‘You mean – when Ma was still alive?’

  ‘Bless you yes, when she was carrying you, and your da had disappeared. Why, he even searched our land himself when a search party was sent out.’

  ‘You mean a search party went out to look for my father?’ Rosa remembered a search party looking for her mother. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Well of course you wouldn’t. You hadn’t been born then! But your ma was so distraught when he didn’t come back that she made every farmer and cow keeper search their land and barns and sheds, and Mr Drew insisted on helping your grandda in looking over ours.’

  ‘My da could have drowned,’ Rosa said thoughtfully, thinking of Henry. ‘He wouldn’t have known ’layout of land. He could have fallen into a dyke.’

  ‘They’d have found him then, wouldn’t they? But they looked along ’dykes,’ her grandmother said. ‘Even on new embankments. He’d just disappeared.’

  ‘I found some papers with his name on them,’ Rosa murmured. ‘They were in that old chest that you gave me.’

  ‘Did you?’ Mrs Jennings was astonished. ‘What sort of papers?’

  ‘Foreign,’ she said. ‘Fred, Maggie’s husband, has taken them into Hull. He knows a lawyer who might be able to read them.’

  ‘Well, well.’ Mrs Jennings clicked her tongue. ‘Fancy that. They must have been with your ma’s things, were they? Cos I don’t remember seeing them.’

  Rosa said that they were. ‘His name was Miguel, did you know that?’

  Her grandmother nodded and looked wistful. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I did. Decimus Miguel Carlos. That was his full name. Michael, the tenth child. That’s what he told us it meant.’

  ‘The tenth child?’ Rosa exclaimed, her voice rising. ‘He had nine brothers or sisters! That means then – that means that I have aunts and uncles, maybe cousins even, in another land!’

  ‘Aye, I suppose it does!’ Her grandmother was startled and gazed at her. ‘I never thought of it afore!’

  Tears sprang to Rosa’s eyes. ‘Another family, Gran, who know nothing about me!’

  If James Drew had felt any re
morse when he arrived home to find his eldest, middle and youngest daughters at his wife’s bedside, then he didn’t show it. Matthew was tired and irritable after his long ride to Hornsea and back to fetch Delia, and he hardly spoke to his father, not even to ask if he had found a new corn merchant. Jim was his usual dour self, Delia spoke little and it was left to Flo and Maggie to try and keep up their spirits.

  ‘You got out just in time, Maggie,’ Flo said as they washed the breakfast dishes the following morning. ‘You’d be stuck with Da and ’lads if you hadn’t wed.’

  ‘Yes, I would,’ Maggie agreed and mused on how pleasant it was having her own home where she could do whatever she wanted. Fred was a most agreeable husband and generous too. He had bought her a horse and trap of her own and he insisted that she drove to Sunk Island in it when she received the call from Matthew to come.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ Fred had said. ‘I wouldn’t let you go in ’dark or in bad weather, but it’s fine and dry now so off you go and stay ’night or as long as you’re needed.’

  She’d kissed him and thanked him for being so understanding for she was worried about her mother, but she had felt embarrassed about arriving in such style at her old home, and was glad that there had been only Flo and Rosa to greet her, who both exclaimed in delight when they saw the smart conveyance.

  ‘I’m bothered about Rosa though,’ she said now to Flo, as she stacked the dishes in the cupboard. ‘When Ma—’ She stifled a sob and Flo put her arms around her and hushed her.

  ‘Don’t worry about Rosa,’ Flo consoled. ‘She can take care of herself.’

  ‘What about Rosa?’ Matthew walked in through the open kitchen door. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Maggie sniffled. ‘I was just wondering what she would do if – when Ma—’

  ‘She’ll stay,’ he muttered. ‘She said that she would when I asked her, onny – onny—’

  ‘What?’ Flo said. ‘Onny what?’

  He looked towards the stairs. Delia was upstairs sitting with their mother, and he lowered his voice. ‘Well, when I brought Delia back yesterday, she said that she might come back home, and you know what that means!’

  ‘Oh,’ Maggie said. ‘Rosa and Delia don’t get on. There’ll be a right rumpus then!’ Matthew nodded in agreement, then asked, ‘How do you think Ma is this morning? Should I go for ’doctor?’

  ‘Won’t he call?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘He hasn’t been sent for yet,’ Matthew answered. ‘Rosa said that Ma wouldn’t have him. Not yet, she’d said.’

  ‘But you should have insisted!’ Maggie complained. ‘Or Da should.’

  ‘Da was supposed to be calling on him when he came back from Hull, onny he didn’t. When I asked him last night he said he wanted to see how she was before he called him out.’

  ‘Go then,’ Flo said. ‘Though there’s not much he can do, it’ll put our minds at rest.’

  So Matthew mounted his horse once more and this time set off to Patrington in search of the doctor, who said he would come at the end of the afternoon when he had finished seeing his other patients. Matthew hesitated in the main street, before turning for home. Rosa was staying with her grandmother, and on a sudden impulse he wheeled around and set off towards the small house which he remembered from all those years ago. That was when Rosa had come to see her grandmother and he, accompanying her and visiting his sister Flo, had been closely scrutinized by Miss Dingley.

  He knocked on the door and Rosa answered it. She seemed aroused and stimulated about something, he thought, and her eyes were bright. She greeted him with pleasure and invited him in. It seemed strange to him to see her in a different setting from the one they were usually in.

  ‘Your ma’s not worse?’ she said anxiously, when he said he had been to fetch the doctor. ‘I’d better get back!’

  ‘No, no.’ He was emphatic. ‘There’s no need. It’s just that Maggie is worried, so Flo said we’d better send for him.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ she said softly. ‘You know that, don’t you Matthew? I told your father before that he should send for him.’

