The Mud Rose

by Renee Duke

  “Perhaps. It still doesn’t solve the problem of what to do with them tomorrow. I doubt they’d enjoy kicking their heels in book shops that don’t carry anything printed after eighteen-ninety-five. And later on, we’ll be visiting a couple of my old school chums. They have a house full of breakable objects and, unless they’ve changed mightily over the years, a strong antipathy towards children.”

  “Why not let them spend the day with me?” suggested Grantie Etta. “You can leave them here tonight if you want. They’ve slept here before. They know the beds are comfortable.”

  That settled, the adults went home and left the children to enjoy cocoa and buttered toast with Grantie Etta.

  As soon as they’d gone, Grantie Etta said, “Well, this is an unexpected pleasure. Did you have fun in London?”

  “Yes,” Paige replied.

  “And did you do anything interesting with your…time?”

  Dane grinned. “We might have.”

  “I thought as much. Well, come on. Tell me all about it. You can you know. According to the strange set of rules governing the medallion, each set of potential time travellers has to discover for themselves that the thing’s a time portal. But now that you have, it’s perfectly all right for you to talk to me.”

  “Uncle Edmond, too?” asked Jack.

  “Of course. And your grandfather. Anyone who’s actually used it can discuss its mystical properties with other users and compare adventures. Another rhyme connected to the medallion actually encourages such a practice. It’s inscribed on the back of a rose-decorated gold pocket watch that a Primrose Wolverton gave to her brother Penleigh for his twelfth birthday back in seventeen-seventy-five. Uncle Edmond has it now. It still keeps reasonably good time, whenever he thinks to take it out of the display case and wind it.”

  Paige smirked. “Primrose and Penleigh?”

  “Yes. Flower names were quite popular back in the eighteenth century. The other girls in the family were Petunia, Pansy, and Poppy. I expect Penleigh, and his equally hapless brother, Peredur, could only be grateful they didn’t have flower names as well. Like Pimpernel and Periwinkle, or something equally repulsive.”

  “How does the rhyme go?” asked Dane.

  He assumed she would know it by heart, and he was right. She recited it without the slightest hesitation.

  “Heirs of Time might oft feel vexed,

  The roses’ ways are quite complex.

  And while they should themselves confer,

  To others, all must stay obscure.”

  “That does rather sound as though medallion users can talk about it amongst themselves,” Jack agreed. “As long as they keep it a secret from everyone else, that is.”

  Paige mulled this over. “Sounds like Penleigh had to be warned about that. Primrose must have trusted the others not to say anything.”

  “They might not have known anything,” said Grantie Etta. “Not every Wolverton child gets, or even wants, the privilege of visiting bygone eras. Take your great-grandmother. I let her have the medallion when she was twelve. She handed it back in under a fortnight. Said it was pretty, but not something she was likely to wear much.

  “I’ve always been interested in other time periods. With the exception of my two oldest siblings, most Wolvertons are. I’d always thought Emmy was too. Apparently I was wrong, because after that, she almost seemed to have an aversion to anything historical. Any interest she exhibits now is probably due to your great-grandfather. The Wolverton and Hollingsworth families have been friends for eons, but keen on history as Wolvertons may be, Hollingsworths are even keener. Especially the late Diggory Hollingsworth. If she wanted him—and she did—she had to develop a passion for the past.”

  Grantie Etta sighed. “Too bad it didn’t come earlier. My niece’s indifference meant that a whole generation missed out on the medallion. The only other Wolverton descendants for that one were her loathsome cousin, Percy, and the offspring of my cousins, Sebastian and Aurelia Travers, who went with me on a couple of my own trips.”

  “Why didn’t their kids use it?” asked Paige.

  “They didn’t grow up in this country. Sebastian went off to Australia to raise his family, and Aurelia’s husband was some sort of diplomat stationed in foreign lands. Percy was here, of course, but I never offered him the chance. Insufferable little brute! His son Willoughby was almost as revolting. That just left Emmy’s children for the next round. Merry barely gave the medallion a glance, but your granddad and Uncle Edmond fell upon it. They had a lovely time working out how to use it. They should have let their children do the same. If they hadn’t told them all about it before handing it over, it would have worked for them, too. Since it didn’t, Trevor and your mothers figured their dads were just having them on. Such a shame. They would have so enjoyed the experience. But with that generation getting bypassed as well, it’s high time a new one got started.”

