Rose Rivers Read online

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Yes, madam,’ Clover muttered.

  Nurse shook her head at her, and told her sharply to get back to the nursery. She wouldn’t let Clover carry baby Phoebe, but she couldn’t stop Sebastian and Algie and Clarrie hanging miserably onto her skirts.

  I followed too, and while Nurse was busy giving Phoebe another bath to warm her up, and the three young ones went to the schoolroom, I seized hold of Clover and pulled her out into the corridor where we wouldn’t be heard.

  She winced as I held her arm, and I wondered if Edie and Maggie had been unnecessarily forceful when they searched her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I hissed. ‘I won’t tell, I swear I won’t. I don’t blame you in the slightest.’

  I expected her expression to soften, but she stared at me as if I were her enemy instead of her friend.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, her chin jutting.

  ‘Oh, Clover, I saw the wretched brooch there, in the middle of your bed! Why didn’t you hide it? They’d have found it straight away!’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t put it there. I never stole the brooch,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  ‘But – but surely—’ I stammered, flustered by her attitude. I thought she’d be so relieved, so grateful that I’d saved her from dismissal, maybe even from prison.

  ‘I’m not a thief,’ she said, her green eyes glittering. ‘I stole a torn picture book off a barrow once, but that was long ago. I’d never steal so much as a penny from your family!’

  ‘But I saw the brooch in your bed!’

  ‘I didn’t put it there,’ she said, tears starting to spill.

  ‘All right. I believe you,’ I said, to comfort her.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said Clover, and she went back into the nursery and slammed the door on me.

  I heard Nurse telling her off, and warning her never to go near the mistress’s room ever again. Clover didn’t say a word. What was the matter with her? Why was she acting so strangely?

  I stared at the closed door, suddenly doubting. I knew that the brooch had been in Clover’s bed – but it had been left in such an obvious place, almost as if she wanted someone to find it. Why would she do that? Or could someone else have put it there?

  I opened the nursery door.

  ‘What is it now, Miss Rose?’ said Nurse.

  ‘I need to talk to Clover.’

  ‘Stop interfering, Miss Rose. Clover hasn’t got time to talk to you now. We’re all behind like the lamb’s tail after all the to-do. Run along,’ she said firmly.

  So I went up to the studio. Mama had the brooch pinned on her dress and was sitting talking to Paris, her eyes as blue and sparkling as the brooch. It seemed incredible to think that she’d been in such a fury ten minutes ago.

  She kept tossing her head and simpering, posing with one finger pressed into her plump cheek to make a dimple. Paris gazed at her intently, making little strokes on his canvas with his paintbrush. It seemed uncomfortably like stroking Mama herself.

  I hovered, not sure what to do. I was keen to be with Paris, but revolted by Mama’s pantomime. I feared that I might have acted in the same way when we were in such close proximity on the window seat. Dear heavens, had I sparkled and simpered too?

  I didn’t think Paris had even noticed me creep in, but as I backed towards the door he looked up.

  ‘Where’s your sketchbook, Rose? Half the morning’s gone already. Here, use my drawing pad,’ he said, offering it to me. ‘You’ll find pencils in my jacket pocket on the door hook.’

  ‘I think Rose is tired of drawing,’ said Mama. ‘And I’m not sure it’s a good thing for her to keep missing her lessons.’

  ‘Of course you know best, Mrs Rivers, but I wonder if she can learn much more from the dear old biddy I’ve seen with the other children,’ said Paris.

  ‘Oh, you’re so right!’ I said. ‘Miss Rayner tries hard, but she teaches us from those little Peter Parley books – lists of facts that we have to learn parrot fashion. I wish Mama would let me attend a proper school like my brother.’

  ‘Young girls don’t need serious schooling,’ said Mama. ‘If you’re going to be argumentative and distract us, then you’d better go away. Mr Walker is an artist and needs to concentrate.’

  I found a pencil and sat down at the side of the room, where they couldn’t see what I was doing. I flicked through the pages of Paris’s drawing pad as silently as I could, unable to help myself.

  I looked at his recent sketches – studies of Mama’s hands, her rings very tight on her fingers, and of her eyebrows, her nose and her little pursed mouth. It was strange seeing her dissected like that.

