Cherrybrook Rose
Page 1
Table of Contents
Recent Titles by Tania Crosse
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Recent Titles by Tania Crosse
MORWELHAM’S CHILD
THE RIVER GIRL
CHERRYBROOK ROSE *
A BOUQUET OF THORNS *
*available from Severn House
CHERRYBROOK ROSE
Tania Crosse
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain and the USA 2008 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2008 by Tania Crosse.
The right of Tania Crosse to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Crosse, Tania Anne
Cherrybrook Rose
1. Dartmoor (England) - Fiction 2. Great Britain - History
- Victoria, 1837-1901 - Fiction 3. Love stories
I. Title
823.9'2[F]
ISBN-13: 978-1-7801-0373-0 (epub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6628-8 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-062-4 (trade paper)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
For my mother-in-law Wyn.
And as always for my husband for his patience and support.
Acknowledgements
First of all, a huge thank you to my wonderful agent and everyone at Severn House for bringing this novel to fruition. Also my deepest gratitude, as ever, to my good friend Paul Rendell, Dartmoor guide and historian and editor of The Dartmoor News, who is always so willing to share his extensive knowledge of the moor with me. Particular thanks go to Dartmoor Prison historian Trevor James for all his support and time spent providing precise historical detail. I must also thank our long-standing friend Colin Skeen, barrister and magistrate, for his research into the history of the legal system on my behalf. Others who have contributed information are Tavistock historian Gerry Woodcock, retired physician Dr Marshall Barr and the British Army Museum. My sincere thanks to you all.
Author’s Note
George Frean was the real-life proprietor of the gunpowder mills. Research showed him to be a just and kindly gentleman and he is portrayed thus in the novel.
Anyone who trespasses on the powder mill ruins does so entirely at their own risk.
One
It had to be Rose Maddiford, didn’t it?
Ellen Williams poked her severely groomed head out of the open door of her grocery and draper’s establishment, and her neatly contained bosom exploded in a sigh of exasperation. A pall of dust had been lifted from the parched surface of Prison Road by the clattering hooves of the charging horse, and Ellen quickly shut the door against it, for she hardly wanted the insidious layer to settle on her goods and products! But she could not resist sidling into her immaculate window display and pressing her nose against the glass so that she might have a better view along the street towards the prison, not that she could see the bleak and daunting edifice from her shop in the centre of Princetown. Sure enough, the billowing cloud had come to a whirlwind stop outside the Albert Inn, loose stones scattering in every direction as the rider brought the stampeding animal to a violent halt. The creature reared in protest with a bellicose neigh, its forelegs pawing furiously at the air before it dropped swiftly on all fours once more. The figure on its back, however, kept its seat as if glued to the raging beast and proceeded to turn the demented steed in tight circles until its bunched haunches relaxed and with a snort of disgust the sleek young gelding bowed its head in submission. One long, shapely leg was swung over the hairy neck, two well-shod feet landed lightly on the ground, and taking the reins behind the foaming mouth, the rider led its mount, meek as a lamb now, towards the stables behind the Albert Inn, and out of Ellen’s view.
The older woman pursed her lips, her grey eyes steely with disappointment that the moment had passed without grave mishap. Her sharp features instantly hardened into a forced smile as she realized that two gentlewomen who had paused to witness the feckless rider’s progress had now turned their attention to her window and were staring at her from the other side of the glass. Ellen Williams was not about to lose a sale by gaping rudely at potential customers, and moving with as much grace as her short, stocky form could muster, returned to her station behind the counter, tutting reproachfully with her tongue.
Someone really ought to take that girl in hand! She and that fiendish monster on whose perilous back she galloped all over the moor, well, they were as bad as each other, in Ellen’s opinion. What on earth did the girl’s father think he was at, allowing her such behaviour? But then it was well known that Henry Maddiford, manager of the gunpowder mills three miles away at Cherrybrook, doted on his only child and had apparently done so ever since his dear wife had sacrificed her own life bringing her into this sinful world. And it hadn’t done her any good, had it, being spoilt like that? Just look at the girl! Riding astride if you please! And beneath the full riding skirt, her legs were tightly clad in breeches as if she were a young man! Ellen had glimpsed them quite clearly as the hussy had dismounted, as if she hadn’t seen them often enough before! And what rankled Ellen’s sensibilities more was that the little madam had sewn the outrageous riding outfit from a distinctive material bought in her shop and which had been prominently displayed in her window, so that everybody would know she was prepared to serve the wayward wench!
Ellen’s mouth wrinkled into a mean knot as the two women moved on down the street. Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they? She couldn’t afford to turn down a sale, and Rose Maddiford was a good customer, for both groceries and material, and always sewing her clothes herself without using the services of one of Princetown’s dressmakers. And she was a good seamstress, Ellen had to give her that. And she supposed that, for a lively and wilful young girl, living at the isolated powder mills – slap in the middle of the great wilderness of Dartmoor and even lonelier than the grey community of Princetown – was hardly ideal. Life wasn’t always what you wanted, no one kn
ew better than Ellen herself.
