Remembering Rose (Mapleby Memories Book 1) Read online

  Reading on I found the entries where May was now training to be a milliner.

  May says she is learning how to make bonnets and hats in the latest fashion. She says Miss Acton gets pictures from one of the fashion houses in Paris and that her millinery creations (that is what May calls them) are in such demand that she finds May’s help indispensable.

  May is heaps better at sewing than me and much more interested in fashion too, so she loves it. I wouldn’t. I would hate to be stuck inside a shop all day being polite to everyone.

  I finished that notebook and was halfway through the second one before anything else of real interest happened, and I only knew it was interesting because of that casual reference to Arthur that I’d read while I was waiting for the kettle to boil.

  I walked into the village with Mama today so I could help her carry the shopping. We set off early because she wanted to visit Aunt Mabel. She doesn’t like little girls listening to grown up conversation so she gave me a slice of cake and a mug of milk and shooed me into the garden. She said it was so I could have some fresh air but really it was so I couldn’t hear whatever it was she and Ma wanted to talk about. I didn’t care though because watching people passing by is much more interesting than sitting on her overstuffed sofa.

  I know leaving my plate and mug balanced on the wall while I made a fuss of her stupid cat wasn’t a very sensible thing to do, but I didn’t think about it until the miserable thing suddenly scratched the back of my hand. It made me jump and I knocked everything to the ground. Fortunately, I was only using Aunt Mabel’s old tin mug and plate from the kitchen. When I saw the puddle of milk spreading across the road I almost burst into tears though.

  A boy who was kicking a stone down the street picked everything up and put them back on the wall. He said the cake was too dusty for me to eat but that the birds would enjoy it. The horrible cat was already busy licking up the spilled milk. We watched him for a while, then the boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a wizened apple. He looked a bit embarrassed as he held it out. I started to say we had much better ones at home but then I stopped myself and just said thank you because I could see how much he wanted me to have it.

  His told me his name is Arthur.

  The next few pages were full of mundane everyday stuff but then Arthur appeared again and I learned that his uncle was the village cobbler and Arthur was his apprentice.

  In the next dozen or so entries I learned a lot more, including the fact that Arthur had recently moved to Mapleby from a small town in Dorset, so to Rose, who had never ventured outside the village, he was an exotic foreigner with a strange accent. She was amused by some of the words he used and teased him about them. She learned a lot about his family as well and faithfully reported it in her diary. Apparently Arthur was the middle one of five brothers who were all learning to mend shoes. His father was a cobbler too.

  Arthur’s uncle only has one daughter – no sons, although his uncle says it’s not for lack of trying, whatever that means - so he asked Arthur’s father if Arthur could be his apprentice. His father was delighted because he hasn’t enough work for Arthur and all of his brothers. Arthur is pleased too because now he has his own room and a secure future as well.

  Arthur says his uncle wants him to marry his cousin Mathilda when he is eighteen but he is going to refuse because she is older than him and a lot taller. Arthur is quite short but he is taller than me. Papa says all the best things come in small packages. I think Arthur agrees with him.

  I was so absorbed in the past that I didn’t notice how late it was until the sound of Daniel’s snoring brought me back to the here and now. With a start I saw it was after midnight. Leah hadn’t woken for her night feed. Hurrying through to the nursery I saw that after weeks of trying she had finally managed to wriggle forward so her head was only a few inches from the edge of the crib. She was fast asleep though, her cheeks rosy with warmth. Remembering everything I had learned from the baby clinic, I pulled back her top blanket. Too hot was as bad as too cold. Then I returned to the sitting room to wake Daniel.

  “Leah seems to have given up her late night feed,” I told him.

  He stretched and yawned as he glanced at the clock. When he saw how late it was he frowned. “Why didn’t you wake me before?”

  “Because I was too busy reading Rose’s diaries to notice the time,” I said.