  Dane blinked in surprise. “You mean we’re the first ones since Granddad and Uncle Edmond? What about Uncle Edmond’s grandsons? I know they’re too old now, but a few years ago…”

  “A few years ago, Christopher thought, as he still thinks, of nothing but music, a passion that comes from his mother’s side of the family. And Adrian spent every waking moment on the football pitch. Had an injury not scuttled his chances of playing professionally, he might never have gone to read history at Cambridge. A blow from which his parents might never have recovered now that the other one’s set his sights on the London Symphony. But, enough of them. What era did you find yourselves in?”

  “Victorian,” Jack told her. “We just missed the Golden Jubilee.”

  “Oh, bad luck. You aren’t rubbing shoulders with royalty this time, then.”

  “No,” said Dane. “These are really poor kids.”

  They proceeded to tell Grantie Etta all about Hetty and Pip. When they were finished, the old lady sighed happily. “It’s so nice to be part of it all again.”

  Chapter Six

  The next day was as lovely as the one before it. Pleased, Grantie Etta asked her chauffeur, Mr. Dexter, to take them out on a mystery tour. She was already seated up front when the children clambered into the back of her Rolls Royce with Mrs. Purdom.

  “I don’t know where we’re going either,” she said mischievously. “I told Reg to use his own judgement as to what constitutes a nice day out.”

  Mr. Dexter’s judgement took them to Beckonscot Model Village, where he pushed Grantie Etta along the paths in her wheelchair. She could walk quite well with the aid of a stick, but found the wheelchair less tiring if she had to go any distance.

  From there they went to the water meadow of Runnymede. Mrs. Purdom and Grantie Etta joined the others to watch a boat go through the lock, but opted to stay in the air conditioned car while they hiked across to see the spot where King John had signed the Magna Carta. Upon their return, Mrs. Purdom pulled out a hamper she had packed so they could picnic by the Thames before returning to Rosebank.

  Passing through the village, Mr. Dexter stopped at his wife’s shop to pick up some magazines Grantie Etta wanted.

  When he came out, Mrs. Dexter was with him. Smiling, she said, “Hello, Miss Wolverton. Don’t often see you down in the village nowadays.”

  “Ah, well, got to keep up with the young ones, Moira.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, Miss Wolverton. Every adult should strive to retain the spirit and energy of a pre-pubescent about to embark on the journey of self-discovery that leads to oneness with all creation.”

  Everyone turned toward the speaker, a thin woman who had just emerged from the shop. The Dexters’ houseguest usually wore her long, grey-streaked brown hair loose, but today it was stacked up and pinned in a style that bore a strong resemblance to an oriole’s nest.

  “Oh, dear,” murmured Mrs. Purdom. “It’s that Ophelia-person.”

  Her dismay was understandable. Most people found Mr. Marchand’s quirky cousin a bit hard to take.

  Leaning against t
he car, Cousin Ophelia informed them that she had always found the company of children revitalizing. “Reaching one’s full potential requires perseverance and sacrifice,” she burbled “That can be quite draining. Whenever I feel disheartened, I simply seek out a child, secure in the knowledge that his or her innate sense of wonder will rekindle my own.”

  “Yeah, well, these three have been rekindling Miss Wolverton’s all day,” said Mr. Dexter. “She’s a bit knackered now, and wants to get home.” Sliding behind the wheel, he started the car and blew his wife a kiss. “See you later, love.”

  Cousin Ophelia waved enthusiastically as he pulled away.

  “Thank you, Reg,” said Grantie Etta. “I don’t know how you put up with that woman.”

  “I go down the pub a lot. She and the wife met when they were teen-agers backpacking around Europe. Been friends ever since. Moira claims she’s got several good qualities. Can’t say as I’ve noticed any.”

  “At least you’re not related to her,” said Paige. “Dad’s had to put up with her his whole life. We travel a lot, but so does she and we keep running into her. We thought she was in Outer Mongolia or somewhere when she popped up here.”