Her father had been a miner, his health broken as a young man by breathing in the choking air and dust deep beneath the surface of the earth, until the mine surgeon had told him if he didn’t change his occupation he would be dead within the year. The re-opening in Princetown of the defunct prisoner-of-war depot as a convict gaol in 1850, revitalizing the remote, decaying village, had been his salvation. Once the convicts arrived, the settlement had begun to flourish again as no less than a hundred warders and their families were gradually drafted in. John Williams, his wife and ten-year-old daughter had opened up the grocer’s shop with what meagre savings they had. They had worked every hour God sent and built up the thriving little business to what it was today, the beginning of September 1875. Ellen’s parents had now passed on, leaving her comfortable, though not wealthy. But at what cost?
At first, it had been army guards, and soon afterwards army pensioners, and finally in 1857 – when Ellen had been a fresh-faced girl of seventeen – younger men from the Civil Guard who had constituted the armed escorts for the convicts labouring outside the massive prison walls, assisting the warders who worked both in and outside the gaol. The warders were usually older men, burly miners or farmers, used themselves to the harsh discipline of the moor. It was a condition of their employment that they lived in Princetown so that they could be quickly summoned to assist in a riot or to search for an escapee. But for their families it was purgatory, incarcerated in the forlorn town, fourteen hundred feet above sea level on the desolate moor, exposed to lacerating cold and deep snowdrifts in winter and miserable, rainy summers, imprisoned just as securely as the felons within the gaol itself. Any son of a warder would be off to better climes to make his own way in the world just as soon as he was old enough, that was if his entire family hadn’t had so much of the place that they had already upped sticks and moved away somewhere more hospitable.
So where had that left girls like Ellen? On the shelf, of course. She hadn’t been unattractive, she considered, but there simply hadn’t been enough suitable young men in the restricted vicinity in which she had been trapped. They were always snapped up by any girl whose beauty easily outshone the common crowd.
Girls like Rose Maddiford!
Ellen’s jaw clamped fiercely as the swirling jealousy threatened to choke her.
Ned Cornish looked up with a cheeky grin as he paused in his labours of shovelling the pile of steaming horse dung into the heavy wooden barrow. Stable work was all he had ever known in his young life. And if it meant he came into close contact with Rose Maddiford whenever she swept into Princetown and needed to leave that confounded animal in his care for a few hours, then he blessed the morning his father had deposited him at the door of the Albert Inn to do his first day’s work at the age of nine, for his family needed his wages to survive.
That was years ago, and now he was a strong, bulky youth with a wicked sense of humour and an eye for the girls. His secluded room above the stables behind the inn had seen more than one maiden willingly deflowered. But Rose Maddiford was not amongst them, and never would be.
She came towards him now, her cheeks flushed with the exhilaration of the gallop across the moor, her bouncing ebony curls rippling wildly down her back in a shining cascade from beneath the apology of a hat that sat, somewhat askew, like a frilly pancake on the top of her beautiful head. Her slanting violet-blue eyes danced, and beneath the jacket of her riding habit her straining breasts heaved up and down above her slender, pliable waist.
Ned watched them. And smiled.
‘Good afternoon, Ned,’ she greeted him in her habitually friendly manner. ‘How are you today?’
Ned’s heart beat faster. ‘All the better for seeing you,’ he answered truthfully, leaning on the handle of the spade to contemplate her willowy figure. She was of average height, but her slight frame made her appear taller than she was, and her halo of unruly hair gave her at least another inch.
Her full red lips broke into a short laugh. ‘Flattery will get you nowhere with me!’ she chided playfully.
Ned sniffed. She was certainly right there! He had never got so much as a harmless kiss out of Rose Maddiford. It was as if she was unaware of her tantalizing charms. She was devoted to one man alone, and that was her father!
‘You off to visit young Molly?’ Ned asked, his chest giving a little jerk of jealousy as his generous mouth curled at one corner.
‘Miss Molly to you!’ Rose grinned. ‘But, yes, I am. So you will look after Gospel for me, won’t you? There’ll be sixpence in it for you, as usual.’
