A Bouquet of Thorns

by Tania Crosse

  She stood up, breathing in deeply as her shoulders stiffened with cool resolution once more. ‘Just give me five minutes, Patsy, and then tea would be lovely. Or perhaps coffee. Florrie, you decide.’

  Florrie’s head rocked backwards in astonishment as Rose flicked her skirt and strode purposefully towards the back door, the dogs scampering about her knees as she disappeared out into the dank and dismal autumn air. Out in the yard, a cry of bitter fury strangled in her throat at what she was about to do. But as she passed Gospel’s old loose box where she had concealed Seth all those weeks, Honey who occupied it now put her pale gold head over the top of the half-open stable door and whinnied to her. Rose stopped and wrapped her arms about the mare’s strong neck. She wept then, her tears soaking on to the creamy coat and making it glisten with long, wet streaks, her emotions taut and twisted into a tight, confused knot.

  When she heard Ned whistling, her brittle nerves cracked. Ned, who had betrayed the escaped convict for the sake of five paltry pounds. Within seconds, her tears had dried and she was marching across to him and thrust an envelope and a small purse into his hands.

  ‘There you are,’ she said with utter control, though her eyes were black with anger. ‘Your thirty pieces of silver. Go on. Count them. They’ll see you through until you find another position. I’ve written you a good character, though you don’t deserve it. I want you out of here by dinner-time, and then I never want to see you, ever again!’

  She thought she saw him as she climbed the stairs to bed, and she shivered. It wasn’t possible, of course. His bones and mutilated, decaying flesh were lying deep underground nearly three hundred miles away. But it was as if he stood there, waiting for her, glaring at her, a thing of torment to haunt and unnerve her. She knew it wasn’t real, just a figment of her tortured imagination, but she nevertheless gave the apparition a wide berth, and hurried into the bedroom. Was he there, too? No. And her heart sagged with relief. A welcoming fire blazed cheerily in the grate, setting apricot and peach shadows dancing merrily on the walls. The room was warm, the furnishings she herself had chosen before she had known what she would have to suffer there, suddenly fresh and pretty once more, the carpet deep and luxurious beneath her feet. She changed quickly into one of the new nightdresses she had bought ready-made from the pleased seamstress in Princetown in the few days she had spent at Fencott Place between Charles’s death and leaving for London. Lovely as they were, she could never again bear against her flesh the nightgowns that had witnessed the abuse of her innocent body in her marriage bed, and she had ordered them to be burnt. And now she stood, staring at that very bed she had shared with the man who had been her husband, but who had wanted to possess her in every way, and to crush the life and the vitality that had once belonged to Rose Maddiford.

  She was free. But the brilliance had gone from her lavender-blue eyes, leaving them dull and lacklustre. A bewildering numbness held her as if in some deadened state of limbo where no feeling could enter, suspended in a futile void. She slid between the crisp, snowy sheets, the corners of her mouth flickering upwards at the comforting stone hot-water bottles Florrie had placed there. Dear Florrie, whom Rose had insisted was to move down from her servant’s room in the attic and occupy instead one of the bedrooms on the same floor as herself. They were five women now – Rose, Florrie, Cook, Patsy and Daisy – living alone in the isolated house, with not even Ned sleeping outside in the stable yard. The three dogs were no longer banned to the stables at night, but guarded their mistress and her female companions by sleeping inside the great hallway of the house. Rose planned to take on some male servants in due course, one to live in, perhaps with a boy as well, to take care of all those duties in a large house that required the strength of a man, and another to take Ned’s place and perhaps assist with the gardening. As Rose closed her eyes, she wondered idly if the lad who helped the gardener who came a couple of days a week knew anything about horses and might be interested. But she was deathly tired, her strength drained, and her exhausted mind slipped easily into unconsciousness.

  But Charles crept into her sleep like some fiendish, slithering snake from the depths of hell, his blackened, scorched face leering at her, his burnt disembodied hands reaching out to drag her down into the inferno that raged about him. She sat up, the haunted scream strangling in her throat, her body drenched in sweat and her eyes blank with terror in her white face as the ghoulish spectre faded into the darkness.