  There was also a sketch of me sitting on the window seat! I stared at it. Had Paris drawn me from life, looking up from the hall or down from the landing, while I was too absorbed in my book to notice? I couldn’t work it out from the angle of the drawing. Maybe he’d done it from memory. I was thrilled to think that he’d wanted to draw me – though it wasn’t a flattering portrait.

  In every sketch he had softened Mama considerably, but he seemed to have hardened me. I was frowning in a very intense way as I looked down at my book. There were two little pinched lines above my nose, and my eyes were narrowed. My hair was looped back untidily behind my ears and I’d kicked off my shoes and socks. The shading on my bare feet made them look grubby.

  I knew what I looked like, of course. I saw myself in the looking glass every day. But I hadn’t realized I was so fierce, so harsh, so untidy. I could understand why Mama was so impatient with me.

  Was it a good thing or a bad thing that Paris had drawn me with such accuracy? Had he not bothered to flatter me because I wasn’t his patron and wouldn’t be paying him? Or could he possibly like me the way I was?

  I couldn’t decide. Then I flicked back another page and saw a sketch of a stranger. She was a beautiful dark-haired woman wearing a long embroidered silky gown that was slipping off her shoulders. She stared straight out of the page, smiling.

  There were more sketches of her, page after page. I saw her in an evening dress with her hair up; in a demure white blouse and neat tie; in her corset and lace-edged drawers. There was even a drawing of her in her tin bath wearing nothing at all. It was a back view, but she was looking round at the artist, smiling again.

  I turned the pages gingerly, as if the paper were scorching hot. I saw a city scene with a wide, tree-lined river and a graceful bridge and little stalls selling old books. I didn’t need to see the medieval buildings in the background and the CAFÉ DE PARIS sign outside a restaurant to realize that this was France. Sitting at one of the little tables outside the restaurant was the dark-haired woman with a glass of wine in her hand.

  So she was the friend Paris had mentioned. I flipped through several more sketches, scowling at them all. Then I turned back to the first clean page and started my own drawing. It was a set of pictures that told a story, like a little child’s reading primer. At the top of the page I printed The Artist Tells a Story, and drew a little caricature of Paris. Here is the Artist. He is a nice man.

  Then I drew him painting Mama, making her look very fat and very silly. He paints pictures.

  I did another picture of Paris smiling at Mama while she simpered coquettishly. He tells the lady she is very pretty.

  I made Paris yawn behind his easel, his mouth wide. He finds this very tiring.

  The next little sketch showed Paris packing a bag, a long scarf wound round his neck. He needs a holiday.

  I’d filled up my page, so I started another. I drew him on a big boat looking out to sea. The dark woman was at his side. He takes a trip with his friend. I drew them strolling by the Seine. They have a lovely time; dancing in a bar. They have lots of lovely times; then in a restaurant with the waiter presenting a bill. Paris was patting his pockets, the woman peering into her purse. Oh dear, they ran out of money! I did another drawing of the pair on the boat going the other way. The Artist has
to go home.

  I was on the third page now. I drew Paris looking sorrowful, talking to Mama. The Artist has to tell the rich lady a story. In the next picture Mama was smiling as Paris resumed the portrait. The Artist is very good at telling stories.

  I filled up the rest of the page with a drawing of Paris looking quizzical, and printed at the bottom: Do you still think the Artist is a nice man?

  I was so absorbed that I forgot all about the real Mama and Paris. I jumped when Mama raised her voice.

  ‘Really, Rose, I think you need an ear trumpet! For the third time, put down your pencil and run along. It’s long past nursery lunchtime.’

  I stretched and wiggled my shoulders.

  ‘You’ve been working really hard all morning,’ said Paris. ‘Let’s see what you’ve done.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s just nonsense,’ I said, starting to tear my three pages out of his drawing book – but he quickly snatched it away.

  ‘Don’t be bashful, Rose. Let me see,’ he said, and peered at my drawings. I felt sick. How could I have let myself get so carried away! What would he think of me?

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ he said, laughing.

  ‘Are her sketches very comical, Mr Walker?’ asked Mama.

  ‘They’re certainly that.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Mama held out her hand.

  ‘No!’ I gasped.