  He stood up and switched off the television. “You’re really into her, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “I didn’t realize reading about other people’s lives could be so interesting, and because Rose never expected anyone to ever read her diaries, she wrote down all her thoughts.”

  “Does that mean you are learning all the family secrets?”

  I laughed. “Not yet but I’m hopeful.”

  He slipped his arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. “So thanks to Rose I’m forgiven for falling asleep in front of the television, am I?”

  I snuggled into him, relishing the width of his chest but too tired to want to explore any further. “Totally forgiven because she is much more interesting.”

  With a growl of mock disgust, he chased me through to the bedroom and we fell onto the bed laughing. “Tomorrow I’m going to prove just how much more interesting I am than a teenage girl from over a hundred years ago,”

  “Is that a promise or a threat?” I asked, still laughing, because this was the Daniel I had fallen in love with.

  “Whichever you want it to be,” he answered with a mock leer and within less than five minutes we were asleep, tangled in one other’s arms.

  * * *

  We woke late so Daniel rushed off without any breakfast or even a goodbye kiss, leaving Leah and me staring at one another over her bowl of porridge and wondering how to fill our day. Although I tried to hang onto Sunday’s mood it faded when I saw the pile of washing we had generated over the weekend, so I was thoroughly fed up by the time I popped Leah back into her crib for her morning sleep. I only began to feel a bit more cheerful when I saw Robbie Parker backing his van into next door’s driveway. Ignoring what Rose and my conscience said, I leaned out of the window.

  “Coffee’s brewing if you’d like some.”

  He waved his acceptance and arrived at the back door five minutes later carrying two jam doughnuts in a paper bag. I took them from him and tipped them onto a plate. He grinned at me.

  “I always live in hope.”

  I knew I should ignore him. Instead I slanted him a shameless glance as I handed him a mug of coffee. “I hope you like it. It’s a Columbian mix, hot and full bodied,” I said.

  He almost choked on his doughnut, and if Leah hadn’t chosen that exact moment to cry out I’m not sure what would have happened next. Leaving him to lick the jam off his fingers I hurried through to the nursery. Rose was there and something in her eyes told me that Leah’s tears hadn’t been spontaneous. Without finding it odd that I was arguing with a ghost, I turned on her.

  “What did you do?” I hissed, picking up my daughter. Leah, her eyelashes still wet with tears, gave me her familiar goofy grin, while Rose did her usual disappearing trick.

  I carried Leah through to the kitchen where Robbie was just finishing his coffee. He drained the mug and set it on the table. “Thanks Rachel. I’ll bring iced buns tomorrow.”

  “So there’s going to be a tomorrow, is there?” I asked him, my heart beating fast at my own boldness.

  He grinned. “You know fine well there is. You still have to educate me about Mapleby and I have to persuade you to spread your wings a bit, and both of those things will take about the same amount of time it takes to renovate a house.”

  I watched him walk down the path, enjoying the slight swagger in his step and being far too interested in the width of his shoulders and the way his biceps flexed as he opened the gate. I doubted I had the courage to take up the promise in his eyes but it was going to be fun finding out.

  * * *

  “Cooee! Where are you Rachel
?” It was Rebecca, the sister next in age to me. Although we argue the most, deep down she is the sister I love the best. Although she is six years older than me, at least we were born in the same decade, which meant we had bonded over the music and fashion of our teenage years. It was Rebecca who bought me my first lip gloss and showed me how to use it. She bought me other things too when she started working. Nothing expensive, but still brilliant, like the glittery T-shirt that Ma said was trashy and too old for me, but which I wore non-stop until my rapidly developing breasts threatened to burst out of it.

  Rebecca was the sister who had spent most time with me when I was depressed too, and she was the one who had told me not to be silly when I said I was a rubbish mother. Having babies hadn’t affected her the same way; in fact, I’d go so far as to say she is a natural, but she had still been sympathetic, even when I resisted taking Leah for a walk.

