Cherrybrook Rose

by Tania Crosse

  Feeling rather satisfied and even a little excited at the prospect of a new life, she gave Gospel his head. She would miss living in the centre of the moor, where she could lose herself in its boundless sense of infinity. But by keeping Gospel, she could reach its open vastness within minutes. She could still visit Molly and the workers and their families at the powder mills. And at the thought of the few people she would not need to see ever again, such as the strait-laced Miss Williams, her nose wrinkled with such distaste that she found herself smiling.

  Molly. Her dear friend who at the moment knew nothing of her enforced leaving of Cherrybrook. It was early March. The snow had melted in the returned prevailing wind, and though the moor was not cloaked in mist, it was a miserable yet mild afternoon. She could not stay long, but she did have time to visit Molly and still be home before darkness closed in.

  She passed the recently opened quarry at Merrivale, stopping to make way for a farm wagon crossing the old stone bridge over the river. The quarry was experiencing some teething problems, but it was nevertheless a welcome addition to the powder mills’ customer list. Rose’s mouth thinned to a fine line. She would have to stop thinking like that, for it really didn’t matter any more. Just one moment of . . . of what, they had never discovered – the tiniest granule of grit, perhaps – that had found its way into the circular incorporating trough, despite the stringent rules of cleanliness, and her father’s still active life had been shattered, and her own world had come tumbling down about her ears. It would be so easy to give in, to let the tears that so often threatened to choke her, erupt in all their agony. But she gritted her teeth with determined resolve. She would not be beaten, and she dug her heels into Gospel’s willing flanks as she turned him off the road at Rundlestone and headed towards Princetown. They arrived at a gallop, and as they raced over the tunnel that led beneath the road from the prison lands to the dreaded quarry the memory flashed through her brain of the ugly incident she had become embroiled in there at the end of the previous summer. It all seemed so long ago, so insignifi-cant when she considered the fateful events that had overtaken her life since.

  She deposited Gospel, as always, with Ned Cornish, who gave a churlish sneer when she pressed a penny into his greedy palm rather than the usual silver sixpence. It was months since last he had clapped eyes on her graceful figure that caused the crotch of his trousers to strain, though he had of course heard of her father’s misfortune. Such an explosion at the powder mills had been the talk of Princetown for weeks. He watched her hurry down the road in the direction of the prison. If only matters would become really desperate for her, he mused malevolently, he could offer her some sort of solace, for his bed was always warm . . .

  She found Molly, her mother and little Phillip proudly sitting by the glowing fire in the sitting room of their home in the new warders’ block, one of the first families to move in, since the building wasn’t entirely finished yet. A mug of weak black tea was at once thrust into Rose’s hands. She had always hated the drink served like that, but now she hardly noticed, since she, too, had become accustomed to doing without milk and sugar. It was hot and wet, and she was thankful for that.

  ‘How’s your poor father?’ Mrs Cartwright asked with genuine sympathy. She was a timid woman, but she always found it easy to speak with Rose Maddiford. There was something changed, though, in the girl’s normal effervescence. Could you wonder at it, mind, after what had happened?

  ‘He’s quite well in himself, thank you,’ she lied, as ever since she had broken the news to Henry that they would have to leave Cherrybrook, he had . . .shrivelled was the best way to describe it. ‘But,’ she hesitated, girding up the courage to sound quite cheerful, ‘he’s decided to retire from his work.’ Her eyes caught Molly’s quizzical gaze, and she knew at once that her friend could see straight through the deception. ‘’Tis not fair on his men,’ she went on, looking down at the chipped mug in her hands. ‘I’ve found a nice little cottage in Tavistock for us to live in. With Florrie, of course. ’Twill be good for Father to be in a town with lots of things going on.’ She glanced up, smiling broadly, and got to her feet. ‘I just thought as I’d let you know. I’ll still be able to come and see you, mind. I’ve somewhere to keep Gospel, too, you see. Thank you for the tea, Mrs Cartwright. I’ll . . . I’ll see you soon.’

  She bolted for the door. She hadn’t meant her visit to be quite so short, but she found it so hard to keep the truth from these people who had been her friends for so long.