  But Paris was master of the situation. ‘I don’t want to embarrass Rose. I think it best you don’t see these sketches, Mrs Rivers. I don’t think you’d be impressed. Let’s give her a few weeks’ practice first,’ he said smoothly.

  ‘I’m sure you know best, dear boy,’ said Mama. ‘I hope you’ll join me for lunch … I’ll just go and change.’ She wandered off in a rustle of silk and a waft of lavender cologne, Alphonse pattering along at her heels.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said weakly.

  ‘You’re a girl to be reckoned with, aren’t you!’ said Paris, peering at my work again.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude. I just couldn’t seem to help it,’ I said.

  ‘Rose, they’re excellent. Astonishing, in fact. I tried to do some satirical drawings for that humorous journal Punch, and sent them to the art editor – he’s an old friend of mine. He turned them all down, saying they didn’t have the right tone. They were too childish. Yours are anything but! They’re brilliant!’

  ‘You’re just saying that to be kind,’ I said.

  ‘Come now! You know full well I’m not necessarily a kind person. My, you’re sharp! So, you’ve found me out, Miss Rose Rivers. Do you disapprove terribly of my French entanglement?’

  ‘I don’t care a jot,’ I said, my cheeks burning.

  ‘I find it hard remembering that you’re still a child.’

  ‘About to go and have my nursery lunch.’

  ‘I wish I could join you. I think it would be much more fun,’ said Paris.

  ‘If you saw Sebastian letting his pet mouse eat from his plate and Algie slurping his food and Clarrie spitting out her cabbage, I think you’d soon change your mind,’ I said.

  ‘And what about your other sister, Beth?’

  ‘She has to eat with Nurse Budd now – she acts like her jailer. Beth is the real beauty of the family. You should be painting her portrait, not Mama’s.’

  ‘I’d sooner paint yours, Rose. Shall I suggest it to your mother?’ Paris asked.

  ‘So you can make some more money?’

  ‘No! Oh dear, you have got a poor opinion of me! Rose, could I keep your sketches for the moment and show them to my friend at Punch?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You really won’t let me?’ Paris said, looking disappointed.

  ‘They’re not good enough. And they’re too personal,’ I said.

  ‘They work, Rose. Let me show him.’ He reached out and took my hand. ‘Please.’

  How could I resist?

  CLOVER WASN’T IN the nursery at lunchtime.

  ‘I’ve sent that young madam off to Bethnal Green,’ said Nurse.

  ‘You’ve done what, Nurse?’

  ‘Don’t you speak to me like that, Miss Rose. You’re not mistress of this house yet!’

  ‘But why have you? What’s at Bethnal Green? Is it – is it a workhouse? Or a prison? She didn’t take Mama’s brooch!’

  I was beginning to think that Clover really couldn’t have taken it. I’d been sleeping in her room night after night, and there certainly hadn’t been any sign of the brooch then. It had been lying in such an obvious place. Someone had put it there deliberately so that Clover would get the blame. I wondered if that someone could possibly be Nurse. She’d hated having Clover foisted upon her, hated seeing how much the children loved her. She’d blamed Clover for allowing them to play with Mama’s jewellery box.

  ‘Don’t get in such a state, you silly girl,’ said Nurse. ‘Of course she’s not going to any workhouse or prison! My, my, what an overactive imagination! She’s gone to that nursery equipment shop over in Bethnal Green because there’s something wrong with the steering on little Phoebe’s perambulator. I dare say Master Algie bouncing it about didn’t help. So, as a punishment, I’ve made Clover trundle the wretched thing there. By the time it’s fixed and she’s wheeled it all the way back to Kensington she’ll have learned not to encourage the children in their wild games.’

  ‘But it must be miles and miles, there and back,’ I protested.

  ‘Then it will teach her a lesson, won’t it? When I was a lass I’d think nothing of walking ten miles,’ said Nurse.

  ‘Yes, but I’m sure you had proper boots. Clover only has those soft felt things. They’ll be worn right through!’

  Nurse looked a little guilty. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Well, perhaps I’ll send her on a trip down Monmouth Street tomorrow, and she can kit herself out with a good pair of second-hand boots. I’ll lend her a shilling. She’s not a bad girl, for all her wildness. And I know full well that she’s not a thief, Miss Rose, so you’ve no call to act high and mighty with me.’