  “I’ll come with you,” she’d said. “Come on Rachel, just twenty minutes in the fresh air will do you good.”

  Of course she was right and I really believe that without her it would have taken me much longer to recover, so when I heard her calling I felt a warm rush of relief. Rebecca would take my mind off Robbie Parker and I could have a good bitch about Millie Carter, too. Maybe I could tell her about Rose as well.

  “I’m in the kitchen,” I called. “Have you come for lunch?”

  “Not really, but you could persuade me,” she rushed into the kitchen at her normal breathless pace, plucked Leah from my arms and smothered her with kisses. Then she grinned at me.

  “Just getting my baby fix.”

  “John is still saying no to another one, then?”

  She nodded. “He says three boys is two too many and that as it’s impossible to guarantee a girl, we’re done.”

  “And you…?”

  She grinned again. “I’m working on it.”

  Still laughing at her, I opened a jar of sweet potato mush, popped it into the microwave and handed her one of Leah’s special plastic spoons. “If you want another baby that much you can practice on your youngest niece while I make lunch. We’ll eat outside under the cherry tree.”

  * * *

  “So what’s this I hear about you having stirred up Grandma?” Rebecca asked as we tucked into our ham salad, courtesy of the out-of-date food Daniel had brought home on Saturday.

  I sighed. “You’ve been listening to Hester, haven’t you? I’ve only been doing what the people at the nursing home suggested, and it’s working. Grandma has remembered a lot of things and some of them are really interesting.”

  “Such as?”

  And before I knew it I was telling her all about Rose. Not that I had seen her ghost or anything, I knew better than that, but I told her everything I knew about the cottage and Rose’s life up until she met Arthur.

  Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “Have you still got the diaries or are they at the nursing home?”

  “They’re right here,” I slid open the kitchen drawer to show her. She seized one and flicked through the pages.

  “God Rachel, her writing is miniscule. Are you really going to read the whole lot?”

  I nodded. “I can’t stop now I know that our great-great-grandmother lived here when she was a girl, and that next door is built on what was once part of our garden. And the old horse that died that I told you about, well I’ve even found his horseshoe. It was nailed to the fence as a sort of memorial. Come on I’ll show you.”

  I unstrapped Leah from her highchair and hoisted her onto my hip. Then, with Rebecca following, I hurried down the path towards next door’s gate.

  Robbie must have seen us coming because by the time we got there he was leaning against the open kitchen door, grinning. “So it’s conducted tours now, is it?”

  I introduced him to Rebecca, wishing with all my heart that he hadn’t stripped to the waist since I last saw him. My sister didn’t have any such qualms. She openly ogled him while I explained what I wanted to show her. Although he didn’t seem to notice, he did grab his T-shirt and pull it over his head before he led us around the side of the house to look at the fence. The damage was done though. I had already seen the long curve of his back and the taut muscles across his stomach. I had seen the tan too. It wasn’t just his face and arms that were brown. It was all of him. My stomach flipped at what that might mean. With an effort I concentrated on what he was saying.

  “Looking is not a problem Rachel, but make sure I know what you’re doing because a building site is dangerous.”

  It took me a moment to realize he was referring to the pile of rubble that had accumulated at the back of the house since my last visit and not to the unexpected thrill of his naked chest. I nodded, knowing from the glint in Rebecca’s eye that she was enjoying my embarrassment.

  “Looking can be dangerous too,” she murmured as we skirted a newly delivered pile of breeze blocks and then let Robbie help us across the old rotting planks beside the fence.

  I ignored her.

  “If this is what you’re looking for then it’s just as well you’ve come today because I’m pulling the fence down tomorrow so the contractors can get their machinery in,” Robbie stopped beside the horseshoe.

  “Rose isn’t going to like that,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Robbie and Rebecca both stared at me as I stuttered my way into a better explanation. “What I mean is that I don’t want you to take it down because it’s history. That horse-shoe was put up there by my great-great-grandmother when she was about twelve years old.”