Ned grunted his displeasure. If it weren’t for Rose, he wouldn’t have gone near the animal for two guineas, let alone sixpence! Bad-tempered creature it was, at least it was the minute Rose was out of its sight. Black as the devil, and that would have been a better name for it, Devil! Ned thought. As for calling it Gospel, well! When he had questioned Rose on her strange choice, he hadn’t quite fathomed her explanation. It was something to do with the monster’s dark coat, and the religious chants that the African slaves in the American cotton fields apparently sang to ease their aching spirits. Well, Ned didn’t know anything about that. He didn’t even know where America and Africa were! A long way off, he knew that. But then to Ned so was anywhere beyond Plymouth, which he visited possibly once a year. Back along, there had been American as well as French prisoners of war held in what was now the convict gaol that stood within spitting distance of the Albert Inn. So America couldn’t be that far away, Ned reasoned. Americans spoke English, so America must be nearer than France, where they gabbled in some incomprehensible language – or at least, Ned imagined they did. But, to be honest, he wasn’t really bothered where other countries might be. It hardly made any difference to his life, did it? He could write his own name when he put his mind to it, which was more than his parents could, and that was enough for him.
Except when it came to Rose. Then, and only then, did his ignorance trouble him. Rose devoured books. She adored Jane Austen’s novels – whoever she was – and now she was reading this controversial fellow Charles Dickens. And how she would love to see a theatre production of Macbeth. It was set in the Highlands of Scotland, but couldn’t you imagine it happening amongst the wild and spectacular beauty of Dartmoor? Ned had nodded cautiously, praying it was sufficient response. He knew she read the Tavistock Gazette each week from cover to cover, for it reported not only local news, but national and international events as well, events she evidently discussed at length with her father. It was no wonder she was way out of Ned’s league. And out of the league of virtually every young male in the vicinity, although plenty of them wouldn’t have minded getting their hands on her virginal figure!
‘You can put that nag of yourn in the end box,’ he ordered with a disgruntled snort. ‘And take its tack off yoursel, if you wants to. I’ll not go near the brute.’
Rose raised a teasing eyebrow as Gospel nuzzled against her shoulder and she stroked his arching neck in response. ‘You’re not afeared, are you, Ned?’ she asked.
Ned flushed. But he wasn’t going to let Rose’s clever tongue get the better of him, so he threw back his head with a throaty laugh. ‘No. But the marks ’aven’t quite faded from the last time ’e bit me, and I doesn’t want a matching set just yet.’
It was Rose’s turn to look abashed. ‘I’m really sorry about that,’ she said with feeling. ‘Of course I’ll see to him myself. I’m just grateful to have somewhere safe I can leave him.’ And so saying, she clicked her tongue and led the infamous beast into the stable Ned had indicated, emerging a few minutes later with the heavy saddle, which the youth was pleased to take from her, delighted at the opportunity to show her some gallantry. He lowered his eyes to the gleaming leather with a lecherous smirk. An astride saddle, of course. But that was Rose Maddiford for you, wasn’t it! And his heart sighed as he watched her stride out of the yard.
Rose hurried down Prison Road with a spring in her step. Not that she had f
ar to go, but the prospect of spending a few hours in the company of her good friend, Molly Cartwright, filled her with happiness. As she left the relative tranquillity of the village behind, a general bustle of activity took its place in the warm, early autumn sunshine. Just beyond the encircling wall of the barracks which was her destination, work was continuing apace on the new accommodation block for the prison warders and their families. Molly’s mother was praying they would be allocated one of its thirty flats, each of which was to boast two tiny bedrooms, a small living room and a working scullery. And who could blame her, when two adults – three if you counted Molly, who was nineteen – and five younger children had been squeezed into just two rooms in the decaying barracks for years!
Rose paused for a moment to contemplate the progress on the new building, which was to be named, most imaginatively, she mocked, Number One Warders’ Block. There was some way to go before it was finished, despite the convicts that swarmed over the growing edifice like ants in their drab uniforms with the distinctive arrows. And they worked like ants, too, at least they did if they didn’t want to feel a warder’s truncheon across their back. The term ‘hard labour’ was somewhat of an understatement, Rose always thought. Inhuman it was sometimes, in her opinion, gruelling, non-stop physical toil on prison buildings that were being doubled or trebled in size from the original prisoner-of-war blocks, or out on the extensive prison lands, clearing them of granite boulders or working up to the waist in cold water as they dug drainage ditches, all to extend the workable areas of the prison farm. If not that, then digging mountains of peat for the new gasworks just outside the prison wall which supplied light for the prison itself and all prison property within the village, or slaving on the public roads or in the prison quarry a hundred yards or so further down towards Rundlestone. It was no wonder a convict would suddenly lose his reason and, in a moment of madness, make a dash across the moor, even knowing the armed warders or Civil Guard who accompanied all outside work parties would shoot him down. Still, if you didn’t like it, you shouldn’t have come, was the old prison saying. Hardened criminals, most of them, violent, incorrigible villains. Though some were merely habitual thieves or forgers, innocent of any physical violence, but sentenced to a minimum of five years to qualify for Dartmoor’s infamous gaol. But what if, Rose’s questioning mind considered, you really were wrongfully convicted . . .