  Mr. Dexter gave a short laugh. “Outer Mongolia’s a good place for her. I’ll suggest it when I get home.”

  When Mr. Marchand arrived to pick up the children, he told them Uncle Trevor’s friend did have something he wanted to add to his documentary.

  “He’s going to let me know when it would be convenient for me to take a film crew to Bristol.”

  “We’re still going up to London tomorrow, though, aren’t we?” Enjoyable though the day out had been, Paige was eager to re-connect with Hetty and Pip.

  “We are indeed,” her father replied. “Day after, too, since you’ve probably got other things you want to take in. We’ll start at the crack of dawn, just like before.”

  They didn’t start quite that early, but early enough for Jack to be grumpy for the first part of the morning, which they spent at Buckingham Palace. With the royal occupants up in Scotland for the remainder of the summer, the state rooms were open to the public. As before, their tickets had been pre-booked, as were the ones for their next stop, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

  The children enjoyed looking at the regular exhibits but, in light of their own experiences, found the time-travel taxi ride a bit tame. The interactive live show in the Chamber of Horrors seemed more promising, but Mr. Marchand and Uncle Gareth vetoed that proposal.

  “Sorry. It’s not recommended for kids under twelve,” Mr. Marchand said in response to their protests.

  “I’m over twelve,” said Paige.

  “The boys aren’t.”

  “I’m almost twelve,” said Dane.

  Mr. Marchand snorted. “Yeah, right. You only turned eleven last month. I took you and your little friends paint balling, remember? So, ‘almost’ doesn’t work for me.”

  “But that’s just silly, Dad,” Paige contended. “You’re a filmmaker. We’re your kids. We know when something’s make-believe.”

  “It’s not make-believe,” Uncle Gareth told her. “Oh, having actors jump out at you is, but the exhibits in the Chamber of Horrors are based on very real events, most of them pretty grisly. It has severed heads, scenes of torture, various types of executions, and replicas of deeply disturbed individuals whose hobby was murder—replicas based on actual images of those people, which is chilling in itself. The only one they don’t have down there is the most famous—Jack the Ripper. Since he was never caught, there was no picture of him to copy. Believe me, the Chamber can be quite unsettling.”

  Mr. Marchand nodded in agreement. “Unsettling enough to give you nightmares. And if that were to happen, your mothers would make our lives one, so, no dice. To ease your disappointment, we can have lunch at the Globe Theatre and take a quick tour of that renowned recreation of Shakespeare’s original.”

  “Well…okay.” Dane had heard of the Globe Theatre and considered it worth a visit.

  Paige and Jack were less enthusiastic, but enjoyed it once they were there.

  The children’s real goal for the day was the place from which they wanted to make a time transfer.

  “Are we going to take the Tube to St. Paul’s?” Paige asked her father.

  “No. If you look you’ll see it’s just across the river. Once we stroll across the Millennium Bridge, we’ll practically be on its doorstep.”

  “You lot can if you like,” said Uncle Gareth. “I’m going to stroll across Blackfriars Bridge. It’s considerably wider than that new thing, and if I keep far enough over on the pavement, I can delude myself into thinking I have not been so rash as to suspend myself high above the Thames. I’ll meet you in front of St. Paul’s, Alan. After you’ve conducted them around the attractions located in the giddy heights of the dome, I’ll take over and you can carry on to the Foundling Hospital’s museum.”

  Sir Christopher Wren’s architectural masterpiece was crawling with tourists. Fearful of losing the children in the crowd, Mr. Marchand stuck by them the entire time they were up in the dome. With Uncle Gareth exercising equal vigilance after they’d been handed over to him, no opportunity to slip away presented itself.

  “The guidebook says there are public conveniences down here,” Dane whispered as they descended the stairs leading to the crypt. “Why don’t we just tell Uncle Gareth we have to go to the bathroom? We’ll have to anyway to change into our street kid clothes.”

