Remembering Rose (Mapleby Memories Book 1) Page 6

  I was still thinking of them when I reached Grandma’s chair and let her give Leah one last kiss. “I’ll come again soon,” I promised, feeling a bit guilty that my visits were going to be more about Rose than her, and telling myself that it really didn’t matter if that was what it took to help her to remember things. It was as I got ready to leave that she surprised me.

  “Rose lived in your cottage,” she said, her voice clear and the expression on her face entirely lucid.

  I swung round, startled. “Rose did?”

  She nodded. “When she was a little girl…”

  Before she finished the sentence one of the caregivers put a plate of food in front of her, breaking the thread of her thoughts, and within moments she had forgotten that Leah and I had ever been to see her. I turned away, not sure whether to feel frustrated or elated. How long was it going to take me to join all the snippets of her memory together, and when I did, how much more would I have learned about Rose?

  * * *

  I wanted to tell someone what I’d found out but Ma was out, and despite the fact that none of us had moved far from the village, I didn’t have a single sister within walking distance. I wasn’t about to confront Millie Carter again either, so calling in at the shop to tell Daniel wasn’t an option. With a sigh, I pointed Leah in the direction of home. Then I remembered the notebooks. I had left them on Ma’s kitchen table along with the other things I’d found because we had decided not to swamp Gran with memorabilia too soon.

  “Time enough if the photos do the trick,” Ma had said, stacking the books into a neat pile. She was right of course, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t read them. Maybe there was stuff in them that would help me talk to Gran about the past. I made a detour to the farm and let myself in through the kitchen door. One thing was for sure, it couldn’t do any harm.

  Chapter Seven

  By the time we arrived home Leah and I were both tired and the sunshine and fresh air had made me ravenous, as well. So while Leah napped under the old cherry tree opposite the kitchen door, I made myself a sandwich and took it and an apple out to the porch where I could sit comfortably and still see her. Settling myself in the pock-marked rocking chair that had been there when we moved into the cottage and which was too comfortable to throw away, I opened the first notebook. I nearly choked on my sandwich when I read the words on the flyleaf.

  This diary belongs to Rose Petty

  Cherry Tree Cottage

  Back Lane

  Mapleby

  IT IS PRIVATE

  The words were written in a curly sort of copperplate as if the writer was still deciding how to form perfect letters. I turned to the first page and began to read.

  Friday the third of June, 1882:

  Today is my twelfth birthday. Mama has made a cake. She has added some CANDIED PEEL to it, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I have never tasted candied peel but it smells heavenly. I can hardly bear to wait until Papa comes home. When he does we are all going to sit at the table and drink tea and eat cake just like the people do up at the big house. May says I will get above myself but that’s because she’s jealous. When it was her birthday the hens had stopped laying so there weren’t enough eggs for cake and we had to eat bread with some of Mama’s best preserve instead.

  Tomorrow I will write about the cake. I am going to write something in this diary every single day. It is my best birthday present, better even than the blue ribbon Mama gave me or the old beads May has threaded into a new necklace and which I shall wear to church on Sunday. It was very clever of Papa to know how much I wanted a notebook of my own, one with a proper cover. Writing and drawing on scraps of paper is all very well but stringing them together with wool is not the same. They are not a DIARY.

  I turned the page, amused by Rose’s enthusiastic use of capitals and underlining, and interested to find out what she thought of the candied peel. As I did so I heard a rumble of distant thunder. It surprised me because the weather had been clear all week and I hadn’t seen the slightest wisp of a cloud on my walk. I’m not a country girl for nothing though. I know how quickly a storm can travel, so I slipped Rose’s notebook into my pocket, scooped up Leah, who was awake now and watching the leaves blowing in the cherry tree, and hurried indoors. What I saw made me clutch Leah so tightly that she started crying.

  Gone were the stripped pine floorboards that I was so proud of, and the dove gray kitchen units. The kitchen table had gone too, and the red and white mugs I kept on the shelf beside the sink. Instead there was a scrubbed deal table with mismatched chairs. Dreary brown linoleum covered the floor, and a black leaded range filled most of one wall. Steam was issuing from the spout of a large copper kettle and the whole room smelled of baking.

  Leah stopped crying and her eyes were as round as mine as we watched a pretty dark-haired girl, her hair tied back with a blue ribbon, carefully place a china plate in front of each chair while another, taller girl, whose fair hair was full of honey-coloured streaks, fetched cups and saucers from a cupboard that was built into the space beside the range. So that’s what used to be in that alcove, I found myself thinking, and then wondered why I wasn’t freaking out and screaming. Maybe it was the sound of the girls’ excited chatter, or the cozy warmth of the kitchen that kept me transfixed by the door, or maybe I was rooted to the spot with terror but didn’t know it. Whatever it was, it didn’t prevent me from listening in.

  “I can’t believe Mama is letting us use the best china,” the dark-haired girl said as she added thin silver knives to the place settings.

  “It’s because she feels guilty,” the tall girl replied reaching for an old-fashioned tea-caddy and placing it and a brown china teapot at the end of the table nearest to the range.