  Oh, God. Though she knew it had been but a nightmare, it had pierced into her heart, causing her physical pain, and her pulse raced frantically, refusing to be calmed. ‘Oh, Charles, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t want it to be like that. I wanted us to be happy. But I just couldn’t go on as we were. ’Twas my fault. I was the wrong wife for you. And now you can never forgive me.’

  She slid out of bed, moving as if in a dream, and floated across to the window. The glass was cold against her cheek, the night so dark that she could hardly distinguish the garden let alone the moor beyond. But that was what her bleeding soul hungered for, the solid eternity of the land that no man could ever tame. Scar, perhaps, with the quarries, the mines, the failed attempts to conquer the wilderness and turn it into farmland, the only success the prison fields that broke the convicts’ backs to clear and cultivate. But one day, she was sure, the moor would reclaim it all, proud and unforgiving. Constant, powerful, the very core, the bedrock upon which her life was founded.

  The moor flashed beneath Honey’s hooves early next morning, the purple heather, the tufty grass, the dying bracken, the golden swaths of autumn-flowering gorse, the pale shafts of sunlight filtering through the scudding clouds as if illuminating her path to some elusive salvation that teased and tantalized, and was gone before she reached it.

  Rose stood atop Sharpitor for perhaps an hour, gazing out across the southern moor and the winding River Tamar in the west, while Honey languidly cropped the grass. And then away they raced down to the picturesque Walkham valley, to what she had always fancifully called the fairy wood at Eggworthy, where ancient moss clung to boulders forged in the realms of time in the watery glen, and where she had met with . . .

  No! She forced him from her mind. It wasn’t right. She didn’t deserve it. She had been the cause of her husband’s horrific death, and the guilt, the shame of it, sliced into her very existence. She dug her heels into Honey’s flank and the willing mare stretched her muscled limbs to bound up the steep incline towards the tiny hamlet of Sampford Spiney. Then out on to the moor again, past the familiar crags of Pew Tor and Heckwood Tor, and the unmistakable piled rocks of Vixen Tor. She paused when she came to the main road. She could quite easily turn left . . . towards . . .

  She set Honey’s head for home, her heart ripped into incomprehensible shreds. But there was one visit she must make as she walked Honey solemnly through Princetown. The churchyard. There were fresh flowers on the two graves: chrysanthemums, whose glorious colours she recognized from the garden at Fencott Place. So Florrie had been there before her. She bowed her head, and in her fragmented mind, she was holding Alice in her arms, and she felt her father touch her hand.

  It was the same, day after day, once she had seen to the needs of the three horses, since she had done nothing as yet about employing any new staff. To Florrie’s consternation, she did nothing at all beyond giving her the money to pay the household bills. She ate, almost in a trance, whatever Cook chose to put in front of her, hardly speaking at the table or as she sat with Florrie by the evening firelight, her face pale, the skin taut and transparent, as a miserable autumn deepened and the first snow of winter peppered the heights of the moor. She seemed impervious to the biting, lacerating wind, the penetrating cold and damp as she spent her days traversing the moor on Honey’s back. Even the swirling, treacherous mists did not deter her, as she could navigate a straight line even in the densest fog, and knew exactly the clear path or track she would intercept. She visited Molly and the baby once, but she barely heard what her dear
friend said, and was soon wandering desolately again in search of her lost self, scouring the high exposed ridges, the sheltered, tumbling river valleys, drowning in a deep, unbearable grief, and never able to find the peace she craved . . .

  ‘You cas’n keep turning that poor lad away,’ Florrie berated her. ‘Twice a week he comes, regular as clockwork, and all that way! Now that I’ve met him, I can see why you made such an attachment to him, and now you never even opens the letters he leaves, nor those he brings from those good people he lives with. You should be ashamed on yoursel’! No matter what the weather, he’s on the doorstep, and you’m either not here, or you refuses to see him. Handsome fellow like that . . .’

  ‘I just can’t see him, Florrie.’ Rose’s voice was flat and expressionless, as if she had gone beyond despair, locked in a world where nothing seemed to matter any more. And Florrie shook her head. For where had the tempestuous, spirited child gone?