  “Yeah, but what’s he going to think when we come out dressed in them?” Paige whispered back. “And we’ll have to come out. We can’t say the connecting rhyme from inside the bathrooms because, (a) I can’t go into the Gents with you guys, and (b), the whole crypt area might be locked up when we get to Victorian times. Spending hours as its only living inhabitants might appeal to you, but it sure doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “The loos are quite close to the gift shop,” said Jack. “Daddy’s sure to want to see what books they have. As soon as he’s shown us all the main tombs, I’ll say we have to ‘go’, and suggest we meet him in there.”

  Uncle Gareth was amenable to this. As unobtrusively as they could, they slipped their Victorian outfits out of their daypacks and left the packs in his charge. When the boys came out of the Gents, they handed their modern clothes to Paige, who had already put her own in a burlap sack she had procured from Mr. Dexter.

  “We don’t seem to be creating much of a stir in this get-up,” Dane observed, as the people around them either smiled or gave them slightly bemused looks.

  Paige rammed the boys’ shirts, shorts, and shoes into the sack, “They probably think we’re part of some street kid charity the cathedral’s promoting. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  The cathedral’s main entrance was enjoying a temporary lull in tourist traffic. When they materialized in its Victorian counterpart, organ music from behind indicated a service was in progress. With the clergy and congregation engaged in the singing of a hymn, they were able to leave without being noticed.

  Outside, the air was cool. Night appeared to be falling, and the tower clock read five past seven. Hetty and Pip were sitting beside what was, in their time, the almost new statue of England’s last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne. They had on different, more raggedy, clothes than before, and boots had obviously become an unaffordable indulgence, as both children were now barefoot.

  “Hi, Hetty,” Paige said as, having been beckoned over, they, too, sat down. “Any luck with the begging?”

  “Mmmm. Can’t complain. Got a ha’penny and three farthings from folks going in to Evensong.”

  “Do you ever go to church?” Dane asked.

  “Nah. We gets enough preaching from Nolly. Ever since he’s been with them teachers, he keeps trying to ‘save’ us.”

  “He and Minnow did go to that school, then,” said Jack.

  “Yeah. Been at it a couple of months now. They goes every Sunday. Nolly goes two or three days a week as well. Took to it rig
ht off. Minnow don’t go as much, on account of he works the barges fairly regular now. Manages the night classes sometimes though, and says he’s starting to know his alphabet, whatever that is.”

  “It’s what will help him learn to read,” Jack told her. “A set of letters that represent sounds. You see, all the words we’re using now to talk to each other are made up of individual sounds. Those sounds can be written down using the letters of the alphabet. Like the word apple. It starts with an ‘ah’ sound and is represented by the letter a.”

  “A don’t sound like ‘ah’.”

  “Oh. Well, no, not always—but it does in words like age or apron.”

  “How many of these here alphabet things is there?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “And they’s all got a bunch of different sounds?”

  “Not a bunch, just one. Well, a does have two, and so do the other vowels. And some consonants, like c and g. But most of them just have one, and—Ow!” He rubbed the shoulder Paige had just punched.

  “Don’t go in for teaching reading when you grow up, Jack. You’re not good at it.” Turning her attention to Hetty, she said, “He’s making it seem really complicated, Hetty. I suppose it is, at first, but once you get the hang of it, the rest comes easier. I’m sure the teachers at the school can explain it better.”

  “A lot better,” said Dane.

  “Don’t matter if they can,” Hetty said, as Jack glared at his cousins. “Don’t see as it’s any use, m’self. Not in me and Pip’s line of work.”

  “But you don’t have to stay in your line of work,” Jack argued. “If you could read, write, and reckon, you could get better jobs when you’re older. Really good jobs, like in a shop or an office. You’d never have to muck around in the Thames again.”

  “Not never?” Pip sounded wistful. “That’d be good. I doesn’t like ’larking now the water’s getting cold.”

  “Not as cold as it’s gonna get, titch. Soon be winter, and you know what that’s like.” She grimaced at the thought. “Be nice not to have to do it, to have enough money for grub, and nice looking togs, and proper lodgings, but that’s just dreams, innit? Dreams for some far-off day. The day at hand’s all we has time to worry about, and ’larking’s what we know, so we’d best get to it. We was just hanging around here waiting for low tide.”