  The smaller girl stopped what she was doing and scowled at her. “Why are you always so mean?”

  “I’m not being mean; I’m just telling the truth Rose. You know she didn’t want another baby when you were born and you know she feels guilty you found out.”

  “But I wasn’t meant to find out was I, and I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t told me. Why did you tell me May?”

  May’s thoughtful expression was tinged with spite as she replied. “I thought you deserved to know the truth.”

  “Well I didn’t want to know the truth and anyway it was a long time ago when Harry and Tom and Daisy were still living at home, and there weren’t enough beds, and hardly enough food to go around either. That’s what Grandmamma told me anyway.”

  Another grandmother! I couldn’t keep up.

  “Well she would wouldn’t she? She was trying to make you feel better,” May said.

  “She wasn’t! She just wanted me to understand that it wasn’t about me, it was about the situation. How would you like to have another baby when you haven’t even got enough money to feed the children you already have?”

  “I wouldn’t, but it’s never going to happen to me because I’m not going to be poor when I grow up.”

  “But what if you fall in love with a poor person?”

  May’s pale blue eyes became scornful. “You are so naïve, Rose. That’s never going to happen because I intend to marry someone rich. Someone who wants me to use the best china every day, and who will let me employ a maid and a cook so I never need to clean the house or bake my own cakes.”

  Before Rose could answer a tall figure stepped into the room bringing the smell of horses and leather with him. “So how’s the birthday girl?” he said.

  Her face full of delight, Rose flung herself at him. “Papa, you came home early.”

  His eyes twinkled. “It was lucky it was so late in the afternoon when I discovered old Jed needed a new horseshoe, wasn’t it?”

  She laughed, quick to understand. Then a new and altogether more exciting thought struck her. “Does that mean you’ve brought him with you?”

  “Of course it does and he has a birthday present for you.”

  Abandoning the table and the dainty china she rushed past him, and somehow I
found myself rushing too until we were both in a small orchard where an old carthorse was patiently cropping the grass. He looked up when Rose called his name and a minute later she had flung her arms around him and was resting her cheek against his soft muzzle. When her father joined them her eyes were shining.

  “I’m having such a lovely birthday.”

  “That’s because you deserve it, sweetheart,” he ruffled the top of her head and there was so much love in his voice that I knew straight away she was his favorite. I wondered if that was what made her sister mean but before I had time to ponder he spoke again.

  “Aren’t you going to thank Jed for your birthday present then?”

  Puzzled, Rose stood back and examined the horse. Then, squealing with excitement, she reached up and plucked two half-open roses from where they were tucked into his harness. The tips of their cream petals were flushed with pink.

  “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, Jed,” she kissed the horse’s velvety muzzle again and then tucked the flowers into her hair. Her father laughed, and then laughed some more when she paused, hands on hips, and asked for an assurance that he hadn’t stolen them.

  “Of course I didn’t and I can’t imagine why you would think so. Anyway, the roses her ladyship grows in the glasshouses are too big and waxy looking for a pretty girl like you. These grew from some prunings someone piled behind the stables years ago.”

  Satisfied, Rose slipped her hand into his. “Well I love them and I’m going to put them in water when we go indoors so they will last for a long time.”

  Giving Jed one final pat she began to lead her father back to the cottage. As she did so the door opened and a sturdy woman who was almost completely enveloped in a white apron called to them.

  For a moment I thought it was Ma, so great was her resemblance to this woman from another century, then I pulled myself together. Of course it wasn’t Ma. She was somewhere in town with my sister Louise…

  * * *

  “Are you looking for something?” The voice close to my ear brought me back to the here and now with a start, and like smoke blowing in the wind, the scene in front of me dissolved and I found myself standing in the middle of next-door’s garden.

  I turned towards the man who had asked the question, thinking fast. “Um…I’ve lost a couple of things from the washing line and I thought they might have blown over the fence.”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen anything but I’ll bring them round if I find them. You live next door at Cherry Tree Cottage don’t you?”

  I nodded, then introduced myself, anxious to prove that I wasn’t as flaky as I appeared to be. “I’m Rachel. Rachel Ryan, and this is Leah. I’m sorry I didn’t ask if I could look round your garden but the house has been empty for so long that I didn’t realize there was anyone here.”

  He smiled. “I’m Robbie Parker, and it’s not my garden. I’m just here to do a bit of measuring up for the new owners.”

  “You’re a builder.”

  “Yes. They’ve already had their plans approved so I’m just here to work out how much it will all cost.”

  “It’s built on what used to be part of our garden years ago, you know. This was the orchard There were lots of apple trees and there was a huge plum tree right there.” I pointed to where Jed had been cropping the grass.

  He looked at me in surprise. “How do you know that? This house is at least eighty years old and there’s not a single tree in the garden.”

  Realizing that I was in danger of mixing the past with the present in a way that would do real damage to my credibility I did the only thing I could think of, and said my grandma had told me. Not knowing that I was fast becoming an expert liar, he bought it and changed the subject, asking instead about me and how long I’d lived in the cottage. When he discovered I was a village girl born and bred, he quirked an eyebrow.