  Her spirits dropped down inside her as Molly sprang to her side. ‘I’ll come with you, Rose,’ she announced, grasping a worn coat from the peg by the door.

  Molly followed Rose down the steps to the street, and Rose quickly changed the subject. ‘You must be so happy to be in your new home at last,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Molly enthused. ‘With Father being a principal warder, ’tis why we were almost the first to move in.’

  ‘I’m so pleased for you all,’ Rose answered, but her words were flat and uninterested. ‘And how’s Annie getting on?’

  But Molly glanced at her sideways as they walked up the street arm in arm. ‘I knows when you’m not telling the truth, Rose.’

  They stopped. Rose’s mouth screwed into a pout, but it was no good. They had been friends for too long. Rose looked into Molly’s shrewd green eyes, and her heart jerked.

  ‘’Tis the truth,’ she muttered evasively. ‘Except that . . .’ She turned to Molly, her face working desperately. ‘Please, Molly, I beg you not to tell anyone, but . . . Father never made any financial plans for his old age. He expected to go on working for years more . . .’

  Her voice was ragged now with despondency, and Molly squeezed her arm tightly. ‘Of course. No one expects . . . So, what you means is,’ she said gently, ‘you’ve no money.’

  Rose threw up her head. ‘Not quite. We do have some money.’ Which wasn’t a lie. Twenty-eight pounds eleven shillings and ninepence three farthings, to be precise. ‘But if I want to keep Gospel, I shall need to find a position.’

  The silence that followed cut into Rose’s heart like a spear, and then Molly’s incredulous face dissolved in laughter. ‘You, Rose!’ she spluttered helplessly. ‘A position!’

  Rose’s eyes snapped with offence. ‘What’s so funny about that? I’m not afraid of hard work, you know!’

  ‘Oh, yes, I knows that,’ Molly agreed, struggling to control her giggles. ‘You’m my best friend and I loves you dearly, but I cas’n see you buttoning your lip like you has to if you has a position!’

  ‘Oh, Molly, we will always be best friends, won’t we?’ Rose begged, her brow furrowed. ‘No matter what happens?’

  ‘Of course we will! And I’ll keep you up to date with all the local gossip,’ Molly promised earnestly. And then her expression changed, her eyes sparkling. ‘I’ll even tell you what’s been happening with your convict!’ she teased lightly.

  ‘My convict?’ Rose gawped at her in bewilderment, though even as she spoke, the vague recollection tugged once more at her memory. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, ’twere back along, but you must remember! He saved Father from being attacked, and then you saved him, cuz the guards thought as ’twere him.’

  ‘Yes, I do remember something,’ Rose muttered with a frown, for as far as she was concerned, it was a nasty incident she would rather forget.

  ‘Well,’ Molly went on, lowering her voice as if they were entering into some great conspiracy, ‘apparently, shortly afterwards, he were set upon by some of the inmates cuz of it. ’Tis not what you does, protect a warder. Father’s in charge of him, see. Been giving him as many marks as he can towards his ticket of leave, so as he’ll be released early, you knows. ’Tis cuz he’s strong and works hard. Swears he’s innocent, and that he can prove it. Can you imagine that, Rosie? Seems quite educated, Father says. Does as he’s telt, and keeps to hissel. ’Tis why he’s not popular with other prisoners. Beat up quite bad, he were.’


  ‘Poor fellow,’ Rose sighed, but there was an ironic twist to her lips. She supposed she should feel some sympathy at Molly’s tale of injustice, but really she had far more pressing concerns to trouble her just now. Besides, the prisoner wouldn’t be the first to claim he was innocent of whatever crime it was that had resulted in his being a guest at Dartmoor’s largest hotel! Rose knew that if Molly’s father had a penny for every time he’d heard such a thing, he’d be a very rich man indeed!

  Eight

  ‘We will be happy there, Father, I promise you,’ she said tenderly, her voice torn with emotion as she stroked Henry’s hand. His faded eyes had misted over as he stared blindly into the empty grate, something he had spent more and more time doing since she had told him of George Frean’s decision a few days ago now. It worried her more than anything, for what did he see there? The flames that once would have burned, orange and red, against the black cast iron, or the life when he could walk and run, and keep up with men half his age?