  I felt ashamed. I decided that Nurse couldn’t have planted the brooch in Clover’s bed. She sounded almost fond of her now.

  I kept thinking of Clover trudging all that way across London. It had started to rain too, not a downpour, but enough to make felt boots sodden. She must have been feeling so miserable. And she still thought I suspected she’d stolen the brooch.

  I felt so badly about it. I tried to be nice to everyone so that I could feel like a better person. I read The Arabian Nights to the children when they lay down after lunch. I accompanied them on a cold, dreary walk to the rose garden, the flowers all finished and the bushes cut back to prickly stumps. I even joined Mama when Mrs Feynsham-Jones came calling at four o’clock.

  I sat and sewed my tedious cross-stitch sampler while they batted conversation back and forth as if they were playing Battledore and Shuttlecock. Mama scored points boasting about Paris and the pains he was taking with her portrait.

  ‘Will he show it at the Academy?’ asked Mrs Feynsham-Jones.

  ‘I dare say,’ said Mama complacently. ‘He’s very talented, you know.’ She glanced at the other blue dress portrait over the mantelpiece. ‘Edward’s portrait of me was considered very fine, but I think Mr Walker’s is superior. Oh, I’ve just had the most novel idea! Perhaps one of the galleries might care to display both portraits side by side so that people can make up their own minds!’

  I can’t believe how silly and deluded she is. Even when she was young and slender Mama was never a society beauty like the Honourable Louisa Mayhorne. Now she’s too old and plump to be any kind of beauty. Besides, she’s shunned by real society because her money comes from Grandpapa’s jute mills. Even ugly old Lady Robson has stopped calling. I think Mrs Feynsham-Jones only comes so that she can feel superior.

  She was clearly disconcerted by Mama’s non-stop chatter about her portrait, and tried to score her own point.

  ‘I think you ought to know, Jeannie dear, that my gir
ls told me they’d seen Sebastian and Algie and Clarrie behaving very strangely in Kensington Gardens the other day. Apparently they had feathers in their hair and were making whooping noises as they danced around the bushes,’ she said. ‘That little nurserymaid was joining in too, leaping about and waving a stick like a tomahawk!’

  Mama winced. ‘Oh dear Lord, that wretched Clover Moon again! I’d be delighted to send her packing, but Edward has made it his mission to keep her under this roof. You know how obsessed he is with all these little waifs and strays. He’s influenced by that Sarah Smith who writes those dubious stories about slum children.’

  ‘I never let my girls read them when they were little. I don’t think they’re at all suitable,’ said Mrs Feynsham-Jones. ‘And another thing, Jeannie – when are you going to have Sebastian’s hair cut? He really could be mistaken for a girl. If I were blessed with a son I’d make sure he looked like a little man.’

  ‘Sebastian seems gentle, but he’s got the strongest will of all my children. Nurse says he screamed blue murder and tried to bite her when she approached him with the scissors,’ Mama said weakly.

  ‘He needs a good whipping! One cannot pander to children’s whims. And as for Beth! Well, truly, my dear, if your nursery staff had only been a little firmer with her, I’m sure she’d behave like a little lady now, even if she is backward,’ said Mrs Feynsham-Jones.

  I wanted to stab her with my embroidery needle. ‘Beth isn’t backward. She’s very intelligent. She just gets upset easily,’ I said.

  ‘That’s enough, Rose. Nurse Budd is trying a firmer approach. She came on Lady Robson’s recommendation. I’ve noticed a big improvement already,’ said Mama.

  ‘Really? I heard that Lady Robson’s daughter-in-law had to dismiss her. Seems there was something seriously wrong with her son,’ said Mrs Feynsham-Jones.

  Then she turned to me. ‘And how are you, Rose?’ she asked, her voice syrupy sweet. ‘I see you’re stitching a sampler. How quaint at your age! My girls all completed theirs before they were ten. Still, it’s good to see you with your head out of a book for once, attempting to join in the conversation. All that reading can’t be good for you. I’m sure it’s eyestrain that has given you that unfortunate scowl.’