  “Not visited the rest of the world then?”

  I shrugged, wishing I wasn’t such a sucker for a quirked eyebrow and twinkling blue eyes. “There’s still time.”

  “But not so easy with this one,” he touched Leah’s cheek, his rough builder’s fingers gentle on her silky smooth skin.

  “I guess. Anyway, we’re kind of rooted here, Daniel and I, because we run the village shop. Well he does at the moment and I used to. I probably will again when Leah is a bit older…”

  My voice trailed off as a picture of years and years of standing behind a counter began to form itself in my head. In an effort to blot it out, I asked about him. It wasn’t my best idea though because by the time he had finished telling me about all the places he’d visited I was green with envy. He was right. I needed to see what life was like outside Mapleby. Perhaps Daniel and I could rent out the shop and the cottage and go somewhere else for a while. Even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t going to happen, not yet anyway and probably not ever, because I was still Rachel, the Pavelak girl who’d had some sort of breakdown. Rachel who needed to stay near her family just in case it happened again.

  Remembering that brought me squarely back to the here and now and why I was in the middle of next door’s garden. Had I really seen Rose and her sister? Had her father really tethered a newly shod carthorse to lowest branch of a plum tree that was no longer here, or had I dreamt it all? I needed time to think about it…alone…before Daniel came home. With little more than a perfunctory farewell I pushed open the gate and made my way back to the cottage. If Robbie Parker watched me go, I didn’t notice. I heard him though, and when he called out that we would be seeing a lot more of one another as soon as the building started, I decided to ignore the little flip I felt in my stomach.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time Daniel arrived home I was sure I had imagined everything. I even told him about it in a roundabout way, saying I’d fallen asleep while I was reading Rose’s diary and dreamt about what she had written. He pretended to be interested but I knew he wasn’t really, although he did want to know about my visit to Grandma. When I told him how much she enjoyed watching the birds he looked pleased, and he looked even more pleased when I kissed him and told him he was the best grandson-in-law she had.

  I left him and Leah together while I finished cooking the evening meal, and as soon as he had tucked her into her crib I poured him a glass of wine and then stood sipping tonic water as I waited for the vegetables to finish cooking. We smiled at one another, the problems of the past forgiven if not quite forgotten, and I told him about Robbie Parker. Well not about Robbie but about how the house next door had been sold and how the new owners had employed a builder to give it a makeover before they moved in.

  He was interested in that because he has an eye for design and enjoys making things. In another life I think he would have liked to be an architect but there you go, we can’t have everything we want, and he always seems happy enough pottering about making improvements to the cottage and the shop. Anyway, we talked about the house next door for a while, then we ate our meal, and finally, in the space between washing up and Leah waking for her evening feed, we found the time and the energy to make love.

  It wasn’t spectacular because neither of us were turned on in the way we had been earlier in the week, but it was okay, and afterwards we lay in one another’s arms talking about what we were going to do the following day. It was then that I remembered his trip to town and asked him about it.

  He rolled over on his back and stared at the ceiling. “Everything was fine, and afterwards I went to see Millie’s grandfather.”

  I was completely nonplussed. “Whatever for?”

  “He put an interesting proposition to me a couple of days ago. At the time I told him I’d think about it and get back to him.”

  “So you were getting back to him. Don’t beat about the bush, Daniel. What does he want?”

  “He wants me…us, to consider renting out the rooms over the shop.”

  I twisted round so I could look at him but in the shadow of the evening I couldn’t read the expression on hi
s face. I frowned. “Why? Does he run some sort of business or…,” I knew the answer before I finished the question? “He wants it for Millie, doesn’t he? Millie and her children?”

  He moved his head on the pillow in a way that I interpreted as a yes as he replied. “She’s been given a month’s notice by the landlord of the place where she is now, and she’s struggling to find anything else suitable in Mapleby.”

  “So he thinks our storerooms might be the answer, does he? I suppose Millie put him up to it.”

  “Probably, but I don’t blame her. Ever since her husband bailed out she and her children been living in one grubby bedsit after another, so of course she wants to move into the space above the shop. It’s clean and it has a decent kitchen and a bathroom…”

  “I know what it has, Daniel. I also know that it’s where we store a lot of our stock. It’s where we make coffee and eat our lunch too. It’s even where we go when we need to use the bathroom for goodness sake, so how is that going to work if Millie moves in?”

  Before he could answer, Leah began to stir. With a frustrated sigh, I swung my feet out of bed and pulled on my old silk dressing gown, the one that showed up every one of my curves and which had a habit of slipping undone at the most inopportune moments. It was, if the truth were known, at least partly responsible for Leah’s conception.

  Instead of watching, like he always did when I shrugged myself into it, he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling, and that was when I knew he had already agreed. Maybe not in writing and he probably hadn’t set a date or anything, he had just been waiting for the right time to tell me. To say I was angry was an understatement but with Leah beginning to cry in earnest, now was not the time to discuss it.