  He turned his head to her, his face radiant with some quiet serenity that belied the moisture in his eyes, and yet spoke of excruciating sadness. ‘How could I be anything but happy with you, my dearest child?’ he whispered, and Rose thought she would gag on the sorrow in her throat. This was her father, always so strong, so vibrant, reduced to a feeble wreck, and it was just so unfair.

  ‘I won’t be there all the time,’ she frowned. ‘I shall have to find myself a position. But Florrie will be there, so ’twill be just like living here really,’ she added, her tone brighter now. ‘Better, in fact, because you’ll have your bed in the nice, warm front kitchen, and you won’t be lonely like you are up here.’

  She must have aroused his interest, for his expression sharpened. ‘A job? Well, that would be a change for you. What sort of job?’

  ‘Well,’ she declared, his enthusiasm pleasing her immensely, as it seemed to have plucked him from his apathy, ‘I’ve been looking in the Tavistock Gazette. There are two positions as governess advertised, both in the town, so either would be most convenient. I’m going to write to them tonight.’

  Henry nodded his approval, his mouth smiling wistfully. ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? My little princess going out to work?’

  ‘I shall go into Princetown first thing in the morning to post them,’ she told him emphatically as she stood up. ‘And whilst I’m there, I’ll have a word with the carrier. Arrange for him to take all our furniture to the cottage. And find out how much he’ll charge,’ she added with a rueful grimace.

  ‘Furniture?’ Henry’s reply came with a swiftness that took her by surprise.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she answered, her brow knitted in confusion. ‘We’ll have to decide what to leave behind, mind. There won’t be room for all of it at the cottage.’

  ‘Rose, dear, the furniture isn’t ours to take.’

  ‘What?’ She blinked at him, her neck stiffened with that horrible coldness she was becoming used to.

  ‘Some of it is,’ Henry went on, but the expression on his face told of his shame. ‘Your pretty washstand, but I imagine you remember me buying that for you. My bureau, the rugs in each room. The octagonal table and the corner one in the parlour. The grandfather clock. Oh, and Florrie’s rocking chair. I bought that for her on her fortieth birthday,’ he mused. ‘She was so delighted . . . But everything else came with the house. The carpets, the beds and wardrobes, the furniture in the parlour and dining room, the kitchen table . . . The linen, the cutlery and crockery, all that sort of thing is ours, mind,’ he added more cheerily. ‘The lamps, the pictures on the walls, the china figurines. You’ll be able to make this cottage you’ve found look quite lovely.’

  Rose had slowly lowered herself into the chair again, a chair that probably wasn’t theirs either. Henry didn’t know, but the handsome pictures, the china, had already gone to the pawnbroker’s, and now she had learnt they didn’t own most of what they really needed either. The essentials. Beds, for instance. She could manage on a home-made straw mattress on the floor, but Florrie could hardly be expected . . . And Henry himself . . . Oh, it was just one more agony to cope with! Her tense lungs collapsed in a bitter sigh, and she shook her head. The money they had left would have to cover at least two beds and the bath chair, and anything else that they really could not do without. She had hoped to put aside most of the small sum for a rainy day, in an interest-bearing account, perhaps, to supplement her wages. And as yet, she didn’t even have a position!

  ‘Now you put your feet in that, young lady!’ Florrie ordered, stirring a great spoonful of mustard into the bowl of hot water that she had placed on the floor by Rose’s chair. ‘’Tis a miracle you found your way home in that blizzard, and it coming on dark and all. We had visions of finding you froze dead in the morning, like that schoolmaster back in sixty-five. Your poor father’s been frit witless, as if he hasn’t got enough to contend with!’

  ‘Oh, Florrie, I’m so sorry you were so worried,’ Rose croaked. Her throat was raw from breathing in the icy wind that had ripped across Dartmoor as she had battled her way home from Tavistock. ‘But I know the moor like the back of my hand. Even in the snow, there are landmarks along the way, but I must say, if it had been coming down much harder, I wouldn’t have been able to see where I was going.’

  ‘And you’ve only been in five minutes, and ’tis already total darkness, Rose Maddiford! You shouldn’t have been so tardy!’