  The bundle of papers arrived from London during the second week of December, and Rose opened the package with a ponderous sigh. Both the lawyer and the agent had sent letters, begging her to come to the capital, and since she had ignored them, they had got together and sent the papers to her instead. The London house and its contents had fetched a sum Rose could scarcely believe, but the small fortune must now be invested. The sheaf of papers made various suggestions of stocks and shares, new and existing opportunities with what risk or return each might carry, plus the most recent reports on the investments Charles had held, and which had made him rich but might now need reviewing. Rose’s heart sank. It was all very well to be monied, but it meant you had responsibilities, not just to the household you ran and the servants you employed, but investments could make or break a new or struggling company. Or you could suddenly lose a devastating amount if you weren’t constantly looking ahead. Charles had been brought up to it, but she had not . . . Domestic economies she understood, and those of the moor. There was talk of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt’s horse-drawn tramway being replaced by a steam railway, coming back into Princetown again, and linking up with the existing steam line from Plymouth up to Tavistock possibly at Horrabridge. The proposed new railway would not only serve the quarries far better, but would be greatly welcomed by the prison and the civilian population of isolated Princetown. Sir Thomas himself would surely have been as delighted as he would have been to know that his prisoner-of-war depot had been reopened as a gaol back in 1850, though whether he would have approved of the barbarity shown to many of the convicts was another matter. But what did Rose know of national companies, or of those Charles held all over the world – of which there were more than a few!

  Having fed and groomed the horses, turned them into the field for the day and mucked out the stables, she had changed into her riding habit and had been about to saddle Honey when the package arrived. She cast an eye over the accompanying letter and put it disparagingly to one side. But it was nagging at the back of her mind, and she cut her ride short.

  It was during the third day of sitting at the massive desk in the study, trying to make sense of the columns of figures and other documents, that Rose’s head was brought up by a commotion in the hallway. The dogs were barking and voices were raised, and Rose wondered what on earth had broken the peace of the female household. Not Ned come back to cause trouble? Good God . . .

  ‘Sir, you really cas’n—’ she heard Daisy’s offended voice just seconds before the door flew open.

  Rose’s heart reared in her breast. Seth stood on the threshold, snow dusting his shoulders and with the bitter cold outside having put a red spot on each of his cheeks. Rose had unconsciously risen to her feet, and as her eyes locked with his across the room, her pulse almost faded away.

  ‘I’m so sorry, ma’am, but I couldn’t stop ’en. Came bursting in through the kitchen, ’er did, bold as brass . . .’

  ‘’Tis all right, Daisy,’ Rose said, though her white lips hardly moved. ‘Leave us now, if you would.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ And Daisy retreated with a confused curtsy, though not without a glance at the good-looking fellow who had been trying to see the mistress for weeks.

  They stared at each other, motionless, and Rose was aware of her heart knocking painfully. The clock ticked, the fire crackled in the grate, and still neither of them moved.

  It was Seth who broke the silence. ‘I just wanted to be sure you were all right,’ he said quietly and with utter calm.

  Rose was numbed, paralysed. To see him again was just too much to bear, and she knew why her tortured soul had wanted to blank him from her life. She was still trapped in a helpless mire of futility, her brain too tired to unravel the tangled threads of her life.

  ‘I am well, as you see,’ she answered, her voice cool and indifferent.

  ‘Yes. I do indeed.’ His words were crisp, tainted with bitterness, and she saw the spasm of hurt flinch across his face. ‘And you are obviously busy with your new life, so I shall intrude no more.’

  His shoulders stiffened and he stood to attention, his years of military training providing a stalwart reassurance for a moment before he turned on his heel. Rose gazed at his retreating back, and her knees buckled as panic flooded into her limbs.

  ‘Seth, please, no! Don’t go!’ Her heart was tripping furiously as she sprang around the desk and her hand grasped his arm. ‘I’m so sorry. I was just . . . so engrossed in all these papers.’ She let go of him, waving her hand flippantly at the chaos on the desk, wanting to apologize though without making a fool of herself. ‘It seems I am a wealthy widow, but I don’t understand the half of it. I really don’t know where to begin.’