  Rebecca laughed as she leaned closer so she could read the words burned into the wood. “Those diaries seem to be getting to you, Rachel.”

  Seeing Robbie’s confusion, I told him about the diaries and how I had discovered the story of the horse-shoe. Although he was interested he still shook his head. “Sorry Rachel, but it has to come down. I’ll save the horse-shoe for you if you want though.”

  I shrugged as if it was of no account and then the three of us turned and clambered back the way we had come. When we reached the path I apologized for interrupting his work.

  “It’s not a problem,” he said, and then he told us that his mother had been researching her own family tree for ages. “Although I think she’s stuck on her great-grandfather, or maybe it’s her great-great-grandfather, I don’t exactly remember.”

  “You mean you weren’t really listening when she told you,” Rebecca teased him.

  He grinned at her. “Something like that, although now I’ve seen how excited you both are about that horse-shoe, perhaps I’ll take a bit more interest.”

  * * *

  “From now on I might be calling in on a regular basis,” Rebecca whispered, slanting a wicked look in Robbie’s direction as she kissed me goodbye.

  I pinched her. “If you do, I’ll tell that long suffering husband of yours.”

  “As if.” She climbed into her car laughing. “We Pavalak girls have to stick together when it comes to eye candy. Keep at those diaries Rachel, and let me know what else you find out.”

  Leah and I waved her away and then, ignoring the fact that Robbie was leaning against the fence, shirtless again and with his his cell phone clamped to his ear, I walked back into the cottage.

  Rose was waiting for me, only this time it was another Rose altogether. She was dressed in a nut brown dress and her dark curls were piled onto the top of her head. Gone was the little girl with the blue ribbon in her hair. She was still young though. About seventeen I would think. She was sitting at the kitchen table swinging her feet, and her tongue was pressed between pearly teeth as she concentrated on what she was writing. I peered over her shoulder.

  May is getting married and I am to be bridesmaid. I will to wear my best dress and Mama is to sew me a new sash. May is having a brand new dress, and she is going to wear a new hat as well. She says it is Miss Acton’s wedding present to her and is in the very latest fashion. I haven’t seen it yet but it’s bound to be elegant because May
wouldn’t wear anything else. I think it’s stupid that she has to stop working as soon as she is a married woman, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She says learning to be a milliner was a means to an end, which is her way of saying she would never have met someone as rich as Archie if she had just worked as a maid like most of the other girls around here.

  I am never going to work as a maid, or in a shop. I’m going to stay home and help Mama until Arthur has saved up enough money to marry me. By then I will have learned everything I need to know about keeping house. May will have servants to help her up at the big house, but I want to do it all by myself, the same as Mama.

  At the sound of footsteps on the garden path, Rose slammed the notebook shut and hid it in the apron she was wearing over her dress, and by the time her mother and May entered the kitchen she was busy scraping carrots at the sink in the scullery. When they called her she hurried through, acting all surprised as if she hadn’t heard a thing.

  “There you are, Rose,” her mother plumped herself onto a kitchen chair with a sigh of relief. She was flushed and a bit out of breath but she was smiling. “Come and see May’s hat. It’s a marvel of flowers and feathers and far too good for the likes of us.”

  “Not for Archie’s family though, Mama,” May scolded, her lips drawn tight as purse strings.

  Her mother laughed as she patted her arm. “I’m only teasing, lovey. You must learn not to take everything so seriously.” Then she turned back to Rose. “Boil the water for some tea, and while we’re waiting May can parade her finery.”

  For a moment May looked about to refuse but then she relaxed and soon she was as excited as any modern day bride-to-be as she carefully opened the lid of the hat box she had placed on the kitchen table. The veiled confection she lifted out was indeed a marvel. The froth of tiny white flowers clambering around the pale straw crown looked real and so did the hint of green leaves peeping from beneath them.