  ‘Really, Florrie, I was perfectly safe, honestly I was!’

  Nevertheless, she lowered her cold, wet feet gratefully into the water. Perfectly safe, indeed! It had been an absolute nightmare and she had been petrified, but she didn’t want to alarm poor Florrie any more than she already had. She had only reached halfway up Pork Hill when winter had returned with a vengeance. The snow had begun to fall thick and fast, the sky an all-encompassing white dome that was hell-bent on smothering the earth beneath. The further out on to the moor she went, the wilder the driving wind that whipped the snow into deep drifts and lashed mercilessly into Rose’s face. The flakes collected on her eyelashes, blinding her, and she had to keep dashing them away as she peered into the growing gloom. She had taken Polly and the dog cart rather than riding Gospel as she could hardly arrive for an interview as a governess dressed in her riding habit. The wheels of the cart kept getting stuck in the deepening snow, and Rose ended up walking by Polly’s side to help the poor animal. She would have been better off on foot, she had thought ruefully, though Polly was company on the deserted road, which was becoming increasingly difficult to follow in the blanketing whiteness. Three attempts it had taken her to light the hurricane lamp, the gale extinguishing the flame each time she struck a match. Once lit, she had stumbled on, holding it in one hand whilst the other held Polly’s reins, sometimes stopping to lift it high and get her bearings.

  At last, way across to the right, the unmistakable sight of the tiny gas lights glowing from the massive new prison block, row upon row of small cell windows, pinpricks, like stars in the gathering shadows. Downhill and over the river at Two Bridges and the Saracen’s Head. Not so far now, but she hadn’t seen a soul for what must have been an hour, and she really was beginning to panic. Desperate, soaked to the skin with icy damp, snow on her shoulders, in her eyes and in her mouth, every taut muscle screaming, tears of fear and despair turning to frost on her cheeks. Somehow, she had struggled on, and when the lights of Cherrybrook had come into view, she had shouted aloud with relief.

  ‘Hmm!’ Florrie snorted as she bustled round the kitchen, adding extra coal to the firebox, and wrapping Rose in layers of warm blankets as she still shivered in the chair. ‘Well, I hope ’twas worthwhile, and you got yoursel a position!’ she added with a strange emphasis on the last word as if to say it was hardly worth risking one’s life for in a blizzard!

  Rose’s eyes darted upwards, her still blue lips puckering into a knot. She said nothing, but Florrie tilted her double chin, and Rose knew she had understood. She couldn’t bear to tell Flo
rrie that the first interview had been a total disaster. The second had resulted in her being offered the post, but it was live-in with a salary that wouldn’t cover the rent for the cottage and the field, let alone anything else. The lady of the house had been most sympathetic to Rose’s situation, but was not in the position to offer anything more. Rose had then made other enquiries as to employment in the town, but had drawn a blank in every direction.

  ‘Oh, well, never mind, my pet,’ Florrie said gently. ‘Summat will turn up. Now then, you get this inside you.’ And she thrust a mug of steaming tea into Rose’s shaking hands. ‘I’ll go upstairs and get you some dry clothes. Oh, this came for you this morning after you left.’

  She dropped an envelope into Rose’s lap and waddled out through the door. Rose slumped back in the chair, trying to relax and stop the painful tremors that rattled her teeth in her head. Her muscles, her arms, her legs, her back and especially her neck ached viciously. If only she could calm them into submission, but beneath it lay the bitter gall of defeat. She sipped at the hot black tea, feeling its warmth seeping into her flesh. Oh, that was good, but . . . what was she to do?

  She idly turned over the envelope. She prayed to God it wasn’t another bill, something else her father had bought and never paid for. Her heart was soothed when she realized it was a private letter, and then tripped over itself when she saw it was from none other than Mr Charles Chadwick. Good Lord, she hadn’t even given him a thought in weeks – months even – for it had been . . . when? About Christmas he had written last, and she had never had the time or the inclination to reply. Indeed, it hadn’t even crossed her mind, and even now her eyes moved uninterestedly along the lines of writing, scarcely taking in their meaning. And then . . . something stirred within her and as she read the words a second time, a sudden light shone its way into her brain.