  He nodded miserably. ‘I think Ma knows that. That’s why she wouldn’t have him visit. She doesn’t want to be told what she already knows.’

  Mrs Jennings invited him to have a cup of tea, which he refused, but he shook hands with Miss Dingley and asked her if she remembered him. She just gazed at him with tired eyes and said nothing.

  ‘She’ll not remember you,’ Mrs Jennings said. ‘She doesn’t remember anybody, onny Flo, and she clings to her, calls her her bonny lass, when she can get it out, which isn’t often.’

  Rosa pondered as she watched her grandmother giving Aunt Bella her drink and breaking up pieces of scone to place into her mouth. What will Gran do when Aunt Bella isn’t here? she wondered. Though her grandmother was elderly she was still very sprightly and alert. Will she stay on here in Aunt Bella’s house? Will she have any money to live on?

  ‘I’d better get back,’ Matthew said. ‘I’ve to take Delia back to Hornsea. It’s been nice seeing you again, Mrs Jennings.’

  ‘And you too, Matthew.’ Mrs Jennings smiled. ‘You’re not ’shy tongue-tied lad that I remember!’

  ‘No,’ he agreed, and looked at Rosa. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘I’ll see you at home.’ Rosa let him out of the door. ‘I won’t be late back.’

  He nodded. At home! It was her home and had been for a long time, but would she still want to stay if Delia was there?

  She put her head to one side. ‘Matthew? Are you all right?’

  He gave a small sad smile. He would be more all right if he could place his hands around her face and kiss her lips. As if she was reading his thoughts she reached up and kissed his cheek. Her face was soft against his. ‘Try not to worry about your ma,’ she whispered. ‘She’s a good woman. God won’t let her suffer.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, and waved goodbye.

  ‘He’s made a handsome young fellow, hasn’t he?’ her grandmother remarked as Rosa went back into the parlour.

  Rosa agreed that he had.

  ‘And he’s sweet on you, Rosa. Anybody wi’ half an eye can see that.’

  Rosa smiled. ‘Yes, he is. Always has been.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MATTHEW TOOK A silent Delia back to Hornsea and Flo returned to Patrington, insisting that they send for her if their mother worsened.

  ‘She seems all right at the moment,’ Maggie said to Rosa hopefully as the two of them sat at the kitchen table. ‘Mebbe ’doctor was exaggerating when he said it was bad!’

  Rosa nodded and said nothing, not wanting to upset Maggie further, but Mrs Drew had called her to her side when she had returned from her grandmother’s, and had taken her hand in hers. ‘I know you’ll do what’s right for everybody, Rosa,’ she’d said in a dry whisper. ‘But you must do what’s right for yourself too. You’ve been cheated out of what should have been yours.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Aunt Ellen!’ Rosa was puzzled. ‘Cheated out of what?’

  Mrs Drew had turned her head to look out of the window. A fine grey drizzle was falling, splattering the panes with raindrops and darkening the room. ‘Out of your ma and da,’ she said. ‘I did what I could to replace them, but it wasn’t enough. A child needs its parents.’

  ‘You’ve been as good as a mother to me, Aunt Ellen. Gran must have known that when she asked you to take me.’ Rosa had a lump in her throat as she reassured the sick woman. ‘As for my father, well I never knew him, so I don’t know how he would have been.’

  ‘He would have loved you,’ she’d answered softly. ‘There’s no doubt about that. He was a warm and loving man. He had his faults, but no more and much less than some I can think of.’

  ‘Rest now,’ Rosa had implored her. ‘Don’t worry about what might have been.’

  ‘No,’ Mrs Drew sighed. ‘It’s too late for that. But you’ll remember what I said? And – and if anything should happen – if you should
discover something which causes you pain, then will you try to forgive?’

  Rosa had gazed down at her. What was she trying to say? But she declined to question Aunt Ellen further for she appeared so very weary, and only said that she would try.

  She lit the lamp and left it low. ‘Would you like Maggie to come up and sit with you?’ she’d asked and Mrs Drew had said yes, but that she also wanted to speak to Jim and to Matthew when he returned from Hornsea. ‘Never mind if it’s late,’ she said. ‘There’s something I want to say to him.’

  Rosa had turned to leave the room but Aunt Ellen called her back. ‘You know that Matthew loves you?’ she whispered.

  Rosa smiled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’ll make up for what has gone before,’ she murmured. ‘If only you’ll let him.’

  It was late when Matthew returned and he was in ill humour, for he was wet through and said that Delia had barely spoken on the journey and seemed only concerned about losing a day’s wages. ‘Have you no thought for our mother?’ he’d asked her angrily. ‘She wanted to see you.’

  Delia had had a sullen expression on her face as she answered. ‘I’ve got worries too. It’s all right for all of you. I’m stuck out here on my own.’

  ‘But you wanted to go into service,’ he’d retaliated. ‘You said before that you wouldn’t come back to Sunk Island!’

  ‘Well, so I wouldn’t,’ she’d muttered. ‘Given ’choice. But I might have to,’ and she lapsed into silence again, and he couldn’t be bothered to argue with her any more.

  Matthew seemed calmer after talking with his mother and when he came down, Maggie and Rosa were sitting by the parlour fire. Maggie asked if she could make him a hot drink. ‘Thanks, Maggie,’ he said, ‘and then I’m off to bed. It’s been a long day. Where’s Da?’ he asked Rosa. ‘He’s late.’

  ‘He went with Jim across to Marsh Farm,’ she said. ‘He said he wanted to check if ’hayloft was dry.’

  Matthew frowned. ‘Why would he want to do that at this time of night? And why isn’t Jim staying here when he might be needed?’