  Seth’s troubled eyes moved across to the desk, and then slowly and deliberately back to her anxious, tentatively smiling face. ‘Can I help?’ he asked gravely.

  She shrugged, and her shoulders sagged. ‘I don’t know. Can you?’

  ‘Well, I can’t tell unless I have a chance to study them. My family were a little like your . . . your late husband. Made most of their money out of speculating on the stock exchange. I was quite young, but I was brought up with it, so I have a reasonable idea about such things. Even when I was in the army – before I went to India, of course – there were always business matters to discuss when I was on leave.’

  ‘Oh, would you take a look, please, Seth? I’d be so grateful. ’Twould be such a weight off my mind.’ She looked up at him with a searching frown and the relief swept through her as his mouth broke into a wide grin, revealing the strong set of his even teeth.

  ‘I think I’m going to have my work cut out, mind.’

  Rose almost danced about him. ‘Let me take your coat. Warm yourself by the fire. I’ll get you a cup of tea. And we’ll be having lunch soon. Nothing special, but you will stay, won’t you?’

  ‘By the looks of things, I’ll need to.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Seth!’

  She skipped out of the room, the colour flaming into her face. She had been caught in a mesh of despondency for so long that she couldn’t grasp the enormity of her sense of relief. And as she sat by Seth’s side all afternoon long, she found it hard to concentrate as she fought against the curious draw of his masculinity. He was still too thin, but there was a healthy colour to his cheeks and he had lost that gaunt, haggard look. His thick fair hair curled pleasingly around the nape of his neck, his firm jawline had been recently shaven and, she noted, the dark shadows had gone from beneath his eyes. He explained so much to her, and they made reams of notes and sorted the papers into neat piles, instilling Rose with confidence.

  ‘I really should go now. I don’t know the moor as well as you do, so I need to be home by dark.’

  Rose felt the arrow dart into her side. ‘Oh. Do you have to? I mean, ’twill take days to sort this out.’

  ‘At least.’ He nodded in agreement. ‘Let me talk with Richard. I can’t let him down after all they’ve done for me, but perhaps I can come and stay for a while to get everything straight. There’s less to do on the farm th
is time of year, and Chantal’s a great help to him.’

  ‘Oh, yes! ’Twould be very good of you. And take Tansy. ’Twill be quicker than walking. And how’s Beth? Can’t be so long till the baby now. Do give her my love.’

  ‘Of course.’

  His voice was dry, perfectly polite, but efficient and businesslike. Nonetheless, for the first time since her return from London, Charles’s ghost did not come to haunt her that night.

  Twenty-Five

  Christmas was only days away. Seth had been staying at Fencott Place, occupying one of the guest rooms along the landing. They were gradually organizing Rose’s affairs, the decisions Seth had helped her make meeting with the broker’s approval, and she was to keep an eye on the situation regarding the new railway. Seth had remained distant as they worked together, but she didn’t mind. It was enough that he was there, his health regained. She barely noticed the quiet contentment creeping into her heart, the inner peace that at last invaded her soul. And now she could retire to bed safe in the knowledge that the cruel, charred spectre would no longer come to curse and haunt her.

  Seth was mucking out the stables one day, steam rising from the straw and fresh dung as it collided with the stinging, frosty morning air. Rose had been helping with the ironing as the laundry woman was laid up with a nasty influenza. Then she had retired with Florrie to the drawing-room fireside to discuss their plans for Christmas Day, which she wanted to be extra special. For the first time since her father’s accident, she was actually looking forward to it. A sense of blithe anticipation pervaded the house, and that afternoon they were to start making paper chains and other decorations.

  Florrie took herself off to perform some task, and Rose stayed for several minutes, gazing, relaxed and at ease, into the flames. It was good to feel like this after so much fear and abuse, and she wouldn’t let herself slip back. She still had affairs to deal with. She always would, since Charles’s legacy had turned her into a woman of enterprise and business. But, hopefully, help would always be at hand.